Dead Embers

by T. G. Ayer

  My shoulders slumped, and I tried to think about something else.

  "Why can't I touch him?"

  "There is no reason why you cannot touch him."

  "But Astrid said . . ." My words trailed into the shadows as I glared at the closed door. The bitchy Valkyrie had used the big guns. Well, at least I had a magical bird to tell me the truth.

  "The Valkyrie Astrid has her reasons for the nature of her hatred. You must pay no attention to her, Bryn. There is far too much at stake for you to be led off your path by any enemy."

  "Enemy is a harsh word, Blackbird." But he was right. Astrid was no friend of mine. At least I'd now have my time with Aidan, no thanks to her.

  I crawled closer to him and leaned my arms on the stone bed, right beside his shoulder. His hair curled at his temple, and I smoothed away a fat black tendril. The feel of soft, silky hair against my fingers brought a rush of heat to my eyes. I missed him so terribly. The soft flesh of my fingertips traced his cool cheek. I shifted so I could link my fingers with his, allowing my warmth to seep into him, and whispered words into his ears: promises and memories mixed with regret.

  We didn't have much luck in this love of ours. Even as I thought about it, I wondered if it had ever been love at all. Had it just been a physical attraction that had held us together so tenuously? He'd come into my life and then left again so abruptly, breaking my heart into a million pitiful pieces.

  Many weeks and many reasons later, we'd found each other again, in Asgard, as if destiny struggled to keep us apart. A Valkyrie and an einherjar, a Warrior of Valhalla, destined to fight and die for Odin.

  I closed my eyes and held Aidan. Now I just needed him to wake up and ease my doubts.

  ***

  Who knew how much time had sped by before Hugin's shuffling and fluttering drew me out of my semi-dreamlike state? I shifted, then lifted my head. I'd fallen asleep on Aidan's chest. Tears filled my eyes and blurred his features as I accepted that my time with him had drawn to a close.

  "Come, Brynhildr. It is time we were going."

  I rose to my knees and stared at Aidan's beautiful face. A silent laugh escaped my lips. Wouldn't he find it too funny to know he played the part of sleeping beauty so well? I bent over him and touched my lips to his. Maybe I had this silly hope he'd be revived just by the tender kiss. Maybe I knew it was stupid.

  I paused, waiting for something . . . anything . . . to happen. But he didn't magically awaken. He didn't move, didn't stir, didn't even appear to breathe. I rose to my feet and stepped away from the stone bed.

  Just in time.

  Astrid swung the door open, clearly expecting to burst in on me breaking her stupid rule. She stared at Aidan's silent form, then back at me, where I stood a foot away from him. A comical expression of disappointment marred her beautiful profile.

  "Your time is up," she snapped. Two bright spots of anger flamed on her cheeks right before she stalked off, not bothering to check if we followed.

  We did, but I had no intention of running after her just to keep up. I entered the hall a few moments later, Hugin flying ahead, then circling back to land on my shoulder.

  "Did you have a good visit, my dear?" Freya's mellifluous voice again sent a shiver rippling down my spine as I neared the dais.

  I stiffened, hoping she couldn't tell I'd shed my tears with Aidan, hoping she couldn't see my stupid breaking heart.

  "Thank you, my lady. I'm honored to be allowed this visit." I lifted my chin slightly.

  "He will be revived, Brynhildr. It will take time. Loki's serpent poison is vicious. It will, of course, be much better if a more potent cure is found, but in the meantime we will do what we can." Freya smiled, startling me. Was she actually trying to make me feel better?

  I nodded and lowered my eyes. Better for her to think I'd been overcome with emotion than for her to recognize the disbelief in my eyes—disbelief at her attempt to feign compassion.

  "I must be going back. Is there anything I can bring him?" I knew as the words left my lips that the answer would be no.

  Astrid shifted beside Freya, who shook her head. "We have what we need to take care of your Aidan. We will do what we must."

  I nodded. "Thank you again, my lady."

  Hugin launched off my shoulder and, in a flurry of black feathers, led me out into the icy bleakness that was Helheim, back to Bifrost and back to Asgard.

  And back to utter loneliness.

