Badb leapt at her and knocked her to the ground just as the panel fell and shattered against the floor. Sif screamed and covered her face as sharp pieces of gold-plated metal scraped their arms.
“Lugh!” Badb yelled. So much debris had filled the air, she’d lost sight of him.
It wasn’t his voice that answered her.
“Sif!” Thor yelled back.
His hulking form broke through the gray cloud, and the murderous rage in his eyes quickly transformed into confusion then understanding. He pulled his wife into his arms and shielded her as another panel from the ceiling fell at the opposite end of the atrium.
When the debris settled, he swallowed and said, “Badb…” But the Norse god of thunder faltered, seemingly unsure what to say to an Irish goddess who had saved his wife’s life, even when she’d been instrumental in destroying his world.
“Get her out of here, Thor,” she said. “Asgard is about to implode.”
“Badb,” Lugh called weakly.
She crawled back to his side, but Thor didn’t disappear. He and Sif watched her wrap her arms around Lugh instead.
“I’m here, love,” she promised. She cradled his head in her lap and stroked his blond hair away from his face. His forehead was cool and damp, and she bit the inside of her cheek to focus on a physical pain. Nothing in her long life had been so painful as this.
“Thor,” Sif said quietly. “She saved my life.”
Thor stood up straighter, itself an impossible feat considering Badb couldn’t even stand anymore. “An eye for an eye,” he said. “We’ll be even. But next time we meet on the battlefield… don’t tell my father about this.”
“What?” Badb asked, but she was apparently asking no one. She still cradled Lugh in her arms, but Valhalla had disappeared, replaced by the familiar and comforting stone walls of a castle in Tara where her heart would always belong.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “He sent us home.”
“Holy shit,” Lugh whispered back.
Badb blinked at the empty castle then gently stroked his face, leaving a small trail of blood across his cheek. “If you die on me, I will kill you.”
Lugh smiled up at her. “Fair enough.”
“They’ll invade the Otherworld now,” she said. “We could lose everything.”
“We’ll eventually kill each other. I suppose that’s our destiny,” Lugh agreed.
“Yeah. I suppose it is.”
Lugh smiled again and closed his eyes. “But think of what we’ll do until then.”
“I think,” she said, “I’m bringing you back to Murias. And when you’re healed, we’ll have no choice but to prepare for the Battle of the Gods.”
Chapter Fifteen
One Hundred Years Later
Badb ran her fingers along the exquisite detailing of Lugh’s tapestry that hung in the Dagda’s great hall, accompanied by three additional tapestries of the Treasures of the Tuatha Dé. His Spear, though, was her favorite yet she also despised it. Each of the tapestries represented both loss and hope, a reminder that gods could be killed but their power and position on their pantheon would always be replaced.
But how could Lugh ever be replaced? What god could ever earn his way into their hearts as Lugh had? Badb shook her head and mumbled, “Impossible.”
“What?” Lugh asked, making her jump because she’d been so wrapped up in studying his tapestry, she hadn’t sensed him arriving at the Dagda’s palace.
She squinted at him and said, “You.”
He flashed a mischievous grin at her and admitted, “I’ve been called worse.”
“The Norse aren’t exactly friends with the Slavs, but it was a mistake to let them live here,” Badb said.
Lugh shrugged. “We were hoping it would prevent them from allying with the Norse. We were obviously wrong.”
Nemain appeared in the doorway beside Lugh and told them, “The gods are coming. Apparently, Osiris learned something else about the Norse alliance as well as when they’re planning to invade. We won’t have much time to prepare.”
Badb glanced at the tapestry again, and her stomach turned. The first time she’d ever feared a battle was when they invaded Asgard, but this was far worse. Why did it scare her so much? “Technically, we’ve been preparing for a hundred years now. Let them come.”
“My little crow,” Lugh replied. “Always so brave.”
She forced a smile at him as if to agree, but this was a rare moment where she didn’t agree with her boyfriend at all. She wasn’t brave. Not this time. They’d repelled invasions of the Otherworld before, but something was different about the war the Norse were bringing, and she’d been losing sleep over it lately. And she’d suspected for a while that Lugh knew more about their fates in the Battle of the Gods than he was letting on.
He watched her carefully now, as if he knew she were worrying, once again, about their decision to destroy Asgard and the consequences they both knew they’d eventually have to face. And it was time to face it.
“Are you two having a moment?” Nemain asked. “Should I give you a few minutes?”
