Page 87 of Valkyrie Unknown

Right. Because one of us had to kill the other, and I still wasn’t doing that. “So they’re working to stop it? These gods who are meant to be replaced? Can’t we just tell themhere, take it. I don’t want it?” Wait—Azzie was a target, but I’d never run into this before I met her. Was I not? Was I better hidden?

Not now.

“Do they send someone after you weekly? Daily?” I was curious for both of us, if this was about to be my life.

She frowned and pushed her plate away.

“You’ve lost people because of it.” I knew as much instinctively. I’d lost people too, but not because of this. Their deaths haunted me regardless.

Another thing she and I had in common.

“Not directly, but because I couldn’t stop it.” Somehow she managed to sound meek and defiant at the same time.

“It wasn’t because of you.” I had to say that out loud for my sake as well as hers. What happened to my mom wasn’t my fault, no matter how much I blamed myself.

Davyn lightly leaned his shoulder against hers. “It wasn’t anything you didn’t do or could’ve done. Zeke is right.”

I’d tease him, ask if it hurt to admit that, but this conversation had gotten too real and painful.

“Some of it is my fault, simply because I’m here,” she said. “The shadows in the forest? For me. The people in Salt Lake? There for me. The draugar? There’s a reason they didn’t show up until I was here.”

Jesus.

“And then you run, you hide, and you live your life waiting for the next disaster?” I wanted to say I couldn’t imagine, but again, I’d grown up around people who lived exactly like that.

Azzie’s expression was sad, and held a kind of surrender I hadn’t seen in her before. “I tried being out in the open, and Salt Lake was the result.”

“No.” I saw shades of gray in what she painted in black and white. “If they’re coming for you regardless, you don’t do things because ofthem. You live your life and enjoy it. If the threat shows up, you deal with it. If it keeps coming back, you fight or you retreat. But you don’t burn your own world down first so they can’t do it. You don’t surrender the things you appreciate so they can’t take them.”

“We’re talking about gods, not angry people wielding boomsticks,” Finn said.

Azzie almost smiled. “I knew you appreciated the classics.”

“What happened in Salt Lake? That wasn’t magic, it was people.” I’d seen the news, the same way everyone else had. “What happened today with the draugar—if they were going to be an ongoing threat, where are they? We cut them down, but we couldn’t have kept fighting. Are they a limited resource?”

“They’re undead demons, so there are more of them than any army could hold off,” Davyn said.

Exactly. “Yet, today there were just enough to see how Azzie dealt with them.”

“Howwedealt with them.” Azzie’s defeated mood was fading.

“They tested our defenses, then fell back.” I’d learned so much bullshit about combat tactics in my life. Was it actually going to serve me? “This wasn’t the start of a war, it was a scouting mission.”

Davyn rolled his eyes. “He’s got a good point. Another one.”

“Of course he does.” Finn scowled at Davyn.

Azzie drummed her fingers on the table, sending tremors through the wood that made utensils rattle against plates. “Even if that’s the case, they know I’m here now. If I stay, you’re in danger.” Her voice wavered.

Don’t let her go. “If you leave, they still know where I am. At least Finn and I know attacks are a possibility in the future.”

“And we are stronger together,” Azzie said.

Finn made a strangled choking sound. “Gag me with a spoon.”

Davyn didn’t look happy either, though I wasn’t sure he was capable of expressing joy or pleasure.

“Stay here.” In my house. In my bed— Nope. I needed to figure out where that impulse was coming from and fight it. Or at least not let it take control with someone I barely knew. “In town.”

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