Darius tensed as the Valkirin reached for her sword.
The last survivor of Val Moraine.
She must have been there when Culach’s soldiers poured through the gate. He didn’t remember her face, but his attention had been focused on Nazafareen and how to stop her from dying in his arms.
Of all the bloody people….
A tide of earth magic pulsed against his skin, begging to be used. It was strong so deep within the mountain. He could crack bones with it. Open the ground beneath their feet.
Or he might bring the mountain down on all their heads. And then the Valkirins would know him for what he was.
Darius drew a sharp breath. He moved to stand in front of Nazafareen, ready to unleash hell and face the consequences, but the attack never came. Katrin’s fingers gripped the hilt of her iron blade, her teeth gritted, as if she were trying to draw it but couldn’t.
“Release me!” she yelled.
Power crackled in the chamber—air power. Frida’s hair ruffled in a breeze that seemed to be focused exclusively on her and Katrin.
“Calm yourself,” Frida snapped. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know her name, but I know her face. I’ll never forget it. She’s the one who broke the wards on the gates. Then she turned on us!” Katrin could barely get the words out. “She’s an abomination. We sent Petur to kill her, but he failed.”
“And then Eirik sent the chimera.” Stefán suddenly looked more wolf than fox. “Yet here she stands.” He turned accusing eyes on Kallisto. “This girl is no mortal.”
“Her magic doesn’t work here,” Katrin ground out. “Let me kill her before it’s too late!”
Three sets of icy eyes fixed on Nazafareen.
“Well?” Stefán asked in a dangerously soft voice.
“I’d like to see you try,” Darius snarled.
Nazafareen drew herself up, pale but composed. How he loved her at that moment.
“Katrin is right,” she said. “I am a Breaker. My true name is Nazafareen. I lied because I feared exactly this reaction. But I acted in self-defense that day. There was a creature from the Dominion lurking just inside the gate. It latched onto Culach somehow. It would have killed him, and then me.”
“Lies,” Katrin growled.
Nazafareen stared back at her, unafraid. “Hate me if you will. But you need me. I’m the only one who can fight the Vatras. I can break flows of magic. And when you find your talisman, you’ll need me to break the wards that suppress their power. I did it with the Marakai girl.”
Kallisto raised an eyebrow. “You…?”
“We saw it,” Herodotus put in. “Nazafareen meant to break the gate so the Vatra couldn’t escape with Meb, but her power struck the girl instead. We thought she was dead. But when she resurfaced, she called the wave.” His eyes grew distant. “I’ve never seen the like.”
“What are they talking about?” Katrin demanded. “What is a Vatra?”
The three leaders of the holdfasts exchanged a long look.
“She doesn’t know,” Frida said. “I’m not surprised. Most of us don’t.”
Runar sighed. “A thousand years ago, there was a fourth clan of daēvas. The Avas Vatras. Children of fire. They waged war against us. As you can imagine, they were unstoppable. They burned the holdfasts and the forest. They would have hunted every one of us down, but then three daēvas appeared, one from each clan, gifted with extraordinary power. They made the Gale and banished the Vatras to the other side.”
Katrin shook her head. “Fire daēvas?” she repeated hoarsely. “How can it be?”
“It’s true,” Frida said. “Halldóra told me the story. She said the power was passed down, but over the long years, we lost track of who had the gift. No one thought the Vatras would come back. They faded into legend.”
“But how could such power go unnoticed?”
“The descendants couldn’t wield it freely like the first talismans,” Stefán said. “Kallisto says the sign of the heirs is a weakness in the power.” He looked at Nazafareen. “But it seems this woman can shatter whatever magic holds it in check.”
Herodotus cleared his throat. “There is an ancient scroll speaking of a Fourth Talisman. Without her…. We would be naked before the storm.”
Katrin had stopped struggling, but she still looked furious.
“Fairy stories,” she muttered.
