Page 17 of The Last Valkyrie

My hands latched onto Olaf’s cold fingers.

I pulled him toward us, gritting my teeth. Draug yanked at his legs trying to drag him into the darkness in the opposite direction.

A flash of silver came down, startling me. Flesh ripped and bone snapped, and it was a sound I’d never forget.

The resistance went out of me. Momentum threw me backward onto my back.

I came up holding my brother’s severed arm.

I wailed as I dropped the limb, crab-walking back.

The draug dragged the rest of Olaf’s corpse away, teeth digging into his body.

Edda lifted me up by the armpits as I stared aghast, mortified. “It’s too late, brother! He’s gone.”

I’d never know what happened in that chaotic moment in the dark, though I’d think about it often.Was it the draug who ripped him apart from me, literally separating his bones . . . or did Edda come down and cut his arm off to keep me away from them?

We escaped into the woods as the monsters feasted on my brother. Guilt and shame and sadness filled my soul as I ran on in a daze.

Once we were clear of the wreckage, our sprinting slowed. Edda stood in front of me, tears in her eyes. She looked away, unable to meet my furious gaze.

Ulf said, “T-Thank you, brother,” a hand to my shoulder. When I looked at him blankly, he added, “You saved us. We—after what we did, we—”

“Keep it to yourself, cub,” I barked at my oafish brother. My voice lowered and I shook my head in shame. “I didn’t save all of us. Gods-dammit, Olaf. Why couldn’t you be faster?”

I was trying to fight off the pain and failing.

Edda said, “You did everything you could, Sven. We will mourn our brother when there’s time.”

Around us, fire raged and smoke billowed, turning the forest into a candelabra.

Randi rushed me from behind, hugging her cheek to my shoulder. “Thank you, angry wolfman.”

I gritted my teeth, trying to fend myself against the warmth and thanks in her voice. “You would have done the same thing for me,” I sputtered, my voice fighting over a lump in my throat.

“No,” Edda said. Her face spoke of sorrow, guilt, regret. “We wouldn’t have, Sven. And that . . . it isn’t right. It’ll never happen again.” She saluted above her chest, pounding hard. “I swear it, brother.”

“Father won’t turn us against you,” Ulf said. “Not anymore. We . . . can you forgive us?”

I opened my mouth to speak—to give them another bite of nonsense. The words wouldn’t come. I blinked incessantly, fighting back the mangled pain and grief threatening to swallow me whole.

Instead, I gave my brother and sister a small nod.

My words returned. “Once a Torfen, always a Torfen, kin.”A lone wolf is no wolf at all.“Let’s find the others and make sense of this madness.”

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