Page 78 of The Last Valkyrie

Ma was right, and she had a reason to be pissed. A simple mistake didn’t explain away the letter. It had been calculated bysomeone, and she was smart to put on her investigative hat to try and get to the bottom of it.

I had feared this whole time that the dragonslayer chieftain had discovered my secret. That I was in danger. While I felt safer with my mates here—infinitely so—the familiar sensation of impending dread and fear settled deep in my bones. Sigmund Calladan had been the one to insist joining me here, and the questionwhystill remained.

It was time for brass tacks and brass balls, even if the others at the table wanted to remain deaf to whatever was going on.Surely Sigmund didn’t write that letter just to create an excuse to come here,I thought off-handedly, incredulous.

My gaze focused on his bearded, wart-ridden face, past the body of Korvan. I scrutinized every twitch and flinch of his features, trying to discover his truth.

“I’m insinuating what I’ve thought all along,” Lindi said with an exasperated sigh. “That you were nevertrulyable to get over me, were you?”

I inhaled sharply, coughing out bits of food.

“Wife,” Hallan growled in warning.

Odin eat my ass, you’ve got to be kidding me! Ma and Sigmund were athing?!

My foolish notion about Sigmund being my father, however improbable and ridiculous it sounded, flared to life with renewed vigor. My eyes bulged in my head as I darted looks between the two of them. “Um, Ma, I’mbeggingyou to explain what the Hel you’re talking about.”

“I don’t need to, daughter. It’s written all over the Gothi’s face.” She flapped a hand vaguely in his direction, as if she’d seen enough of his presence and was disgusted with him.

Lindi was strangely calm and collected, even as the rest of the table started to get uncomfortable and awkward. Sigmund looked ready to pop, smoke practically coming from his ears.

“Still have that famous tongue on you, don’t you, Lindi?” Sigmund sneered with a half-smile, and then nodded his chin down to his soup bowl. “Almost as famous as your stew.”

Hallan leaped up from his seat, hitting his knee on the edge and clattering dishes. “Gothi Sigmund! Do not speak to my wife like—”

“Oh shut your face, you fucking peasant,” Sigmund calmly interjected. “It’s a secret only to the younglings here that we were once an item. Get your knickers unwound and sit your ass down.”

My mouth dropped open. Part of me positivelylovedseeing Hallan getting put in his place, shot down like the piece of shit hewas. The other side of me was worried with the trajectory of this dinner, and how things had already begun to unravel.

The truth of why we were here was coming to light. Sigmund would only make it clearer in the next few minutes that changed my life forever.

“Tiptoe around the issue all you’d like, Sigmund,” Lindi said, noticeably not coming to Hallan’s aid as my emasculated stepfather sat down with a pale face and wobbling legs. “You penning a letter in my name is desperate, yet it explains why you’re here. So have out with it.”

“I never wrote such a thing,” Sigmund spat through gritted teeth.

A moment of intense quietness fell over the table. I could hear murmurs behind us, coming from the nosy villagers on the fringes just past the square outline of torch poles. Word was already spreading through town of Ma’s past relations with the current chieftain of Vikingrune Academy. The gossip would fuel the town’s rumor mill for months, surely.

The tension became so thick I stopped breathing. Sigmund gained control of his temper and leaned forward in his seat, steepling his hands together. He glared down the table at Ma, and seeing him quiet and furious was much more unnerving and scary than seeing him blustering and angry.

“I’ve had my suspicions about her, Lindi.”

My neck hollowed, my body instinctively tautened, every muscle flexing. There were only two “hers” at this table . . . and he was speaking to one of them, so this clearly wasn’t about Ma.

Next to me, I felt Sven’s arm jostle. When I looked down I noticed his hand on the hilt of his sword under the lip of the table. I scanned the table down line and across from me. My mates, one and all, were abruptly ready for battle, with hard looks and narrowed eyes atop deep-set frowns. I imagined therest of them were also fisting their blades where no one could see, getting ready in case things popped off.

Ma said, “Suspicions about whom, Sigmund?”

“Your half-elf girl, woman. Who do you think? I’ve kept my eyes on her. I’ve watched her grow.” The Gothi’s voice became a brooding drawl, gruff and low in volume.

Across from him, Thane Canute sat straighter. At that moment, the giant shield he always had across his back looked like a monolith, and I could tell he was itching to swing it out in the middle of all this.

“And yet,” Sigmund said, raising a finger, “two questions still remain, which I required the answers to before you . . . expired from your sickness.” He finished with a sneer before counting off on two fingers. “Howandwho? How did she come to be, born between your youngest and eldest sons? Clearly Ravinica is not from Hallan’s loins. So, if not him, thenwhois her father?”

Despite the obvious embarrassment and humiliation, Hallan said nothing. I would have felt bad for my stepfather if he was any other man. Sigmund was alluding to adultery.

My steady heart quickened, beating furiously against my chest.Oh gods. Is this the moment? The moment Sigmund uncovers what he knows about me, tries to kill me, announces the truth about his connection to me? Why now?!

I wondered,Why would he question who my father is if he himself is that man?The answer was obvious:Because he isn’t that man. He isn’t my deadbeat father. A deadbeat, sure, but not dear ol’ Da.

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