Norse Code

by S. E. Babin

  I leaned against the cool stone of the building, the hood pulled close around my head as I waited. The first few minutes were quiet, just the sound of the townspeople going through their day and the low, nervous sound of my breathing.

  It was the hesitant sound of footsteps that alerted me to possible trouble. I stiffened as I heard them coming my way and readied my magic. Just as I was about to bolt, a low, rumbling voice stopped me in my tracks.

  "Don't leave, Freya. I just want to talk."

  I stepped further into the shadows.

  "Baldur," I acknowledged. "How did you know?"

  He stepped into the alleyway, his massive body blocking off quite a bit of even the dim light trickling through. "Odin has an alarm triggered for you. I disarmed it as soon as it started to move. No one but me knows you're here."

  "Why should I trust you?"

  His shoulders fell. "I deserve that, though it's hard to hear. You are well loved among the people, Freya, even if your actions were occasionally disloyal to my father."

  My lips thinned as I stared at him. "I was never disloyal to Odin, Baldur. Your father is a man who wants everything his way and I am a woman who believes people should make their own choices."

  He held up a placating hand. "Aye. I didn't mean it that way. I've known for a while what you do when he leaves."

  When my eyes widened in shock, he gave a sharp head shake. "I found it harmless. He knows not."

  "Why are you here?"

  "My father is willing to release the Norns if you return to him."

  "I'm never going to do that."

  "I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that the tree of Yggdrasil suffers every day the Norns are not there to nurture it. I'm here to help. To bargain with you to save Asgard."

  I took a hesitant step forward. "You know what magic holds the Norns?"

  "Aye." He scratched his beard. "But it cannot be broken by you or me. Father bargained with the Phantom Queen."

  My stomach dropped to my toes. So this was how she planned to get me. No wonder she wasn't willing to bargain. "Let me guess. The Morrigan is unwilling to break Odin's deal?"

  "I have not spoken to the Morrigan, but I have seen her magic enough to recognize it. If you can get her to release the Norns, my father will have no hold over you."

  I didn't have the heart to tell him he had no leverage with me to start with.

  "He will break your bond and release you."

  I sighed and decided to be honest with him. "The marital bond was broken the day I left, Baldur. Your father didn't even notice."

  Shock and surprise registered at the same time on his handsome face. He rubbed his bearded cheek before he shut his eyes a moment. "My father is not a loving man," he said finally. Though after a moment he grinned. "So you decided to force his hand and trick him into releasing the Norns knowing he had nothing to gain by it?" He didn't wait for me to answer before he let out a long and low chuckle. "That's worthy of the Trickster, Freya."

  I snorted. "I'm not sure I meant it that way, but I've always believed in using a situation to my own advantage."

  "So now I guess I need to ask why you are bargaining for the Norns."

  "I have no secrets. I bargain for the health of the Nine Worlds. I can feel the restlessness of the roots. The Norns were not meant to be in captivity."

  He held my gaze for too long, perhaps trying to gauge my honesty. "I believe you, but I also think there is more to this story than you're telling me. Take the knowledge of the Morrigan for free, Freya, but leave this place as soon as you can. When my father realizes the Norns are no longer in his possession, he will hunt to the ends of the world for you."

  I dipped my head in thanks. "I give you my thanks, Baldur." I paused for a moment. "If you decide you tire of Asgard, reach out to the Valkyries and I will parley with you at a time and place of my choosing."

  "My loyalty is to my father and Asgard," he said gruffly. "Though I thank you for the offer."

  Baldur turned and left, his broad body disappearing into the mist he created. I let out the long breath I'd been holding. I'd always liked him, but he was the son of Odin and he was loyal. Perhaps even his loyalty was flexible.

  Eyra rushed out of the store a few moments later, grabbed my arm and yanked me up into a full high-speed flight. I squealed in terror as the wind hit my face and stung my eyes.

