Page 73 of The Last Valkyrie

Thosecould fall, and they had, as evidenced by the Dokkalfar and jotnar knocking at our front door. But the barrier, the magic wall around the Isle we also called “The Ward,” was put into place by mages of a lost era.

We were no longer in the jurisdiction—the bubble—of the Isle, hidden from the prying eyes of planes, ships, satellites, or governments that looked blindly down into this specific point of the Atlantic Ocean.

We were among the magicless people of Earth. Trapped somewhere between modernity and a medieval age they would never understand. A simpler, unknowable world where you were just as likely to see a knight with a sword and shield as you were to find a pointy-eared elf waltzing through the forest.

I recalled that the trek from Selby Village on the edge of Iceland over to the Isle hadn’t taken long last time. At some point, we had drastically picked up speed, or possibly magically transported through our own portal to get to the rocky shore of the island.

Either that, or I had no idea where the fuck we were. It all looked the same to me: a vast expanse of dark blue, white remnants shimmering off the surface from the morning sun’s light.

As the sun rose and afternoon fell upon us, I felt my face getting burnt. Other fair people in our crew—all of us, really—started to shield their eyes and foreheads. Sven wrapped his shirt over his head like a turban, keener on getting his enviable chest tanned than his face sunburned.

With the strong gusts dragging us along the ocean, we didn’t need to row any longer. It gave each of us a lot of time to think, and I started to reminisce over everything I had gone through, leading up to the present.

A strange thought occurred to me as I looked to the prow of the ship, where Gothi Sigmund stood like a gargoyle, staring out at the sea. He hadn’t turned around once since we’d set off.

I started to wonder what he had been scheming with Salos Torfen, and what it meant that the chieftain was leaving Sven’s father in Vikingrune while we left. What did it mean for Sigmund to take this time off to essentially “vacation” when our enemies were so close? Was he notneededat the academy?

Just what does he want with my mother, anyway? What could possibly be so important that he’d need to see her before she becomes any sicker?

That’s when my heart froze. A dreadful realization dawned on me, kicking me square in the gut.

No.

The word repeated in my head over and over, like a mantra.One of my mates noticed my abrupt stiffness on my bench as I stared at Sigmund Calladan, and he asked if I was okay, but I was so deeply lost that I didn’t even know who had spoken.

My eyes widened, unblinking.

No.

The thought rioting through my mind could have easily been explained away. All the documents and tomes I’d read in my initiate year had said the same thing. Surely Sigmund would have been written in there, where I looked. He couldn’t have escaped my scrutinizing eye.

. . . Right?

He has all the levers and buttons at his disposal, though, being Gothi of the academy . . . to make things disappear.

I shook my head, eyes burning when I finally looked away and squinted out at the sea. I tried to call it idiotic, while also feeling foolish for not seeing it until now. For notplanningfor it, because it had never crossed my mind.

Because the thought that kept swimming through me was:What if it’s him? What if it’s him?

What if Sigmund Calladan is my father?

Chapter 24

Ravinica

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