A Valkyrie's Apprentice: Book Two

To Nights Ahead

– T A Y A H –

"Up here, Ashrive." The demi-god called as I closed the warehouse door.

I glanced up and saw her hand offered down to me from the roof. I sighed and clasped my own in hers. She pulled me off my feet easily and flush into her own body. Her eyes flitted between my own briefly before she stepped back.

The night's stars lit up around us in the cold, dark sky. Her furs didn't move much in the calm air. But her expression was strangely at ease. Nothing of the irritation and glares she had shown my mortals in the room moments before.

"I can think better when I'm further from all of it." She supplied the silence, casting her hand to the city below us.

I nodded walking to the edge of the shipping warehouse and looking across at the many lantern lit streets and tiled houses that looked so warm against winter. She joined me silently and looked across the land of mortals too. I wonder what she thought.

"We can leave if you think it's best." I murmured.

"No." She said simply. "I think you're right."

I raised an eyebrow turning to her, but she remained watching the horizon. Her silver eyes burning their own path.

"We keep finding trouble for ourselves whenever we take a different path." She stated, glancing at me briefly. "Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we had just stayed in Vayleron instead of crossing the sea?"

I thought about this in silence for a few slithers, turning my eyes to the faraway rooftops and the great castle in the distance. 

"I'm infinitely glad for whatever brought me to where I am with you." I shook my head, smiling as she stilled beside me. "There were so many mistakes John, Kaden and I made in our lives. So many stupid and selfish things that still caught a God's attention and sent me you. Out of all the Valkyries."

She watched me considering this too.

"You're suggesting it was fate?" She asked in slight shock.

I shrugged and met her gaze. "I certainly didn't believe it before you. Then my fate changed because of you. So many damn times I lost count. Falling in love with you seemed as natural as you crashing into the world in a ball of lightning."

This made her chuckle. I felt her hand slip into my own and her fingers wove through mine.

"I used to think love was only a mortal condition." She murmured, making me watch the horizon again. "That they were all cursed to burn so bright for such a short time so naturally their emotions would follow a similar path... then of course a mortal scoundrel showed me otherwise."

I snorted and nudged her with my shoulder. "I deserve a great prize for opening an immortal's eyes in such a way."

"I think Odin did bestow you with such a gift. You decided to leave it on the immortal realm." She finished with a bit more exasperation. 

I thought of the chrome shield that rippled in bright blue energy. It called to me. Whether I wanted it to or not.

"I'm fairly sure it was that gift that put me back on this realm in the first place." I muttered, thinking more intently of it now. "It wouldn't surprise me if this was an elaborate plot from our favoured god all along you know–"

"Tayah. Odin did not throw an excess amount of power unto you only to send you to the realm unprepared..."

I glanced at her flatly while she even considered her own words. We both laughed quietly.