Page 43 of Valkyrie Fate

"Henbane. It's harmless."

I snort. Even I know that henbane isn't harmless. Too much of it can be fatal.

"Does…does Reaper know where I am?" I ask, halting Kenton on his way to the door once again.

He looks at me over his shoulder. "He knows. He's known for a few hours now."

I bow my head, a tremor quaking through me. Reaper. Poor Reaper. He's probably beside himself, going mad with worry. Why didn't he tell me that he'd die if anything happened to me?

He did, a little voice whispers.

Maybe it's right.

He didn't say the words, but he told me. Every time he touched me, every time he kissed me, every time he held me…he told me. The truth was right there, singing in his soul. He needed me to survive. He needs me to survive.

I throw myself into the well again.

An hour later, I've exhausted myself, bashing myself against the impenetrable walls of the well holding my power. I can't fight them open. Even if I had one thousand years, I couldn't.

I quit trying. I stop fighting. And I surrender.

To the Light. To love. To my fate.

And for the first time since I healed Reaper, I see it. The flickering Light of my power. I feel it, beating like a second heartbeat inside of me.

A tear slips down my cheek. Finally. After weeks of trying, I finally found it, not by fighting it, not by trying to command it, but by surrendering to it.

I have no idea how to use it. Rissa never got that far in her lessons because we never got this far. I don't even know how to reach for it, at least not on purpose. But I try anyway. It slips away like water in a sieve.

I bite my tongue, trying not to sob.

I reach for the Light again, refusing to give up. It hums inside me like a lullaby, but yet again, when I try to grasp it, it slips away.

I take a breath and do it again.

A loud roar reverberates through the cabin, a scream of deadly fury. My eyes fly open on a gasp, hot streaks of terror igniting in my veins.

I know that roar.

Reaper.

Oh God. Reaper's here.

"No!" I cry into the room. No, he can't be here.

There are too many of them for him to fight alone. There are too many of them to fight, period. Hundreds. Doesn't he know he'll die? Yes. He knows. Of course, he knows. But he came anyway. He's out there, fighting insurmountable odds because of me. For me.

A surge of desperate determination swells within me. I can't let him face this alone. If we die, we die together. That's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it? One half of the soul can't survive without the other. That's why the Fae don't survive without their mate. I can't either.

I reach towards the Light within me again. This time, instead of trying to seize it or control it, I surrender myself to it one more time. I let it come to me. It doesn't slip away like water through a sieve now. It rushes toward me in a wall.

My breath hitches as a wave of raw energy courses through me—intense, pure…so excruciatingly beautiful that all I can do is gasp in stunned silence.

This is what Rissa meant about being the weapon. The Light isn't separate from me, something I can call forward and control—it is me, the vast brightness of my soul, shining like a beacon into the world. I can't command it. All I can do is accept it.

I accept it now. I'm Valkyrie, and this is my fate.

Another roar rips through Eitr.