by Bec McMaster
The lithe black female in front soared forward to meet him, her cohort hanging back.
He recognized her immediately, and this time it wasn’t merely rage that made his heart squeeze in his chest. “I thought I told you I would kill you if you followed us,” he sent, circling his mother.
The pair of them whirled slowly through the air, keeping an eye on each other.
“I’m not following you,” Zorja snarled. “I’m following her. Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“World’s End,” Zorja told him. “This mountain top is where the mightiest circle was erected to create a portal to Álfheimr. This is where the King of Álfheimr staged his invasion all those years ago. And for some reason, the girl has been moving directly toward it ever since she left my lands.”
“The only way you would know that is if—”
“I had someone follow you.” Zorja dipped her wing sarcastically. “Of course I had someone follow you. I told you of the power she has. Do you think I would allow her to roam free? If her magic doesn’t overwhelm her, then she could get herself killed. ”
Sirius’s nostrils flared. Whoever it was, they were good, for he hadn’t even sensed them.
“Something’s not right, Sirius. She’s not acting at all like herself.”
“Maybe she’s finally free of your prison.”
“It wasn’t a prison,” Zorja snarled. “It was meant to protect her and keep her safe. She likes the dark. She likes the warmth. The world can be too bright and loud for her at times. And this is not the first time she’s escaped. Once a month she likes to watch the moon rise, though we always find her in the same place. Illarion tends to unlock the cells and follow her from a distance. She says she talks to the voice in the moon.” Zorja’s wings dipped as she glanced down. “But she’s never been able to evade us like this. I didn’t think she had the capacity to do so. She will walk through a river, even though she cannot swim. She will climb a cliff because she wants to see the rocks at the top of it. She doesn’t see the risk sometimes. Not enough to lead nearly a dozen dreki on a merry chase like this. Nor does she like leaving the safety of her cave or our mountain range. She’s a child of habit. Something’s not right here.”
Her argument killed his rage. “Why would she be drawn here?”
“We found runes carved into the walls of her prison. Elvish runes. She looks to have chiseled them herself.”
Though he’d been born after the Great Wars, he knew the ljósálfar constantly sought a way to return to the mortal plane in order to gain their revenge upon the dreki who had locked them out.
If Ishtar had spent years hidden away in the dark, then how would she even know what elvish runes looked like?
“She’s the most powerful Chaos-wielder in the world,” he said, half to himself. “One with the ability to create portals.” And if Sirius was an elvish king with a thirst for revenge, then he knew exactly what he would do to gain it. But first, he would need a means to open the portals on this mortal plane that linked Midgard to Álfheimr. The thought left him breathless, for the ljósálfar felt like myths to him, though he knew they existed. “Who had access to her in the caves?”
“Myself,” Zorja replied, “Illarion and Vadim. Perhaps one or two others of my personal guard. She nearly tore apart the throne room when she was ten, and I was forced to contain her. She nearly destroyed the court.”
Which narrowed the pool of people with access to her.
Somewhere out there, one of those smarmy, mincing elves was laughing at them.
Sirius glanced toward the mountain below him. The clouds had begun to clear, revealing the top of the mountain. Twelve enormous rune stones guarded the summit, like teeth that sought to consume the sky. Each rune lit up briefly as the light of the rising moon glanced over them.
And for the first time, he felt the underlying hum in the air, as if the ground within those stones vibrated minutely.
“Fuck,” he said, dipping his wing and plummeting through the skies. “We have to find her first.”
Because if she made that mountain, then the Keepers and Chaos magic might not be the worst thing they had to worry about.
Tormund knew Ishtar was aware he was following her.
She would stop at odd times, glancing back through the darkness and sniffing the air. But his presence didn’t seem to bother her, and he was slowly able to gain ground.
Moonlight spilled into the clearing as they came face-to-face.
Ishtar whirled upon him. Silvery blonde hair hung in matted strands, and her skin was so pale that it looked as though she’d never seen the sun. A thin, stained kirtle covered her body, leaving her arms raw and welted with little bumps.
“Easy.” Tormund held his hands out, not daring to move.
The dreki woman stared at him, the irises of her eyes beginning to glow green.
“I’m not here to hurt you.” Pressure urged him to move fast—Illarion and Vadim had to be close by, and he didn’t think he could fight off two dreki warriors by himself—but in doing so, he’d startle her. “I’m a friend. Friend Tormund. I know your brother, Marduk. He wants to help you. We all want to help you. Do you remember me?”
Her nostrils flared.
“Are you cold?” he asked. “You look cold.”
The princess tilted her face, examining him like a cat considering a mouse that had just confronted her.
Tormund swung his fur-lined cloak off his shoulders slowly, and then held it out to her. “Put it around your shoulders. Like this,” he said, miming the action.
Doubt and wariness turned her eyes almost human. The green glow faded, until he could almost make out the emerald depths of her irises.
“I’m going to help you,” he said softly, taking a careful step forward.
An inch.
Maybe another.
Tormund gently slid his cloak over her shoulders, and she quivered like a newborn foal touched by a human hand for the first time.
“It’s nice and warm, isn’t it?” he whispered.
