Thorin pressed his pointer finger against my sternum. “So help me, if you withhold anything or downright lie, no matter your good intentions, I’ll come for you with chains and an armored truck.”
Thorin likely expected a sharp retort from me, and I really wanted to give him one, but for Skyla’s sake, I sucked down my pride and flashed Thorin a toothy smile. “Sure thing, sugar.”
Val snorted. Thorin frowned.
I rolled my eyes and tugged at Val’s arm. “C’mon, tomcat. Let’s hit the road.”
Val hurried to open the door for me, but I backtracked when I remembered another issue requiring resolution before we all went our separate ways.
“I forgot something,” I said. “I’ll meet you out front, okay?”
Val gave me a sour look but did as I asked.
I turned to Thorin, who watched me, brows drawn down, a frown tugging at his mouth. I reached behind my neck and unfastened the chain supporting Mjölnir. “I think you’ll be needing this.”
Without taking his eyes from mine, Thorin held out his hand. I pooled the necklace into his palm, and he closed his fist around the warm gold. He stepped closer and put his free hand to my jaw. His fingertips rested like a breath on the pulse point in my neck. Surprise and uncertainty rooted my feet to the floor.
“Solina.” Thorin could undo me so easily, saying my name like that—like a prayer. He was possibly nothing more than a manipulator like his cousin, except he had a subtlety Val lacked.
No, I don’t believe that. He’s not devious. Just driven and resolute.
“Please,” Thorin said.
Hearing him implore me, his tone soft and needful rather than demanding and harsh—I might have given him my soul when he talked to me that way. Instead, I steeled myself against his allure.
“What is it?” I asked. “What do you want?”
“Above all else, you must keep yourself alive.”
“I know.” I lost my patience and threw my hands out at my sides. “Your life is so important to you, but is it possible for you to realize mine is at least as important to me? Unlike you, I get a finite number of years. I’m not anxious to give them up any earlier than I have to. So stop reminding me how important it is that I stay alive. I know. I know it like I know the sky is blue.”
Thorin’s lips quirked up in a half smile. “So, you’re still trying to convince me it isn’t always about me?”
“I don’t know why I bother. It’s an impossible task.”
“Mostly, yes. You’re right. But sometimes…” His voice drifted away, and his ghost of a smile went with it. The brown in his eyes deepened to black.
I met his gaze, though it took a great deal of self-confidence to do so. “Sometimes what?”
“Sometimes, there’s something… else.”
The air between us filled with potential, the kind of energy waiting for one spark to set it loose. I couldn’t do it, though. I wouldn’t be the one to strike the flint.
Thorin drew a deep breath, and his hand fell away. “One last thing before you leave.” He raised a hand, and Mjölnir dangled from his fingers, swaying on its gold chain. He undid the clasp, slipped the pendant from the necklace, and stuffed the hammer into his pocket. “Wear the chain. When the hammer is separated from its lanyard, they can be used to track each other. As long as you are wearing this and as long as I have Mjölnir, I will be able to find you, no matter where you go.”
I let him put the necklace around my neck, substantially lighter without the golden nugget of Thor’s Hammer weighing it down. Thorin let me go without another word. My heart thudded as I trudged through the hotel.
Mani used to listen to my problems, giving advice when I asked or lending a sympathetic ear when I needed that more. Having a guy’s perspective had kept me out of more than one bad relationship. Actually, it kept me out of pretty much any relationship. Maybe that explained my problem. Enduring emotional conflict with Thorin—and Val—on my own totally sucked.
“You smell like him,” Val grumbled when I climbed into the Yukon’s passenger seat.
I turned to face him. “I accept I clean up pretty good sometimes. I’ve come into some nifty special powers. But, really, it’s not every day an otherwise ordinary, small-town girl has two immortal men chomping at her heels. What is it? If it’s my deodorant, I can switch brands.”
“So you admit he’s trying to seduce you. That pretentious, two-faced—”
“Stuff it, Val. Neither of you are paradigms of virtue.”
“At least I don’t put on a show, trying to make you think I am.”
“He’s not trying to seduce me.” Thank God for small favors. And big ones.
Val cut his blue eyes to me with a beleaguered expression before turning his attention back to the road. “We had this discussion before, Solina. You need your ego stroked or something?”
“Just the opposite. I need a reality check.”
“Your loyalty, courage, dedication to something you believe in… it’s a rare thing.”
“It’s not so rare,” I said and scoffed. “And you knock Thorin for it all the time.”
“Because it’s misplaced. His attachment to Baldur is going to wind up getting everyone in trouble.”
“I agree, but I also see Thorin’s point. Everyone needs a friend when they’re standing on the edge of the abyss.”
“Hmm,” Val said in an evasive way. “But back to your original question. I’m more than happy to tell you all the reasons I find you irresistible.”
“No. Forget I brought it up.”
