by S. T. Bende
I tried not to gape at the massive ivory courtyard that stretched the length of the football-field-sized entry. Or at the clusters of anxious valkyries who scurried along the balcony, where the training center fed into the dormitories. Or at the way the bronze fountain in the courtyard’s center sparkled beneath the gentle Asgardian sunlight. The fountain was the likeness of a valkyrie mounted atop a winged steed, her sword raised and her lips parted in a battle cry. It awed me every bit as much as it had on my first day as a junior valkyrie, in no small part because of the message it imparted: For honor. For love. For Asgard. The words were etched into both the sword, and around the lip of the fountain—a double reminder of what we valued—of what we fought for.
Of what we were.
“General Aksel?” The low voice from behind made me jump.
“Oh, I’m just a captain.” I turned to find one of the senior valkyries standing at attention. Behind her, a surge of uniformed girls hurried across the entry, swords holstered at their hips. No doubt they were heading to the first-floor briefing auditorium to await their orders.
It was go time. I just had to issue the command. No pressure.
“My apologies, General Aksel.” The valkyrie at my side raised her hand in salute. The flexible armor of her suit gleamed in the light, its silver a nice contrast to the pale blue fabric resting beneath. “But the high commander’s orders state you are to be addressed as General. They further state I am to escort you to the war room.”
General? Last year I’d considered myself lucky to leapfrog up to captain. Was Freya for real?
“Right.” I wiped the awe from my face and did my best to look imposing. “Escort away…uh…Svaira?”
“Svetana,” she corrected. “I oversaw your technical team when you joined up.”
“Svetana!” I shifted my tech-bearing backpack to my other shoulder before palming the hilt of my sheathed rapier. “Oh, my gods, you smuggled us the älva dust we needed to complete work on that exploding portal! We never could have shut down the dark forest leak without it. Man, those were good times.”
Svetana nodded tightly. “We’ll stop by the laboratory on our way to the war room. I’d imagine you’ll want to suit up before meeting with your lieutenant generals, and the tech team’s just finishing their updates to your battle uniform.”
“Right. Thanks. Uh, at ease,” I added, because Svetana hadn’t lowered her hand from her forehead. “And you can call me Brynn.”
“Please follow me, General Aksel.” Svetana turned on one knee-high booted foot.
We were salmon moving upstream as we made our way through tight groups of suited-up valkyries, all heading to the briefing room. Those who broke focus enough to register who we were parted to let us through, the respect and awe on their faces enough to make me avert my eyes. I might have been acting in my friend’s place today, but I was no Freya. I was just a soldier who loved my realm, and felt lucky to have been chosen to be a valkyrie at all. Leading our forces was an honor I hadn’t asked for. None of this seemed real.
But it was. And a lot of lives depended on me not screwing it up.
After a slow eternity, Svetana and I reached the twin staircases that twined around a statue of Freya herself. My friend hated having her likeness cast in marble—hated being the focal point of the V.C.’s entryway. But the rest of us loved the visual reminder of our strong, fearless, leader—the literal embodiment of love, who championed spreading Asgard’s light throughout the realms. Gods, I hoped I didn’t let her down.
My feet were heavy as I trudged up the marble stairs. Girls scurried out of my path as I climbed, and I wondered how much they knew about my role—about this temporary transition of power. Temporary. That was all this would be. Freya would return to lead her army in no time. She’d been the driving force of our team for as long as I could remember, and soon she’d be back to standing in the briefing room in her battle-tested high commander uniform, issuing her cry, and inspiring our warriors to diffuse tensions cosmos-wide.
Speaking of uniforms…
“Welcome back to the lab.” Svetana made a sharp left outside a set of frosted glass doors. She raised her palm to the discreet scanner nestled on the wall. The door blurred, then disappeared with a chime, and the two of us stepped into the open space.
It was every bit as impressive as it had been when I’d served here on the Junior Valkyrie Tech Team. Some of the battle valkyries had called us nerds, but we’d known how vital our work was to the order. Freya had been our biggest champion, constantly reminding us that strength of mind was every bit as important to our cause as strength of muscle. She’d given us a generous budget, and a generous workspace in which to create technological masterpieces. And her faith had allowed us to develop pieces that had contributed to inter-realm peace.
