Page 39 of Before the Bond Breaks
Then she shifted into a raven and flew around the corner and landed on the pavement a few feet from the eitrborn. The guards stared at the raven, and one of them tried to shoo it away. Maze screeched at them and took flight. Instead of flying away, she charged them.
Fuck. That was my cue. In a flash, my wolf rose and took over. The shift was painless and quick, and within seconds, I prowled closer while Maze dive-bombed the eitrborn’s heads, drawing them away from the door. That gave me access to sneak up behind them and attack.
With a low growl, I launched myself at the closest guard, slamming into him. He fell foreward, but my wolf didn’t give him time to recover before attacking again.
Don’t bite him. Their blood is poison.
The reminder made my wolf growl because he wanted to rip the fucker’s head right off. I was so on board with that, except for the fact that their blood would either kill me or corrupt my magic.
Shifting back to human, I sent a blast of power point-blank into his chest. His body jerked, and he dropped, already dead before he hit the ground.
The second eitrborn guard was trying to blast Maze with magic, but her raven form was too fast, too cunning.
“Maze, stop playing with him. We don’t want to draw attention just yet.”
The raven squawked, then flew straight up into the air. She shifted back to her human form, while her wings stayed and grew to support her larger body.
I used to love watching the Valkyries train and fight in the partially shifted forms. While Valkyries weren’t shifters, they had the ability to take on animal forms. Most preferred birds of prey.
Hovering in midair, Maze lifted her hand and pushed out her command of will magic into the guard. Her voice came low, a single word, “Obey.”
The guard’s face blanked as he froze in place, mouth slack. Maze pulled her dagger from the sheath on her thigh and threw it. It hit the guard right in the heart. Before he fell to the ground, she threw a blast of fire at him.
Once Maze was on solid ground, her wings folded and disappeared. She turned and three a fireball at the other eitrborn, then sent me a smug smile. I shook my head and opened the warehouse door.
Inside, the warehouse stank of old chemicals and the rot of eitr. The lights overhead flickered, casting sickly bands along the corridor. We advanced toward the center room where Balder was preparing his ritual.
Four eitrborn stood guard at the opening of the hallway that led to the center room. Maze and I flattened ourselves against the wall, waiting for the beat where they’d turn away.
Instead, Maze raised her hands, fingers splayed. Blue light flickered at her fingertips, runes burning with each pass. She whispered a chant in Old Norse. The spell wove itself tight, threads of power illuminating the air in front of us.
I braced myself behind her, both palms pressing firm to her shoulders. I grounded my energy and channeled it into her spell, letting the two magics collide.
The effect was immediate and brutal.
The blue of Maze’s runes flared, then blanched to white. Every eitrborn in the hallway seized, bodies snapping rigid. Their eyes rolled back as the spell took hold.
Instead of freezing them, the magic twisted inside their heads. Sudden madness. The eitrborn turned on each other, jaws unhinging, hands clawing at the nearest target. Skin ripped, black blood sprayed the walls, and the corridor devolved into carnage. The sound of flesh tearing and bone crunching filled the space.
Maze stumbled, nearly dropping as the backlash hit. I steadied her, my hands never lifting. Her spell amplified off my ground, and for a second the world throbbed with raw, perfect violence.
The eitrborn shredded one another, tearing their own kind limb from limb. Those who survived the initial slaughter staggered, faces wrecked and wild, then finished what remained. The distraction worked better than I’d hoped.
We pushed through the chaos, careful to avoid the black mess pooling under the dead. I kept Maze moving, one hand on her back, the other ready to draw a blade if the spell faltered.
The main chamber opened at the end of the corridor, and at the center was a wide altar ringed by a pit of green-glowing runes carved into the floor. Balder stood behind the altar, hands braced on either side of the Severing Stone. Bryna stood at his left, power curling off her fingers in steady pulses.
The room reeked of spent magic. Every rune lit the air with a sallow, sickly light. The stone beat with its own rhythm, hunger and promise in every pulse.
Balder looked up, a smirk playing across his lips. “It’s about time you got here.”
Maze squared her shoulders and stepped forward with her chin high, and I flanked her. “You’re not going to win, so you might as well hand over the stone.”
Balder’s eyes glittered. “You think you can stop me? Foolish. This world should have evolved centuries ago. The Norns and the Prime forced us into chains with their soulbonds and emotional slavery, all for their own ends. Tonight, I take it back. I break the link and claim what should have belonged to me from the start.”
Bryna refused to look at Maze as she continued to thread her magic into the spell. The Severing Stone glowed brighter, veins of power crawling across its surface with every word Balder uttered.
Movement behind the altar caught my attention. Larc and Nicky.
