Valkyrie Crowned

by Allyson Lindt

  “No.” Magnus’s vehemence was startling. “You can’t go back. Period.”

  “Why not?” Min asked.

  “It was a setup.”

  “Big surprise,” Starkad and Fen spoke at the same time.

  Kirby shot them a raised eyebrow look.

  “Vidar traded Kirby for Grytha,” Magnus said. “He realized Kirby wasn’t going to side with him, which meant she wouldn’t be turning any of our—his—people into Valkyries. None of you were supposed to be able to leave. If you go back...”

  “Why Kirby?” Brit asked. “She wasn’t involved in sealing Malsumis away. She’s powerful, but she’s not the ultimate in power. Why?”

  Magnus shook her head. “I don’t know. Hand to heaven, I have no idea. But you can’t go back there.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Starkad

  Fury and bloodlust spilled through Starkad’s veins. He didn’t want Dahlia here. Or Magnus. Or anyone from any secret organization. But he was a soldier, and happy to be such. Somewhere along the way, Kirby had become a brilliant general.

  No.

  Dahlia was right—Kirby was a queen. Capable of mercy, justice, and when needed, punishment. In the cave, the way Kirby fought was glorious.

  The caves. “I know why Lance and Gluskab surrendered Grytha for Kirby,” Starkad said. “Fen saw it too.”

  “Holy shit, you’re right. The sigil carved in the floor.” Fen’s eyes grew wide.

  Starkad yanked a stack of napkins from the holder on a nearby table and laid them out in a grid on the flat surface. “I need a pen.” He knew a sacrificial seal when he saw one.

  Min handed him a pen and he drew. Occasionally, Fen would take over, filling in missing bits. It wasn’t an intricate or ornate mark, but the details in something like this were important in understanding it.

  They finished and stepped back.

  “Oh, fuck,” Dahlia muttered. “Does anyone else see what I see?”

  Kirby was pale. “That’s a TOM campus map. Infirmary. Firing range. Classrooms. Administration. Housing.” She pointed at each of the corners of the pentagon.

  “That explains why Vidar only reconstructed part of the place,” Magnus said.

  “Blood sacrifice to break a seal.” Frey sank into the nearest chair. “We have to get back there.”

  Kirby nodded. “We will. Soon. We’re not going to let them take Aya’s life.”

  “Or release a goddess of destruction on the world.” Brit’s words had an edge. “I’m just learning to like it here. No one’s fucking destroying it.”

  Killing the gods who created the original seal, letting their blood wash the mark away, would break it. But Hel was already dead, and Grytha had been let go.

  “You heard what the young lady said, didn’t you?” Min asked. “If Gluskab doesn’t have his full contingent of original gods, there’s a reason he wants you instead. If you go back there of your own will, if you’re ready to die to save people, that’s a willing sacrifice.”

  Gwydion pinched the bridge of his nose and took the seat next to Frey. “Coincidence they’ve been pushing Kirby to become more powerful? The more strength running though her, the stronger Malsumis is when she emerges.”

  This could be a battle to best all battles. Starkad couldn’t help the thrill in his veins.

  “You’re not going back.” Min sounded as if the matter was settled.

  Kirby gave him a grim smile. “The let’s sacrifice the Valkyrie idea only works if they win. I’m not the only one who’s more powerful.”

  “Than half an hour ago?” Dahlia asked.

  “Yes.” Kirby moved to the center of the room and pushed a table out two meters. “Brit. Starkad.”

  She wanted a big enough clearing to spar. Starkad knew it without question. It only took a moment for the three of them to push aside enough furniture to leave the floor clear.

  Kirby crooked her finger and motioned for Magnus to join them. “Us versus them,” Kirby said to Magnus. “Three minutes. He won’t hold back.”

  “Excuse me. Do hold back.” Frey was cold. “Don’t wreck this place.”

  Kirby shrugged. “Tag team only.”

  Magnus whimpered, but squared her shoulders and set her stance. “You realize we weren’t coordinated in the cave. I shouldn’t be the one pointing that out to you. I’m not your partner. We never trained together.”

