I woke up the next day feeling like an 18-wheeler had slammed into my head and reversed over my corpse. My ears were ringing violently, my skin dimpled as I experienced cold shivers.

Beside me was Thanatos. I found myself reaching for his arm.

He sat up in the bed to place a cool hand on my forehead. "She's burning up."

My tongue felt limp in my throat- everything tasted like singed copper. Tear pooled into my eyes as the air seemed to crackle with electricity that zapped at my veins, causing twitches.

"What's wrong with her?" Jasper demanded, but his eyes showed a different story. He knew, but he didn't know.

He sitting at the foot of the bed with Callie standing by his side. The snake of a woman had an arm slung over his shoulders, gently caressing his bicep. A smile was on her face. A knowing one. That bitch charmspoke him to do something to me.

My eyes screamed to kill her. My very being wanted to charmspeak the fuck out of Jasper so he could come back to senses.

My wings reacted to my emotions, flapping wildly. Oliver flew out of Athena's notebook to settle in his perch above my bed and began to gently croon. Jasper reached forward but Thanatos was quicker, slipping into bed behind me. His large black wings that were double my wingspan enclosed us in his cocoon of glossy black feathers.

"Faye?" he said quietly. "Are you alright?"

I couldn't speak, I couldn't do anything. My hands scratched at my throat.

Jasper did this. He put the silencing charm around my throat because Callie told him too. And I couldn't warn Thanatos, couldn't save Jasper, not with my voice gone.

I sobbed harder.

Thanatos didn't touch me, even when I leaned back into his chest and gray wings tucked into my back. Even when my cries died down and my shoulder wracking sobs and twitches from the electricity in my body and in the air died down.

I pulled out Athena's notebook and a pen, writing slowly as I blinked away the tears.

"How long have I been asleep?" Thanatos read outloud.

His breath hitched when a response was written on the opposite page. "Four days. You've come into consciousness now. Oliver has been keep tabs. He does not trust Callie."

Thanatos laughed wryly. "Me neither. She's been rather forceful in what she wants."

I scribbled fast on the notebook. She is a charmspeaker.

"Aphrodite knew that, didn't she? That's why she gave you the power of charmspeak." Thanatos' chrome eyes flickered into something like molten mercury. "She's entrapped your mate."

This time it was turn for my breath to hitch. I wrote again on the notebook, this time letting a few of my tears soak into the yellowed pages. He's no longer my mate. Jasper and Draver only get one, and Draver claimed me before Jasper did. Now he hates me.

Thanatos scowled, forcing me to look him into his eyes again as the coccoon of his wings rustled with his frustration.

"Faye, Jasper is your mate. So is Draver. They'll both never stop loving you- caring for you, It's obvious that..." Thanatos parted the seam of his joined wings to scan the room before locking us into blackness again. "It's obvious that Callie has taken control of him. But he wouldn't be fighting against Callie's control if he didn't truly love you. Don't doubt what they feel for you. If they truly didn't care, Jasper and Ryland wouldn't have called me over."

I cried again, writing on the page in a messy scribble. IT'S MY FAULT.

He laid his hands on me for the first time, grabbing me by my shoulders. "Then fix it. The Trials are tomorrow Faye. You're out of time. You're about to go into a slaughterhouse and now is a good time then ever to tell them how you feel about them."

I wiped my eyes harshly with my jacket sleeve, nodding in agreement vigorously before writing my last message.

Jasper knows how to get my voice back.

Thanatos' wings tucked back and he got off the bed. "We'll get it back together."

I took his hand as he pulled me out. I put the notebook back into my pocket just as Oliver flew onto the cover.

"I'll help you get your voice, and then I'll have to disappear." Thanatos said softly. "I can't be away from my duties in the Underworld for too long."

I nodded, completely understanding. Thanatos always went out of his way to help me- killing the Fury imposing as Heimdallr, hiding my trail from Hades, helping me get my memories back, and now giving me a ride to see Aphrodite and Ares. He already stayed back to take care of me from my mysterious portal travelling sickness thanks to Ryland and Jasper.

He helped me walk down the stairs where we saw Jasper in the kitchen with Callie. She was playing with the longer bits of his hair, twirling it around her finger. Like a snack admiring its prey before devouring it.

"Jazz. Give Faye her voice back."

Callie eyes widened as Jasper seemed to break out of his stupor and horror dawned on his face. "Faye-"

The blond creature stepped around to cup his face. "Oh darling, you did this to poor Faye? You must've be feeling well. Maybe you should take a na-"

Thanatos lunged forward to curl a hand into her hair at the nape of her neck. She screamed bloody murder but his eyes pure silver as he grasped her jaw with one pale hand which seemed more skeletal than usual. Her mouth slammed shut as Thanatos dipped her for a long kiss.

