Niall strolled over to the campfire and sat cross-legged in front of it. He tilted his head as he looked at the flames curiously. “The smokeless fire is a neat trick.”
I grunted in response and retrieved the rabbit-like creature Gunnar had brought back.
It only took me a few minutes to skin it and cut away some chunks to cook over the fire. Viggo and Gunnar had already eaten, but I tossed them the remains anyway. Wordlessly, I handed over some lightly seasoned meat on a stick to Niall and took a seat opposite him.
“Talk,” I ordered as I held my portion of the meat over the flames. “You have until I finish eating this meal to convince me not to kill you and leave your body here to rot.”
He chuckled. “Well, I appreciate you providing me with one last meal and the pleasure of your company if that’s the case.” He smiled broadly at me.
I glared at him over the fire.
“Your eyes have a red sheen.” He squinted at the fire and back at me. “They didn’t before, but with the light of the fire, they do. Is that a valkyrie thing?”
Niall’s cavalier attitude towards me and the situation was really beginning to throw me off.
Less than an hour ago, we’d held blades at each other’s throats. And I’d literally threatened to kill him just moments ago. But he was acting like we were simply old friends catching up over a campfire.
This had to be some type of game to get me to lower my defenses.
“Yes,” I said almost hesitantly, “it’s a valkyrie thing.”
It’s not like it was some secret. Everyone knew that valkyries had golden wings and that our eyes took on a red sheen in firelight.
Niall was either an excellent liar, or he really had no idea what valkyries were. Which was just odd. We may not meddle in the affairs of others like the fae and daemons, but we were well-known across all the realms.
“Hmm,” he hummed thoughtfully as the flames dancing between us captured his attention again. “The fire might not cast off any smoke or scent, but it’s still visible. If a seraph were to fly overhead, they’d spot it easily.”
“They rarely fly at night; their night vision sucks.” I turned my meat so that it cooked evenly. “Besides, if they were to find us right now, that’d be a problem for you, not me.”
With half a thought, I activated my invisibility spell and blinked out of existence. Viggo did the same, and I extended my spell to include Gunnar as well, leaving Niall sitting all alone.
He sat up straighter as he looked around, trying to spot us. Shoving the stick into the ground so that his meat continued to cook, he rolled to his feet and walked around to where I was still sitting. My lips twitched with amusement as Niall dropped to his knees and studied the area where he’d seen me sitting seconds ago before stretching out his hand and poking me in the shoulder.
“I can’t see your magic.” His brows furrowed together. “I can see the trace of magic over the fire, but I can’t see the magic you just used to hide yourself from sight.”
“You sound surprised.” I released the magic with a soft sigh. I’d been using it a lot the last week, and it was beginning to wear on me.
“I’m fae.” He shrugged a shoulder and gave me a crooked grin that made my heart beat a little faster. “I’ve never encountered magic I couldn’t see before. Sometimes I don’t understand what I’m looking at, but I can always see it. Just when I thought there was nothing new left to see, you give me this gift.”
“I thought you were supposed to be the one giving me a gift.” I arched an eyebrow at him and then looked at where his hand was now resting on my shoulder.
“And I will.” He let his hand linger for a few more seconds before removing it and taking a seat next to me instead of returning to the other side of the fire. “Knowledge is what I have to offer, and I promise to not withhold anything, but I can’t help but be curious about you and your magic. How does the spell work? Can all valkyries cast it?”
“I’m not here to sate your curiosity.” I pulled my stick away from the fire to let the meat cool and gave him a look full of warning. “Tell me why you are here and why you tracked me down.”
“Question for a question?” he offered as he removed his roasting food from its spot beside the fire.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” I growled.
“Neither of us are going anywhere tonight.” His gaze slid to the hammer that was resting on the ground in front of me. “What harm is there in having a civil conversation?”
“I don’t know much about you,” I said coldly. “The little I do know is that you work for Balor, you tracked me down in this realm, and you’ve shown an awful lot of interest in my hammer, which tells me that you know more about me than you’re letting on.”
Gunnar punctuated my words with a deep growl from where he was laying like a sphinx a few feet away from Niall. If looks could kill, Viggo would have already rendered the fae deceased.
This was usually the part where someone would stammer and quickly try to explain themselves. But Niall just smiled and took a bite of his meat.
“This is good,” he mumbled as he tore off another chunk. “I was expecting it to be sweeter, but it’s got a richer flavor than that. The spices you added are perfect.” When I continued to glare at him, he gestured to my stick. “You should eat before it gets cold.”
