Iduna

by Maya Michaels

  “What did you do differently?”

  “I don't know.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “Honestly I was thinking about my son. I can't stop thinking about him now.”

  “What do you usually think about?”

  “I'm usually too tired to think. Talking with you is forcing me to think. I don't exactly like it.” Lex bared her teeth, hostile and annoyed.

  “That was it!” Her eyes lit up with excitement. Iduna sat up and felt only a twinge of pain. Her back was getting better.

  “Care to share?”

  “Your mate mentioned focusing on some feeling. Maybe your singular focus on your son is creating some constant feeling to draw on. Now that I think about it, he didn't say what the feeling was.”

  “Oh, yes, I know!” Lex closed her eyes, and her scales seemed to glow with a blue light. “Rubino, my love.”

  “Fantastic!” Iduna perked up even more, happy for Lex and expectant of a solution. Finally.

  Iduna stilled abruptly. “It's coming again.”

  “What? … Rubino, Rubino, I remember you!” The dragon's focus was inward, reveling in her memory.

  “Lex! What is the feeling?” she cried with urgency. Iduna's skin started to crawl like a family of centipedes were creeping over her.

  “There are a few different ones that we use.” Lex was practically purring.

  Iduna pulled her knees to her chin and began rubbing her shins vigorously. “For Yorin's sake, just give me one!”

  “Just one? Well, let me see …”

  “Lex!” Iduna didn’t have time. “Now!”

  “Love works well. Think about someone you love. Their beautiful scales, the glory of their fire.”

  Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Iduna turned her focus inward and began breathing deeply, hoping to breathe away the itching, crawling feeling. She brought the picture of her parents to mind. The image was fuzzy with age, but there was one memory sharper than the others.

  She pushed herself to remember.

  Her mother on one side, her father on the other, each of them holding one of her hands. They were walking slowly through a grassy field. Every few steps they would lift her from the ground and swing her high in the air between them. Sometimes she would skip to encourage them. They swung her high, her arms secure in their grasp.

  She felt calm and happy.

  “That is amazing,” Iduna said.

  “Yes, it is,” Lex was sitting contentedly, her tail wrapped around her tucked legs.

  Iduna didn't know if it was her or Lex, but Lex looked more blue than gray now. The respite from the torturous sound was sweet, and the technique had left Iduna feeling light and hopeful. She didn’t have answers to all her questions, but she had finally had a breakthrough.

  “Let's get you back to your family,” Iduna said as she stood and began walking toward the center of the island and the mountain.

  Lex stood and tried her wings with a couple experimental flaps. She couldn’t get off the ground.

  “It's a long walk, but we'll get there. We'll get our strength back now that we don't have to worry about the sounds.”

  They began making their way awkwardly through the brush, with the ground getting steeper as they approached the mountain that rose high into the mist.

  Iduna had been thinking about the experience, going through the steps of breathing fire. She felt that she'd learned something, but she didn't know what yet. They were now immune to the sounds of the island. If they started to hear them, they both went through the routine of focusing on a good feeling, then doing the meditative breathing. Those were the steps that Rubino had outlined for breathing fire. Yet neither of them had exhaled the smallest wisp of a flame.

  When they sat to rest briefly, Iduna brought up the subject. “Lex, I didn't breathe fire.”

  “Of course you didn't, stick,” she said with warm fondness. The experience had changed Lexonia into a much more cordial and appreciative companion.

  “I know. I know. Sticks can't breathe fire, but neither did you. You went through Rubino’s description of how to breathe fire, but you didn't do it.”

  “Ah, yes, there is a difference. Recall that the last step is a smooth, forceful exhale.”

  “Smooth and forceful? That seems like a contradiction in terms.”

  Lexonia raised her wings slightly in a shrug. “Fire is personal.” She got up and continued the gradual climb, leaving Iduna to her thoughts.

  …

  Rubino knew as soon as he saw Lex that she was free of the island’s song. They huddled together, mates and child. Iduna stayed beyond the clearing where the waterfall had left a large pool, just on the edges, giving them some privacy. She was still in awe of the dragons and had never thought she would meet them in her lifetime.

