No! I want to scream at myself. No, Abigail. You can’t do this!
But I have no choice. I feel the certainty of that truth ringing in my soul. If I don’t go, they’ll kill Tori and the other Valkyrie, and then Reaper. Damrion and Adriel—the two warriors I’d give up my soul to protect—will die. And then the rest of the Fae and Rissa.
All will be lost.
The vision flickers and changes again.
Below, my body is chained to a stone slab. Agony lances through me as I'm struck by whips of dark magic, the corrupted power searing me. I scream until my voice gives out, thrashing against the brutal onslaught.
Even in the vision, I feel the pain ripping me apart. It hurts. Gods. It hurts.
Another whip slams into me.
I scream again, my body convulsing on the slab.
Suddenly, Light pours into me—not my body on the slab, but me—hot and sustaining. The vision smokes and curls at the edges, burning away.
All that’s left is dark and pain. It engulfs me, leaving me drifting in a sea of agony.
Until Adriel’s voice sounds in the void, shaking with emotion. "We're here. We're right here, Abigail.”
Adriel. Oh, Adriel. He’s the strongest Fae I’ve ever met. So fierce. So broken. I love him in ways I didn’t know existed.
"Wake up, ást-meer. You have to wake up now."
Damrion. He never begs for anything, but the leader of the Fae pleads now—for me. My heart aches with love for him, vast and powerful.
And for a moment, I consider staying right where I am. At least when I’m here, for just a moment, the two Fae I love forget that they hate one another. While the visions tear me apart, for the first time in millennia, they’re in perfect accord. They aren’t snarling at one another. They aren’t fighting over me.
They simply stand side by side, united.
I want that when I’m awake—so badly I can taste it. They are my world and every day is a fresh hell, one we can’t escape because the Norns tied our souls together. But they didn’t ask what we want—and Adriel and Damrion have spent 2500 years at war with one another, loving one another so intensely that somewhere along the way, it turned to hate. Not even my Light is bright enough to thaw the ice.
I’ve tried. Gods, how I’ve tried. All I’ve managed to do is make everything worse. Now, they fight over me, too.
I hate every second of it.
The Valkyrie.
I jerk awake with a choked cry, bolting upright in the bed. Damrion and Adriel stand over me, so different and yet both so alike in this moment.
Damrion blazes with the golden Light of the Fae, vital and warm, every inch a ruler. Adriel is as pale as fresh snow, years of torment and torture in the dark having leached away his Light—at least physically. The scar across his face and his one black eye should make him sinister, but it only makes him more beautiful to me. He's survived so much pain and so much grief, but he still clings to the Light. It blazes within him, vast and bright.
Their faces are etched with worry, their brows furrowed with identical lines as they stare down at me.
They take a step back, their hands falling from my body as relief washes through their expressions.
I grab Damrion’s arm, fear pumping through me with every beat of my heart as the vision presses down on me. "The Valkyrie. You have to find the Valkyrie now!"
"Shh, ást-meer,” he murmurs, his gold eyes soft. “It's okay. Everything is okay."
"No!" I snap, refusing to be soothed. This is too important. "The Forsaken are going to kill a Valkyrie. You have to find them!"
A horrified cry breaks from Tori’s lips as a murmur goes up. Only then do I realize that all of the Fae have gathered outside my door, pulled here by my screams.
“Please,” I plead, staring up at Damrion. I don’t say anything else, but he knows what I need. He and Adriel always know.
“Everyone out,” Adriel snarls right on cue, spinning to glower at everyone crowding the doorway. “Now.”
“You heard him,” Damrion snaps, his eyes never leaving my face. “Out.”
No one argues with them. They don’t dare. Damrion is their ruler. Even if he weren’t, when it comes to me, he and Adriel always have the final say. Even if they can’t accept what’s happening between the three of us, the Fae do. They don’t question it.
As far as the Fae are concerned, Adriel and Damrion are my mates. The Fae accept this without hesitation. It’s Adriel and Damrion who fight it.
As everyone files out, images from tonight’s vision replay in my mind—the way the Forsaken threw the Valkyrie across the room, Tori barely clinging to life, Reaper dead at her feet...Adriel and Damrion dying.
I shudder, bile rising in my throat.
Please, I beg silently, breathing hard. Please let me be wrong this time. Let it just be a nightmare, not a vision of what's to come.
But deep down, I know the truth. This was no mere nightmare...and my visions are never wrong.
Adriel closes the door behind Tori and Rissa before turning back to me, that one black eye locked on my face. “What did you see, little seer? Tell us.”
“You were screaming as if you were dying,” Damrion adds, his golden eyes fixed on my face. Pain radiates in his voice, as if even now the sound haunts him.
I shake my head, damp tendrils of my red hair clinging to my face. "I already told you," I insist, my voice cracking. "I saw a Valkyrie in danger. The Forsaken..." I choke back a sob, the image of her broken body seared into my mind.
