Page 35 of Before the Bond Breaks
Larc struck from the dark, blade prepped with a counter-ward. He slashed through the rune snare, slicing the magic as the trap tried to recoil. The chain shattered with a scream nearly as loud as Nicky’s as the ward buckled, then collapsed.
Nicky toppled, leg useless, gasping as the pain crashed in. Larc was there to catch her.
The Command of Will buckled. Maze dropped to one knee, but she didn’t fall all the way. I lunged to catch her, positioning my body as a buffer between her and the nearest monsters.
Jenson took instant control. “Candra, cover Larc and Nicky. Talon, move Maze.”
I obeyed, arm locked around Maze’s waist. Her breath was ragged as she clung to my jacket, refusing to let go. Behind us, theEitrbornshuddered as the Command faded. Most couldn’t respond in time. Jenson’s blade and Candra’s magic blasted a path through theEitrborn.
Bryna watched with cold fury as her trap collapsed. She backed up, retreating. Her eyes blazed with hate, but she made no move to finish us off. Instead, she let the Eitrborn take the blowback.
The air reeked of sweat and the black stink of eitr poison.
Nicky’s voice came out raw as she said, “Get me up. I can still fight.”
Larc hauled her upright, bracketing her with his bulk. Candra flanked him, scanning for any more magical attacks. Jenson sliced through the last monster trying to reach our formation.
Above us, the air shimmered. Bryna perched on a chunk of torn concrete that looked like it used to be a ledge. She held the Severing Stone in her palm, its surface crawling with black veins. A sick, greedy smile split her face.
“Balder sends his regards,” she spat. Then, a wall of sickly green magic ripped open behind her, warping the concrete where it passed. Bryna vanished into the light, the Severing Stone clenched in her fist.
The Eitrborn all vanished a moment later.
Jenson and Larc hustled Nicky between them, Candra flanking her other side. I scooped Maze into my arms, ignoring the drag on my shoulder from a fresh cut. She tried to protest, but I clamped down on her with a growl and forced her to let the weight fall on me.
I tapped my earpiece and spoke to Winter and Quil. “Open a portal.”
One appeared in front of us seconds later, and we stepped through, returning home to plan how we were going to get the stone back.
19
BALDER
The candlesin my private study burned with blue flames that danced in the chilled air of the room. I welcomed the cold. Darkness pooled at the edges of the room as my ravens returned to me. Their beaks sliced the air as they gathered, wings stirring up feathers that burned to dust before reaching the floor.
They weren’t birds, not of the living kind anyway. They were created by my magic to spy on the Valkyries and Shifters.
Tonight, the birds brought me the battle.
The first landed on my shoulder with a weightless flutter, talons cold against the fabric of my shirt. Its head swiveled, glass eyes catching the candlelight, and then the vision poured from it like water.
I saw the railway station, heard the clang of boots on old cement. The scent of eitr thickened as the illusion sharpened. Nicky’s scream split the night. I watched her drop to one knee, the blood-forged runes wrapping her ankle tight, burning through flesh while her power bled into the stone. Maze surged forward, face twisted in fury, but the trap had already snapped shut.For a moment, I could almost taste the agony in the air—raw, beautiful, unfiltered.
The birds circled my head, weaving the scene together like a tapestry of violence, defeat, and victory. I let it play again, slower this time. Every detail mattered: the way Nicky’s hands never stopped clawing at the runic snare, the wild panic in the shifters’ eyes, the sweat streaking Maze’s cheek as she fought not to fall in front of her clan. The team had been prepared, disciplined. It wasn’t enough. Bryna’s betrayal hit them harder than the magic ever could.
I smiled.
Satisfaction curled through my chest as I fed on the power, letting each fragment sharpen my focus. The pain of the Valkyries became fuel, every lost hope a brick for the next phase of my plan. I let the visions wind down, let the ravens slide from flight to rest. They perched on the ancient books, talons digging into the cracked leather.
A flick of my wrist, sending them away. Smoke whirled where they’d perched. The ravens dissolved, feathers curling in on themselves, the last fragments of their visions bleeding away into the shadows. Overhead, the candle flame hissed, stretching long and thin, before snapping back to its original form.
The room was quiet now.
I settled behind the desk, letting my fingers trace the stacks of grimoires and handwritten ledgers arranged in careful order. I kept my things neat. Chaos invited weakness, and I’d seen enough of that from my enemies to last several lifetimes. Each book here held a secret, a price, a memory stolen from someone who’d thought themselves above my reach.
At the center of it all, the Prime Matron’s grimoire lay open, its cover battered but the gold leaf along the spine still intact. The pages were ancient, each one edged in runes that shimmered faintly under the candlelight. I pressed my palm flat to the paper, feeling the pulse of the magic locked inside. The diagrams of the Severing Stone sprawled across two full pages, lines so precise they almost seemed alive. The runic script twined around the drawings, each glyph humming with a cold, predatory light. Even after centuries, her work still shames every other spell-crafter in the Nine Worlds.
I studied the diagrams, ignoring the way my heartbeat quickened.
