Page 53 of Ravenous

“Not much concrete,” Chiyo admitted. “But the air tastes the same as it did before the Exile: doom flavored. I sought a soothsayer back then, and she warned me,Don’t bother to run. The gods’ reach is long.”

Ven asked, “Do you think that this present doom is as unavoidable as the Exile?”

“I don’t know.”

Chiyo’s freckled nose twitched, and Ven didn’t want to punch it.Strange.

“This feels different. I don’t know why.”

Eyrun crossed her arms. “So what’s your plan?”

Valkyries liked action. Decisive steps.

Dwelling?Never.

“How do I fight an enemy I can’t name?” Chiyo asked. “That’s another reason why I came. You two run the Skein. Help me find what’s stirring.”

“Us?” Eyrun asked innocently. “Because you can’t stray from the Witchwood for long.”

Thinned lips. No reply.

Ven said, “We’ll think about it.” When Chiyo gazed up at the tower where the Coffin Valkyrie slumbered, she narrowed her eyes. “Whichsoothsayer did you talk to?”

Chiyo’s focus never left the tower.

“You met her?” Ven pressed.

At length, the fox faced Ven with a nod.

Eyrun leaned forward eagerly. “Did she tell you anything else? Oracle-speak? A phrase that didn’t make sense? Tell us everything!”

“She said I’d work with Valkyries someday,” Chiyo said, “and that I was to tell them a certain phrase. I looked it up and found out it meansto duckin Old Norse—”

Lightning flared. The air crackled.

Both Ven and Eyrun hit the ground. Ven grabbed the fox by the ankles and snatched her down with them.

A wing talon whistled right where Chiyo’s neck had been.

“Strigoi!” Ven grated, leaping up with her sword.

The first Valkyrie shriek split the night.

War had come to Valhalland.

Chapter 22Eyrun

As Ven vaulted forward, her sword felling the nearest creatures, Eyrun lunged for Chiyo.

She seized the shifter by the throat, lifting her clean off the ground. “Did you bring these things here?” Strigoi couldn’t fly far, so how in the hells had they made it from the Badlands to Valhalland?

Chiyo tried to shake her head, sword limp at her side. Smart girl, not to swing it.

“The last two attacks, you’ve been nearby! Explain that.”

“Easy, Eyrun!” Ven targeted another strigoi, cleaving it in half, buying precious seconds. “She’s not fighting you.”

Eyrun’s grip only tightened. The urge to pop this shifter’s head clean off sang in her blood. Her nightmare self began to rise…