Helgrind knew that. The weapon thrummed and whined for release, sending ripples of bladesong through her. But it wasn’t time yet. Not until she and the wraith were contained within the circle.
She’d done this a handful of times before with three different seers. Most often Ingvar, but after she’d left for seer school, Jenna had been paired with a fledgling seer named Gren, then lastly with another, more practiced seer, Sola. Jenna had thought they’d end up as a team, but Sola had had a penchant for the darker things and had lost her way. She’d been dismissed from service. That was the last Jenna had heard of her. The last Jenna had thought of her, too, because she’d left the service not long after that herself.
She stepped over the circle. “Come on, wraith.”
He hesitated. Did he know what awaited him in the circle? Could he sense the magic at work?
If he needed coaxing, she knew just what to do.
She reached back and unsheathed Helgrind. The sword sang out with a bright, clear zing that seemed to fill the forest. The moonlight through the trees was sparse, but Helgrind gleamed anyway, vibrant with the joy of eminent battle.
She looped the blade around her body in a slow figure eight, showing it off, teasing the wraith. Displaying the resurrection stone.
His ember eyes seemed focused on it. He stepped inside the circle.
Jenna danced away, swinging Helgrind up over her head, then bringing it down in front of her again. She held it still, letting the wraith get a good look at the stone that could return him to this mortal world for good. “Is that what you want, Leif?”
He picked up his head. Looked at her.
“Surprised I know who you are? Of course I do, berserker. But now it’s time for you to give up this quest and travel the path you were meant to.” She couldn’t very well tell him Valhalla awaited when it didn’t. He had not earned glory, had no right to the halls of the valiant and brave.
He was a traitor to his own kind, and traitors didn’t get happy endings.
She passed the center of the circle. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye as Ingvar stepped out from behind a tree.
The seer cast a handful of powder into the air and spoke ancient words, the secret language of the seers from centuries ago.
Jenna recognized some of the sounds, but none of the meaning.
As the last syllable fell from Ingvar’s lips, a wall of light sprang from the circle, closing them in. It glittered and pulsated with the magic used to build it.
Ingvar stretched out her hand toward the wraith. “Now.”
The wraith clenched his fists, tilted his head back, and roared.
The sound shook the trees and made Helgrind vibrate in Jenna’s hand. She gripped the blade tighter as she went into battle stance.
The wraith lost what little translucency he had left, turning into a solid wall of living death in the form of a man.
An incredibly large and dangerous man. But a man who could now be killed. He pointed at Jenna with an arm like a steel beam. “You killed me.”
His voice was a husky scrape of sound. Concrete on rusted metal. But it was Leif’s voice all the same.
Panic sluiced through Jenna, but only for a moment. She leveled Helgrind at him. “I did what I was commanded to do. You went too far. You destroyed the righteous for your own gain. You lost your way, berserker. Lost the right to that revered name.”
He took a step toward her. “You’re the one who went too far, valkyrie. Now you will pay.”
He swiped at her, but she dodged his sluggish attack easily. His speed would increase soon enough. She sliced her blade across his ribs as a warning. The flesh split, and oily black fog spilled out and disappeared into the air. A second later, the wound closed.
Odin’s eye, that wasn’t good. He might be solid on the outside, but his interior wasn’t. And that meant collecting his soul was going to be very difficult. But she could at least slow him down until Ingvar did her thing. Time to get medieval.
Jenna backed up and raised her sword to deal a potential death blow, but Ingvar stepped closer, arms outstretched, ancient words spilling from her lips again in a stream too fast to be understood.
She was too close. Leif could easily strike her at this range.
Jenna turned her head to tell Ingvar to back up, then realized she couldn’t move. Not her arms, not her hands, not her feet. At least she could speak, but she couldn’t bring her head back around either. She could see Leif advancing only from the corner of her eye. “Ingvar, what are you doing? You’re supposed to freeze the wraith, not me.”
Ingvar’s eyes were still solid disks of black. Jenna didn’t remember a seer’s eyes looking like that before. Her mouth kept moving as she continued the incantation.
Leif moved closer.
“Ingvar, help me. I can’t move. What have you done?” Jenna’s panic returned. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Nothing like this was supposed to happen. Helgrind quivered, bound by the same immobility that held her.
Ingvar remained oblivious, lost in the spell she was casting.
Leif was only a few feet away. Another step or two and he’d be able to take Helgrind from her.
Through the shroud of magic encircling them, she saw movement. The feral pacing of the most magnificent beast she’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.
With every ounce of energy she had, she yelled for the one person sure to come to her aid. “TITUS!”
An eerie howl went up, splitting the night with its haunting cry and ending Ingvar’s chanting. Even Leif stopped moving.
Titus, in wolf form, came flying through the wall of light, shattering it. All at once, the wall disappeared, Leif dissolved into black threads of vapor, and Ingvar backed up.
Jenna’s body began to tingle as the