“You need someone in your life to remind you of these things so you never have to doubt.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I might get an overinflated sense of myself.”
“Having healthy self-esteem is a good thing.” Val grinned, and a mischievous sparkle lit in his eyes. “Besides, your ego will never be bigger than mine.”
“Too bad you can’t just pop us through space like Baldur,” I said when Val and I arrived at the outskirts of Mendocino, “teleport or apparate or whatever you want to call it.”
“It’s always been that way,” Val said. “Not sure why. Maybe it’s one way Baldur can limit us and exert some of his own superiority. If I try to, uh, transport you, we would mostly stand around with a lot of popping and ringing in your ears. If I had one of the ancient weapons, Gungir or Surtalogi, they might amp up my battery enough to make a jump with someone in tow, but it doesn’t matter since both items are missing.”
“Gungir isn’t missing,” I said.
Val snorted. “Seeing Odin’s spear in your dream is not the same as knowing who actually possesses it. I think if someone did have it, they wouldn’t keep it a secret for long.”
Thorin had, of course, decided to keep his possession of Mjölnir quiet, but how long would that last if he continued to use it as he had in the desert? Mjölnir’s gold chain suddenly hung a little heavier around my neck. Val sensed the downturn in my mood, and we spoke no more about ancient weapons.
Hours later, when we turned onto the long driveway leading up to the Aerie, I caught the acrid scent of a spent fire. We passed a couple of sheriff’s cars leaving the scene, covered in grime and smoke residue.
“This is going to be ugly,” Val said as we bumped along the gravel path.
“I’ve tried to prepare myself for the worst.” And I did, but my theorizing and imagination wasn’t enough.
The early-morning sun lent enough light to expose the tormented old home, charred and still smoking in spots.
Skyla came running the moment we turned into the parking lot next to the house’s dormitory wing. “Thank the gods you’re here.” She flung her arms around me. She smelled of smoke, and soot had settled on her like a sticky shadow. “It’s been so awful.”
I hugged her back, trying to give some of the comfort she so obviously needed. “I can see that.”
Val stood behind us, arms crossed over his chest, and surveyed the destruction. His face wore a neutral expression, but it looked more like a mask covering something not so amiable beneath. Fiery destruction, smoke and flames… Maybe it all reminded him of Ragnarok and the home he’d lost so many years before. How long did memories like that stay with beings like him? If I was immortal, a million years wouldn’t soften the ache of losing Mani.
“What can we do to help?” I asked.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Skyla said. “One fire truck is still dousing the dormitory wing. Most of it will have to be demolished. We’ve got to go through and see what can be saved, what can be cleaned, what has to be trashed.”
“What about the kitchen?”
Skyla gave me a funny look. “I guess it’s fine. Most of the main house escaped the worst of the fire. There’s no power, though.”
“If the equipment is gas, then we should be okay.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m a Southern girl. That means I deal with tragedy and grief by stuffing it full of food.”
In less than an hour, I had turned out pans of hot biscuits and honey-nut muffins. I sent Val into town for extra ingredients, and he came back, packing enough groceries to feed an army. My return to the kitchen, to my routine and my comfort zone, settled my haywire emotions. Seeing the Valkyries finding consolation in my food, when they hadn’t found it anywhere else, reminded me why I liked baking in the first place. Maybe some of the Valkyries were Helen’s agents, but surely most of them weren’t. Right then, they were merely a bunch of women suffering a horrible tragedy, and I knew something about how they felt. The food was my gesture, my attempt, to bring them comfort. And I thought the emergency responders might appreciate having a decent meal, too.
After breakfast, I cleaned the kitchen and started on pans of peanut-butter cookies, oatmeal bread for sandwiches, and sweet-potato biscuits waiting to be stuffed with ham and spicy mustard. Skyla and Val occasionally came in to check on me, but mostly they stayed occupied with cleaning and moving furniture. Keeping busy turned out to be a crucial coping mechanism for everyone.
Near sundown, Skyla joined me in the kitchen to talk while I prepared for dinner. Sweat and soot matted her hair, and dirt smudged her face. Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t think Tori went to Helen after she burned the Aerie,” she said, prefaced by nothing.
Crouched before the oven door, I turned and peered over my shoulder at Skyla. A shadow moved in the doorway, and Val stepped into the room. He was also dirty and disheveled, but he bore it gracefully. He took a seat across from Skyla and turned his chair to watch me. Clad in elbow-length mitts, I reached into the oven, towed out a huge, hot pan of lasagna, and plopped it onto the counter.
“Then where do you think Tori went?” I asked and leaned over to peel back the lasagna’s foil cover. Garlic-and-basil-infused steam rose up and enveloped my face. I inhaled and let the breath out in a satisfied sigh.
“She’s doing this on her own,” Skyla said. “I just have to prove it.”