Her body shuddered until she collapsed without Thanatos holding her up. He straightened, black wings raising high. His mouth was a twisted into a pale red smile, as if he had strawberry chapstick on. Looking at Callie again, I noticed that her body had shriveled up. Like all the life force had been sucked out of her until only her husk remained.

"Give Faye her voice back." Thanatos warned. "Or else what happened to Callie will happen to you as well."

Oliver chirped in agreement from my pocket.

I was still in shock over what happened as Jasper drove forward past Thanatos, slamming shoulder with his purposefully as he pulled the metaphorically silver chain around my voicebox- a gift given to him and Draver from Artemis back when I first met her and she silenced me at my birthday party.

"Faye." his eyes spoke of sorrows and remorse for his actions. But deeper, I saw his battle against showing his disgust over being this close to a mated female.

"It's okay," I smiled weakly. "Let's find Draver and Ryland. The Trials are tomorrow. If they're not back by now, it's pointless to keep searching."

Lightning struck at our doorstep, forcing Jasper to shift into a wolf and Thanatos to melt away in the shadows.

The door swung open. There stood Odin, Huggin and Munnin on his shoulders, both Geri and Freki by his sides once Jasper moved to his right.

"Come, Faye. We must talk."

I followed him out of the cottage to see the street was empty. Not a soul in sight, not even animals scurrying around trees or picking at the berry bushes that lined the houses.

"As you know, you are the Prime Valkyrie. My first creation." he began tenderly as we walked down the street. "With Loki growing more powerful, I must challenge him with an army strong enough to battle the other realms he's conquered."

"With einherjar?" I played dumb, hoping that my obvious lack of confusion wouldn't signal that I knew anything about the Trials.

"No, Faye." he turned left, going down a more narrow path that climbed the side of the mountain. "With you. There is a thing called the Godly Accords, which you know I broke when Artemis agreed to hide you and Rosemarie in Greek mythology in exchange for Geri and Freki's bodies to be shared hosts for Jasper and Draver."

We came to a stop in front of the Rainbow Bridge, a diverging path where Heimdallr stood.

"Heimdallr is going to send you to the Trials. I will be there, along with everyone else." he gestured to the wolves at his side and the ravens on his shoulders. "Thor and Frigga will be here to hold down Asgard. You are to be my champion in the Trials. It's a three day competition in a pocket dimension where anyone can participate and wager anything. This year I am hosting the Godly Accords in Vanaheim. If you win against the other Champions, my bet of having the armies of every participant's master will be fulfilled. If you fail, we will have no army to go up against Loki."

"Is Loki participating in the Trials?" I found myself asking.

Odin turned to look at Heimdallr, who then stepped forward to speak. "Loki is of many faces. I cannot discern if he himself is participating or he has a champion for himself."

"Come Faye, it is time."

He touched my shoulder and we apparated to the Rainbow Bridge. Heimdallr dropped his sword into the mechanism, nodding to me for good luck before he twisted the sword in the giant sheath and we teleported to Vanaheim.

The land was beautiful and lush, like a futuristic nature world from a video game.

"I've never been to Vanaheim." I murmured, reaching down to the touch the pillow soft grass. "I have no recollection of this place even with my Valkyrie memories."

"Vanaheim is only accessible for the Old Gods. Often Frey and Freya will return here to greet the Elders." he slipped forward. "This is one of very few times I have been able to access Vanaheim. I spoke to the Old Gods about the tribulation we face. They agreed to host it here, from a place that lacked populations that could be a threat. Those who participate are given instructions on how to arrive to the Rainbow Bridge for Heimdallr to transport them to Vanaheim."

He strode forward, but I stayed a step behind so I could take in Jasper and Draver. Both of them were content in wolf form, occasionally pausing to lift their snout in the air to take in the fresh nature scents the flooded this realm.

Ryland and Ryker had taken to the skies, dipping down now and then land on Odin's shoulder to chirp something to which Odin merely gave a tight nod before they launched back into the air.

Oliver fluttered in my pocket. I pulled the notebook out and let him detach from the cover. He flew straight into the sky, doing his own fake surveillance that made me want to laugh especially when he started mocking Ryland and Ryker by coming down to croon in my ear.

We finally stopped at the top of a grassy green hill, looking over a large waterfall lake next to a large coliseum mounted into the side of a cliff.

"Vanaheim is much more beautiful than you made it, Odin." a quaint and powerful voice called from my right.

I turned to see the goddess who made my blood boil and my Valkyrie wings flap out wildly. The goddess who had Apollo create the Black Plague to wipe out Jasper and Draver when they grew too powerful and bloodthirsty at the expense of millions of lives, the goddess who was selfish and killed me over and over just when my mates were getting close to me in fear of Eros pinpointing our beacon of love for Loki to find me.

"Artemis," I purred viciously, surprising myself when my javelin and wings didn't summon almost immediately at the intense rage I felt just looking at her face. "So good to see you."