Dead Embers (Valkyrie #2)

Bright red blood, Aidan’s blood, dripped from my quivering hands, warm and sticky like honey. Yet there was nothing sweet or pleasant about having the warm ruby liquid seep into the whorls of my fingers and stain my hands and my clothing.

I blinked.

The sounds of the Great Hall simmered around me, fading into the shadows of my despair. Only the rabid cackle of Loki’s laughter filtered through my sorrow. The rattle of his chains echoed in my ears as Fenrir dragged him away.

“This is your training ground.”

Fen’s voice echoed around us, reverberating on my eardrums as I breathed the icy air deep into my lungs. The valley floor lay far, far below, almost as far down as Odin’s castle on the other side of the mountain. At least the trip down would be easier than our muscle-burning hike up.

I hoped.

Fen folded his arms and faced me, his face as shadowed and unrelenting as the rock-faces hemming the valley in. “Are you ready, Valkyrie Brynhildr?”

I nodded, clenching my jaw and lifting my chin a fraction. He’d used my full given name, a name that reminded me of my one claim to fame – being a close of the real Warrior Princess Brunhilde, who’d lived and died centuries before I’d even been a figment of my father’s crazed imagination.

“You do have to remove your cloak, you know,” Fen tempered his dry tone with a sudden checky grin, for a brief moment transforming his forbidding, hooded features into a genial, approachable face.

I threw him a reluctant, tight smile, undid the ornate clasp at my neck and dropped the dark, silky cloak over the nearest boulder.

“Very good. Now face the edge of the cliff. And jump.” He spoke the words so matter-of-factly he might as well have invited me for a cappuccino.

“You’re kidding right?" I asked in horror, half believing he meant his words, half unable to think straight. The sober glance he threw me squashed my urge to burst into laughter.

I risked a peek over the edge.

No way in hell is he serious. No frigging’ way.

My feet trod a path of shattered stones that covered raw, black soil; the stones clattered underfoot like a chorus of chattering teeth. Ominous sounds that sent strange chills down my back. Dark trees loomed over me, limbs creaking eerily in the still air. Every tree stood stripped of its leaves, blackened, bark-bare and as bleak as the low sky above us. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I was sure the trees reached out to grab hold of me. I blinked, then laughed at myself. Scaredy-cat. Shivering harder, I struggled to process this strange, bone-penetrating cold. Not a breeze stirred the icy air; no wind drifted past to shift the cold around.

I glared at Hugin.

Thanks for not telling me to bring warmer clothing. Blackbird.

What more could I expect from a birdbrain? The bundle of feathers probably had no idea how debilitating the cold was to me. And knowing him, he’d just say he didn’t tell me because I hadn’t asked. I huffed in silence.