Page 64 of Soul of Shadow
“Of course, she could. I’m not a ghost, or part of the spirits of nature in any other manner. I’m very much alive.”
Very much alive.Charlie felt like she was going to cry with relief and throw up at the same time.
“Like I said, I’ll explain more later, but for now all you need to know is this—” Sophie spun around, her dark locks catching in the light of the lamp on the bedside table. Her hair was impossibly long, as if she hadn’t cut it since the day she disappeared. “I never died.”
Charlie’s mouth opened and closed. “You—”
“I was chosen by Odin and taken from that hospital. Brought before the Throne of Ash from which Odin rules, where I was tested and deemed worthy.”
“Deemed worthy of… of what?”
“Of joining the Valkyries.”
Blood roared in Charlie’s ears. She felt dizzy. She felt like she was living in a dream, like the entirenightthat had passed sinceshe’d woken up from her draugar injury was an impossible work of fiction. Was her sister really standing in front of her? Was she really a… a…
“A Valkyrie,” Charlie whispered, seeing through the fog of her mind long enough to take in the armor on her sister’s body, the weapons hanging from every part of her, the folded wings curled up on her back.
What had Elias told her about the Valkyries?
Human women born to human parents, blessed with supernatural gifts by Odin in exchange for their service to him.
As if looking for confirmation that she hadn’t gone mad, Charlie looked down at the vätte, who was still perched on the corner of her bed, watching them curiously. Noticing Charlie’s attention, he only shrugged.
Sophie followed Charlie’s gaze. For the first time, her twin seemed to realize that they were not alone in the bedroom. She paced over to the bed, reaching out a hand to scratch the vätte behind his beard.
“How curious,” Sophie muttered, more to herself than Charlie.
“Wait,” Charlie said. She was scrambling to put together a semicohesive version of her past—one that no longer included the death of her sister. “That night in the hospital… what really happened?”
Sophie looked up, pulling her hand away from the vätte. “The flatline you saw was a trick by one of the elder Valkyries. The one who came to collect me. She used magic to fake my death, then whisked me off to Hlidskjalf.”
“But… but your body? The funeral?”
Sophie quirked an eyebrow. “Was it an open-casket funeral?”
“No, but—”
“Magic can do wonders, Charlie. Including making humans believe that a body is there when it’s actually far, far away.”
“But I thought magic was cut off from humans. How could—”
“All will be explained in time, sister,” she said, and Charlie’s stomach twisted again. “Right now, I need you to listen: Asgard is in danger.”
“Asgard meaning … Earth?”
“Correct.”
“Danger from whom?”
“How much do you know,” Sophie asked, fixing her twin with a hard stare, “about the trickster god Loki?”
Charlie’s memory hopped backward to the first day she spent in the woods with Elias. The day they’d spoken with the wood wife and were chased by goblins. Had that really only been on Wednesday? Reflecting on that afternoon was a welcome distraction—a line of thought she could follow that had nothing to do with her dead-not-dead twin sister, one that didn’t scramble her brain so utterly. Concentrating hard, she pulled up the story Elias had told her. The story of Loki and Odin, blood brothers for all time. Of Odin’s betrayal of Loki. Of Loki’s punishment, forced to live out his eternity in the prison of the underworld. She shivered.
“A bit,” Charlie said at last. “I know that he and Odin once shared a blood bond but that it wore down over time.”
“That’s a polite way to put it.” Sophie shook her head, the circlet staying firmly in place atop her hair. “Loki is cunning. He made Odin believe that they were partners, destined to rule side by side forever. But that was not the truth.”
Nowthiswas a different version than the one she had heard from Elias. “What happened?”
