Skulduggery – Crow
Anton – Bear
Ghastly – Panda
Dexter – Wolf
Saracen – Weasel
Erskine – Snake
Solomon – Raven
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Chapter 65
Valkyrie got back to her house, numb and cold, and did what any other self-respecting fifteen year old would do if they'd just been dumped by the girl they loved – she purged the ice cream, found a big spoon and ignored her family.
They didn't follow her but Valkyrie didn't bother to think about it. She went to the girls' room upstairs and sat alone watching television and eating as much in each mouthful as possible to prevent her from sobbing even if tears did fall from her eyes.
She had finished two whole pint-sized ice creams and felt a little ill when Tanith came looking for her. She took one look at Valkyrie with her red, blotchy face, glum eyes and ice cream smothered mouth and knew exactly what was wrong.
"Aww, Val," she said, coming in and wrapping her arms around Valkyrie. "It's alright. It's going to be okay."
.*****.
The last week of the official summer holidays left them far behind, and although she thought often of Nadia and wondered what she should do, Valkyrie's pain eased over the months enough for her to work without suddenly breaking down in the car or randomly hugging someone for comfort. Her sixteenth birthday passed with a flurry of presents and on Nadia's seventeenth birthday two months later, Valkyrie tried not to cry.
She still bought and wrapped her a present though. She didn't have the guts to send it to her.
Christmas came up on them quickly and Valkyrie did her best with Nadia's birthday behind her to enjoy the season. She helped with the tree, she joked and laughed, she went swimming a lot with Tanith and she helped clean up the dead monsters in the caves to renovate it in the New Year. The last one hadn't been as fun or a Christmas activity, but she liked to think it was a positive help anyway.
But nothing stopped her thinking of Nadia every day and every night. She woke up thinking of her without meaning to, she had dreams about her almost every night. Most of them had turned to nightmares of her leaving her again and again, blaming her for things that were real and fake. She started taking a lot of numbing leaves to help with all her headaches, tried meditating, tried anything. But even with almost four and a half months since their breakup, nothing had yet helped.
"Cain! Pleasant!" Corrival boomed down the Sanctuary hall. "Wreath is at the door and he wants you! Sort him out!"
"What type of sorting do you think he means?" Valkyrie muttered to Crow as they nodded and made their way through the crowds to the front of the castle. It was such a huge Sanctuary – second only to the America United Sanctuary – a common grounds place for all the States to gather in and where the Grand Mage and Elders resided – which was oversized, and Valkyrie had been there to know exactly how oversized and stupid it was.
Their new Sanctuary was much, much larger than before but was not oversized. Everyone, including Valkyrie, was incredibly proud of it and had a thing about proving the American one was only bigger for stupid reasons. Patriotism.
YOU ARE READING
Skulduggery Pleasant: Raising Cain
Fanfiction(This story is written as a fanfiction, but can be read as a story without having read any of the books.) Valkyrie Cain, the adoptive daughter of the Dead Men, has had a life full of love and magic. But as she gets older, times become scarier and sh...