  "We have to go!” Eyra shouted.

  I shut my mouth and let her take me. My body flailed in the wind and my arm stung where she held me. Several minutes later, we touched down in a forest a few miles from the palace. She shoved something into my hand. "Get out of here, immediately. Do not land anywhere except for your settlement. We are being hunted." Eyra looked over her shoulder. "I will catch up with you when I can."

  I nodded, fear making a golf sized ball in my throat. "Very well." I disappeared before her eyes and landed in the middle of my living room, out of breath and terrified.

  I opened my hand to see what Eyra had placed there and gasped in shock.

  It was a silver brush gifted to me by Odin when we'd first bound ourselves to each other. The brush was filled with my hair, but attached to the handle glowed a blood red charm.

  When I opened my senses and looked at it closer, the charm was tied to my magic.

  "Well...crap," I muttered and sank to my haunches onto the floor.

  12

  The gods liked to think they're omnipotent. We liked to think we couldn’t be killed or maimed or wounded, simply because we're arrogant and we don't like to think about our own mortality. But...and it's taken me years to admit this, we're also kind of dumb. I might have blown up the palace, but I left most of my stuff behind. I mean, blowing it up was mostly a symbolic gesture because Odin was powerful enough to immediately replace it once he'd gotten over the shock. But he would never be able to replace it completely, simply because the place was too big to remember everything we had. So the fact that the stone led Eyra to the brush told me something important.

  Odin never paid attention to me enough to remember I even had this. So someone had taken this before I'd left and used my hair to make a simple enough tracker. While they wouldn't be able to track me inside of the town, it would take someone close enough to my whereabouts to realize what must have happened. So all the effort I'd used on preventing Odin from finding me didn't even matter when someone had used the simplest of magics to overcome it.

  I was an idiot.

  My thoughts spun with the implications of it all. I'd lived in the palace for thousands of years. I'd left my mark on just about everything. How could I erase that much of my existence to keep myself from being tracked in the future? There had to be a way.

  I let out an annoyed huff of air. Whoever this was knew exactly where I was. Why they were withholding the info from Odin, I had no idea. It was just one more piece of the puzzle to work out.

  With a curse, I pointed at the brush and incinerated it and the charm with a single word. Ash fell to the carpet and I swept it away with a breath.

  It was too late to worry about now. I couldn't wait for Eyra to return to tell me what she found out. Until then, I needed to go see the witches.

  I quickly changed into a pair of jeans and stuffed the clothes from Asgard underneath my bed. Rushing out to the door, I had my hand on the knob and was about to turn it when frantic knocking sounded from outside.

  "Freya!" a woman hissed from the outside. "Open the damned door."

  I pulled it open and five witches tumbled in. They slammed it behind them and circled me as they all started talking at once.

  I waved my hands at them and gestured for them to be quiet. "I can't understand any of you. What's going on?"

  Griselda took me by the hand, reopened the door, and rushed outside, me flailing behind her. She said nothing. Her face was set in grim determination as she dragged me along. When she got to her house, she flung open the door and shoved me in.

  I stumbled inside only to moan with dismay when I saw why she
'd brought me.

  Eyra lay on the couch, one wing bent at an odd angle. She was unmoving. I rushed over to her and fell to my knees.

  "Eyra!"

  Mel put a hand on my shoulder. "She fell on our doorstep from the sky. We haven't been able to wake her up."

  I brushed a hand over her forehead. Her face felt smooth and cool. She wasn't sick. Just...wounded. "Have you found any other wounds?"

  Griselda shook her head. "Other than her wing, no."

  I brushed the tips of my fingers against the feathered softness of the broken wing. "I can heal her," I said.

  "If you do, your magic will seep through the barrier."

  I shut my eyes. I wasn't sure I cared anymore. "This has gone on far too long. Stand back."

  The witches all obeyed, though Griselda watched me with sad eyes.

