When she woke up, she went to Jasper, suddenly needing to find him. To talk to him, to see him, to just...be near him, her rock in the turmoil, her light in the darkness. She tore through the tents until she reached his and found him gone.

He has to be somewhere, she thought frantically. He has to be. Maybe he left a note or...

There. A scrap of paper, and nothing more, hurried letters painstakingly etched in.

I'm sorry

Those two words tore through her as she searched for another note, a message, anything...What had Jasper meant? What was he apologising for? Where had he gone? Myra tore out of the tent, looking around hopelessly.

"He's gone," Viktoria said hoarsely, and she finally noticed her queen standing outside. "We don't know how, or when. Or where he could have gone, with the mountains north and the army south, and sea at east and west."

The army south. But he couldn't have. Jasper would never have left them to return to Medea. Not for anything.

I'm sorry, he had said. She had seen those words reflected in his sea-green eyes last night. Ignored them. You should not trust him. Those had been Nala's words, the words of his own aunt. Myra had dismissed them as the anger of someone grieving and betrayed, but what if she had been right all along?

Could Jasper have left them to return to the empress? It seemed impossible. Yet everything about him, about them had. A human loving a valkyrie. How could it have been real? Had he been a spy all along? Had whatever she thought they had together been a lie, designed to trap her? Or had he just fled when he was afraid, a coward to the last?

Myra was not entirely sure which would have been worse. All she knew was that he had betrayed her, left her. And that she had been a fool enough to love a man who was either a coward or a spy.

She had been such a damn fool. Such an idiot, to fall in love with him.To fall for some kind words and laughing eyes that reminded her so much of the sea. At some point, she realised she was crying, and Viktoria put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I'm here," she whispered softly. "I'm here."

"I know." Myra replied. Always, always Viktoria was there for her. They were two sides of the same coin.

"You really loved him, didn't you?"her friend asked softly.

"Yes," she answered. So much. More than she had ever known before now. "How could I have been such a fool?"

"You were not a fool," her queen said. "He was the fool, and he will pay."

But she did not want him to pay. How many times did he have to betray her for her to learn?

"Do you think it was a lie all along?" She asked, looking up at Viktoria.

"I do not know," her friend answered.

"Do you think...do you think Medea..." she trailed off, unable to form the words. Had the Empress taken Jasper back? Or had she killed him?

"I do not know," Viktoria repeated. "Myra, we have to prepare."

Of course. There were defences to be put in place, strategies to be decided, a last stand to prepare for. A thousand hopeless things.

Myra looked out at the field of valkyries and she felt something in the air. A silence. A hollow silence had descended on the mountains where the valkyries would make their last stand. It was the silence of warriors who had faced and lost a war and knew this was their last battle. That today would spell death. It was cold and hard and sad on that pale morning. There were no speeches on that day, for the queen and heir had run out of words to say. All they could offer was their swords on those battlefields, to march with them and die with them.

It was not enough. Not enough to stop tears and that ancient, cruel Silence.

In the weeks the past, so many tears had been shed. And Myra Isidore knew that tonight, friends had said their very last goodbyes, had held each other through the night, and risen this dawn, and faced the sea to which they would return. Its call echoed through their bones, the seas they had been born from, but none wanted to answer that song. Nobody prayed today. Their mouths were hoarse from unanswered pleading all these long, long days. The days of lumps in throats and tears in eyes and mourning what lives might have been led, dreaming of what might have been were almost gone now, swept away by fallen sisters and that bone-deep tiredness.

All that was left was hollow silence.

The kingdom of the valkyries was long lost now. The noble warriors would fall, the great libraries and cities would all be burned. Nobody cried, for they had run out of tears. Myra watched their empty faces, reflections of her own. They had run out of rage too. They no longer cursed their enemies. They were lifeless and silent, waiting for their fall.

"We're going to die today," Queen Viktoria said to her. Not a queen to her general, but friend to friend. Myra nodded.

"Yes, yes we are." Her voice was empty, hollow. Dull. No farewells, no speeches. Just that hollow silence.

"Have I failed?" The queen asked. "Have I failed Celia and her predecessor and all those that came before them?"

"No," Myra said hollowly. "We never stood a chance anyway." Victoria turned to her army. Not solemn, but hollow and broken-hearted.

"We have lost the war," she said to the armies. "But let's make it a final stand worthy of song." Her words were shouted, but they were silent all the same. There was precious little belief in them, the last spark of rage and hope. Her last stand against Kallias. But the words didn't rally anyone.

And that moment-that moment right then-was when the war was lost.

There were no tears and there was no rage. All there was was that cursed, empty, hollow silence that would have been there if they had all shouted. The silence wasn't on the plains. The silence was in the hearts of the valkyries, that empty hollow silence, where hope and rage and tears should have been. Had once been, but all they were now were distant memories.

The towers were ready, built up from the mountain. The novices were gone, and she did not know why or how. But their academy remained, and the valkyries assembled around it, ready. This was their home. It seemed fitting that they would die here.

Viktoria raised the war horn to her mouth one final time. Its bellow filled the air, and the approaching army seemed to still at its cry. The last embers of a dying kingdom. They marched on anyway, and the valkyries struck.

Myra became wind and blood and steel, fighting on the ground whilst Caelia flew above. She became the wild and raging sea, shifted from snow leopard to human to snow leopard again, her enchanted armour changing to fit both. Everything else dissolved. One by one the soldiers fell, victims of their swift blades. Caelia unleashed fiery rage across the Empress' army. Viktoria struck with her, quick as an asp. They lost count of how many fell. Lost count of it all, in that final unleashing.

Goodbye Kestra, Myra thought as the battle raged on. I will see you in the next life. The valkyries slaughtered their way through the army, but more came. More and more.

There was no one to replace the fallen valkyries.

They did fall, one by one, with cries of fury and blood that was not their own on their blades. All she felt was a hollow silence, as five thousand became five hundred.

And five hundred became five. The three new generals, Viktoria and her.

Pushed against the back of the mountain, in a pass that allowed them to fight only ten at a time. But when Viktoria let out a dying cry, something deep and fundamental in her heart cracked. And screamed. Her eyes locked on the soldier who did it, with such triumph in his eyes. Myra watched her queen fall, watched her blood pool. She lunged, bearing daggers instead of swords. There was so much blood afterwards, covering her. But he was dead, and she cried her vengeance to the skies, tears mixing with blood.

Viktoria was dead. She could do nothing as Calais followed her, and then the others.

Myra was the last valkyrie left fighting. She held them back for long, hard minutes.When she fell, it was not a blade to the heart, a welcome return to the sea. It was chains, and her blood went suddenly cold.

They would not let her go to the sea.

No, they would not let her find the afterlife, find her Kestrel. To see Viktoria and Ruby and Calais again.

To see her mother again, after so, so long.

They would make her live out her immortal existence in chains, just because they could.

She let out a roar of hatred and rage. When she had the chance, she should have ended it. To die at her own hand, rather than spend eternity in a dungeon.

Never would she see the sea again.