Page 86 of The Last Valkyrie

I opened my mouth to argue, fighting back tears.

The Allfather simply snapped his fingers and Damon was no longer in my grip. He was hovering in front of Odin, gold sheen radiant in the air.

Odin analyzed Damon for a long while, his lips firm. Then something caught his attention, with one of his sage ravens squawking overhead. Odin nodded to the bird, either Huginn or Muninn, “memory” or “thought.”

His face twisted with disgust. “This soul is tainted.” His godly voice grew angrier. “As so many are now. You would bring me a husk, child?”

“No!” I yelled, rushing to try and grab Damon from the air, but finding I could no longer touch him. My hand simply swept through his golden skin like he didn’t exist as more than a mirage. “Damon is not tainted, my lord. He was . . . misguided.”

“This man died with hate in his heart and darkness staining his soul. He does not belong in Valhalla.”

“No, please! He died in battle! Hebelongshere!”

“This man died a traitor to his own kin. I have no room for his kind in my host. Your heart led you here in folly, child.”

I croaked, trying to say something, stepping forward dumbly while shaking my head. “But—”

“My verdict is final and never wrong, valkyrie, now take him from here before the stink of him infects the rest of us!”

With a shove of his palm, Damon’s soul flew into my body and knocked me back. I stumbled, tumbling back down the stairs end-over-end, screaming yet feeling no pain as I held onto my brother.

I seemed to somersault for eons, until I realized I was no longer on the steps leading up to the temple. Clouds and radiant daylight exchanged places with crags of rock and dreary night.

After an indeterminate amount of time, I landed on level ground. Heaving, I stood, with Damon still latched onto my body, hugged in my arms. I looked all around me, noticing the skeletal iciness of this place—the gnarled trees, devoid of life; icicles sprouting up from flat ground that stretched to the horizons.

Fear filled me, chilling me to the bone.

I wanted to curse the gods, curse Odin for denying me and my brother, yet I didn’t trust myself enough to speak or think. Not if the Asgardians could hear my thoughts as if I’d spoken them.

I shut everthing off, drawing within myself.

“Sent down another lost soul, has he?”

I spun at the voice, gasping.

A woman stepped toward me through the field of ice and rock and lifelessness. She was tall like Odin yet hunched over like an old crone. Most alarming was her grim appearance—half her body blue and dead and rotting, while the other half remained beautiful, pristine, and pale. Terror took hold in my heart, squeezing tight.

She had a ghostly countenance and a decaying lower torso, showing me both sides of life and death in a single being. The expression on her face was one of anger, scowling through the pretty side of her half-dead mouth while rotted skin sagged from the skull of her other side.

Her hair swept the ground, discolored like Dagny’s, with a white mane sweeping down from the ugly dead side, and jet-black tendrils floating down the gorgeous side.

I bowed to her despite myself, trying to fight off the fear she represented, and failing.

“The Allfather has a way of striking the wrong chord, does he not?” she asked. “Even with his greatest host.” Her voice was a mix of croaking pain and elegant nobility. It was completely off-putting and lustful at the same time.

I found myself drawn toward her yet repulsed.

I no longer had to curse or pray to Hel, because she was standing right in front of me. I was in Niflheim, the underworld, pushed into the icy basement of the realms by Odin himself.

“The man in your arms, he belongs here,” Hel told me.

I looked down, shaking my head. “He does not—”

My voice ended on a whimper as I realized Damon no longer held the same golden sheen as before. Now, he was gray and withering in my arm. His skin was falling off his bones and muscles, and I screamed and dropped him.

Hel laughed in a croaking, distant fashion. “Scared, are you, child?”

I backed up, the fear becoming overwhelming as the goddess of the underworld neared me and bent down to hoist Damon up by the scruff of his hair.

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