  I stood to my full height and allowed magic to pour through my veins. I'd restrained myself ever since I'd left Asgard but I never imagined that I'd be dealing with murder and magical mayhem ever since I got here. All I wanted was a quiet life, but the damn Asgardians couldn't leave well enough alone.

  Fiery magic filled me and wings like those of a hawk sprang from my back - a gift from the Valkyries. I flexed them, feeling the powerful muscles in my back. I got back down on my knees and tucked them behind me. Placing my hand on Eyra's wing, I began to pour healing energy into it and focused on knitting the muscles, bones and cartilage back together. Anger colored my spellwork, shaking the very foundations of the land. Slowly, Eyra's torn wing began to mend itself. She sighed on the couch but didn't wake up. I sent a small tendril of seeking magic through her trying to find if anything else had hurt her but I could sense no other physical wounds on her. When I got to her mind, though, I felt some kind of...block. I gently wrapped my magic around the small black circular area and was just about to probe when Griselda's door blew off the hinges.

  The witches flew back and tumbled over each other. I stood and flexed my wings.

  Tyr walked through the door.

  His gaze took in everything before he gave me a smarmy smile. "It took you long enough," he said. "Though I didn't expect you to bring any of your Valkyrie friends." His eyes flickered with anger when he saw Eyra's still form lying there. "Shame. Thought I shot that bat right out of the sky." He grinned at me. "Though she did me a solid and led me almost straight to your door in her haste to get out of Asgard." Tyr shrugged. "It wouldn't have mattered, though, Trin was about to tell me exactly where you were. We had a meeting scheduled for this afternoon. But thanks to Eyra here, we cancelled it."

  Trin. Rage spilled within me. She was Eyra's squad leader and one of my good friends. She'd been here from the beginning helping me plan this place and assisting me with the spells required to protect it from Odin.

  Eyra was going to be heartbroken when she awoke.

  "Trin?" I questioned. "I don't believe you."

  Tyr shrugged. "Come on in, honey."

  Trin walked through the door, her boots crunching on glass and debris. From behind me I heard Griselda whisper something to the other witches. I hoped they were making a plan to get out of here because I couldn't see this going anywhere but south. I didn't have the power to take on both a Valkyrie and an Asgardian by myself. My only plan was to get out of here as soon as possible and get my people to safety. To do that, I was going to have to figure out how to restrain them temporarily.

  I shut my eyes for a brief second and sent a prayer to someone I really hoped was listening to me.

  If we were going to get out of here alive, we were going to need help, and right now I wasn’t too picky about where it came from.

  Trin was dark-haired, beautiful, and self-assured. She carried herself with the grace of a dryad but could swing a sword so quickly I'd never been able to tell where her arm ended and the sword began. In short, I might be a goddess of formidable strength, but Trin quite simply scared the shit out of me. But I was apparently mistaken in thinking she had honor. And that was a shame. Valkyries chose honor over everything so when her deeds became known she would be shunned by her own people.

  She stood in front of me, her arms crossed over her armored chest and nodded. "Freya," she said simply.

  "I'm afraid you haven't thought this through, Trin." I pointed at Eyra still lying prone on the couch. "Would you betray your own people so quickly?"

  Her attention hovered over her downed comrade for a moment but if I thought to see any kind of compassion in her eyes, I was mistaken. "I've betrayed none of the Valkyries."

  "But you've betrayed me."

  She held my gaze. "Aye."

  "May I ask why?"

  Tyr snorted and scratched his beard. "Do we have to do all this touchy feely feminine bullshit right now?"

  I caught movement outside the window from my peripheral and I hoped against all hope it was good news and not another Valkyrie walking in to screw me over.

  "I deserve to know," I said to Tyr, stalling as much as I could.

  "No Asgardian deserves to live on Midgard," Trina said. "This is our claimed territory. We rule the humans here, not you."

  "I've made no claims to Midgard, Trin. I merely wish to exist here with my people."

