Daniel’s arm caught her shoulders and he knelt, allowing her to fall backwards into his arms to rest delicately on his knee. Tucking her head to his chest, he placed his armored body between her exposed head and neck and the fortress. Another arrow clanged loudly as it lodged itself between his breastplate and pauldron.

“Daniel!” Vhalla struggled to stand, to fight. Her heart was racing.

“I’m fine, it’s just stuck. It didn’t get through the chainmail.” Daniel stared with surprise at her fear-stricken eyes. Fear for him. “You stay down.”

Vhalla heard another bowstring on the wind, and she struggled to figure out how she could deflect the arrow. Everything was happening too fast. People were moving, but they seemed sluggish and useless with shock.

The arrow fizzled in the wall of fire that suddenly surrounded her and Daniel. Aldrik stepped through the flames in a truly fearsome display. It licked around his face and armor, so he was beautifully illuminated and completely unburnt.

“My lady,” Aldrik forced through clenched teeth as he extended a hand to her. Daniel sat back, beads of sweat rolling off his cheeks and neck as if he was cooking alive in his armor. Vhalla accepted Aldrik’s hand and stood. The prince half pulled her to him.

They were in their own world. Even the sizzle of one last arrow flying uselessly into the fire didn’t distract any of them. Daniel stared at her dry brow, how the flames didn’t burn her as they crackled around Aldrik’s fingers, fingers she held. He was no fool.

“Thank you, Lord Taffl,” Aldrik said with forced formality.

“It is a pleasure to do my duty, my prince,” Daniel returned, finding a chill even within the inferno.

“You are dismissed.” Aldrik had yet to let go of her hand, and

Vhalla withdrew it slowly.

The flames shrunk to a wall facing the fortress and Daniel stepped away.

Aldrik motioned for her to fall in at his side. “My lady.” Vhalla fell into step with him and the fire wall followed as they walked.

“Do not waste your arrows and efforts,” Aldrik commanded the soldiers who had scrambled into battle ready positions. “They are not making an attack. They were after the Windwalker.”

One by one people seemed to relax, though they continued to stare. Vhalla focused forward, her eyes fixated on the prince’s back, making a futile attempt to still the racing of her heart. The romance, the joy had made her forget the truth: she was death.

She could’ve killed Daniel. Vhalla clenched her fists. She hated it, she hated it all. There would never be an escape from who she was; all that was left was to embrace it, to wear it like the tattered cape upon her shoulders.

Aldrik paused briefly, giving a pointed look at his father. Somewhere in their nonverbal exchange Vhalla could almost hear the challenge from the prince, the invitation for the Emperor to say or do anything against his open display of affection for her. The muscles in the Emperor’s face spasmed as he tightened his jaw.

Aldrik continued onward in silence.

The people parted for them as he escorted her back to the camp palace. The prince maintained the flame wall the entire time. Vhalla hardly noticed the increasing distance between her and the walled city of Soricium. Her hands trembled from squeezing them so tightly.

“Raise your hood.”

Vhalla obliged, pulling the heavy chainmail hood over her head. It was something she should’ve done from the start, she scolded herself angrily. Aldrik finally relaxed the flames a few steps away from the entrance to the camp palace. He ushered her within quickly, and she let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. It quivered, barely.

She struggled to keep up with his long strides as the room of majors and tables passed in a blur. They were suddenly in his room. Aldrik hastily closing the door behind her. His palms clasped over her trembling shoulders.

“Vhalla, my lady, my love, you’re fine now,” he soothed. She shook her head. “I may be, but they will not be.” Aldrik rounded her, staring into her tearless eyes.

“Can I go nowhere without someone trying to kill me?” Vhalla whispered. “The Emperor himself wishes it; some clearly side with him.” She motioned to her tattered cape. “The North thinks I am not even human.”

“I should have never let you go alone,” he cursed softly. “Not all wish you dead.” Aldrik’s mailed hand smoothed out her frizzy hair, unruly in its awkward length just beyond her shoulders.

The ink she had used to dye it had almost faded, and Vhalla had given up trying to tame it into a Western style. “Some look to you, they admire you. There are some who think you a demon and others a goddess.”

“I want to go home.” Her fingers scraped against his armor, desperate for purchase.

“I will take you there.” Aldrik grabbed her hands. “We will go together. We will return South, and you will stay by my side.”

Vhalla stilled.

“I need to Project.” She released her hold on him and whatever words had been brewing behind his eyes. It wasn’t the time for them. “No one can return until this ends.”

Aldrik nodded and helped her out of her armor before sitting at the small desk, already cluttered with papers. He pushed them around until he had a blank sheet before him. His quill was at the ready.

Vhalla sprawled out on the bed and took a deep breath. Home, Vhalla paused over the thought, staring at the ceiling. Somehow, she realized, home was no longer the farmhouse in the East or the four grand walls of the Imperial Library. Vhalla turned to Aldrik, but he was oblivious to her momentary attentions. Home had become wherever he was. And she would do what she needed to do to return to the palace with Aldrik.

Vhalla closed her eyes and slipped out of her body.

VHALLA STOOD BEFORE the massive entrance to the fortress. A dry moat had been dug out at the base of the stone walls, wide and deep. It was ready to swallow any who dared attack, ready for archers to rain arrows down from the walls upon the unfortunate souls.

The drawbridge was closed, a massive stone archway that was slotted nearly perfectly into the wall. The wall resisted her presence, and Vhalla had to force her way through. It was definitely something that had been crafted in part with magic.

I’m in, she reported back to Aldrik when she was stable again. “Excellent,” his voice echoed through her physical ears and back to her as clearly as if he stood alongside her. “Tell me what you see.”

It’s a dark and narrow hall. Some kind of pot hangs above, and it appears they also have rubble piled in chutes behind wedges that are attached to rope. Vhalla listened to the sound of his scratching quill, speaking only the necessities so he could keep up.

“They plan to close the gate as defense against a first wave,” Aldrik observed. “You have already earned your merit and you are only a step in.”

Forward, she spoke her progress, it opens up. There’s space before the second wall.

“Second wall?” Papers shuffling.

Yes, my parrot.

Aldrik’s deep chuckle resonated through her. “We’ve heard no mention of a second wall. Describe it.”

After the first wall there’s a stretch, maybe the width of four men, stretched head to toe, and then a second wall. There are catwalks connecting to the outer wall. But I only see one ground entrance. Vhalla proceeded around the perimeter of the circular city.