Page 110 of The Last Valkyrie

And if I was a betting woman, I’d say Salos had a hand in making them Hersirs here in the first place.

Salos continued, not moving from his spot—shirking the casual pacing that Sigmund used to do to keep everyone’s attention. He didn’t have the deep, resonant voice of Sigmund either, opting for a calmer, more sinister timbre.

“We need to shore up our defenses. I can aid in that. I have connections with many of the pack leaders across Midgard.”

Next to me, Sven muttered, “Is this motherfucker talking about bringing outside influenceintothe Isle?”

“And while it might be alarming,” Salos said, “yes, we should be bringing human militaries into the Isle to help us in our efforts.”

The outcry was immediate, calling him a traitor and a dastardly dictator—all within five minutes of him taking the stage and proclaiming himself chieftain of our academy.

I understood my comrades’ hurt and anger. They had all worked their asses off their entire lives to be here. They were here based on merit, not nepotism or favors—as it seemed got Salos his position—and now he wanted to invite magicless humans into our magical land, when they knew nothing of our ways and traditions?

It meant guns, more politics, and armies that might spell our doom with their sheer numbers. The doom of the Isle itself was starting to take focus in my mind.

“If the next logical place for the dark elves to attack after the Isle is the greater realm of Midgard—theworld—then the magicless deserve a seat at the table, do they not? They deserve a stake in this fight, and should know what’s going on here.”

I could tell he’d thought long and hard about his reasoning, and it was sound. That didn’t make it any better or palatable. Our people would never go for it.

But what can they do? The tally has been counted, the vote decided.

Salos Torfen is our next Gothi, and we have no sway or position in his plans.“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered, tasting blood on my lip as I chewed past the skin.

I wondered how long this hadreallybeen in the works. The ominous meeting Sven had had with his father made more sense now—the “last call” for Sven to join Salos’ “cause.”Did Ulf, Olaf, and Edda know about this too? Surely not.

Sigmund’s death couldn’t have been so tidily planned. It had all seemed so . . .arbitraryand violent. A true uprising, I’d figured, until now.

Now, well, things seemed more calculated. Devious. Insidious. Sinister. There were a million words to explain why this waswrongand felt off.

“It is important to note,” Salos continued, “the Dokkalfar are powered by the same thing everyone is powered by:Greed. They are simply people from another realm, come here to see what they can scour. That doesn’t make them the bad-guy boogeymen our former Gothi would have us believe.”

The shocked faces and sounds from the students were deafening.

“They can be negotiated with,” he explained. “Compromised with. We canpreventbloodshed, and is that not the ultimate goal of our people?”

No. The ultimate goal is to keep the Isle in our hands, to keep the enemies away from Vikingrune Academy, and to unite our allies!

“What is it the Dokkalfarwant?” Salos asked, seeming to ponder the question by tapping his sharp chin. “Is it land? Access to Vikingrune Academy? To our resources? I will ascertain what the dark elves crave, students, rest assured. We will be a stronger force once we understand their motives and desires.”

When he finished speaking, the audience erupted again.

I noticed the small smirk on his face.The haughty bastard.

Then his eyes landed on me in the crowd. They lingered much longer than they did on anyone else.

My heart froze in my chest.

Salos wants to know what the dark elves desire?

Swordbaron Korvan already made it obvious: He wantedmeinstead of Ma. He took her as a scapegoat—a means to negotiate.

. . . And I just showed my dragon wings to everyone at the academy.

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