Her focus returns to me. “He carved those for you. They are his wishes for you.”
My eyes burn with tears. Erik’s body is becoming heavier in my arms and it feels…
I gasp against the pain.
It feels as if he’s pulling away from me.
He’s leaving me.
“If you take his soul, what will you do with his body?” I ask.
“We will take that, too,” she replies. “So it can be burned on a sacred pyre, as is the way of the Einherjar people.”
I drag air between my lips, tipping my head back to the clear sky, trying to fill my chest with oxygen before I suffocate.
There will be nothing left of him but ash.
General Glass’s voice softens. “You’re grieving.” She refolds her hands in her lap, and there’s a catch in her voice as she continues. “I understand your pain, Blacksmith.”
I find myself focusing on her features more closely, on the tension around her eyes and the press of her lips.
“I, too, have experienced loss,” she says quietly. “It encompasses my every thought and overwhelms my every instinct. But with every breath I take, I must fight it.”
As she speaks, Glaive steps farther to my right while Griffin moves to my left, both of them moving to flank me.
“We are a fierce race,” Glass continues, her voice hardening now. “We have very little room for compassion and no room for weakness.”
Her jaw clenches as her gaze flickers meaningfully to the other two generals, who continue to move until they are positioned mere paces from each of my shoulders, perfect locations to strike me down.
I imagine they can easily lop off my head from where they now stand.
They don’t seem to be paying any attention to Graviter Rex until he edges toward them, his big form moving at the cornerof my eye and the heat from his fiery mouth puffing across my back.
He doesn’t have the chance to speak before Glaive snaps at him, her auburn head tilted to him even while she keeps her sights on me. “Do not interfere, Dragon King! You know well enough that no creature on this Earth, however powerful, can withstand our magic. Not you. Not that Celestial Star. And certainly not this Blacksmith. If she wishes to die beside her love, then we will oblige her.”
I don’t have the chance to gauge his response because Glass continues speaking to me, her voice sharp now. “You must move away, Blacksmith, or we will kill you. We will not return to our Queen empty-handed. Not when there is a soul such as Erik’s to be claimed.”
He is more than a soul to me.
My focus falls to Erik’s face. To the snowflakes that rest on his cheeks and no longer melt. To the blueness of his lips. The paleness of his cheeks. The way he is turned toward me.
I remember when he was dying after the fight outside the human city, the hollowness of his voice when he first spoke of snow.
“I’m tired of digging in the snow. Let me sit beside you, where it’s peaceful. Let it end here with you and me. In the snow.”
Glass’s voice is beyond harsh. “We will not tolerate a challenge of any kind,” she says. “To challenge us is to challenge our entire race. Do you wish to start a war with us, Asha Silverspun?”
It’s the first time one of them has called me by my name.
My focus snaps up to her.
I asked Graviter a similar question about war. I told him that if my enemy could find a way to kill a dragon, then I could, too. Itold him that if he wanted a war, then let it begin here and now, with him and me.
Do I fear a war with the Valkyries?
No. I do not.
“Asha.” Graviter’s voice cuts through my dangerous thoughts. It’s filled with warning—and coming from farther behind me. I can no longer see him from the corner of my eye, indicating that he’s moving as far as he can away from the Valkyries. “Do not make enemies of the Valkyries.”