  Chapter 9

  Vipers come in all shapes and sizes, and the most beautiful ones are the most dangerous. Although Freya may have meant what she said about Aidan, I couldn't trust her. And I certainly didn't trust Astrid. Perhaps I could go to Odin for help.

  I tried to put the whole episode out of my mind, immersing myself in working out on the training grounds. But the faces of my sparring partners blurred into images of Aidan, lying cold and vulnerable under Astrid's and Freya's eyes.

  "You know, it's really hard to concentrate on sword practice when you make a face like that all the time."

  The warm, amused voice brought me out of my funk. I spun around and met the speaker with open arms and a huge grin. Joshua! He hugged me back as best he could with a vicious blade in one hand. Somehow we avoided mortally wounding each other with our weapons.

  "I've been watching you," he said. "For a girl you sure can wield a sword." Joshua's teeth glinted a welcome, his eyes twinkling as he looked me up and down, trying to keep a stern and threatening mien.

  But he couldn't keep the naughty expression off his face, and I laughed aloud.

  "Don't mess with me, Warrior. I'll wipe the floor with you."

  "The mud, you mean?"

  "Huh?"

  "The mud, not the floor." He poked his sword at the muddy sludge beneath our feet. Just like the Joshua I'd known back in Craven, being such a smart-aleck that his jokes went over my head.

  I chuckled and swatted him on the shoulder. At least Joshua's new job and abode hadn't changed him.

  "Enough with the pleasantries. Get back to work, Warriors." Fen strode past and shot the stern warning at us. He kept walking, but I didn't miss the tiny curve to his lips.

  Joshua's smile vanished, though, and the color drained from his face. He stared after the wolf-man, deep in thought. And only snapped out of it when I waved a hand in front of his eyes.

  "Sorry, I was just thinking."

  "About Fen?"

  "Yeah! He's . . . strange."

  "Strange as in . . . ?" I glanced over my shoulder, but the wolf-man was safely out of earshot. Human earshot, at least.

  "Don't know . . . maybe it's the whole werewolf thing," Joshua muttered.

  Across the field from us, Fen's retreating form wended its way between sparring, mud-splattered Warriors and Valkyries. Joshua wrenched his eyes away from the Ulfr general and asked, "You still pissed at him?"

  I narrowed my eyes at Joshua. "About what?"

  "Hey, news travels. We heard about your little flying accident."

  I swatted at him again, and he ducked neatly. "It was no accident," I snapped, bouncing low on my knees, waving the sword around and testing its weight in my hand.

  Joshua watched me and did the same. "Guess he had his reasons."

  "Yeah." I swept the sword in a wide arc toward Joshua, and he deflected it. The collision of our weapons sent jarring vibrations shuddering up my arm. "But what if he'd been wrong?"

  "But he wasn't." Joshua thrust his sword straight at me; I parried. "You have to stop dwelling on it, you know. He knows what he's doing."

  I swung at my friend so hard he didn't try to block the blow, just backpedalled out of reach of the deadly bite of my blade. "I wonder if he would've been so sure of himself if it all went horribly wrong and I'd ended up splattered across the bottom of the ravine," I said, my memories still icy and bitter.

  "You know, I still can't get used to it." Joshua snorted. "He's the Fenrir. The legend come true. But he isn't half as terrifying as the myths." A slight quaver in his
voice made me suspect Joshua was trying to convince himself.

  I'd seen Fen transform and wanted to tell Joshua how wrong he was, and that Fen could be bloody terrifying when he wanted to be. The words hovered on the tip of my tongue. But then my mind traveled to that dark night when I had to perform my first Warrior Retrieval as a newly made Valkyrie. I'd always be grateful for Fen's sensitivity to the horrible fact that I'd had to retrieve Aidan's corpse. A wave of shudders ran through me like an army of ravenous maggots, the memory still so vivid in my mind's eye. Aidan's body lying beside a lonely Craven stream for days, his grey forehead marred by a close-range gunshot wound, the blackened mouth of ravaged flesh staring like a ghoulish third eye.

  I shivered again, shoved the thought out of my head, and avoided the tip of Joshua's sword by a hairsbreadth.