Now I scanned the enormous laboratory, overflowing with the latest Asgardian developments. A tiny part of my mind wondered how Henrik and I had managed to create so many brilliant pieces of tech in our cramped, tiny Midgardian workspace. The things we could do here…
“General Aksel, we need to keep moving.”
Right.
I nodded at a young recruit manipulating a hologram—a schematic of an imploding device, from the looks of it. “You’ve enhanced the impact radius with a mini rocket? That’s brilliant,” I encouraged. She glanced up at my words, her amber eyes widening behind thick goggles.
“Thank you, Bry—uh, General,” she whispered, her mouth gaping slightly.
These girls were pinning all their hopes on me not getting us killed. Gods, I really needed to pull this off.
“Is the uniform complete?” Svetana called to the room.
“It’s hanging from the general’s old locker,” one of the valkyries piped up.
“Very well. This way.” Svetana pointed toward the changing room in the back of the lab.
“Thanks.” I slipped past the multi-dimensional printer, raised my own palm at the scanner outside the changing room, and stepped through the entry as soon as the door wavered and disappeared. My locker was just as I’d left it, with one exception: hanging from its door was a uniform so exquisite, I looked around to double check it was mine. Since no other uniforms hung in the room, and since it was attached to my locker, I deduced this was, in fact, for me…and I couldn’t believe my luck.
A suit, made of the traditional valkyrie silver and blue, hung elegantly from a padded hanger. But instead of the customary Kevlar-weave I’d worn as a junior valkyrie, this fabric looked thicker—richer. My fingertips grazed its surface, and I realized it was crafted from fibers I’d never worn.
“Is this…”
“It’s a breathable, organic fabric interwoven with Nidavellir iron,” Svetana said.
“You don’t mean…” I exhaled heavily.
“Ja, General. It is threaded with the same fibers that formed Thor’s hammer.”
Holy skit.
“How’d you get the dwarves to give you that?” I gaped.
“As you may recall, they have a soft spot for Freya.” Svetana grinned—the first smile I’d seen from her that day. “I visited Nidavellir to inform them of her troubles, and to let them know that her substitute would need the strongest suit we could fashion. They gifted me a chunk of the iron for our tech team to manipulate, and reminded me that if Ragnarok were truly upon us, Freya would do well to call on Skidbladnir and Gullinbursti.”
“Excuse me?” Did Freya have secret boyfriends she’d never told us about?
“Skidbladnir—a ship the dwarves crafted for Freya. I knew nothing of it; they gifted it to her in secret. The ship always has a favorable wind, and it can be folded up to hide in a pocket.”
Seriously?
“Who’s the other guy? Or, thing?” I asked. “Gillen…Gullen…”
“Gullinbursti—a golden-haired boar who beams light into darkness, and runs seamlessly through any substance, including air and water.”
Hold the com. We had access to a glowing, space-traveling
pig, and a magic, wind-shifting boat at the exact moment we were trying to stop a killer toenail-ship from sailing on Asgard?
Sometimes the Norns were just too good.
“Excellent. I’ll get changed and we can relay that to the lieutenant generals.” I sat on the bench to unlace my combat boots.
“Your shoes are in your locker. I’ll give you a moment.”
Svetana slipped discreetly from the room, leaving me to drop my bag and sword, and strip the rest of my clothes. My legs slid easily inside the upgraded fighting suit, its armor nearly weightless against my muscles. I reached behind me to tug up the zipper, but the suit closed itself, seemingly intuiting my desire. Whoa. What else could it do? I shoved my clothes inside my locker and removed the coolest pair of shoes I’d ever seen. They were crafted of a silver-hued leather, with some kind of blasters fixed to the heel.
Blasters. There were blasters on my shoes.
Why hadn’t Henrik and I made these yet?
