Page 167 of Valkyrie Unknown

The encouragement made me stumble as I tried to climb to my feet. Doing what that voice wanted was a bad idea.

A new sensation tickled my senses. A way out? Only a few meters away. It wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but I felt it. I needed to get to it, and take the three of us out of here.

Aside from the curious glance Zeke shot in my direction, no one paid attention to me as I made my way toward the feeling. Insulting, but fair.

I pressed my hand to the empty air, and met a solid wall.

Starkad rushed through the spot, tackling a sceadugenga. The door didn’t stop him. Didn’t take him out of here.

But I felt it. I pushed to open it, the way I had with the earlier gates I found.

It didn’t give.

Half a metamoura flew past my shoulder, through empty air where the door was. No one could touch it but me. Why?

Not a question to answer now.

“Open, damn you,” I muttered, and tried again.

Could a magical gateway be jammed shut? This one felt like it.

“The stories are true,” the not-me taunted. “You’re so easy to divide from your Valkyries.”

“We know our strengths.” Kirby’s voice was tight.

Someone needed to take that woman down. The villain, not Kirby.

Maybe Kirby.

The thought left me ambivalent.

I needed a path to our foe. Thirty seconds, tops.

Before I could call out the request, Davyn was in front of me, biting and tearing through bests, and Zeke was by my side.

What made it possible for us to act in this way?

“I’ve got this part.” Zeke knelt next to the empty air where I felt the door and, using a claw-like nail, began carving lines in the concrete.

He was drawing an enchantment. I knew it as easily as I knew what I needed to do next. He would create what inspired him, as he always did.

“Get out of the fucking way, Azzie,” Kirby yelled.

I was going to, just not in the way she thought. I watched Davyn clear the way, and yanked as much strength into my body as I could.

As Davyn swung at the last obstacle to me, I sprinted, then broke into a full run, toward the woman in the middle of the chaos.

She turned toward me as I leapt into the air. The ax from Loki was the perfect weight in my hand, as if it was a part of me. I knew how to do what came next. My mortal body wouldn’t survive, but others would. So many others would live.

“Sist—”

I brought the ax down on the woman, cutting from her shoulder toward her heart. I poured everything I had into it. A burst of power flowed into me.

From what Zeke had done.

I let it all spill out, into the threat, as if the universe itself was bursting from me.

My world went black.

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