“There’s something wrong with you,” I grumbled and then took a bite.
Damn it. He wasn’t wrong. This was pretty tasty. Not nearly as gamey as the previous meals had been. I’d have to ask Gunnar to hunt down more of these for our remainder of time in this realm.
We ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. Once we were both done, I carved up the second rabbit-like creature, and we both held our sticks over the fire again. I had to admit that this was kind of nice even if I was still debating killing him once I got the information I needed.
I mused it over while the flames danced in the night. Niall clearly didn’t know anything about Valkyries, but it’s not like our abilities were a secret.
I had some advantage over him while he remained in the dark about them, but I also wanted information from him. Something told me he’d be hard to beat it out of, so playing along meant me getting what I wanted that much faster.
“It’s a basic Vanir illusion spell,” I said, answering his question from before. “Almost everyone from the Yggdrasil realms can cast it. It’s not that effective in the Yggdrasil realms because almost everyone there can also see through the spell. But outside of those realms, it’s quite effective.”
Niall quirked an eyebrow, rotating his meat over the flames. “Yggdrasil?”
My eyes roamed over him as I pondered how to answer. He sat only a couple feet away from me, casually reclined on one hand with his long legs stretched out towards the fire. His friendliness and casualness was really throwing me off because it was decidedly un-faelike. On top of that, he didn’t seem the least concerned about any hostility I aimed at him.
“Yggdrasil is how we refer to the eight realms that are connected. Nine if you count the human realm,” I explained. “Like the fae realms, the Yggdrasil ones have thinner walls separating them. There are plenty of natural gateways between all of them.”
“I’ve never heard of them, but they sound interesting. Maybe I’ll get to see them someday,” he said wistfully.
I eyed him with attentive curiosity. Everyone knew of the Yggdrasil realms. The events of Ragnarok had primarily played out in the human realm, and the fallout had impacted many.
While my people had largely retreated into the other eight realms, we still interacted regularly with the fae and daemons.
Balor and the bulk of his army might still be locked away, but we knew he’d managed to get many of his followers out, like Lir, and they had ways of communicating back to him. Apparently, any information that was sent back about what was going on outside their realm of exile wasn’t shared with the bulk of his army.
I wasn’t exactly sure how that information was useful, but I’d let Pele know regardless. Whatever helped and all.
“That was two questions, so you owe me two answers.”
I stared into the flames as I thought about what to ask him. Niall might not act like any fae I’d encountered before, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have their level of craftiness when it came to speaking the “truth”.
The fae did their best not to lie, because magic was so intrinsic to who they were that sometimes it would do odd things with the words they spoke. If a fae wasn’t careful, they could find themselves bound by the truths or lies they uttered.
Simple questions were my best bet.
“How long have you been locked away with the exiled fae king?”
Niall glanced at me. “Since the beginning.”
For a split second, I completely froze. I quickly covered up my shock by pulling my meat away from the fire and examining it before putting it back to cook a little longer.
According to Nemain, Balor and his army had been locked away since 2500BC. Niall looked to be in his late thirties. The fae lived a long time, but they didn’t live forever, and they did visibly age. Just slowly over a thousand years, maybe two thousand if they had particularly strong magic.
I’d assumed that Niall was the child of some fae who had been trapped with Balor. Not that he was one of the originals. He hadn’t been kidding earlier when he said he’d lived a long time. I was almost two thousand years old, which meant he was over twice my age.
I swallowed over the lump in my throat. Well, shit.
“You’re surprised.” His brows furrowed together as he tilted his head. “Why?”
My eyes snapped from the flames to meet his stare.
I wasn’t an easy person to read, and yet he had known what I was feeling so easily. Unease rippled through me, and I adjusted the threat level Niall represented.
“I still have another question,” I said instead of answering him. He frowned but didn’t argue. “Do you still serve Balor?”
I kept my eyes on him, searching for any signs that he was lying. I may not be able to read minds, but I was good at picking up the cues that people made with their expression and body language.
Although, Niall was already demonstrating that he could read me well, which meant he probably also knew how to lie to me. The smart thing to do would be to get information out of him and then dump his body somewhere no one would find it. Nemain may have spared his life before, but it’s not like she offered him safehaven, so clearly she didn’t care about him that much.
“I’m not with them anymore,” he said quietly. “I no longer serve Balor, and I never gave a shit about that asshole Lir.” I couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes darkened at the mention of Lir, hinting at some type of history between them. “You have no reason to believe or trust me, I understand. Just like I understand that you’re planning on killing me once you get the answers you want because of the threat I am to not only you but those you care about. I don’t blame you; I’d likely do the same in your situation. Just thought you should know where I stand with Balor.”