Lugh snorted and flashed that mischievous grin at her now. “Pretty sure our friends would notice if we weren’t at the table with them. And I don’t think sex is a good excuse for missing battle planning.”
“I don’t know,” Nemain joked. “I think it’s a pretty good excuse for missing just about anything.”
“There is seriously something wrong with all of you,” Athena interjected as she stepped around Nemain to enter the great hall.
“Actually,” Badb argued, “there’s something wrong with you because you’d rather fight than even talk about sex.”
“Can’t help it,” she claimed. “I was born without any interest in… romance.” She even cringed a little as if someone might force her to take an interest.
Horus appeared at her side and winked at her. “If you ever change your mind…”
Athena shot a desperate glance at Badb and begged, “Make him stop.”
Badb lifted a shoulder, but she couldn’t engage in their usual teasing and bantering. What was about to come to the Otherworld would scar them forever. She glanced over her shoulder at Lugh’s tapestry one last time, and he gently grabbed her hand, surprising her again.
“You need to clear your mind,” he told her affectionately. “We need you focused on the battlefield.”
Athena tilted her head at her best friend and asked, “What is it? Did you learn something that’s troubling you?”
Badb met Lugh’s beautiful blue eyes and swallowed. “Do we know something that should worry us?”
He tucked some of her blond hair behind an ear and smiled at her. “No, unless you consider the largest invasion we’ve ever seen worrisome.”
“I have to admit,” Horus said. “It worries me a little.”
More of their friends arrived in the hall, but Badb wouldn’t look away from Lugh, and he didn’t look away from her.
“This is bigger than we thought,” Osiris announced. “I just learned the Norse have recruited help from not only the Slavs and Sumerians but the Finns as well. There may not be many Finns left, but each god they add to their side is bad news for us.”
“I doubt they’ll try to destroy the Otherworld because they’ll want to keep it for themselves,” Macha added.
“An alliance as large as the Norse are building means none of our cities except Findias are safe,” the Dagda said. “It’s likely they’ll cross the veil to Murias though because they’ll know that’s where we are.”
“I just got my palace the way I wanted it in Gorias,” Poseidon sighed. “I’m going to be seriously pissed if they mess it up.”
“It gets worse,” Osiris added. “They’re invading sooner than we thought. I’m afraid they’re on their way.”
Too many voices spoke at once for Badb to tease apart their concerns. But what could she tell them anyway? The Dagda’s voice rose above the others and shouted, “Calm down! Badb an
d Lugh will have a strategy for us.”
“Badb?” Nemain said nervously. “What do we do? What now?”
Badb finally looked away from Lugh and met her sister’s worried gray eyes. She took a deep breath and Lugh squeezed her fingers as if reminding her how much he loved her, how much faith he had in her.
“Now?” Badb took one last deep breath and said, “Now, we fight.”
Discover how the Battle of the Gods unfolded in The Unbreakable Sword series.
Also by S.M. Schmitz
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Other titles by S.M. Schmitz
Shadows of the Gods, book one of The Unbreakable Sword series (fantasy & mythology)
As a powerful demigod, Selena has been running from the gods who control the government agency, the New Pantheon, for the past three years, but now, they’ve caught up to her.
When they trap Selena in an alleyway in New Orleans, she is ready to admit defeat. But an unfamiliar demigod rescues her, and the more she learns about Cameron, the more she discovers their common bonds may be the key to unraveling her own mysterious history.
In the first book of The Unbreakable Sword series, Selena and Cameron must not only evade the New Pantheon, which is ruthlessly hunting the remaining gods and their descendants, but an angry Aztec god that wants Selena’s power to himself. And they will discover in the impending final battle of the gods, no one can be trusted.
The Resurrected trilogy, a science-fiction romance (also available in The Complete Resurrected Trilogy Box Set)
Awakened from death. Herself but no longer alone in her own body. Two lives merged into one.
A mistake. An aberration. A miracle.
And a company that wants her dead for existing.
When Dietrich’s fiancée, Lottie, is killed in a car accident, he descends into his own personal Hell until he runs into her in a café two years later. Claiming she isn’t really Lottie but only possesses some of her memories, the young woman offers him an unbelievable story then disappears.
Using his position as a CIA agent to track her down, Dietrich quickly discovers Lottie remembers far more about her past life than she’d originally let on. But his attempt to learn more about the planet she comes from or the woman she is now is disrupted by a group of men from the company that transports people from their home planet to Earth when they find out about her resurrection and attempt to murder her.