  "Hey! Pay attention, you idiot," Joshua yelled, his face flushing at my close call.

  "Sorry. Was thinking about something."

  "Yeah? Well, here's something to think about. Keep your head in the game, or you just might lose that head." He raised an eyebrow, as if daring me to admit he could beat me. "I could have killed you."

  "Just try." I grunted, gripped my sword tighter, knuckles white and taut, and concentrated. He had a point. I had to focus. Get my head screwed back on straight.

  Soon our blades were flying; they flashed and clanged together, the smooth metal catching and reflecting the weak sunlight. Sweat trickled from Joshua's brow as I drove him to avoid each thrust and counter each parry with every last bit of strength he possessed.

  He squinted and stepped back again to catch his breath.

  "Come on, Warrior. Is that all you've got?" I grinned.

  He snorted. "Bring it, Valkyrie. Show me what you got!"

  We sparred a while longer. I tried to hold back, to temper my blows, but a cold and unfamiliar need rose within me, one with an inexplicably vicious edge. An edge so sharp it cut deeper into me, only to reveal more of this insane, unrelenting need. The visceral energy surged through my arms as I fought, pushing me to expend it all, daring me to complete the thrusts I held back. I wanted to let loose real bad. Go berserk. I gripped the pommel of my sword, gritted my teeth and continued the swordplay. Sweat dotted my forehead—not from physical exertion but from my silent battle of wills with this inner warrior that I wasn't so sure I liked or wanted around.

  The force of the unquenchable need still bubbling inside me was enough to almost knock Joshua to the ground. His eyes widened, surprised, as he stepped back a few paces and regained his balance.

  Had my anger at Freya and Astrid awakened a different side of my nature? Or had the hurt of Fen's betrayal stirred my rage so much that I now teetered on the verge of wanting to kill my best friend?

  Each time our swords clashed, the power inside me surged, overwhelming. My peripheral vision clouded, darkening and bringing Joshua into razor-sharp, clear view in front of me.

  Joshua as a target.

  Joshua as prey.

  Our swords clattered against each other again, and I jumped back, anger flooding my senses. I swung around, so coldly aware of the gap Joshua left open, a gap I could so easily penetrate. I aimed straight at his left ribs, below the elbow, straight into his abdomen . . . and yet I stopped, even as my sword lunged.

  Without thinking, I spun and kicked his legs out from under him. My sword moved as if wielded by another's hand and sliced through the air where Joshua's belly had been only moments ago. I saw everything in slow motion: his knees bending, his body tipping back, fingers loosening as the heavy sword spun out from his hand—even the tiny droplets of mud spattering as he landed in the black muck.

  I watched my hand and my sword as they swooped as one, smooth and fluid, like cutting through butter. The bleak light caught the sharp edge of the blade again and it glistened, almost winking at me.

  My sword swooped toward Joshua's bare neck. Blood thundered in my ears, my heart thudding painfully in my chest. I blinked and strained against the flood of ice in my veins. And somehow I stopped the sword just as its point entered his neck, piercing the skin and releasing a glistening drop of ruby blood.

  A shudder wracked my body, wrapping me in a fist of violent shivers. I fought the wild energy pulsing through me, damming it somewhere deep, somewhere dark inside me. My lids drifted closed . . . and when I opened them again, the roiling torrent of cold power that had bared its teeth in threat against my friend now simmered somewhere deep inside me, an invisible, lurking evil. My lungs twisted, forcing air in and out, but I paid no attention to mere bodily functions. The visceral violence inside me now thinned to a stream, a trickle that I could control.

  "What the bloody hell was that?" Joshua thrust himself off the ground, mud plastering his hands. His eyes glittered with raw anger, an anger just a breath short of violent only because it was also laced with disappointment.

  I stumbled, my sword falling into the slick dark mud at my feet. Horror at what I'd almost done drained the last dregs of the cold energy from my muscles, leaving my limbs frozen in the wake of that strange, unflinching violence.

  "Bryn!" he yelled, still fuming, still waiting for my response, but his words quavered, distorted, as if he spoke under water.

  Our eyes met. His furious, mine confused and hazy.

  In that moment I knew one thing about myself I'd never known before.

