The Valkyrie

CopyrightHarperVoyagerAn imprint ofHarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GFwww.harpercollins.co.ukFirst published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023Copyright © Kate Heartfield 2023Illustrations © Andrew Davis 2023Kate Heartfield asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.Source ISBN: 9780008567736eBook Edition © February 2023 ISBN: 9780008567750Version: 2023-02-14 DedicationFor my brother ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationPart I – FafnirChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenPart II – The Rose GardenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenPart III – Battle-CriesChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixChapter Twenty-SevenChapter Twenty-EightChapter Twenty-NineChapter ThirtyPart IV – The TowerChapter Thirty-OneChapter Thirty-TwoChapter Thirty-ThreeChapter Thirty-FourChapter Thirty-FiveChapter Thirty-SixChapter Thirty-SevenAcknowledgements and Author’s NoteAlso by Kate HeartfieldAbout the Publisher Brynhild FallsLike all stories, I have more than one beginning.Three hundred and twenty-seven years ago, I was born, in the days when Hadrian ruled the Empire that crumbles around us now. Eight years after that, my father gave me in tribute to his god: the one he called Wotan, the one I learned to call by many names. Seven years after that, I finished my training, took flight for the first time as a Valkyrie, learned to gather the slain.The only beginning that matters came centuries later. My beginning was in you, Gudrun.But you already know that story. You want to know what came before, what I was before you melted and reforged me. I’ll go back one beginning, then, to my exile and my fall. It seemed like an ending, then. My last sight of Valhalla, a shard of daylight that closed in a moment, as the weight of my mail and helmet pulled me down.I was a long time falling.Somehow, in that void between worlds, there was light enough to see. I thought I saw other women, though who can say which worlds they were falling from, or to. A pale, wry face framed by short red hair, and a hand searching the hilt. The golden hair of a girl, streaming as she floated, hands covering her face, her shoes kicking at nothing. We tumbled at different speeds, and sometimes they flickered out of existence while I watched. Perhaps I imagined them.They were not Valkyries; I am the only Valkyrie Odin ever exiled.The fall gave me time to think.I imagined what would happen at the bottom. Perhaps I’d land on a pile of corpses, or skeletons; perhaps I’d add one more to the pile. All these fallen women must land somewhere.But when I hit the ground, I was alone. Alive. Breathless, coughing, bruised. My cheek stung where it slammed into the edge of my helmet. When I pulled my helmet off and wiped my watering eyes, the back of my hand came away bloody from the cut. I wiped my hand on my green wool cloak, another brown stain for its collection.I staggered to my feet and looked out at Midgard. My birthplace.I barely remember my family now, and I did not remember them any better then. My father was something like a king, or so I recall him, but I do not think he is in any of your stories, Gudrun, at least none of the ones I heard in your hall. Kings gave their daughters to the gods, sometimes, where I was born. But where was that? Three centuries had passed since I left them, as a child, my small hand in the rough hand of the Allfather.Valkyries age during the hours or days they spend on Midgard, but nobody ages in Valhalla. By the time I was exiled, I was a woman grown, but my body was much younger than all my centuries.I stood on a cliff, looking out over brown land under a pale sky. A thin, dark river wound like an adder, far off. Kites circled and screamed over my head, chastising me for existing where I had not existed a moment before. Though I lifted my arms to be among them, the wind did not take me. I could fly no longer; I was a woman. That was my punishment; the very worst thing Odin could imagine.It was spring, and the leaves were new-green. I walked, stiffly, helmet in hand, seeking shelter.Down in lower places, I found that the water of the skinny river was clear as weak mead, with little brown trout darting in it, and a pink-skinned pine twisting overhead. I sat knapping a flint to the finest edge. Then I snapped the pine branch that leaned westward. Westward wood for harming, eastward for healing. And with my flint I sharpened the point.Odin had taken my powers of flight. I had to assume (and I would be proven right soon enough) that he had also taken the other powers he had bestowed on me when he made me a Valkyrie. I would not be able to walk unseen among the humans of Midgard, now. I would not be able to perceive their secrets or prophesy their destinies. Very well. But I still had the skills I had learned, and I made a list of them in my mind. I remembered the runelore, and how to work spells for healing, strength, protection, and other things. I knew how to hunt and how to fight. When I landed and the kites screamed