Chapter 725

"Ahhh! Get off me!"

Evenson had expected the newly resurrected Valkyrie to react in any number of ways. Awakening with a scream, perhaps. Asking where she was. Maybe even attacking him.

He had not expected her to launch herself directly at him.

He hit the ground hard, the Valkyrie landing on top of him.

Warlocks had an elective course in necromancy, along with techniques for controlling the undead they created. Evenson couldn’t command millions of corpses with the effortless precision of the Lich King, but controlling a handful of his own creations was well within a Warlock’s capabilities.

Normally.

Unfortunately, Evenson’s necromantic education had a few gaps.

Had the Valkyrie remained a mindless skeleton, nothing more than a low-ranking undead, he could have controlled her without difficulty. But a shambling corpse was hardly useful to him. He had therefore infused her with fel blood, forcing a massive surge of power into her undead body, and then fed her a demon’s heart.

The results had exceeded his expectations.

She could think. She could speak. Flesh had returned to her bones, restoring much of her former appearance.

Unfortunately, those improvements had also elevated her into a high-ranking undead creature.

And Evenson wasn’t powerful enough to control one of those.

Still, as he lay pinned beneath her, he realized she didn’t seem to want to hurt him. She merely held him down while warily scanning their surroundings, her mind apparently still trapped in the moments before her death.

That was reassuring.

What wasn’t reassuring was the enormous expanse of soft flesh currently smothering his face.

He couldn’t breathe.

Evenson twisted his head from side to side, desperately searching for a gap through which he could draw air. His vision began to darken at the edges.

Pure survival instinct, naturally.

Let’s leave it at that.

"Don’t move, my Brunhilde. We’re still..." The Valkyrie felt him struggling beneath her and flushed slightly. Then she looked down.

Her eyes widened.

A shriek tore from her throat.

SMACK!

Evenson sat up, clutching his left cheek and glaring at her with the exhausted resentment of a man who had just been assaulted by the person he’d saved from death.

"What in the actual hell was that for?"

The Valkyrie had scrambled away and curled into a tight ball, using one hand to cover her chest while the other searched frantically across the ground.

Evenson would have bet good money she was looking for her dragon-tooth sword.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "And where is this place?"

"Where is this place?" Evenson repeated, rubbing his cheek and staring at her with dead-eyed disbelief. "Funny. I was about to ask you the same thing."

"This place is..." She faltered. "This is..."

Then she saw the bones scattered across the ground.

"No!"

She scrambled to her feet and stumbled toward the remains, dropping to her knees among the scattered skeletons.

"No, no, no... Brunhilde! Where are you? I should have saved you. I must have saved you!"

She began tearing through the bones, desperately searching for someone she could no longer recognize.

"How much time has passed?"

The remains were nothing but bare skeletons. There was no way to distinguish one fallen Valkyrie from another.

Tears streamed down her face.

Yet she forced herself to stop crying.

Slowly, she rose to her feet, her expression changing from raw grief to solemn determination. One by one, she gathered the scattered bones and reassembled the skeletons as best she could. She laid them out in neat rows, then collected the dragon-tooth swords strewn across the area and placed one in the hands of each fallen warrior.

She treated every one of them with care, refusing to leave even a single blade behind.

When she finished, she counted the bodies.

Then she counted them again.

"One is missing..."

She checked once more, her voice trembling.

"Brunhilde. My Brunhilde..."

Her expression crumpled, but this time the tears came with a fragile, desperate hope.

"You’re alive. I know you are. You must be alive!"

At last, she knelt before her fallen sisters and pressed her hands together in prayer.

"My sisters, may your valiant souls find eternal life in Valhalla. Your sacrifice deserves no bitter mourning, but remembrance. Let your courage be honored, and your names never forgotten."

Evenson watched quietly from a short distance away.

When the Valkyrie finished her prayer, she rose and draped one of her companions’ cloaks around herself, covering what little clothing remained. She retrieved her dragon-tooth sword, turned toward Evenson, and pointed the blade at him.

"Thank you for waiting. Now, we shall begin..."

She stopped.

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

Evenson was sitting on a nearby rock, holding a steaming red cup in one hand and a little plastic fork in the other. He was busy fishing noodles out of the container and stuffing them into his mouth.

