“Is she dead!” Estrid screamed, words quivering with emotion.
Tears continued to flow as I struggled to see the women through the haze of salt. I was shattered, pleading with her to see reason from the bottom of my ocean of sorrow. Thewords came out over the pain of jagged glass as I said, “I’m so sorry, Estrid. I tried—”
“I’m owed retribution” came Estrid’s icy calm as she unsheathed her sword. She spoke to Fauna, not me.
“No.” Fauna’s fingers flexed into fists.
The fear in Fauna’s voice barely registered. I didn’t see the threat for what it was as she paced, circling me.
Estrid wiped at a tear, sniffing deeply. “She can’t get away with this.”
“I can’t let you hurt her,” Fauna said, voice so quiet it was scarcely more than a whisper.
Fauna rose to her full height, but she looked like a child compared to the Valkyrie. One was a hardened warrior; the other a waifish, freckled fae, trembling as she rooted herself between us.
Ella’s body went fully limp in my lap as she released whatever pieces of her spirit had remained. Estrid flinched as if receiving a physical blow. Her lips pulled back from her teeth as she lifted her sword. “Step aside, Fauna.”
“No.”
Estrid hissed through her teeth. “Fauna, step aside, or I will take you out, too.”
I heard Fauna swallow before she said, “You’re going to have to jump, Marlow. Get out of here.”
“She’s not going anywhere,” came Estrid’s growl the moment before she swung.
I panicked as Estrid’s hand came down. She was armed. Fauna was not.
I barely understood the flood of earthy color that intercepted Estrid’s blade.
The world exploded into motion as I scrambled out of the way. The greens and browns of nature mixed with metallic silver and flashes of hair and flesh as everything lurched into action. Noise crashed in on me from all sides. Estrid’s forward motion should have cut through us both, but the very ground exploded as a wall of earth shot skyward.
Fauna kept her hands lifted, teeth clenched, jaw set as she grunted, “You have to go!”
Rocks cracked as she moved, whipping grass and soil toward the valkyrie. Estrid’s answering cry was not one of terror but fury. The tip of her sword glistened as she cut through the earth, slashing for Fauna. Fauna bounded from her place with the lithe footing of a deer at the last possible moment, forcing Estrid to stumble. Fauna’s sharpened teeth remained bared as she cried out and the world responded, tree roots shooting up from the soil like snakes as she thrust them at the valkyrie.
Shock seeped through my pores. I struggled to make sense of the movement, the sounds, how the very earth transformed as if it were little more than water. Estrid was going to kill me. A valkyrie was going to fucking kill me, and she was going to take Fauna out in the process.
I couldn’t stay on my feet as the earth shifted beneath them. Fresh, cold dirt and the iron of blood filled my nose, their tang at the back of my throat as I tried to run. My vision was a blur of dirt and grass and blood and metal. My lungs refused to fill all the way as I struggled.
Estrid spun to cut down the roots as Fauna screamed at me to leave.
“You brought us into this!” Estrid cried as her weapon crunched against wood. “You brought her to our door. You are every bit as guilty, Fauna. We never should have trusted you!”
My senses swam, drowning in blood and rust and overturned soil. I had to focus. I had to shut them out, but everything turned on its head. Stone and metal collided with Fauna’s high, angry reply.
“You were not coerced! You knew the risks! You believed in her. I still believe in her.”
She was a flash of vines, of trees, of energy.
The Valkyrie was lightning, metal, and grit.
I wouldn’t be worth believing in if I couldn’t pull ittogether. Their frenzy, my tears, the panic made it impossible for me to put one thought in front of the other. I had to leave the realm. I had no idea how to jump on my own. And even if I could, I’d need…
My hand flew to my waistband for the briefest of seconds before I remembered with horrifying clarity how it had fallen when I’d begged Fauna to come.
I’d dropped the sølje. The broach was somewhere in the upturned earth. I scrambled on my hands and knees as I dug for the tool while their battle raged on. My head shot up in panic as Estrid swiped, getting within a hair’s breadth of Fauna’s throat as she bent backward. Her answering swing was that of a boulder as the earth remained hers to command. She rolled away from the cutting blow, stained green and brown with grass and dirt as she got to her feet and ran.
Estrid huffed as she looked between Fauna and me, but she didn’t take the bait. Rather than follow Fauna, she sprinted for me.