  “But we did. You saw every time Brit and I were collaborating over the past few days. Every word. Nudge. Look. You knew. I wish there was time for more. To build your confidence and to practice together. There’s not. You have the ability now to do everything we were ever taught. Lean into it,” Kirby said.

  Magnus hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

  This was going to be fun.

  “Dahlia, count us down,” Kirby said.

  Dahlia frowned and jabbed at her watch. “One. Go.”

  Starkad let the wolf out. This was new. He had full clarity and control. He could wait for Magnus to make the first move. To so much as twitch.

  Kirby would be upset if he hurt her new Valkyrie. Fortunately, he recognized the line was between don’t hold back and kill. He also couldn’t go nearly-all-out against Kirby. Brit would.

  Brit swept a kick at Kirby’s legs, not bothering with a feint like she had last time she sparred with Kirby.

  Fight was on, and Magnus was open. Starkad liked Brit’s approach, and Magnus’s fear was on his side. He lunged at her.

  Terror splashed across her face, and she vanished as he swung a fist. At a tap on the shoulder, he spun to find her behind him, tentative smirk in place.

  Irritation and intrigue flooded his veins. Not just fun. Challenging.

  The four exchanged taps and near misses. Endurance was a distinct perk of this brand of immortality. Starkad found the pattern to Magnus’s blinking out of sight, and backed her into a corner.

  Each time he pinned her down, Kirby switched, mixing up the patterns and stalling Starkad in his tracks.

  He wasn’t sure how much time passed, several minutes at least, when Magnus called “Time. It’s a draw. Seriously, guys.”

  Starkad ran his tongue over his canines before retracting them, savoring the lingering flavor of a good fight.

  “Not sure that proves your point.” Frey didn’t sound impressed. “Kirby sacrificed herself repeatedly, knowing Starkad wouldn’t hurt her.”

  It very much proved the point. “Because she knows our strengths and weaknesses,” Starkad said. You wanted to see that we’re stronger than half an hour ago, and we are. You want to go back now, this is what you get.”

  Magnus nodded toward Gwydion. “Is Gwydion joining us? He knows some pretty neat tricks.” She shifted her weight, her body language radiating discomfort. “What about Fen?”

  Starkad didn’t know if Gwydion should be fighting again, not out of some sense of disdain, but he’d been wrecked after both of the recent fights. Starkad wouldn’t admit it in this group, but he was worried about Gwydion.

  No one else answered, either.

  “I think I should sit this one out,” Gwydion finally said.

  Fen stepped forward. “I’ll join you.”

  “To keep an eye on us?” Starkad wasn’t even half teasing. Maybe a quarter.

  “No. We all have to be focused on the real fight.”

  Interesting. What turned him around? Desperation? Reason?

  “Dumb question.” Brit drew everyone’s attention. “If this Lance guy wants Kirby dead, because supposedly her army of Valkyries will destroy the world, why would he use her death... wait for it... as a means to free a goddess who wants to destroy the world?”

  Fair point.

  “He’s not trying to stop Kirby from destroying the world,” Min said. “It all makes a twisted, god-logic kind of sense. Lance saw her and other Valkyries involved in deadly battles, but Aya said it best. Kirby doesn’t cause the wars, she’s drawn to them, to help those who need it. And she inspires others t
o do the same.”

  Also true. Starkad looked around the room, his gaze lingering on each face for a moment before moving on. It didn’t matter why each of them joined this specific battle, Kirby unified them and pointed them toward a common goal.

  Dahlia clucked. “So if they use her blood for the sacrifice, they get rid of a major obstacle and instead of fighting for the world, her death helps destroy it. That’s fucked up.”

  “God-logic. Just like Min said.” Brit sounded disgusted. “What do you expect from an ancient psycho who lets people worship them based on visions they had before humanity existed?”

  Now that everyone was on the same page, Frey was right. They should go back sooner rather than later. “It’s unlikely Lance expects us to return immediately,” Starkad said. “Who votes for waiting on our asses and losing the element of surprise. Show of hands?”

