Chapter 166 The Morning After

Chapter 166 Odin Speaks
GRACE -

Grace slept with her cheek pressed into her pillow and one hand trapped beneath the blanket, but cold grass pushed between her toes.
Her eyes opened inside the dream before her body did. The Stones stood around her in a crooked circle, taller than they had ever looked in the daylight, their dark sides slick with mist and old rain. The gray morning sky hung above them, but no sun touched the field. The air tasted like iron and wet soil, and every breath scraped down Grace’s throat like knives.
Ravens lined the tops of the Stones in black rows, claws hooked into ancient grooves and wings tucked tight against their bodies. None of them moved, and their silence pressed against Grace’s ears.
The grass bent in front of her as pressure rolled through the circle and Grace’s knees nearly folded. The ravens lowered their heads at once, and the Stones hummed beneath her feet, a deep vibration that climbed through her bones and locked her spine straight.
A man stepped between two of the Stones, taller than anyone she'd ever seen and broad beneath a dark cloak that shifted even though the wind wasn't blowing. One side of his face stayed hidden in shadow, but the other eye caught the gray light. A spear rested in his hand, its point touching the grass, and every dead whisper Grace had ever heard at the Stones fell silent around him.
Grace’s mouth went dry before she could speak. “My Lord, Odin.”
The eye fixed on her, and the weight of his attention made her feel smaller somehow.
“Your blood remembers what your mind was allowed to forget.” His voice echoed off the Stones.
Grace backed up one step, and a cold stone stopped her shoulder. “What do you ask of me?”
Odin’s spear pressed deeper into the grass. “Your line kept the Stones awake when others stopped listening." He stepped closer, dragging the spear tip through moist earth. "Your mothers and their mothers carried the voices when other wolves chose silence." His size seemed to grow as he spoke. "And now one of the old blood has appeared.”
Freya’s name struck Grace before he said it. Her fingers curled against the damp stone behind her, and she saw Freya in her mind, pale and stubborn.
“Freya,” Grace whispered. “Has something happened to her?”
His one eye peered at her with intensity, but he answered. “The Mate bond anchored her.” Odin’s voice rolled through the circle, too deep to be only sound. “A Valkyrie has awakened this night, and the land will not let me rest.”
Grace’s stomach turned hard and cold. “So she’s really seeing them then?”
“She is seeing what this land buried but refused to guide.” Odin lifted his spear, and the mist behind him thickened until shapes moved within it. Wolves limped through the gray, some in human skin, some on four legs, all carrying wounds that no longer bled. “My lands are filled to bursting with the unguided, and the old Skinwalker line is crowded with blood, betrayal, and battles left rotting under pack peace.”
Grace’s fingers dug harder into the stone as faces sharpened in the mist. A woman held her torn throat. A boy stood with mud in his hair. A wolf dragged one useless hind leg through the grass. Their eyes turned toward her, not begging exactly, but waiting in a way that made her skin crawl.
“She can help them?” Grace asked.
“She can witness them,” Odin said. “She can hear what holds them to the land and guide the willing onward. She must choose to learn which of the dead ask for justice and which only hunger for revenge.”
The word hunger moved through the circle like ravenous birds looking for carrion, and Grace swallowed around the dryness in her throat. “That sounds like it could hurt her.”
“It will hurt if she stands in it unprepared.” Odin didn't soften the words, but his voice wasn't cruel either. “Acceptance is not a crown placed on a girl’s head. It’s duty carried in bone, breath, and blood. A Valkyrie does not only see the dead. She stands where the living lied and the dead remained, and she becomes the place truth must pass through.”
Grace shook her head, and cold air slid across the back of her neck. “My lord, I think Freya has had enough people putting duties on her recently.” She hated that her shoulders pulled in as she spoke.
“Then tell her the truth before the dead teach it to her themselves.” He drew close enough that she could read the markings on the beads in his beard.
The mist surged closer, and Grace jerked when a whisper brushed her ear. "A daughter will find us." Another voice slid beneath it, soft and rotten with waiting. "A daughter will set us free."
Odin struck the spear once against the ground, and every voice cut off so sharply that Grace’s teeth clicked together. “Not every dead mouth deserves her answer. Not every sorrow is innocent. If she opens herself without guidance, they’ll pour through her until her own voice is buried beneath theirs.”
Grace’s legs shook, but she forced herself to stand straighter. “What do I do?”
“You go to her.” Odin’s eye held her in place. “Do not call her toward the voices. Carry the warning yourself. Tell the Mate to stay close, because his bond anchors her where the dead cannot. Tell her to come to the Stones when the sun rises higher and before night returns.”
Odin looked past her toward the trees, and every raven lifted its wings halfway. “There are more than her body can hold.”
Grace’s nails dug into the cold stone. “Why me?”
"Because your family kept the Stones awake, and the Valkyrie will need a voice beside her when the dead begin to speak."
Grace’s breath caught, and the dream tilted beneath her feet. The Stones stretched taller, the ravens blurred into black streaks, and Odin’s voice followed her as the field ripped away. “The dead are not waiting anymore, Stonekeeper. They know she hears.”
Grace woke with a gasp, her hand pressed against her throat and her blanket twisted tight around her legs. Her room was gray with the same almost-morning light as the dream. The air conditioner hummed near the window, but a cold dampness clung to her skin as if she had been standing outside. When she pushed herself upright, dirt smeared across one foot and grass stuck between her toes.
A black feather rested on her pillow, and Grace stared at it until a sharp tap hit the window.
A raven stood on the sill outside, its head tilted, one black eye fixed on her through the glass. The bird tapped again, harder this time, and Odin’s voice moved through the pane low enough to make her bedframe tremble.
“Carry the warning to her before the dead gather closer.”
Grace grabbed her phone, then stopped with her thumb hovering over Freya’s name. The raven watched her without blinking, and the memory of gray hands at the edge of the circle crawled over her skin.
She dropped the phone onto the bed and reached for her jeans instead. “I’m going,” she whispered, her voice shaking but awake.