Every part of me wanted to reach for the dagger at my belt and thrust it into his heart. Not because he was a fae devourer. Not because he had attacked and tried to kill my friend.
But because he saw me so clearly when so few did. There was no greater threat than that.
His eyes flicked down to where my hand had fallen to my side, but he didn’t seem concerned. If anything, he seemed eager.
Slowly I pulled my hand away and let it rest on my knee. I’d seen the same expression on his face earlier when we’d been fighting. It wasn’t the exhilarated look that Nemain got when we sparred. There was something about Niall’s expression that set my nerves on end.
Whatever the look was, it slid off his face and was replaced by his charming smile.
I didn’t call him on it because I didn’t understand what it meant. And I didn’t want him to read too much into how much attention I was giving his handsome face.
Instead, I said nothing as Niall cautiously reached out and set the bone, still wrapped with some meat, in front of Gunnar. The wolf eyed it suspiciously before sniffing it. He pondered it for a few more seconds before using one large paw to push it over to Viggo.
The skogkatt snatched it up and leapt into the air, bounding upward as if he was jumping from one invisible lily pad to the other before disappearing into the trees.
I’d seen Nemain’s grimalkin, Jinx, do the same thing multiple times. Viggo and Jinx might hate each other, but they were both cats and preferred to eat their meals in high places given the chance.
“I believe it’s my turn to ask a question?” Niall said carefully.
I nodded and took another big bite so I had time to stall in case he asked me something I needed to skirt around the truth on. Unlike the fae, I didn’t have to worry about my magic punishing me for lying, but I still didn’t like to do it. Still, I was more than willing to offer partial truths.
His blue eyes fell on me, brimming with curiosity. “Why were you surprised earlier when I told you I’d been with Balor from the beginning?”
I blinked at the unexpected question. I assumed he’d ask something more relevant, maybe about my hammer or about Nemain.
“It’s been a while since I met someone older than me,” I said slowly. “Aside from some other valkyries and a few Asgardians. There are some daemons around that are my age or older, but I don’t know them very well.”
And Guillveg. But I didn’t feel like getting into her now, and it was none of his business anyway.
“What are you?” The question slipped out before I could pull it back. Damn it. There were more important questions I should be asking right now, but my curiosity got the better of me.
“Sciatháin.” He said with a smile that failed to reach his eyes. “We were once a powerful warrior race in the fae realms. Not as magically gifted as the sidhe or merfolk, but we were very close with nature, and she would whisper her secrets to us. Tell us where the best prey was located. If a storm was coming in. Where a river flowed through the forest.”
“Do you still hear these whispers even with your devourer nature?”
The false smile slipped from his face. “I believe it’s my turn to ask a question.”
I waved a hand at him to continue while I finished the remaining meat on my stick before tossing it into the fire.
Sciatháin. I filed away that word for later. Maybe Nemain’s friend Kaysea would know who or what the sciatháin were. If not, Nemain was on a first-name basis with the Unseelie Queen now. Surely, she would know.
“Why are you in this realm?” he asked.
“My friends had business in this realm,” I said vaguely. “A seraph general had something they needed, and I helped provide a distraction.”
“Ah, yes. That rather epic throwdown outside one of the cities,” Niall mused. “Based on the grumblings I’ve heard, the seraphim are still really pissed off about that. I don’t think Lir was impressed by how well they got their asses handed to them either.”
The corner of his lips quirked up, and I fought to keep the satisfied grin off my face. It had been one hell of a fight, and I’d enjoyed every second of it.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re still here.”
I debated how much to tell him and then just decided to come out with it. I’d bested him in a fight already, and I was confident I’d be able to do so again if needed.
He was more likely to offer me good information if he felt I was doing the same in return. Fair’s fair.
I’d already decided that he wouldn’t be walking away from me while I was in this realm. The only thing I had left to determine was whether he’d still be breathing in the morning or if I’d force him to travel with me until I could deliver him to Nemain and let her decide his fate.
“We had reason to believe that Balor was recruiting the seraphim to work for him,” I said evenly, making sure my tone remained neutral. “He’s already recruited a few other species, so logically it makes sense for him to use the seraphim as well. They’re powerful and have a bone to pick with both the fae and daemons.”
“What about the children?”
“What do you mean?” I frowned at him.