  Somewhere inside me lived a killer.

  Chapter 10

  I blinked back the tears, swallowed the solid ache in the back of my throat. Something was seriously wrong with me. Something that lay coiled within me like a snarling serpent. I shuddered at the memory of what I'd just done.

  Joshua backed away, and the shocked, angry look in his eyes cut deeper into me than the sharpest edge of a sword. I'd only nicked him, had only drawn a thin, accusatory line of blood, but the damning truth was I'd barely restrained myself from doing much, much worse. I didn't know how I'd ever forgive myself—and from the way Joshua turned his back and stomped off, I wasn't sure he'd ever forgive me either.

  No way could I concentrate on training after almost killing my best friend. I stared after him, dazed, guilt and anger and a tremulous fear swirling in the turmoil of my mind. The other sparring teams hadn't taken much notice of my berserker rage, and I wanted to leave before anyone asked questions.

  I bent to retrieve my sword, now slick with mud. Appropriate that the gleaming weapon of the Valkyrie Brunhilde was now unrecognizable beneath a layer of black slush. As I straightened, wanting desperately to get the sword clean, a glint of metal on the muddy ground caught my attention. I squatted again to inspect the small shiny thing and almost choked with shock.

  My Glasir leaf sat there, half-submerged in the dark muck. Instinctively my hand, caked with mud, went straight to my neck. And found it bare. Another casualty in the war with my inexplicable rage. I grasped the muddied leaf and searched the area for the leather thong. No surprise that it was nowhere to be found.

  Tired and unhappy, I wandered away from the training field. No one tried to stop me. No one said a word.

  I barely noticed where my feet took me, lost in a maelstrom of confusion and self-loathing. Dimly, I registered the sounds of the village below Odin's Hall and the cacophony of the smithy. My troubled mind, or perhaps just plain dumb luck, had directed me to Njall's workshop.

  I stopped before Njall's door, and only then did I remember the gleaming object cradled in my right hand. I uncurled my fingers, the whitened knuckles reluctant to unfold.

  Within my palm lay the Glasir leaf, given to me by the blessed Rowan tree that guarded Valhalla. The tree gave leaves only to those who deserved it, according to Sigrun. I doubted I deserved any kind of blessing. A tiny part of me wanted to crush the leaf. Crush it and fling it into the field beyond the stone wall.

  I sucked in a ragged breath and curbed the urge. Whatever I'd been gripped by, wherever that unsolicited burst of violence came from, I refused to let it control me. It wasn't me. I had to learn to
control it, and I knew just the person who could help.

  Njall's door loomed a few steps ahead of me, top half open, the workshop emitting its usual skin-searing heat. I reveled in it, shoving the bottom half open and searching the semi-darkness for Njall's bulk. I didn't have to wait long.

  "Ah, Brynhildr." He stomped forward and grabbed me in a breath-squashing bear hug. For the first time since my horrible fight with Joshua, my mood lightened. I grinned as he set me back on my feet. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Brynhildr?"

  I opened my hand and revealed the leaf. It glistened in the ambient firelight, except for the veined grooves, which were filled with mud. Njall scowled, his great moustache wriggling with displeasure.

  "What happened to it?" he growled.

  I blinked, surprised. Why had his demeanor gone from cheerful to cheerless? Had I done something to make him angry?

  "Was it my workmanship?" He bowed his head. "I do apologize, Brynhildr. I will understand if you are unhappy with my work."

  Suddenly I understood. I touched his elbow to reassure him. "No, no, the string must have snapped in the middle of a sparring session. It was entirely my fault."

  The lines on Njall's forehead smoothed, and I smiled at him. "I just need you to make it into a brooch or something. I'm not really sure what. Just so that it doesn’t fly off me again. I'd hate to lose it." Weeks ago Njall had been the one to drill a tiny hole into the leaf so I could wear it as a necklace.

  Now he picked the fragile piece up in his huge, fat fingers. Truly amazing that he actually created such intricate metalwork with those sausage-like digits. I waited, my heart knocking against my chest, as he rubbed his thumb over the leaf and walked toward a wooden bucket. He rinsed and dried the leaf, then strode to the open fire, still too quiet for my comfort.