Page 169 of The Last Valkyrie

“Ravinica . . .” Magnus said from Kelvar’s side, in warning. Each of my other mates instinctively moved to follow me, to get my back, but I held up a hand as I continued walking—

And stopped in front of the five jotnar.

They were twice my height. Two of them were coated in blood and soot from battle, and I had to crane my neck to look up to them.

I reached out with the Runesphere, a universal sign if there ever was one. Something that was impossible to misinterpret, even if we didn’t speak the same tongue.

“This, I think, should go to you,” I said simply. “Ifyou agree to leave our realm in peace.” I glanced over my shoulder at Korvan. “He promised the same thing, went back on his word, and look how he ended up.”

The woman of the group, with the black bindings, bare tits, and skull helm, stepped forward in front of me. Slowly, she lifted the horned skull off her head. Beneath, she had sheer, milky white eyes and a rough face of scars and mottled flesh that had seen its fair share of burns, wounds, and battle.

Yet despite it all, she looked beautiful to me.

“We agree,” she said in a guttural, raspy tone thick with an otherworldly accent.

I lurched, shocked she could understand me.

“Flytja’orlogbelongs to us.”

“. . .Flytja . . .”

“What humans call Runesphere.”

I played over the word combination in my mind, realizing that her name for it was just as much of a translation as ours was.

“Transfer” and “fate.” Fate Transfer.My brow shot up.By the gods, Dahlia was right. The stone is a means of transferring power, from wielder—the source—to a designated person. In Elayina’s situation, she had been the source of the power-sapping, and I had been the designated recipient of it. For Korvan, he was the sacrifice, and had no recipient but himself, which is why it must have failed to power him.

Greed is not the answer to the Runesphere.

My idea had come from a much simpler place, an understanding that I really was in no position to make, but decided to authorize anyway and hope for the best.

In short, the humans and elves had been fighting for the Runesphere for hundreds of years. Without it . . . they had no reason to fight anymore. Nothing to fightfor.

And now this jotun was telling me it belonged tothem?

“How does it belong to you, if I may ask?”

“Flytja’orlogwas crafted by jotun-Asgardian alliance,” she replied. “Eons ago. When jotun fought alongside gods. Not against them.”

The murmuring around the field became louder.

“Let me ask you, little human. Where wasFlytja’orlogfound?”

“The First Taldan War.”

“Yes.When. Butwhere?”

I . . . didn’t know. Thorvi’s history books never told the exact spot, other than under a mountain—a glimmering light Lord Talasin and King Dannon found together.

“Jotunheim, little human.”

My jaw dropped.

“Little humans, little elves. Stole it from us. You are the first to recognize it must be ours.”

“I was doing it out of self-preservation,” I croaked.

“Reason matters not. You are dragon. You see truth, whether you know or not.”

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