When my shoes laced themselves—because that was a thing now—I slid my rapier into the suit’s iron-lined hilt, slipped my dagger into the hidden compartment in my blaster boots, fluffed my Nidavellir iron-lined cape behind me, and marched determinedly into the lab, my backpack over one shoulder. “Who designed this outfit?” I called out.
Svetana’s lips tugged up at the corners as she scanned me from head to toe. “You look exquisite, General.”
“I was going for deadly, but I’ll take it.” I shot her a grin. “Seriously,” I called again. “Suit designer—and shoe designer—step out!”
Two goggle-clad girls shifted tentatively around a work table. One rubbed her cocoa-colored fingertips together. “I—I, um, designed the suit. Is there a problem with it? We didn’t have time to send it through beta testing, so if the iron’s not sitting right we can—”
“You made this?” I gripped the cape between my fingertips, holding it up. “This exquisite piece of art?”
“Um…yes,” the girl squeaked.
“It’s freaking brilliant,” I praised. “Its intuitive features…I’ve never worked with those before. What can you tell me about them?”
Behind her goggles—and the glasses beneath those—the girl’s warm brown eyes lit up. “The metal was only supposed to be weapon and dark-magic resistant. But it turned out that it was a conductor for a secondary system we’d been developing—one that read brainwaves and translated them to movement. Sort of like what you and Commander Andersson worked on for the God of War’s prosthesis.”
“Fred. Of course!” After Henrik and I finished work on Tyr’s prosthetic arm, I’d sent a full report back to the V.C. for the tech team to analyze. We’d also dropped off a modified version of the specs with one of the human research facilities—there was no reason to keep our scientific advancements to ourselves. “So, the same neuro-conductors resonate with this suit?”
“Exactly.” The girl’s curly ponytail bobbed excitedly. “I’m Kyrea, by the way. I’m a huge fan of the work you’ve done with Major Andersson.”
“Don’t let Henrik hear you say that. His head will—” I spread my fingers apart, miming an explosion. Kyrea and her lab partner giggled.
“What’s your name?” I asked the likely shoe designer. She was Kyrea’s slightly shorter doppelganger.
“I’m Kinsea,” she offered shyly. “The boots are fitted with the same intuitive tech—rigged to fire explosives at close range, so mind your temper if anyone close to you makes you mad.”
“Seriously,” Kyrea muttered drily.
“Lab mishap?” I raised one eyebrow.
“You could say that.” Kinsea flushed. “I kind of almost blew my sister’s hair off.”
“I shouldn’t have been examining the boots with their safety off,” Kyrea said.
“Just know this button here”—Kinsea knelt down and tapped a nearly imperceptible nodule at my ankle—“locks the safety. Once its unleashed, anyone within fifty feet is fair game.”
“Good to know. Seriously, you guys did great work.” I made a mental note to have Svetana send letters of commendation to their parents, as well as to Freya. Incorporating my own tech into my suit on a day when I felt totally out of my element…the sisters deserved a bump in rank, for sure.
“General,” Svetana murmured. “It’s time.
“Keep up the good work, everyone,” I offered as I strode toward the lab door. “Tech’s been the key to saving my team over and over—this department means more to the realm than you can possibly imagine. Know that what you’re doing has the power to save countless lives—no matter what the battle valkyries have to say about it.”
“Preach,” muttered one of the girls. Their entire department burst into giggles.
With one last grin at the tech team I strode down the hall, Svetana on my heels. I paused outside the war room, drew a breath, and raised my hand to the scanner beside the double doors. They glimmered, then disappeared. I stepped into the room to take my place before the four lieutenant generals who made up Freya’s War Cabinet.
Odin willing, I wouldn’t let them—or the warriors under their command—down.
**
“The Elite Team has warriors stationed in Helheim, Muspelheim, and Jotunheim. But Loki dispatched additional forces to Nidavellir and Svartalfheim, where our allies are underrepresented. His monsters are currently funneling dark energy from Nidavellir to Vanaheim through a portal Asgard’s warriors have been unable to seal. We expect a full-scale attack on our sister realm soon.” Mariana, the tallest of Freya’s lieutenant generals, stood at the opposite end of the war room to me, gesturing to the holographic screen atop the wooden conference table. The screen showed the nine realms, with red lights illuminating the areas under threat, and blue lights highlighting our allied forces. She glanced at the three other lieutenant generals, all of whom stood in full battle uniform, hands clasped tightly in front of them.
