Page 49 of Valkyrie Unknown

Adrenaline rushed in, burying my exhaustion. The knife pulled out too easily, exposing a blade missing about an inch from the tip, which had snapped clean off and was still in the holster.

This shouldn’t be possible. How did the blade break? How did theenchantbreak? Was there magic in that attack downtown?

My phone buzzed, and I returned the broken blade to its home with a frown before reaching for the device.

Enid.

“Hey.” As I answered, I reached back to brush my fingers over the hilt of the knife at the small of my back. Still humming with power. At least that was right.

“Thank the gods. Are you all right?” Stress lined Enid’s voice.

I glared in the direction of my broken knife and resumed the walk to my apartment. “I’mfine. Why? What’s up?”

“Why did you say it like that? Is Davyn all right?” She met Davyn a year or so ago and had been instantly fascinated with him. She never hid the flirting—not that I cared one way or another. “The internet is blowing up with talk about a terrorist attack near you. What’s going on?”

Terrorist attack? The explosion? I frowned, but that made sense from the outside. “Yeah. I’m okay. Davyn’s not in town.”

“You know about it, but you’re this calm? How far away are you? Weren’t you at work?”

She knew to ask because I’d become so predictable that someone I rarely saw or talked to knew where I was almost every morning.

Hearing her concern and giving myself time to pause and replay, the reality of what I’d just been through slammed into me. I paused and leaned against a nearby fence when the strength sapped from me. “I was there.”

“What happened? Are you sure you’re okay?”

Yeah. Fine. Perfectly, totally?—

Fuck. “I don’t know what happened. Something blew up, and parts of it look just like the prophecy describes, including rocks raining from the sky. There was chaos, and I stayed to help as long as I could, but….” I walked away. I should’ve found a way to do more.

“I’m so glad you got out of there safely.” A hint of relief slipped into Enid’s reply.

“Yeah.” But others didn’t. What else was I supposed to do? I wanted someone to give me a solution, and she was the person I was talking to. Nothing about this was right. “What did I expect?” I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

She sighed. “You couldn’t have known.”

“But I could have. Things looked exactly like they were described.” Apparently, regardless of what I told myself, I was convinced this was because of the prophecy.

She made atsksound. “They were also described in a way that could have looked like a lot of things.”

No. This wasn’t… “I need to do more. I’ll call you back.”

“Azzie, no.” Her normally non-confrontational tone vanished in the hard retort. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.Something.”

“There are videos of this everywhere. It was a single explosion, and no buildings came down. They’re talking about gunfire, and the place is already chaos. You’ll only add to it if you go back.”

The same thing I told myself when I left. I still wasn’t reassured. I couldn’t fight villains I couldn’t see. I was made for hand-to-hand combat, not explosions or bullets. “I have to do more.”

“Leave.” Enid pleaded. “If they’re looking for you—whoevertheyare—don’t let them find you.”

“But if they’re looking for me, they’re already here.” And it had gotten people hurt.

The way Enid sighed rattled me to my core.

I knew what she was thinking without her saying it. Even if she wasn’t,Iwas thinking that my being stubborn was more about pride than helping people, and I was doing this to make lives better, not worse. “Okay.” Where was I going to go? “I don’t suppose you know of any blacksmiths who can work on enchanted blades.”

Walking away felt like surrender. I hated it.

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