  “Iduna, thank you. Thank you for bringing our family back together,” Rubino said.

  “You're welcome. We helped each other. I'm also grateful for you sharing the secret of fire-breathing with me. If it hadn't been for you all, I would still be running until exhaustion each time the wind shifted and howled on this island.”

  “Well, we didn't exactly decide to share the secret with you,” Rubino reproached lightly, “but I'm immensely glad you learned it.”

  “I still don't breathe fire.”

  Lex and Rubino exchanged a look, then turned inscrutable faces to Iduna. “Fire is personal. We would like to do something for you. What do you need?”

  Iduna didn't feel like she had the answer to Lex’s question, but, with no other direction, she decided it was time to go back to Okeenos and see what Akio and Kai had to say. After having lost control with her first experiment, she didn't want to do any more experimenting on this island.

  “I don't suppose you could give me a ride to Okeenos?”

  Chapter 51

  Freya woke to the sounds of seagulls trying to steal the morning catch from the returning fishermen. She crouched and waited. Patience had paid off in Lawan.

  After hours of watching numbly, she was wrenched out of her stupor by the sight of Senbo walking down the road. She blinked. It was him. What was he doing here? If he was here, where was her husband? Her frantic thoughts subsided when she realized Senbo was all alone. Without Vilir she could take him. Senbo was nothing without Vilir's immense power.

  Senbo would be her next prisoner. She would enjoy having him as her prisoner, then trade him for her husband.

  She slid down and jumped off the back of the building. The village was small and quiet with few people around, which was good because she stood out like a snowstorm in the tropics. She moved quickly from one building to the next. Senbo was taking a wide dusty trail out of the village. She jumped into the foliage and rushed to get far enough ahead of him and away from any passerby. She stopped and waited. When he was two strides past her, she jumped out and pressed his own dagger to the small of his back.

  “Where do you think you're going, Senbo?” she sneered.

  “Nowhere now,” he replied.

  “Where is my husband?” she asked, clamping her other hand on his shoulder.

  “Who is your husband?”

  She was getting frustrated. They were too exposed here. She would need some time with him. Then he would talk.

  “Keep going.” He walked awkwardly in front of her as she kept hold of his shoulder and let the dagger press into him just enough to remind him who was in control here. They approached a shack and went inside.

  “Get some rope,” she demanded.

  “Rope? I don't usually keep rope around, but I have some handcuffs you could use on me.”

  “So this is your house? How fortunate. Where are these cuffs?”

  He pointed over to a shelf. She walked him over to a bookshelf that held a myriad of contraptions. He picked up the handcuffs, and she pushed him down in a chair. She pulled his hands through the railed back of the chair and cuffed them. Another pair of cuffs secured his feet together in front of him.


  She stood back and appraised her handiwork. She never thought to see Senbo in her power. He didn't look angry at her, and that rankled. Instead he looked eager to talk. He leaned forward as if to share a fun secret with a friend.

  “I should tell you that I'm not Senbo.”

  Chapter 52

  Skuld walked along the beach to Vilir's tent. Vilir had called both Dagna and Skuld for the first time since the two of them had agreed on their plan. They hadn't discussed their intentions since that night — there were too many eyes and ears around them to take the risk.

  The energy at the camp had grown slowly and, as it had, so had everyone’s level of alertness. Skuld was glad it had taken a while. He took heart in the apparent limitations of Vilir's power; that it took time to recover between slaughters was a beggar's consolation.

  His hands were damp with nervous sweat, and he wiped them against his legs.

  Kick, ax, kill. He clung to the mantra. Two out of three of those actions were Dagna's, and he felt lucky to have her on his side. She was the most courageous warrior, and his mind was full of stories from their past. Polar bear hunts, caribou tracking, facing the sporadic attacks from their neighbors to the south.

  In retrospect he appreciated how nonviolent each of those encounters had been, and it was clear that the border skirmishes had truly been lighthearted affairs. He couldn't recall anyone on either side actually killing in decades.