Nobody looked happy to be here.
“We’d planned to allow Svartalfheim to fall at Ragnarok—unleash a cataclysmic device that would reduce the realm to stardust. But before the fighting broke out, the elves opened a portal in the dark forest and gained access to our primary school. There are almost two dozen Asgardian younglings in their custody.” Mariana reached up to tuck a chestnut strand behind her twice-pierced ear, then folded her hands in front of her. “The darkness spread quicker than we’d anticipated, and our forces will be scattered across the existing skirmishes. Saving the children may cost us the chance to level Svartalfheim. How do you want us to proceed, General?”
Well, skit.
My short fingernails dug into the polished wood of the conference table. We were a formidable army with numbers that rivaled any dark realm’s, but the way Loki had structured his attack meant our resources would be stretched completely thin—even if we didn’t send anyone into Svartalfheim. But how could we abandon our young—the very innocents we’d taken a vow to protect?
Think, Aksel. What would Freya do? What would Love do?
When I put it that way, it was exquisitely simple.
“Okay. Here’s the plan.” I raised my arm and swiped the screen to my right, revealing a close-up of Svartalfheim. “Extracting the younglings is priority one. We’ll send an assassin squadron into Svartalfheim, eliminate the threat, and remove the children through a cloaked portal—one with a dark-magic trigger, so it annihilates any malicious beings that may try to break through. I assume that tech’s still functional?”
“It is,” Svetana confirmed.
“Mariana, can your team handle the extraction?” I asked.
“It would be my honor, General,” she replied.
“Good.” I swiped the screen again, bringing up the image of Nidavellir. With my right hand, I plucked the hologram of Vanaheim and brought it into focus beside the dwarves’ realm. “Now, the dark energy siphon from Nidavellir to Vanaheim is concerning, not only because it puts Vanaheim at risk, but because it’s also likely setting our sister realm as a staging are
a to attack Asgard. We’ll send a squadron to Nidavellir to put down any skirmishes and seal off the leak. That should take care of the secondary threat, provided we get forces on the ground in Vanaheim to take out any hostiles we haven’t prepared for. But the primary threat to the Bifrost is still the ship Naglfar. Let me touch base with the team tasked with taking it down.”
I pressed my fingertips to the camouflaged com on my wrist. “Call Tyr.” Seconds later, my friend’s face appeared on my forearm. I swiped up so his hologram was visible to the entire council.
“What? I’m kind of busy,” Tyr snapped.
“We all are,” I retorted. “Do you have Naglfar under control or will you need backup?”
“I’ve got Henrik, Forse, Odin, and an Elite Team squadron on boat duty with me.”
That meant skit. Everybody knew my girls could kick Odin’s warriors’ butts—including the bad guys.
“Do you need any valkyries?” I rephrased.
“I don’t plan to.” Tyr looked over his shoulder. “I have to go.”
“Be safe.” I swiped down, and Tyr’s holo disappeared. I pulled my shoulders back and rolled my neck to the side, eliciting a loud crack. Much better. “We’ll reserve five senior warriors to assist Tyr when he changes his mind.”
“But the God of War said—”
“I know what War said.” I turned my attention back to the screen. “And when he realizes he was wrong, he’ll be glad we didn’t listen to him. Five of our best—Sigrunn, can your team spare anyone?”
“Of course.” Sigrunn nodded.
“Good. Have them remain on standby in the V.C. And send two of your warriors to evacuate the danger spots in Vanaheim. Now, returning to the Nidavellir uprising, if we send in a squadron here”—I pointed to the base of the mountain that was the heart of the dragons’ nesting region—“and extract any allies we uncover through a portal here”—I tapped the east edge of the alder forest—“we can seal off the leak and stop the flow of dark energy into Vanaheim. Sigrunn, I’m entrusting the rest of your team with this mission.”