Chapter Six
Abigail
Chains bite into my wrists, pinning me to the cold stone slab beneath me. Water drips from the stalactites above, running in rivulets down the walls to puddle on the floor. Cold drops splash against my skin.
I shiver from the cold, fighting the moan trying to break from my lips.
Hushed voices whisper in the dark—the Forsaken trying to decide what to do with me. I don’t think they thought this far ahead. They assumed once I was in their hands, my visions would be theirs.
They thought wrong. I may have walked willingly into the portal, but I’ll never betray the Fae and my sisters. They can kill me, but they can’t beat the truth from my lips. They can’t turn me against the Light. I’ll die before I reveal what I know.
"Tell us what you know," a Forsaken demands, his malevolent yellow eyes locked on me from across the cavern. Even from a distance, pure evil radiates from him. He’s foul and corrupt, a twisted caricature of a man.
I think he’s their leader—at least, he seems to be. I’ve seen him in my visions before. If he has a name, I don’t know it.
"The pain will end if you tell us what we want to know, Seer," he says.
I remain silent, my teeth clamped together in defiance. Even though every fiber of my being quakes with fear and aches with pain, I refuse to give in.
If they want to break me, they’re going to have to try harder. I won’t tell them what I’ve seen. I won’t tell them about the shards of the portal Damrion keeps hidden. If I do, everything is lost. That much is absolute certainty. My visions have never wavered on that fact. If I give them anything, I fall to the Dark. And if I fall, my sisters fall with me.
I won’t damn us.
"Stubborn girl," the Forsaken snarls, his patience wearing thin. "You think because you have visions you know the vastness of our power? You know nothing! I can rip your mind to shreds, leave you a broken shell. The Fae won’t have any use for you then.”
“Perhaps not, but neither will you,” I remind him, smiling through the pain. “Break me, and you’ll never get your hands on the shards of the portal or my visions.”
He moves toward me suddenly, seeming to float in the darkness, though I know he doesn’t. He’s still standing on the other side of the room. This is just a trick, another way to scare me.
“Then perhaps I’ll simply sever the connection between you and the Fae tied to your soul,” he snarls.
For the first time since I stepped through the portal, genuine terror surges through me—too hard and fast for me to hide it. It rips through the bond tying me to Damrion and Adriel.
I gasp, slamming the barriers closed as quickly as they flew open, but I know they felt it anyway.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
The Forsaken laughs, a cold, emotionless sound. There is no humor in it. Nothing but pure evil. My fear pleases him.
Can he do what he said—sever the connection between me, Adriel, and Damrion? Is that possible?
No. No matter what dark magic they possess or what they do to me, I don’t believe that’s within their capabilities. If they could do it, they would have done it already.
The bond between a Valkyrie and her warrior is outside of their reach, something they can’t understand or touch because they have no souls. They can’t sever what they don’t understand. They are no threat to what they can’t reach.
"Give in, Seer," the Forsaken urges. "Agree to help us, and the pain will end. You don’t have to suffer anymore.”
It’s a lie. I know what they’ll do to me. I’ve seen that version of the future. If I give him what he wants, they gain a foothold in my soul. And they’ll use it to turn me into their own little monster, corrupting my soul to use for the Dark. My power becomes theirs.
Once they use me to decimate this world, they turn their sights to the Veil. I’ll become their own guide to every soul they can get their hands on, leading them straight to a fate worse than death. And I’ll drag Rissa, Tori, and the other Valkyrie along with me. We'll hunt for the Forsaken. Kill for them.
The Forsaken will destroy every realm in existence through us—devouring every soul they can find. And we’ll willingly lead them to each and every one. Because of me.
That’s the future they want to usher in. And it’s the one I’ll fight until my dying breath. I won’t be a tool for the Dark. I won’t allow Rissa, Tori, or the other Valkyrie to be a tool, either.
There are two paths before us—one Light, one Dark. I’ll always choose the Light. For Adriel and Damrion, I’ll choose it a million times over. But if give in to the pain and tell them anything, I'll break, and I'll fall. And they'll gain the power of the Valkyrie.
It’s the only way they’ll ever truly have dominion over the dead like they crave. But they don’t know how to manage it.
I do. They gain it through us. I’ve seen it over and over. And I will never tell them what I know. I will never help them subjugate the souls of my sisters. I will never help them destroy millions of souls.
This is a battle I have to win. There is no other choice.
"Never," I say, my voice full of pain, but unyielding. I look directly into his soulless eyes, letting him see the truth for himself. He won’t break me. I won’t give him what he wants. I’ll never tell him what I’ve seen or what I know. I’ll die first.
"Fine then," he growls, rage twisting his misshapen features. “Have it your way, Seer.”
A whip of dark magic lances across the cavern, contorting like a snake writhing.
I tense, gritting my teeth.
It slams into me in a wave of agony, momentarily blinding me. In that moment, more of their false visions flood into my mind.
I see my own body crumpled on the ground, fires raging around me. I see Rissa and Tori, a redheaded Valkyrie and the dark haired Valkyrie I saw in my vision the other night swallowed by the dark. I see Adriel and Damrion in pain, their bodies battered and broken, their eyes hollow and devoid of hope.
They use my own Gift against me, tormenting me with vision after vision of loss and pain, of my friends dead and dying. Of Adriel and Damrion dead, dying, brutalized.
But I know better than to trust what I see.