  He entered the tent to find Vilir and Senbo discussing a map and sketches. Dagna stood quietly to the side of the table.

  He saw Dagna with new eyes.

  She was incredibly beautiful and strong. The weakness and openness from the night they'd talked had changed everything.

  He cursed himself for not having agreed on a cue to action. Maybe they wouldn’t need it. They had spent years side by side, before they'd been split apart to manage solo one of the two sides of the Ull force. They knew each other well. She looked poised, ready. He could see her weight balanced ever-so-subtly on the balls of her feet. Her ax was hanging at her side like always.

  “You will begin building these rafts.” Vilir pointed to the sketches. They showed a series of palm tree trunks strapped together to make a raft. “And the paddles to power them." The designs for both craft and paddles were simple.

  “Why?” Skuld couldn't resist asking. He would make his move soon.

  “We are going to conquer the islands of Okeenos,” Vilir replied. His gaze moved over the map as if envisioning the begging and bloodshed his attack would soon cause.

  Skuld let a pause settle in the air. He took in the self-satisfaction that oozed from Vilir. It was time to end this madness.

  “No!” Skuld yelled as he crouched and rammed into Vilir, hitting him low and knocking them both to the floor. Vilir was an enormous man. Skuld lay on top of him, clamping his hands on Vilir's thick wrists and using his legs to keep the other man's legs down. It wasn't a position he would be able to sustain for any period of time. He knew from their youth that Vilir was the better fighter, and that could only be truer now. He was counting on surprise and speed.

  And Dagna’s help.

  He heard Dagna's battle cry as she grabbed her ax and swung it toward Vilir's taut neck. The vessels in Vilir's neck bulged as he struggled to toss Skuld aside.

  A keen, high whistle broke through all sounds.

  Vilir pushed Skuld off like a gnat, and Skuld fell in a sprawl. Skuld was confused, not knowing where the sound had come from and why Dagna’s blow hadn’t fallen. He looked up to see Dagna standing over him with lips curled in a snarl of hatred. In search of an answer, his gaze turned to the only other person in the room.

  Senbo's lips were still pursed, and the whistle died off slowly.

  Skuld was panting from the oh-too-brief wrestle with Vilir and his own confusion.

  Senbo arched a brow, inviting Skuld to talk.

  He couldn’t believe it. “You have the power too,” Skuld said.

  “Yes.” Senbo said while Vilir rolled to his feet and now stood tall. “My power is much more limited than Leder Vilir's. I can only target one person effectively at a time. If I were to try my power on all the Ull, like Leder Vilir can do with such ease, then I would fail. But I can control one person completely.” He nodded at the beautiful female warrior. “Dagna is mine.”

  Skuld could see Senbo wrestling with his own ego. The man was a weasel, and Skuld hated that he was now at Senbo's feet. At least he was confident that his feelings for Senbo were his own. A new clarity came to him.

  “When you came to Ull is when everything started changing. You caused all this.” He grew angrier with every word. He spat at Vilir's feet. “And you are his tool.”

  “I will enjoy watching you die,” Vilir said. “End him. He’s of no use to us.”

  “Dagna, strangle him,” Senbo said in a flat monotone. To Skuld he said, “If you fight her and win, we will just kill you both.” It pleased Senbo to watch the two turn on each other. With Skuld gone and Dagna compromised, Vilir would lean even more into his power.

  Skuld lay still with shock as Dagna, his Dagna, moved toward him. She straddled him and sank down to sit on his chest. He looked up at her, beseeching her to stop. If he could bring her back to her senses, then they might be able to win. This couldn't be her.

  “Dagna, stop. You don’t want to do this,” he got out as she curled her fingers around his neck.

  “I hate you.”

  “You don't hate me. I love …” The words couldn't make it past her clenched hands. His eyes bulged, and blackness descended.

  Chapter 53

  “You look like Senbo,” Freya said, squinting at him dubiously.