Niall stared at me for a few beats. “Did you know the seraphim were stealing children from other realms?”
“Other realms?” I pursed my lips as I thought of the humans in the pens.
Most of them had been children or in their late teens, which I thought was a little unusual at the time but assumed they were keeping the adults somewhere else.
“I’ve seen the holding pens in some of their cities,” I said slowly. “Do you know something about them?”
Niall stared at me, and I knew he was once again seeing far more in my expression than I wanted him to. “Not enough,” he grunted. “I saw them bring in a large group a couple months ago, but I’m not sure from where. They were all young, though. Humans aren’t all that familiar to me, but I don’t think any of them were past their first decade.”
“I’ve seen adults here.”
I racked my brain, trying to remember the age distribution of the last group of humans I’d spotted. The oldest among them had probably in their mid-thirties?
I added, “But humans have quick and short lives. It’s possible they came to this realm as children and have managed to survive this long.”
“Not all of them,” he said darkly. “They’ve been conducting hunts.”
A muscle along my jaw ticked. I knew what he meant. They’d done the same in the human realm before they were exiled from it.
The seraphim were predators, and while they enjoyed going after more dangerous prey, the humans provided a fun source of entertainment for them. They especially liked hunting children. I wasn’t particularly compassionate towards humans as a whole, but slaughtering children of any species was pretty fucked up.
Magic sparked from the hammer at my side, sensing my rage. Niall’s eyes slide to the weapon and back to me, but he didn’t ask about it.
I stared at it while I worked on calming the tempest of wrath swirling inside me. Part of me itched to pick it up and fly straight to the seraphim camp where I could unleash its magic on them all. There were over a thousand seraphs there, and I could end their lives in less than a minute.
It would only cost me a piece of my soul.
Faint lines glowed along the sides of the hammer, lighting up glyphs as the magic called to me. The void I carried deep within my soul beckoned me to answer it.
Bryn’s solemn grey eyes flashed in my mind’s eye.
She needed me. I couldn’t do this.
I had barely managed to claw my way back last time I had truly wielded the hammer.
With agonizing slowness, I turned away from the hammer and focused back on the fae who had remained quiet while I had my inner battle.
“Why are you here, Niall?” I asked, my voice harsh and raspy.
“Technically, I think it’s my turn to ask a question.”
“Game’s over.”
“Fair enough.” He leaned back, gazing up at the trees. “I needed somewhere to nap. And it was a very nice tree.”
I frowned, confused by his answer, and then I remembered where he had been at the start of our encounter. “Not why you were in the tree,” I growled. “Why are you in this fucking realm?”
“That’s not what you asked.” He shrugged. “I answered your question.”
Now he chose to act like a typical fae. My annoyance boiled over into anger. The hammer leapt into my hand, and I surged to my feet. Even if I didn’t use it to its true potential, it was still a good weapon. “Don’t get cute with me, fae. Answer the godsdamned question.”
In one smooth motion, Niall rolled onto his feet, but he didn’t draw a weapon.
Strands of his dark hair slipped free, framing his face before he brushed them back behind his ears. Once again, his eyes fell on my hammer, and I wondered how much of its magic he could see or feel.
I really needed to replenish the concealment spell on it to hide its true nature, but there was nothing I could do about that now. Originally, I’d disguised it as a battle ax, which truth be told was usually my preferred weapon, but it had been less than pleased by that and rapidly burned away the illusion.
“When Nemain spared my life, I had the pleasure of meeting her mother. She shoved me through a gateway with a warning to stay the fuck away from her daughter.” His dark eyebrows crept up. “Not a lot of people scare me, but The Morrigan is definitely on that list now.”
Having met Nemain’s mother, I could understand that. She wasn’t as powerful as her mate, The Erlking, but she was every bit as ruthless. Maybe even more so.
The two of them together were formidable; even I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to walk away from that fight.
“She sent me to a fae realm, but not one of the main ones. It was remote and isolated enough that no one bothered me.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “I’ve spent the last few thousand years locked away in that realm the fae queens trapped us in. It was only a year ago that I came here with my unit. Nothing is the same, and I don’t really know my way around.”
Niall’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, displaying a rare moment of frustration instead of the easy grins and blasé attitude he typically wore.
“I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t stay in the fae realm, even though it wasn’t very populated. Sooner or later, another fae would realize my magic wasn’t right. It took a while, but I eventually found one of the gateways they had set up in that realm and slipped back to the human world.”
