I'm just going to take this opportunity to address some issues. Well, maybe not issues but concerns, I guess? So I understand the chapters are short but I am actually writing these stories on an iPad as my laptop is broken. It's a bit difficult keeping track of how many words I'm writing without having to constantly save and wait for the word count to come up and the iPad is quite annoying to write on so until I buy a keyboard for it or a laptop the chapters will be short unfortunately. Along with short chapters it results in the storyline coming along slower. So some chapters will have less Valduggery and others more. Just a bit of feedback based on the reviews so that we are all on the same page :)
Now, on with the story:
"So you're trying to tell me that the very first sorcerer who was meant to be dead is actually alive? Not to mention the fact that he's sent people to come and hurt us!" Valkyrie no longer sat comfortably at the dining table. She paced around the kitchen, ignoring the pain of her injured leg.
"Wait, he only went after you Valkyrie," Tanith began. "Maybe that's all he's going to do. You said you heard Caelan say it was to send a message. What message?" Tanith looked between Skulduggery and Ghastly, awaiting an answer.
Ghastly's face was grave and it left an uneasy feeling inside Tanith. "He's willing to hurt those we love so we will do whatever he wants," he replied in a low voice.
"But none of us have anyone to lose but each other. I doubt he'd risk coming after you two," Tanith directed at Skulduggery and Ghastly. "He probably doesn't even know me so who would he... Oh," Tanith trailed off, glancing at Valkyrie.
Valkyrie paused mid-stride with her head down. "He's coming after me. He has gotten me once already and that was the message. I'm the weakest link out of us so he can get to me again. Next time it won't be a message but a lesson," Valkyrie's voice held no emotion as she spoke. She was always the weakest link, she was always getting captured, and now someone was willing to use it against them.
"You're not the weakest link, Val," Taninth replied as if to hear her thoughts. "We won't let anything happen to you, we will protect you."
"But that's just it, isn't it? I need to be protected because I'm weak. They can get to me so easily. I'm just the excess baggage, weight on your shoulders you have to carry around," Valkyrie didn't want to face them anymore. The embarrassment of her sudden realisation was too much to bear in front of her friends so she left the room.
Outside she managed to clear her head a little but the constant reminder of her annoyance to the others wouldn't leave her brain.
Skulduggery remained silent, thinking and planning.
"What are we going to do?" Tanith asked.
"Well we are going to get these idiots and make sure Valkyrie stays safe," Ghastly replied.
"I'm not going to protect her," Skulduggery muttered almost to himself.
Tanith's eyes snapped up and anger sparked them. "How could you say that? She was the one that saved you from the Faceless Ones and how many times has she saved this world, hey?!" Tanith exclaimed.
Skulduggery stared down at Tanith. "I want to protect her, of course I do, but she thinks she is weak. She doesn't want to be protected therefore I am going to give her what she wants."
Ghastly sighed, knowing the empty sound of Skulduggery's voice meant he was mid-thought and planning. "What are you planning?" He asked.
"I am going to train her more. I will train her harder that way she will see what she is capable of," Skulduggeyr replied.
"That's your plan?" Ghastly asked incredulously.
Skulduggery could hear the disbelief in Ghastly's voice. It's true, it did sound like a stupid plan but that wasn't all of his plan. What Skulduggery was really planning they couldn't know about.
"Don't come out here trying to console me, I don't want to hear it," Valkyrie murmured without looking to see who had come to join her.
"Me? Console you? What a preposterous idea," Skulduggery replied.
"If I'd known it was you I would have said nothing. What do you want?" She asked.
Skulduggery joined her on the top step of the porch. "We, Miss Cain, are going to train more. We have neglected it in the past few weeks and we must get back to it. You need to see you aren't weak, that's how we will do it," Skulduggery said.
"I am weak," she mumbled before realising she sounded like a sulky child.
"Even if that absurd notion is, in fact, true then training won't hurt, will it?" Skulduggery tilted his skull to the right in a smile and smug gesture of being right.
"Fine," she grumbled.
"Good. We start this afternoon," with a pat on her knee Skulduggery stood and returned to the house.
Also due to the annoyance of having to type on an iPad is the risk off more grammatical and structural mistakes so I do apologise fork any of it during the chapters. Please forgive me and don't forget to review! :)