  “He’s the one that looks like me. It's the perk he gets from being my brother. And his real name is Obi,” Akio said.

  She couldn't process this. A cloud of rage was obscuring her thoughts. She'd felt so close. If what he said were true, then she'd just lost a direct connection to her husband.

  “Prove you’re not Senbo,” she bit out.

  “I don't know how to do that. Maybe we can figure this out together. Where did you see Obi?”

  She detected a sharp curiosity in this last question. He wanted to know where his brother was. Maybe she could use it.

  “I'm in control here. I ask the questions. Who are you, and why do you want to know?”

  “My name is Akio, and I'm the trainer. I'm worried about Obi. He was upset when he left here, and I'm afraid of what he may have done.”

  His apparent honesty was disconcerting. She needed to focus. The rage humming in her was a living, breathing thing. It needed to vent. She looked around his home. It was a mass of odd contraptions and books. She'd never liked books, preferring the outdoors when she was young. She was a simple woman, and books suddenly felt like a tool that had been used against her. She picked up a book and turned to face Senbo's supposed brother. She started tearing the pages and throwing them on the floor. The act of destruction soothed her as did the wince of her prisoner.

  She wouldn't tell him that his brother had her husband; she wouldn't tell him anything that might give him some control.

  “Do you know Iduna?” She kept tearing out pages one by one.

  “Yes, I just met her recently.”

  “Why did she come to you?” That had been bothering her. She'd been following Iduna, but she had no idea why Iduna had abandoned her people in Lawan—though that did seem to be her style, Freya thought with a snarl. Where was Iduna going, and what was she up to?

  “Iduna needed to learn our magic.”

  “Where is Iduna?” Freya could care less about magic.

  “She's not here, but she'll be back, if she's successful.”

  “Successful?”

  “Oh, yes. She could be dead by now,” he said.

  She crumpled the torn page leaf in her hand. What would she do if Iduna were dead already? Her mind whirled.

  “If she's dead, then I need her body,” she said.

&nbs
p; “Now that won't be possible. If you go where she went, you would die within minutes.” He considered further. “Seconds, more likely.”

  At this, she hurled the book against the wall and screamed. She raged around the room, cursing and yelling at herself and the world.

  She just couldn't take it anymore. Everything she tried just failed. Everyone was trying to block her, and she just kept failing. The days waiting in Cha. The days at sea sitting in a still or slow-moving boat. The waiting. The endless waiting. All while her husband suffered a vacuous existence and imminent death. She was his wife, his partner. He would never have let her suffer like this. If he’d been in her shoes, he would have saved her by now.

  She was a total failure. Her ranting screams and epithets echoed in the small house.

  Suddenly the screams turned to laughter. She laughed hysterically. The futility of her situation, her utter failure, all suddenly seemed hilarious. She was a farmer. She milked cows. She served meals. She wasn't a hunter. It was all too ludicrous.

  She plopped into a stuffed chair and kept laughing. Her laughs would start every time the ridiculous nature of her position struck her anew. She hiccupped.

  She was a farmer no more.

  “Well, we'll just wait here for her.” It was what she'd had to do so far. She would do it again. If he were the trainer and if Iduna needed to learn their magic, then Iduna would come back here. Magic. The Ull had long ago cast aside magic, preferring to work with their hands. These silly people and their magic. His magic didn’t seem to be helping him get out of those cuffs. Wiping a tear of laughter from her face, she kicked back in the stuffed chair to sleep.

  Chapter 54

  Rubino carried Iduna high above the clouds, and her spirit soared. The wind rushed by her as she flew on the back of the mighty red dragon.

  She felt free and open, like she could feel again.

  As Iduna laughed out loud, Rubino dove through the clouds and burst through the other side to skim along the surface of the undulating ocean. Iduna leaned down and brushed her fingertips lightly over the massive swells. Rubino gave a playful turn, and Iduna screeched as she was almost dunked. Rising high again, Iduna couldn’t stop smiling. The mountains of Okeenos loomed near, and Rubino circled to land.