Page 152 of Valkyrie Unknown

She was behind me, aiming a kick at the back of my knee. I dodged, and swung in anticipation of her moving.

She didn’t move.

I pulled my punch short, stopping before I landed a fist that would break something. If this was an Imitation Azzie, it wasn’t the same kind of implausibly flawless that the one Ulf made was. However, that meant I’d never seen these moves from the real Azzie.

“You made me promise something when we started traveling together,” I said.

She nodded. “I did.”

Finn let out a long, frustrated groan that reminded me of a toddler throwing a tantrum. I’d love the power of a god at this moment, to curse him to silence.

“What was it?” I asked Azzie.

She cocked her head to the side, her gaze never leaving me. “I made you promise that only good girls get orgasms, and I’m not a good girl unless I win.”

Thiswas more her brand of teasing, and I didn’t blame her for countering my test with one of her own. I raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“What was it really?”

Her expression flickered, and for the first time since I arrived, I saw fear flash through her eyes, but it was gone again in an instant. “It was the kind of promise that means this is an inappropriate place to get physical.”

I didn’t blame her for not speaking the promise out loud. “It’s not.” I had to trust this was Azzie. Wearing the necklace I’d given her for her birthday, the one cufflink from Finn in her sneakers, and Loki’s axe.

The last one concerned me.

“What did you see?” Azzie asked.

Not Finn slitting anyone’s throat. I wanted to sayyou first, but my story would be shorter. “Tania. She told me reality would test my biggest fear more than any vision she could give me. What did you see?”

Finn’s frustration gelled into anger. “We can swap stories after we get out. Where’s Zeke?”

Based on Azzie’s words, nothing he said could be trusted regardless, so his story didn’t matter. I did want to know what an illusion of me had been doing to get me killed, though.

“Why do you assume I know?” Azzie spun on him.

He pursed his lips. “You brought us to Davyn.”

“No. We walked through nothing and into a fucking battle with your dead girlfriend. Davyn showed up after.”

“Her name is Sadhbh.” Finn spoke through clenched teeth.

The woman whose visions were more valuable than Kirby’s life, in Finn’s eyes. He let a Valkyrie die in the past, because a lover asked him to, and he was willing to let the embodiment of glory and mercy die now, for his most recent obsessions.

He wasn’t currently a threat beyond what he’d already done, though I could see him becoming one, and he appeared to have answers. “What do you mean she brought you to me? Are there fae gates here, Azzie? Do you have your daggers?”

If she did, she wouldn’t be wielding the ax.Whywas she wielding the ax?

“No and no,” she shook her head. “But?—”

“This direction?” Finn talked over her, and pointed to an empty spot in the air next to him. “Over here?” He pointed in another direction, and took a step that way.

I flung out an arm and smacked him in the chest to stop him. “Shut it, Jotun.”

“What?” Azzie furrowed her brow and looked around her. “I can’t hear you.” Her voice was soft.

“Where’s. The. Door?” Finn’s question echoed off the trees.

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