Because for Lottie, something went wrong, and her existence threatens their entire business on Earth. And Dietrich’s ultimate second chance with the only woman he’s ever loved will be threatened as well.
The Chosen, a Resurrected series novel
They promised her happily ever after. Instead, they gave her Hell. Now, she's getting revenge.
When Bella agreed to travel to Earth to start a new life with the man she loved, she’d been promised two things: healing dead human bodies so they could live on this planet always worked, and they could have the happily ever after forbidden to them at home.
But soon after arriving on her new planet, she discovers both of those promises were lies. And the consequences for trusting the wrong people are deadly.
After six years of hiding from the company that helped her cross over, she is approached by a beautiful but mysterious stranger who offers her a different kind of promise: the chance for revenge. And Bella’s journey to end her own nightmare and to seek justice for the man she’d once loved is finally able to begin.
Genesis Rising (The Genesis Project, a science-fiction series)
I am not a man. I am not human.
When Drake awakens in an unfamiliar room with no memories, Dr. Mike Parker reveals the answer to Drake’s puzzling existence through a silent directive sent to the microchips in his brain intended to control his thoughts and behavior. The Genesis Project created him to be the perfect special operations soldier, but as the product of advanced genetic engineering, the lines are immediately drawn in his mind: he is not human. He is the property of the Project, incapable of free will, and he shouldn't have his own thoughts or reservations.
Five years later, those codes that made him believe he’s not really a man and that he’s not really human are tested when he meets Saige, the first woman who’s ever made him reconsider what it means to be human. Not only will he finally begin to question what he is, but he will discover that the transformative powers of falling in love are stronger than the fears that have kept him tethered to the Project for years.
But his love for her will have far more dangerous consequences than he could have imagined, and their only chance for survival may lie in Drake’s own ability to overcome the beliefs that have been so deeply ingrained within him.
The Immortals series, a fantasy & mythology series (also available in The Complete Immortals Series Box Set)
When demons refuse to play by the rules, all Hell will break loose.
Colin and Anna have been hunting demons for a long time. But something is different in Baton Rouge. The rules are being broken and they're powerless against some of the greatest forces Hell can assemble. If they can't stop these demons from manipulating every rule of this war, then Heaven may lose the only battle that's ever really mattered.
The Golden Eagle, a romantic suspense (also available at Barnes & Noble, Apple, and Kobo)
After a vicious second civil war in the U.S., the states that seceded are occupied, and the people there live by different rules.
Jon is the highest-ranking officer in an elite Task Force whose purpose is shrouded in mystery. Ava is just trying to survive the occupation after two years of brutal war. After meeting unexpectedly, they discover they are both willing to risk everything for the chance to love one another. But what those risks entail may be far greater than anything either could have imagined.
Dreamwalkers, a paranormal psychological suspense
My father used to tell me our pasts shaped our presents and our presents shaped our futures and that we could never really get rid of our pasts. The deeds of our fathers and grandfathers and their fathers before them lived on forever, and we would have to live with the choices they made as well as our own so he would warn me to choose wisely. But I never understood my father. Not until my thirtieth birthday. And then everything changed.
After losing his father to suicide, Gavyn Cooper becomes convinced that his dad’s odd ramblings were nothing more than the product of mental illness. But on his thirtieth birthday, Gavyn begins having vivid dreams that transport him into the world of Caleb Ellis, a young man who lived on a sugar plantation in 1835, and he is forced to question not only his own experiences but his father’s as well. Now, Gavyn will have to make a choice between following in his father’s footsteps or writing his own future.
The Cambria Code series, a science-fiction romance
When a mysterious spaceship appears above Cambria, Zoe remains skeptical that it’s anything but an elaborate hoax. By the time the first spaceship is joined by two others, Zoe reluctantly admits that Earth has been invaded, even though it’s a pretty lame invasion: the aliens look remarkably human and keep to themselves. From what humans are able to learn about them, they seem incredibly arrogant and boring anyway.
After meeting Peyton, one of Earth’s newest residents, Zoe feels an immediate attraction to him although she is reluctant to become involved with someone who isn’t even human. But she soon discovers that these aliens are far more dangerous than they’ve led everyone to believe, and the secrets they are hiding may signal the destruction of her entire planet.
for reading books on Archive.
Blades of Ash: An Unbreakable Sword Series Prequel (The Unbreakable Sword Book 5) Page 11