“Believe it or not, I don’t care,” Runar said sternly. “But her fate is ours to decide, not yours.” He managed to loom down at Katrin though they were nearly of a height. “Which brings us back to the reason you were brought here in the first place. The Marakai have their talisman. But we have yet to learn who ours is. So I ask you, Katrin Aigirsdottir, are you weak in air?”
Katrin stared at him. Broad shoulders hunched defensively.
“I am Valkirin,” she finally managed. “What you ask is shameful and insulting—”
“There is no shame,” Frida interrupted. “Everyone knows your skill with a blade. It’s legendary. Your worth is not in question.”
Katrin shuddered. Darius almost felt sorry for her. Her deepest, darkest secret was being dredged out, and in front of despised strangers no less.
“I…. I do have trouble sometimes….” Her face went blank.
Stefán’s eyes narrowed. “It’s how the Dessarians managed to take you alive, isn’t it?”
Katrin didn’t respond. She seemed beyond hearing. Red blotches burned her pale cheeks and she stared miserably at a spot on the far wall.
Frida laid a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be a fool, Katrin. This is cause for celebration, if you are indeed the heir.” She turned to Nazafareen. “How do you free her power?”
“I have to be in Solis. The magic is tied to fire, although that is not my main talent,” she added hastily. “I’m not like the Vatras.”
“Then she must go with Katrin to the sunlands without delay,” Runar exclaimed. “I’m happy to provide an escort.”
Stefán frowned slightly. “I will send a delegation as well. We all have an interest in the outcome.”
The two Valkirins eyed each other sideways, mutual distrust thickening the air.
“Of course,” Nazafareen replied easily. “But since we’re being honest, I will confess the real reason I came here. I wish to see Culach. And perhaps I can talk some sense into Victor while I’m at it.”
“Culach?” Katrin snarled, embarrassment vanishing as her enmity returned in full force. “Are you mad? He’ll spit in your face.”
“That’s what I told her,” Darius muttered.
In the tension and revelations of the last few minutes, the Valkirins seemed to have forgotten him. But now Frida’s gaze lingered on his dark hair and broad shoulders, his proud beak of a nose.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Daraya.”
“Daraya.” She turned to Kallisto. “Give him your staff.”
Kallisto didn’t move. “Is this really necessary?” she asked calmly.
“You already lied to us once. And I seem to recall this girl taking refuge in the Great Forest of the Danai.” Frida’s jaw set. “I say it again. Give him your staff. If he has nothing to hide, he should not fear it.”
Stefán and Runar watched impassively. When she still failed to comply, Stefán made a brusque gesture.
“I’ve treated you as a guest. Don’t make me regret it.”
Left with no choice, Kallisto stepped forward and offered the staff to Darius. He examined it for a moment, pretending mild curiosity, then curled his fingers around the haft. A tingle ran though him as the wood touched his palm, like sliding into a bath of cool water.
“My trust for strangers is small,” Frida said. “These are dark times. War brews in the mortal lands. The Danai think they are cuckoos, roosting in a nest built by others.” She pointed to the staff. “There is no question that this talisman compels the truth. All of us sense its power. So I will ask you, Daraya, are you a mortal?”
Darius opened his mouth to confirm it, but no sound came out. He cleared his throat and tried again with the same result. The tingling grew stronger, nearing the edge of pain. Stefán stared at him intently, as if he knew exactly what happening.
Darius swallowed, his mind racing.
“No,” he said at last, and the unpleasant sensation from the staff instantly receded.
Broken Nose gripped his sword, but Runar shook his head.
“Not yet,” he said. “Let us hear the rest.”
“Your true name,” Frida demanded.
He licked his lips. “Darius.”
“Of the Danai, I presume?”
“Yes.”
“What House?”
Darius steeled himself.
“None.”
The word spilled from his tongue clear as a bell. The staff seemed to accept this answer. He hadn’t been certain it would, though in fact, it was literal truth.
“Really?” Stefán’s shrewd eyes regarded Darius. “How so?”
“I was born in a different land. A world that lies through the Dominion.” Darius met his gaze with perfect innocence. “The same that Culach Kafsnjór sought to invade.”
Runar nodded slowly. “I have heard of it.”