“Why?” I kept my expression neutral even as a tinge of empathy flickered in me. It’d been hard for me to adjust to being an exile, but at least I had known my way around the various realms.
Niall had disappeared from this world long ago, only to return and find everything different with not a familiar face in sight. Nobody would ever accuse me of being particularly social. But even I couldn’t imagine moving through a world that had once been familiar but was now full of strangers.
He hesitated, as if trying to choose his words carefully. “I came back to find Nemain.”
“The Morrigan doesn’t make idle threats.” I shook my head and lowered my assessment of Niall’s intelligence. “If she found out you were going after her daughter, she would have ripped you apart. Slowly.”
“I wasn’t ‘going after’ Nemain.” He glared at me stubbornly. “I just wanted to speak with her. But when I made it to the town she lived in, I saw some of Lir’s men and I wanted to know what they were up to.
“When they opened a gateway, I dove through it before it snapped shut. Despite what you think, I took the threat from The Morrigan quite seriously. I thought that maybe if I could offer information about what Lir was up to, she’d overlook the whole me trying to kill her daughter thing.”
I gave him a doubtful look. He was definitely dumber than I had thought.
“Yeah,” he chuckled. “It sounds pretty stupid when I say it out loud, doesn’t it? She would have thanked me for the information and then sliced my head off.”
I snorted. “She wouldn’t have thanked you.”
“Alright, I concede my plan was flawed, but I wasn’t really sure what to do. Most of my people followed Balor, and I suspect the queens killed off whoever was left in punishment.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I don’t have anyone left. The fae who follow the queens will kill me if they discover me here. I’ve deserted Balor’s army. My options are pretty limited these days.”
More sympathy crept into me, but I was careful to keep my face blank. I was all too familiar with what it felt like to be an outsider who was no longer wanted by your own people.
But I hadn’t had a choice, Niall’s words implied that he had willingly followed Balor, at least in the beginning.
“So you followed Lir and his men here,” I said. “Then what?”
“Oh, they caught me.” He shrugged one shoulder.
“What?” I took a step away from him and hefted my hammer a little higher. Had he led them to me? Was that why he was so keen on having a conversation with me? Just to get me to lower my guard?
“It’s not what you think!” he said quickly and then paused as he thought about it. “Actually, it’s exactly what you think… sort of.”
“Explain,” I commanded, narrowing my eyes.
“Some of Lir’s men recognized me. All of my unit died in that fae realm where I encountered Nemain, and everyone had assumed I’d died with them. I was locked up until they figured out what was going on. Then you lot attacked the seraphim city, and a few rumors spread about there still being a valkyrie in this realm—one who wielded a hammer of great power. I’ve always been an excellent tracker, and Lir decided he had a use for me after all.”
“So you are still working for Balor.” My fingers tightened around the hammer’s handle. I knew I should have bashed his head in earlier instead of letting his handsome face and charming words cloud my judgement.
“No.” Niall shook his head firmly and raised his hands. “Lir’s arrogance is quite possibly his greatest weakness. He always thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, and definitely smarter than some sciatháin tracker.”
Once again, I noted the way he practically spat Lir’s name. Definitely some bad blood there.
“Go on.”
“I swore on my life that I would find you and bring you back to the fae devourers.”
“Nemain and Kalen are both fae devourers.” Technically, Nemain was also a feline shifter, but fae and devourer blood ran through her veins.
“Indeed, they are.” Niall grinned.
Both my eyebrows raised. “And Lir didn’t call you on that bullshit?”
“Like I said, his arrogance is his greatest weakness.” He shrugged. “So… do we have a deal? I’ll help you with whatever it is you’re up to here, and you’ll speak on my behalf to Nemain?”
I thought about it. Assuming this wasn’t all a trap, Niall could provide us with some valuable information. There was so much we didn’t know about the magic wielded by the fae who followed Balor. They’d all been twisted by devourer magic but we’d only fought against a few of them.
Other information like how the army was structured and how many types of devourers they had under their control would be good to know as well. Even if Niall wasn’t privy to the plans Balor and Lir had in place, the general knowledge he’d picked up as a former soldier in their army would be immensely helpful.
Assuming we could trust him. My instincts were telling me he was on the level, but I’d been wrong before.
“I’ll think about it and let you know in the morning,” I finally settled on saying. “I’d suggest you get some rest.”
“Not gonna stab me in the back while I’m sleeping are you?” he asked teasingly.
“I’m a valkyrie.” I slid him a sidelong glance and allowed myself a small smile. “I’d stab you in the front.”