"Don’t mind me," he said around a mouthful. "I’m not so insensitive that I’d interrupt you while you were saying goodbye to your comrades."

The Valkyrie’s sword hand began to tremble.

It was a perfectly respectable sentiment. Under almost any other circumstances, it might even have sounded noble.

But he’d chosen to deliver it while eating noodles beside her sisters’ remains.

"You were eating while I mourned my comrades?"

"I haven’t eaten in a day."

Evenson blew on the noodles and took another mouthful.

A man who valued his life learned to prepare for emergencies. Evenson was particularly good at it, which was why his backpack contained all sorts of supplies, including several boxes of instant noodles and a dozen bottles of purified water.

He’d had no intention of disturbing the Valkyrie’s farewell. But standing around doing nothing seemed pointless, so he’d taken out a cup of instant noodles, added the seasoning, poured in some water, and heated the whole thing in his palm.

The result had been magnificent.

Instant noodles possessed a peculiar magic. It didn’t matter whether you were hungry or full. The moment that familiar aroma reached your nose, your stomach remembered every meal you’d ever missed.

Evenson was convinced that no steak in the world could compete with a good cup of instant noodles.

Perhaps it was simply the destiny of a man born to live cheaply.

"Why are you pointing that sword at me?" he asked, scraping the last bits of noodles from the bottom of the cup. He was nearly ready to drink the broth. "I’m not your enemy. And don’t you have questions? Your comrades have been reduced to skeletons, while you’ve somehow returned with flesh on your bones. What exactly happened?"

"I..."

The Valkyrie’s anger faltered.

Her hand rose to her chest.

She remembered a blade piercing her heart. She remembered the desperate attempt to save the woman she loved.

"I... died."

She stared at Evenson.

"Did you save me?"

Evenson slurped up the last of his noodles and sighed with satisfaction.

"Who else?"

The Valkyrie immediately bowed.

"I will never forget the debt I owe you. You have given me a second life, and I will repay you for this kindness."

Evenson raised a hand to stop her.

"Let’s not get carried away. I wouldn’t call this a second life."

"My benefactor, you needn’t be modest..."

"Can you breathe? Do you have a heartbeat?" Evenson interrupted. "Do you honestly believe you’re alive?"

The Valkyrie froze.

Slowly, she pressed her hand against her chest.

Nothing.

No heartbeat.

Her eyes widened.

"I used necromancy on you," Evenson explained, setting the empty noodle cup aside. His tone had lost its earlier levity. "You haven’t been resurrected in the true sense. You’re an undead creature, albeit one with considerably more flesh than most."

He paused, giving her time to absorb the truth.

"I needed your help, so I took the liberty of bringing you back in this state. If that offends you, then I apologize. When we’re finished, I can let you return to your eternal rest without pain. You’ll be able to go to Valhalla and reunite with your sisters."

The Valkyrie stared at him for a moment, then released a weary sigh.

"You don’t need to apologize. You gave me the chance to bury my sisters properly. I should be thanking you."

Her gaze drifted toward the rows of bones.

"As for Valhalla... I can do without it. The person I want to see isn’t there."

Evenson wiped the corner of his mouth, then licked a bit of broth from his finger.

"You still have someone you’re attached to in the world of the living?"

"I do."

"You should keep in mind that she might not want to see you. You’re no longer the same kind of being you once were."

The living and the dead rarely reunited happily. The living couldn’t accept that a loved one had become a monster, while the dead couldn’t understand why their families recoiled from them, sometimes even trying to destroy them.

Of course, Evenson suspected there were exceptions.

Appearance, for instance, might make a difference.

The Valkyrie before him looked almost indistinguishable from a living woman. If her former lover could see past the fact that she was technically dead, their reunion might not end in tragedy.

Then again, Evenson wasn’t about to place any bets on someone else’s love life.

"Who knows how she’ll react?" the Valkyrie said with a sad smile. "But I have to see her, at least once."

"Fair enough. That’s your decision."

Evenson brushed the dust from his clothes and stood.

"By the way, I’ve been rude. I haven’t even asked your name."

The Valkyrie inclined her head.

"Sigrun. My name is Sigrun."

"Right. Sigrun."

Evenson got straight to the point.