  He wasn’t surprised when no one voted for that option. “Good. You have thirty minutes to get your heads in the right place.”

  “After that, we’ll take another fifteen to solidify the plan. Magnus, I assume you can teleport us in there?” Kirby said.

  “Yes.”

  “What if they block you from entering, the way we were kept from leaving?” Frey’s question might have made more sense at the start of this discussion.

  Starkad wouldn’t blame him, though. His business was pleasure, not death. “They want Kirby there. They won’t stop her.”

  “Any other questions? Comments? Concerns?” Kirby paused. “No? Break. Back here in thirty.”

  Starkad grasped Kirby’s fingers to draw her attention. “A moment in private?”

  She nodded, and the two of them moved to another room.

  Mirrors lined one wall, with a counter running underneath, and chairs pushed up to them. Lockers ran along the opposite wall. Dressing room.

  Starkad caught his reflection, and the person who stared back was foreign. His nose was sharper and longer than it had been his entire life. His injured arm looked like a blacked, gnarled reproduction of an arm and hand, if it had been carved from wood. Wildness stared back.

  He was terrifying.

  “You’re beautiful.” Kirby’s reverence dragged his attention from his reflection. “Frightening. I can’t say handsome, that sounds too clean. But you are breathtaking as you. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s like you’ve shed a costume that wasn’t right for you.”

  He felt the same, but that wasn’t quite why he’d pulled her aside. Or perhaps in a way it was. “I was lost without you. For so long. Even when I got you back, and had to watch you grow up in that place. Not knowing the student, but remembering and missing the woman I knew before, was torture.”

  Kirby stepped closer, and he grasped her hands. She tilted her head up to meet his gaze. “I realize that the first few decades of my life—this life—were nothing compared to how long I’ve lived. But while I was at TOM, I’d never felt so alone. Even after I—we—left. After you saved...” She drew in a shuddering breath.

  This vulnerability from a woman who had just stood in front of gods without flinching and told them what to do, was breathtaking.

  Could Starkad ever atone for the secrets he kept when he took her from TOM? “I’m sorr—”

  “I’ll never forget how much I ached. I doubted everything in my world, myself most of all. I asked myself every day why you weren’t as obsessed with me as I was with you. Why I was the only one who couldn’t stop thinking about what we could be.”

  Starkad gripped her chin tightly enough to convey he wouldn’t let her go, but not so much it would ache. “I never stopped thinking about that. Not over the last thousand years. Even when I pretended otherwise.”

  “Magnus wanted us to go back with her. To stay with Vidar and TOM.” Kirby’s words weren’t a surprise, but they still sliced through Starkad. “Growing up, even though I hated it there, I thought they were family. She’s my family. Dahlia. If I didn’t love and trust you completely, I’d consider Magnus’s request.”

  There was so much more in Kirby’s words than showed on the surface. He hadn’t known how to help her, truly help her, through the years of doubt and depression. Through the trauma. He offered what he had, but being unable to heal her devoured him. He didn’t have to ask what about the others. Min and Gwydion would hate a decision like that, but they’d let her make the decision. Brit would most likely join her.

  But that wasn’t the important part here. Kirby was giving Starkad so much trust. So much faith. And he felt the same about her. “I love you.” He poured the emotion into the words. It didn’t matter that they’d said them to each other hundreds—thousands—of times over the centuries.

  Today it meant more. The promise was more vast. They were the couple fucking before battle again. The berserker and the Valkyrie who would always be together. “I love you wholly, eternally, and obsessively. I’d watch the world burn to save you. To ensure I never lose you again.”

  “I don’t want the world to burn. So don’t let me wind up in that situation.” She rose on her toes to brush her lips over his.

  Starkad slid his hand to the back of her neck to grip possessively, and crushed into the kiss. He swallowed her gasp of surprise, and drew out her whimpers. He feasted on each sigh and moan and the sensations and flavors that were distinctly Kirby, and didn’t pull away until both their mouths were swollen and red.