Ishtar’s eyes widened as he drew the cloak tight around her shoulders, and she sniffed at the fur as if learning his scent.
Suddenly, her nostrils flared and her head snapped sharply to the side, that violent green glowing in her eyes again.
No, no, no, damn it. He’d almost had her.
And that was when he heard boots crunching over snow.
“Back away from her, mortal,” someone called behind him.
Tormund whipped around, his hand falling to the hilt of his axe.
Where the hell is Marduk?
And Bryn?
Even Sirius?
The two dreki warriors stalked out of the forest as if they wore wings on their boots. Both of them towered over him by a good three inches, and their shoulders dwarfed him. He could weigh the odds when he saw them.
He was going to die if he chose to fight.
Right here.
Right now.
They spread out from the birch trees, and one of them detached a weighted rope from his belt. “This doesn’t involve you. You will live if you walk away.”
The older warrior snorted. “It would be best if we kill them all, Larya. Dead men tell no tales.”
“That is not our purpose,” the younger one replied, and Tormund guessed this was Illarion. “We contain her magic. We protect the world.”
Vadim spat on the ground.
Tormund found himself slowly shaking his head. “Perhaps you haven’t heard of my name,” he called, in a gentle voice. “But my mother would have blistered my ears if I was the type of man who walked away from a defenseless woman.”
“She’s not defenseless,” Illarion said coldly, starting to swing the rope.
“She’s a monster,” said Vadim.
“In my world, the monster isn’t always the one with scary magic. Sometimes it’s just the one who’s trying to hurt the innocent.” He drew his axe, staring the pair of dreki down. “I have hunted m
onsters. I know what I’m looking at, and she is not one of them. You cannot have her.”
“She was born from Chaos,” Vadim snapped, drawing a sword. “She will destroy the world if left to live unfettered.”
“Perhaps she has the potential to destroy the world. But I think it is dreki such as you that will drive her to that fate. She needs kindness. Safety. Someone who will show her that the world is not such a bad place after all.”
“She needs to be leashed,” Vadim growled. “Or put out of her misery.”
Tormund shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You will die,” Illarion said.
Tormund hefted the axe with both hands. “That fate is not yet set in stone. I’m not alone. You may have met my companions. One is a handsome prince who talks a lot and who thinks he can charm any woman he sets his sights upon. Normally, I wouldn’t think him much of a fighter, but Ishtar is his sister, and Marduk’s a little protective of her. The other is a surly, one-eyed bastard who thinks he’s amusing. You may have heard of him? They call him the Blackfrost, and he’s killed hundreds of dreki. And then there’s Bryn, and you really don’t want to face her across the length of a sword. She will kick your teeth so far down your throat that you’ll be shitting them for days. I’m not alone, and you don’t have the time to kill me, kill the girl, and escape. So perhaps you should reconsider your options.”
“If we kill the girl, then our own deaths will be a worthy sacrifice,” Vadim replied. “The world must survive.”
Damn it. True fanatics.
Illarion shook his head. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved in dreki matters, mortal. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”
The rope whistled through the air, wrapping around the head of his axe. Tormund tried to dig his heels in, but he was no match for Illarion’s brute strength.
The axe went flying, leaving him vulnerable.
Tormund turned to Ishtar, finding her squatting in the middle of the clearing, her eyes locked on him. “Run,” he told her. “I’ll… I’ll hold them off.”
And then he drew his knives and faced the pair of dreki.
Alone.
Twenty-Five
Steel rang through the eerily quiet mountains.
Ahead of Bryn, light flashed off the whirl of a weapon and she could just make out the sight of Tormund lunging forward to catch the downward strike of a sword with a pair of knives.
No, no, no, no, no. Bryn sprinted down the mountain, her thighs aching. The fool! He was no match for two of the fiercest dreki she’d ever encountered. She prayed to Odin for swift flight, ignoring the pain in her body as she sprinted.
Even as some part of her knew she wouldn’t be in time.
Each ring of steel upon steel echoed her nightmares. The flash of his face as he turned, barely fighting off the sword from behind, was exactly the same image she’d seen in her dreams.
“Tormund!” she screamed, leaping from a rock and sliding down the shale-covered hillside.
A storm of light whipped out from Ishtar, swirling into a whirlwind of intense green magic. It whipped high into the skies, tearing the leaves from trees.
The two Keepers were ripped away from Tormund, staggering in the wind. One slammed into the ground, his cloak whipping around his face. His sword clattered to the rocks below.
Tormund clung to a tree as the vortex threatened to tear him from his feet. “Bryn!”
His voice floated past her as the vortex exploded out from Ishtar, knocking Bryn on her ass in the snow. The wave of magic seemed to explode out through the world, and above them, the mountain started to rumble.
Bryn looked up in horror, clutching her sword desperately. Trees were flattened as the wave of energy smashed the world, and a slide of rocks started tearing down the mountain. Rocks creaked and groaned, and the wind that circled the heart of the storm smashed her down into the snow, barely letting her catch her breath.
All her worst fears came true.
Ishtar could tear apart the world if left to flourish. The völva of Grøa had warned them about this, and Bryn could see it happening right before her eyes.