"I arrived here through a rather bizarre chain of circumstances, only to discover that I’m trapped. I can’t find a way out. Do you know how to leave this place?"

Sigrun looked up at the sky.

For a moment, hope flickered across her face.

Then she lowered her head.

"The rift has closed..."

Her shoulders slumped.

"This place is a prison. Once the gates are locked, no one can leave."

"A prison?" Evenson rubbed his chin. "That matches what I’d figured out so far. So who’s the prisoner? The person who killed you and your sisters?"

He paused.

"Is she still alive?"

"I don’t know." Sigrun shook her head. "I don’t know whether she’s still alive, or how much time has passed since the battle ended."

"She?" Evenson frowned. "The prisoner is a woman?"

"Yes." Sigrun tightened her grip on her sword. "But don’t make the mistake of thinking she’s an ordinary woman. She’s a monster through and through..."

A flash of black light interrupted her.

Something shot through the air so quickly that Evenson barely registered its passage. The sharp whistle of displaced air came a fraction of a second later.

Sigrun jerked as a long, black blade pierced her abdomen and pinned her against a nearby boulder.

A woman’s voice followed, smooth and faintly amused.

"That’s a terribly hurtful thing to say about me, darling."

Evenson spun around.

A woman stood a short distance away, her body turned partly sideways. She wore black leather armor traced with green, a green cloak draped over her shoulders, and a head of loose black hair that concealed half her face. One hand rested on her hip while the fingers of the other curved delicately in the air.

Even with only half her face visible, she was striking.

She wasn’t beautiful enough to stop the world in its tracks on looks alone. Her features were attractive, certainly, but that wasn’t what made her presence so arresting.

It was the sheer force of her personality.

Like the Eredar Twins, she radiated an effortless, lethal authority. She didn’t need to raise her voice or bare her teeth. Every movement carried the unmistakable confidence of a woman accustomed to having the world bend to her will.

Evenson took a cautious step backward, putting some distance between them.

His eyes flicked toward Sigrun. The weapon pinning her to the rock was a long, narrow black sword, strikingly similar to the blades that had slaughtered the Valkyries.

His wariness deepened.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The woman slowly turned to face him.

"Who am I?" She sounded genuinely amused by the question. "How curious. It seems the world outside has forgotten quite a lot about me."

She spread her arms, her chin lifting with unmistakable pride.

"I am Hela. Odin’s firstborn. Goddess of Death. The rightful commander of Asgard’s armies and the first heir to the throne."

Evenson’s mind ground to a halt.

"Okay. Hold on a second. That’s a lot to process."

Odin’s daughter. His firstborn.

Which meant she was Thor’s older sister.

But wasn’t Hela supposed to be Loki’s daughter?

Evenson stared at her, trying to reconcile the family tree he’d thought he understood with the woman standing before him.

Asgardian royal genealogy was a nightmare.

"Traitor!" Sigrun suddenly roared from where she lay pinned to the rock. "You traitor to Asgard! Usurper!"

Being undead had its advantages. A sword through the abdomen was unpleasant, but hardly a fatal wound for Sigrun in her current state.

Hela barely reacted to the accusation. She looked more annoyed than angry.

"Be quiet."

She raised a hand, apparently intending to drive another blade into the Valkyrie.

"I’ve seen you before," Evenson said suddenly.

Hela paused.

Her attention shifted back to him, and she lowered her hand.

"Have you?"

"You’re the woman in that painting. The general riding a giant wolf, fighting beside Odin during his campaigns to conquer the Nine Realms."

For the first time, Hela looked genuinely surprised.

"That painting still exists?"

"It does. Although someone put another painting over it." Evenson gave a humorless chuckle. "Odin also seems remarkably determined to keep anyone from seeing the original. Honestly, if I hadn’t been quick on my feet, I might have been killed just for looking at it."

Hela smiled faintly.

"That sounds exactly like Father. He wants everyone to believe he’s merciful and noble, so he scrubs away every trace of blood he’s spilled."

Evenson considered that for a moment, then offered a grim little observation.

"The general wins the kingdom, then gets forbidden from seeing it."

Hela’s smile widened.

"I like that."

She lifted her chin, the pride in her posture sharpening into something almost regal.

"So I’ll give you a chance."

Her eyes settled on Evenson.

"Kneel."

...