But I could never do that to Erik. Not to selfishly preserve his body.
I tell myself to unfold my arms from around him.
I tell myself that I can lay him down in the snow because this is what he would want.
And yet…
Ican’t.
I can’t release him.
Opening my arms means acknowledging that he’s gone. It means taking my body heat away from him and allowing him to grow cold.
I look up again to Graviter, my eyes welling with tears. “I don’t know how to do this.”
His expression remains calm and soft, his breathing slow. “You must find a way. And quickly. Because the Valkyrie can’t be far away now, and she will fight you for him, Asha.”
Graviter’s warning isn’t lost on me. I’ve never met a Valkyrie. Just as I had never met a fae before I had to fight a group of them in the mountains. All I know is that the Valkyries have silver wings. But it isn’t hard to imagine that any creature whose purpose is to ferry the souls of warriors into the afterlife must be terrifyingly fierce.
Graviter confirms as much as he continues speaking. “Whichever Valkyrie they send for him, she will have no mercy for your grief. The Valkyries are a race of women who deal in death and can deliver it within a heartbeat.”
Despite my logic, my fear vanishes, and a reckless need rises within me. “Let her fight me. I won’t let him go any other way.”
Please let her fight me.
Please let her force me to open my arms.
Because I can’t…
I try to breathe, try to drag freezing air into my chest, try to convince myself that there isn’t a part of me that has died with him.
The only way I can give Erik to the ground is if someone physically forces me to do it, and it seems Graviter Rex isn’t prepared to swipe his paw at me, or he would have done it already.
His brow furrows at my rash response, but at the same time, his skin flushes pale, somehow less golden, and now I’m not sure what to make of his expression.
Is he… afraid?
“Do not think you can win against a Valkyrie,” he says. “They are invulnerable to all magic.All magic, Asha. Not even Blacksmith magic can hurt them. Not even with your hammer could you defeat her. And make no mistake: They will send their fiercest warrior to claim a man like Erik the Vandawolf.”
My heart thuds in my chest, but it’s slow and heavy.
Perhaps I should be horribly afraid, but there is no fear in this world that can overcome my sadness.
Graviter persists, and now I have no doubt about the depth of the fear in his voice. “She will kill you, Asha Silverspun.”
“Then let her!” I snap back at him.
He recoils sharply at my shout. I give him a vicious smile.
“It will be a glorious death,” I say. “Will it not? The kind that might allow them to ferry me to the Hall of Warriors with him.”
It’s an irrational statement—I’m not an Einherjar—but I don’t care.
“No, Bright Heart.” Graviter edges forward again. “This is not how you’re meant to die.”
The moment he speaks, he swallows visibly and withdraws a little, as if he regrets his words.
I stiffen as the full extent of his meaning sinks in. The implication that I’m going to die. Just not in this way. “How I’mmeantto die?”
