A Valkyrie's Apprentice: Book Two

A Cold That Bites

– K Á R A –

I felt the pulse of power in the mountains again. Old and so familiar. I had been aware of it ever since we drifted under the shadows of the black rock. As soon as my boots had touched the stone I knew another set of eyes watched. The question was when they would act.

I carefully pulled my arms away from Tayah's bare warmth. I watched her sleeping face a moment longer. The beautiful lines and shape of her completely at peace under the cloth and furs. I pulled my heavy cloak back over her skin as I removed myself. Her steady breathing continued in the low light of early morning. 

I silently pulled on my clothing and picked up Thanatos from the corner onto my back. Ducking out of the coarse tent flap I was met with a sea of white mist and frost. The cold far too extreme to be natural.

I ripped my gleaming armour off the rocky ground and threw it over my shoulders before securing my spear to my back. I closed my eyes and let my senses run out of myself. The power felt ancient around us now. Yet so very similar... Not quite a God but something just as rare. Similar to my own. 

My boots crunched in the frozen earth as I walked through the heavy mists of our camp. The campfire remains didn't even smoke.

There was the deathly silence of deep winter, yet it was not winter. No animal could be heard for miles. No drifting of the breeze that should always be present in the mountain ranges. I walked on sensing it wrap around me and thicken. Like a crisp set of claws digging in deeper. The power pulled me forward to a clearing in the trees. Calm and desolate. 

A figure in gleaming white and silver stood across the frozen plain of rock.

The mists rolled off the immortal like a second skin. I tasted the power in the air and tilted my head as I flexed my armoured fingers.

"What would a Valkyrie of origin be doing so far from Odin's side?" I murmured across the frozen plain–perhaps it was a meadow in summer.

The bright gleaming armour shifted and paced forward fluidly like a god. The energy was heavy between us. Like a constant colliding force of give and take. Every inch of my being was awakened and feeling the spike of challenge rise between us. Two ancients on different ends of power. But I had not seen another original for hundreds of years...

I shifted my stance ready to draw on the powers of the relic and my spear.

The heavily armoured demi-god paused a few metres back and tilted the helmet that gleamed and dripped a bottomless power–I realised in shock that I knew its markings. Felt the energy signature.

"I could ask Odin's offspring the same." The smooth female voice drifted back emotionless.

"You could remove that helmet so I know which original I speak with." I retorted, keeping my hands relaxed at my sides but ready for a blink of change.

A dark chuckle rang under the gleaming silver helmet.

"You mean you do not remember me, Stormbringer? Truly the realms have changed but you have not." The immortal drew a gleaming armoured hand up and the mists wrapped themselves over her like a sheet of fine silk before melting back into the earth. "So focused on your tasks."

I ignored the humour inching into her tone. "Since there were five of us once... I know only two others in existence." I stated flatly, feeling storm clouds pull in from the sky above us in response to my growing reaction to the threat.