“I come from there as well,” Nazafareen put in. She looked thrilled to divert the questioning along a different tack. “It is a mirror world to this one in many ways. Herodotus here can confirm it.”
Runar cast her an annoyed glance at the interruption. His hard gaze returned to Darius.
“Daēvas are native to this place then?” he asked.
“Not exactly.” The staff allowed him to speak the words, but it didn’t like this answer and Darius couldn’t suppress a quick grimace of pain. “No.”
“So you have kin in this world?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” Runar’s mouth set. “And what House do your kin belong to?”
Darius felt the Nexus pulsing at the edge of his vision. He ignored it.
“Dessarian.”
Katrin gave a low growl. Runar and Stefán exchanged a dark glance. Frida slouched against the wall, her gaze locked on Darius. The atmosphere in the small chamber vibrated with tension.
“Your mother’s name?”
“Delilah.”
“And your father?”
And so they had arrived at the heart of the matter. He squeezed the staff. Felt the grain of the wood, the currents of power running along them. He tried to think of a loophole he might wiggle through and came up blank.
Darius’s voice was tight. “Victor.”
As he spoke the name, before the second syllable even left his lips, Nazafareen spun with astonishing speed and kicked Broken Nose in the throat, knocking him backwards and wrenching his sword away as he fell. In one fluid movement, she had the blade against Runar’s neck, to the juncture where his pulse beat. Everyone froze. The only sound was Broken Nose’s soft wheezing.
“Use the power on me and I kill him,” she spat, her eyes glowing with a feral light.
Runar simply gazed at her in a considering way. Broken Nose glared in impotent fury. Stefán and Frida looked shocked to the marrow. They hadn’t known what she truly was, though they certainly did now.
The hair on Darius’s neck stood up. At least one of them was in the Nexus.
He saw the scene play out before him in the blink of an eye. They would lash out with the power, but Nazafareen would kill Runar. She nearly had the reflexes of a daēva now.
Then it would be a free-for-all. And no matter how it ended, once blood was shed, there would be no going back. Ever.
“No,” Darius said quietly. He leaned the staff against the wall, the movement slow and deliberate. “Not this way.”
Nazafareen’s eyes skewered Runar, waiting for a single twitch. The other Valkirins watched in silence, tight as coiled springs. He had to get through to her before they snapped. Had to stop her somehow.
“There can be no bad blood. The clans must stop all that nonsense. Sound familiar?”
A muscle in Nazafareen’s jaw feathered.
“Did you truly expect any different?” he persisted. “They would have found out eventually. Put the sword down.”
She muttered something under her breath.
“If you harm him,” she told Runar, “I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
Nazafareen lowered the sword. In an instant, bonds of air squeezed Darius from head to toe. Broken Nose backhanded him, his heavy rings giving the blow vicious power. The taste of blood filled his mouth. Nazafareen screamed in rage, but the sound cut off as though severed by a knife. They must have gagged her.
As if from a distance, Darius heard Kallisto arguing with Runar, but all he saw was Nazafareen as she toppled like a falling tree. Megaera tried to run to her, but Herodotus laid a restraining hand on her arm, whispering urgently. The old scholar looked stricken.
“Bring them outside,” Runar snapped. “Not the Breaker. She can stay here and stew in her bonds for a while.”
Fingers seized his hair and dragged him into the hall. Despite the hot throbbing in his jaw, despite the knowledge that there was worse coming, Darius felt dizzy with relief.
Outside.
If they’d put him in a small stone chamber and shackled him, he feared he might lose his mind.
Even so, he felt panic rising in his throat at the feeling of confinement. And he understood that even though he’d escaped his cell in Delphi, some part of him had never truly left.
What is your true name, Andros?
Dark eyes, alight with madness.
Do you know the story of Eros and Psyche?
Bright sunlight in his eyes. The sour, animal stink of his own body.
I treat my witches well.
Do you know how many I’ve broken, Andros?
And always, when he refused to speak:
I’m sorry. Truly, I am. But you brought this on yourself.
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