  He rested his forehead against hers, still holding on for everything he had. “You’re mine. For eternity. I don’t care who else you fuck or love. I know which part of your heart belongs to me.”

  “I am yours. Forever.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Gwydion

  “I am yours. Forever.”

  Kirby’s words drifted out to Gwydion as he approached the dressing room. She was so sincere. So certain. It warmed him from the inside and made him smile.

  Gwydion hated to interrupt the moment, but she’d put them on a timer, and he suspected she didn’t like to be kept waiting. He knocked. “May I join you?” he asked when she and Starkad looked up.

  Starkad beckoned with his good hand. Good wasn’t really the right word, though. The other hand seemed to work fine, despite its twisted and rotted appearance.

  Doubt stalled Gwydion. He’d been considering this longer than he realized, but couldn’t put all the right words to it until they came back from the caverns. From a fight that nearly killed him and his entire team. After watching Kirby share her power with Min, Gwydion understood what Urd meant, about he and Starkad being connected. He knew what he had to do next.

  “Do you want me to leave?” Starkad didn’t sound like he would, regardless.

  Gwydion shook his head. “I need to talk to both of you. Mostly you.” He looked Starkad.

  Kirby approached Gwydion, grabbed his hand, and pulled him further into the room, so the three stood close. He would never stop being amazed that her strength and vulnerability coexisted so beautifully.

  Best to get this over with. It was the right decision, as foreign as the idea felt. “The last thing I want—that any of us wants—is to see Kirby hurt. Since we all met again, months ago, I thought that meant physically fighting by her side. Being there for each battle.” He dragged in a deep breath. Was what he wanted to do possible? He believed so. “I see now it means being here after that fight is over. For the other struggles. As an anchor. A healer. I wasn’t created to destroy, and being in so many wars has torn me apart for centuries.”

  “I understand.” Kirby squeezed his hand. “And I don’t fault you.”

  Gwydion smiled. He didn’t expect any less from her. “There’s more to the thought. I know when my power started fading. It was after Starkad was shot, when he shifted and arm became a part of his arsenal of death, instead of TOM’s.” The pieces all fit. It could be coincidence, but Gwydion thought it was more.

  “It doesn’t make any sense, but I also think you’re right.” As Starkad spoke, he flexed the fingers on his infected hand.<
br />
  “How do we fix it?” Kirby asked.

  Gwydion shook his head. “We don’t. Not in the way you’re asking. I think we can change it, though. When you changed Magnus, how did that work?”

  “It’s mostly instinct?” Kirby sounded uncertain. “I kind of will it to happen.”

  Gwydion did want this to happen. The longer he stood here, the more certain he was. “In that case, Starkad, I give you everything I have that you need to keep Kirby safe. I’ll be here when the fighting is done, but take what you need to make sure you all are too.”

  Gwydion expected to feel weak as the power flowed through and from him. Instead, life and hope filled his veins. He was refreshed. Stronger than he’d felt in... he didn’t know the last time he’d felt so right in his own skin.

  At the same time, Starkad’s arm was changing. The gnarled, knotted bits faded then vanished, replaced by a jet black fur that was almost midnight blue in the flash of the mirrors’ lights. The wolf-like appearance faded and blended farther down his arm, vanishing near the wrist, and leaving his hand looking human.

  Starkad’s chuckle was low and threatening as he clenched his fist. He spun and drove a punch into the nearest locker, piercing the sheet metal and the cinder block wall behind like they were tissue paper. The screeching of shredded metal and shattering rock pierced the air. “Nice.” He pulled his hand free, and flexed. There were no visible marks on skin.

  “What the fuck?” Frey asked from the doorway. The others stood behind him, varying degrees of awe and shock on their faces as they looked past him, into the room.

  Starkad laughed again, more easily this time. “I’ll pay for the lockers.”

  Frey joined them, gaze on the new hole the entire time. He tugged the edges of the metal, and they didn’t budge. “You did this? With your bare hands?’

  “Hand.” Starkad was smug.