His only choice.
“Maybe we shouldn’t give her to Odin,” his mother said softly. “Perhaps we can appease the Crow and keep her from him, and the curse will not claim her.”
“The Dark Elves are nearly on our doorstep, Mother. How will we stop them? How will we get rid of this dark magic from our land? You cannot care about Ailsa’s death now just because I am tied to her,” he said.
“I always cared, Vali. But I just got you back,” she said before her voice broke. Vali swallowed the guilt her tears formed inside him. She was meeting with him to discuss the progress with the Dark Elves until he spoiled their meal with the happiest news of his life.
“And I barely even got to know her, though she seems lovely.” She painted a stoic smile across her face like the High Lady she was and dried her tears with the fold of a napkin.
“She is lovely,” he said. “I couldn’t fight the pull she had on me, Mother. I thought it was the Tether calling me, but all along it was her. She was destined to receive the ancient power—I was destined to find it. Our paths were meant to cross from the beginning of time.”
She gave him a curt nod. “I am happy for you. You deserve this more than anyone. And you will have a small ceremony before the feast—”
“Mother…” he groaned.
“Youwillgive me this, Vali!” Her voice shifted from a smooth stream to treacherous torrents. “Just a few people, and a fifteen-minute ceremony with you in the High Lord robes so I can see you in them at least once before–” her voice cracked “–before it happens.”
Vali conceded with his silence, sensing this a fight that wasn’t worth winning. He was supposed to inherit the throne when he had completed this deal with Odin, but that wasn’t going to happen it seemed. “Can we move on to the reason for this meeting?”
Lady Rind cleared her throat and sat straighter before handing him an envelope with a broken seal. He unfolded the note and read the scribbled writing of the latest scouting report discussing the local movements of the Dark Elves in their camps near the border dividing the realm.
“They left?” he asked. His brows kissed in perplexity. “Why would they draw back now? If anything, I expected them to grow more hostile closer to the feast.”
“And they were,” she admitted. “They pushed all the way to Traz, just a day’s march east of here. I thought we were going to have a war when the Aesir arrived, but every single encampment was called off this morning. I messaged for you as soon as I received the raven.”
Vali twirled a crystal glass between his palm in thought, watching the legs of the wine drop like tears around the base. “How did you keep the Dark Elves out of Valinor all this time?” Not that he was surprised the Palace of Light had been maintained by Lady Rind and protected from the dark forces attempting to overthrow the Light’s authority. But half a century was a long time to subdue a force growing exponentially as the years passed.
“I gave them the Haven and the river that supplies it. It was a peace deal. But when they heard you returned with the Tether and were going to complete our bargain with Odin, they broke the treaty and attacked the eastern villages. They are strong, Vali. The sedir in their blood has completely washed away the Light they once carried, and it serves a master of inexhaustible strength, no balance for what it takes. While we run our well dry trying to fuel our magic, they overpower us without tiring. And I fear they are posing for their final siege.”
“Then we move up the feast,” he argued. “Tell Odin he has two days to take the Tether and Frey and all his minions out of Alfheim. But I will be going with Ailsa, and I will stay with her until the curse claims her.”
“He’s done us one better,” she winced, pulling out another envelope. This one with the golden seal of the Aesir. “He’s coming tonight.”
Before he could swallow the news, Seela burst through the double doors leading to their private lunch. Vali stood, sensing her dissent in the specific way she carried herself. “What is it, Seela?”
“When were you going to tell her?” she practically shouted. “How could you not tell Ailsa what theFraendibondmeant, why it is practiced in the first place, so the fae don’t have to live a day without their other half?”
“You told her?” he groaned. This was not the way he wanted her to find out. He didn’t want her to find out at all.
“No, Ivor told her, right after she slashed her face open!”
The glass in Vali’s hand shattered, spraying the ivory rug with dark crimson droplets. “I’ve had it with the wolven. I’ve been patient and respectful, but if she put a hand on Ailsa, I will gut her and use her pelt as a fucking coat.”
Seela nodded her head toward the door. “I brought her back to Greer. She’s stitching her up as we speak.”
Vali cursed and turned on his heel and paced the room, taking his frustration out on the rug. “Where is the wolf now?”
Seela passed a hand through her hair and shrugged. “No idea. She left Ailsa in the gardens before I found her. Your bond must now connect me to her since we are technically blood bonded, because I could sense she was in trouble. I’ve never felt like that before, not with Ailsa.”
“I felt strange earlier but I… I didn’t know what it meant.” He looked at the mark on his hand and sighed. He knew so little of the benefits of their bond—other than the physical act of creating one.
His mother stood from her chair. “I’m going to the hospital wing. We have much to prepare in a few hours, and Vali I expect you to stick to your word despite the circumstances.”
“What?” Seela inquired. Vali explained his mother’s demand for a unification ceremony and the commander lit up with delight. “Oh, absolutely! Lady Rind is right. We’ll go get Ailsa ready and you just meet us at the castle temple at dusk.”
Vali balked, his face draining of color. “The Allfather is comingtonightand you both are worried about a wedding?”
“We have mead, and we have meat. That should more than flatter the Aesir gods and their churlish appetites,” his mother said. Clearly, she was not eager to see his father again, but Vali didn’t press the subject. “You are much more important, my son.”