This was barely the beginning.
Queen Zorja had warned Sirius that the princess’s powers had been contained for so long that Ishtar was only just starting to work out how to use them. Imagine if she stood at full strength. Ishtar would be able to tear the top off a mountain, or part the seas. She’d be able to break apart cities and smash humans in her path. She could set off an unstoppable chain of cataclysmic events.
Bryn had to stop this before Ishtar lost control. She had to contain the princess’s magic somehow.
One of the Keepers rolled to his feet between her and Ishtar, his gaze locking on the princess as he darted for his blade. The girl didn’t even see him coming. She stood alone in the circle, her hands clamped over her ears as magic poured from her.
Drawing her sword, Bryn scrambled to her hands and knees in the catastrophic winds. Hair whipped her face, and her cloak was torn from her shoulders, vanishing into the whirlwind.
“Ignite!” she screamed, lifting the sword.
Fire blazed along its shaft, but the wind seemed to steal the flame from the edge of the metal before it could reach the tip. As she watched, the sword… extinguished itself.
Cold steel would have to do.
Bryn locked eyes with the dreki Keeper.
He brought the sword up as she lunged and steel screamed on steel. Bryn spun into the stroke, suddenly within his guard. She hammered her elbow into his face.
As he staggered backward, she threw herself into the vortex of swirling green magic, trying to reach the girl first.
Icy spears slashed through her skin as Chaos whipped past her and through her. Heat burned deep within her as her Valkyrie side healed her. It felt like the magic was trying to take her apart and put her back together again, but it was wrong. It burned. She could feel her body weakening as the Chaos magic slowly began to undo her. For the first time she could hear the song Marduk spoke of—the shriek of enraged magic hurtling past her.
“Tormund!”
He couldn’t survive this. He had no immortal blood. He had no protection from the gods. He was just human. Weak in so many ways, though his heart was strong enough to shield the world.
Bryn took another step through the vortex, strips of skin peeling from her face and cracks forming in her lips.
Another step. Her bones ached now, as though it was eating her from the inside out.
He will die and you will never get the chance to hold him again. Never get the chance to tell him how you feel….
Bryn screamed in rage and surged into the eye of the storm, gasping as the magic spat her out into the center of calmness that surrounded Ishtar.
The skin along her knuckles split as she flexed her sword, and then healed as she watched. A golden rune burned bright on the back of her hand and then faded. Several others flared to life on her arms, and then vanished too. Bryn took a step and felt her blood firing through her veins, burning away the cold as her Valkyrie side roused.
It had been so long that she felt as though she was made anew.
What had happened?
Had Ishtar’s magic stripped away the bindings that constrained her immortal side?
Or was this Freyja’s will, filling her with strength so that she could stop Ishtar before the magic consumed her?
Either way, nothing was going to stop her now.
Bryn set her jaw.
“Stop!” Tormund slammed into her, driving them both back through the vortex. He hauled her tight against his chest. “Don’t kill her!”
“I wasn’t going to kill her!” She could feel the magic threatening to tear the world apart. Bryn gritted her teeth, trapping a scream. “She needs to be stopped somehow! She’ll destroy the world!”
This was the start of Ragnarök trapped in dreki flesh—though not all the signs had come true. Above them, the skies roiled. The moon
vanished as if Sköll and Hati had eaten it. The world plunged into darkness, until all she could see was the green fire in Ishtar’s eyes.
The two Keepers crawled toward Ishtar, their faces grim, but a green spirit dreki tore itself from the magic and lunged toward them. One of them screamed, throwing his hands up to protect himself, but the other touched the dreki, and the spirit-form disintegrated in a shower of sparks, before turning to his brother.
“She just needs a chance!” Tormund yelled in her face.
A chance? The girl had the power to tear the world apart. Bryn shook her head. “We can’t risk it! She could crush us all! Can’t you see that?”
“All I can see is fear,” he yelled, his arms flexing like steel bands. “If we give in to fear, then that is all she shall ever know. And your prophecy will come true.”
He didn’t understand. She’d trained for this her entire life. Stopping this sort of destruction was what she had pledged her life to. It went against everything she’d ever known to even contemplate allowing the girl to go free.
Tormund let her go.
“Trust me,” he told her, their fingers gripping and their eyes meeting. “Trust me.”
Bryn’s breath arrested in her lungs.
“One chance,” she whispered and lowered the sword.
Tormund stepped toward Ishtar, his hands held low. “Remember me?” he called through the vortex.
“No.” Bryn scrambled toward him, but she lost her feet and the winds smashed her back into a pair of rocks. “Tormund!”
The fool would die. He had no magic, he had no armor, no weapon. He was mortal. The magic would tear the skin from his bones.
“Tormund!”
Crawling to her hands and knees, she lifted her head as he took a step toward Ishtar.
Bryn’s breath caught in her chest as he lunged through the rest of the vortex and fell into the eerie calm that surrounded the dreki princess. Ishtar dug her fingers into her head as if it ached, but he held his hands up in surrender, and Bryn could see him mouthing something as he bent to pick up the cloak at the princess’s feet.