  "This is part of the problem. The gods don't merely exist. They destroy."

  I shook my head. "How long have you known me? How many times have you seen me destroy anything?"

  "Odin destroys all."

  I put it all on the line even though I knew I was screwing myself. "Odin and I are no longer bonded."

  Tyr sucked in a shocked breath and stared at me with suspicion. "Marital bonds cannot be broken by only one person!" he shouted.

  "When the bond is as weak as ours, it can be." I didn't bother to tell him I had a boost in the form of a crazy dark goddess who apparently liked to moonlight as a matchmaker.

  He shook his head. "No. Impossible."

  A tall and lean dark-haired god stepped into the room. "I'm afraid she's right. But she didn't tell you everything." His eyes flickered over me from head to toe as if to assure him I was in one piece.

  "Oh and what's that?" Tyr sneered.

  "That it's extremely rude to interrupt someone when they're about to eat lunch." Loki lurched forward and propelled two massive blasts of magic right at Tyr and Trin.

  "Run!" he shouted to me even as he rushed over to Griselda and the other witches. With alarming speed, Loki took all of the witches with them.

  I concentrated in spite of the chaos and with a whisper of breath threw them both out of the town. It wouldn't hold long, especially with Trin knowing how the wards were set up, so I flapped my wings and flew to the edge. I placed both hands against the barrier and reinforced the entire thing with my own magic. Slumping down to the ground, I sucked in gulps of air. It would hold. For a little while. Once they broke through my magic, the rest of the wards would fall like water.

  After a couple of minutes of recovery I struggled to my feet and took off the ground in flight. I was still a little wobbly but fear makes a good teacher. I landed in front of a long row of houses and began the tedious process of explaining to everyone that we temporarily had to move. When the wards went down, I didn't want my people anywhere near here.

  Once I'd told everyone to pack only the necessities I touched back down in front of Griselda's house where Eyra still lay untouched on the couch. I picked her up in my arms, activated the key inside of my skin, and entered the place I so rarely went.

  Valhalla.

  13

  I prayed that Trin hadn't come back here yet. She was hopefully still trying to figure out how to get through the wards. The iron doors of Valhalla opened before me and I walked in, calmly trying to look like I had my shit together. Yet, I was carrying an unconscious Valkyrie, we were both filthy, and I was pretty sure I had a head wound bleeding profusely down my face from when Tyr made the door explode. Quite overdramatically, I might add.

  The halls were filled and noisy and no one paid us any attention until a shou
t of alarm ricocheted through the room. A Valkyrie, short and stout, rushed over to me.

  "Eyra?" she said, her eyes widened with concern.

  "Aye. She had a broken wing, but I repaired it. There's something -" I didn't get very much further before we were swarmed with winged super buff women.

  "Do not let Trin through the doors!" I finally had to shout.

  Silence fell immediately. "Excuse me?" one of them said. She sounded very pissed off about it, too, and I guess I couldn't blame her. If someone I didn't know all that well came into my house accusing someone they loved of some shady things I'd get up in arms about it, too.

  A flame haired woman came walking toward us all. She towered over the other women both in height and power. White and tipped with sooty black on the edges, her wings trailed from her back onto the floor. The Valkyries surrounding me quickly stepped out of my way and went to their knees.

  "Alaria," I said and bowed my head in deference.

  "Freya." Her gaze went to the winged woman in my arms. "What happened to our esteemed warrior and why should we prevent one of our own from entering their homeland?"

  I quickly rattled off what had happened to Eyra, though I didn't have all the details. "I was about to try to heal the rest of her when Tyr and Trin arrived."

  At the mention of Tyr, Alaria's mouth turned down. "The justice god?" She grunted. "I told Trin to stay away from him." She made a hand motion and a petite blonde with ridiculously muscled arms rushed up to her. She murmured something in her ear and the woman hurried away, though not without a curious glance at me.