Val’s brow furrowed as he studied Skyla. His gazed shifted to me, and he shrugged as if to say he didn’t know what Skyla meant.
“How are you going to do that?” I asked.
“I have an idea, but it’s a little crazy.” Skyla toyed with her placemat and gave me an uneasy look.
Her discomfort worried me. She never hesitated, never second-guessed herself.
“Crazier than everything else that’s happened?” I asked.
Skyla shrugged. You be the judge, her expression said. “You remember how I told you that the Valkyries chose which soldiers died in battle so they could bring them to join Odin’s army?”
“Yes?” I glanced at Val, but he shook his head.
“Right.” She nodded. “So, the Valkyries have the ability to commune with the spirits of the dead.”
I held up my hand. “Skyla, if you’re going to tell me you see dead people, I think my head might explode.”
Skyla bit her bottom lip and held it between her teeth, saying nothing.
“Do you see dead people?”
“One,” she said. “I saw one.”
“Who?” Val asked, accepting Skyla’s claim with alacrity.
“It was one of the women who had died in the fire. Her name was Ariel.” Skyla stopped. Her gaze dropped to the floor, and her chin wobbled under the effort of restraining her tears. “I found her body after we hacked our way into the dorm. Smoke inhalation, I guess, because she looked untouched.”
Val and I held ourselves rigid, waiting for her to finish her story. I wanted to put my arms around her and offer consolation, but the stiffness of her shoulders seemed to rebuff sympathy.
Skyla cleared her throat and continued. “Anyway, I had carried her outside and was on my way back in when this… this glow… this apparition appeared in front of me. It freaked me out at first, but it took form and spoke my name. Then she disappeared. I knew it was her, but how could it be?”
Skyla raised her eyes and looked into mine, pleading for me to believe her. I offered what I hoped looked like an encouraging smile.
She let out a breath and squared her shoulders. “I’m going to try to speak to her again. Ask her if she knows anything.”
“Why would she know anything the living don’t?” Val asked. “If Tori was behind this attack, then those who died must have been ignorant of her intentions, or else they would have been better prepared to defend themselves.”
“Maybe she saw who started the fire,” Skyla said. “Maybe she saw someone else or overheard something in her final moments. She would have been a lot closer to the action than the women who survived. Besides, I’ve talked to every sister here, and either they don’t know what happened, or they are refusing to talk to me because they think I’m an outsider.”
“Okay,” I said. “It’s no crazier than anything else that has happened lately. How does contacting the dead work?”
“I’m not sure,” Skyla said. “I want you to help me search the library. I’m hoping one of those books has something helpful.”
Val shook his head and shrugged. “Sorry, but why don’t you just ask one of the sisters?”
Skyla snorted. “I already told you they won’t talk to me, especially not about proprietary things like communing with the dead.”
A door slammed somewhere in the house, and the mutterings of distant voices carried into the kitchen. Moments later, the Valkyries filed in through the kitchen, filling the room with chatter and their plates with lasagna. Their sudden arrival interrupted our conversation, so Skyla, Val, and I used the distraction to slip away to the library, located in the basement of the main house. The stone foundation and ceiling had protected it from the fire, and a heavy wooden door with an old-fashioned lock protected it from intruders—like us.
“Damn.” Skyla worked the handle as if it might give in if she antagonized it enough.
“Val,” I said. “Can’t you blip in there and open it from the other side?”
“I’ve never seen inside the library before. I have to have seen a place, be able to hold a vision of it in my mind, or I have to follow someone else’s path. Why don’t you just go ask for the key?”
“Who even has it?” said Skyla.
“The librarian would be my guess,” I said.
“Well, duh. But who is the librarian?”
“Tori?” Val asked.
The mention of her name inspired a memory from my previous visit, when Tori had told me my lack of knowledge about my ancestry was appalling. “No. Tori mentioned her to me once. Her name is…” The weight of the name pressed on my tongue, but my brain didn’t want to cough it up. “
Elaine… Emily… Emma?”
“Embla?” Skyla asked. “There’s a woman here named Embla.”
“Yes. I think that’s it.”
“How do we get the key from her?”
Val’s face screwed into a sardonic expression. “Uh, what if you just asked her for it?”
“What if she wants to know why?” Skyla asked.
“I could tell her I want to research Sol’s lineage,” I said. “Tori suggested I should do that last time I was here.”
“What if Embla insists on coming with us?” Skyla asked. “What if she wants to supervise your research and help you find things? We can’t have her looking over our shoulder. We can’t risk letting anyone find out what we’re up to until we know who we can trust.”
“I still don’t understand why you changed your mind about Tori being Helen’s agent,” Val said.
“First,” Skyla said, “we asked Inyoni, as she was dying, if Tori was the one she had been talking to. It was hard to tell, but it seemed she was trying to tell us it was someone else. Also, Tori could have easily had Solina killed here at the Aerie rather than having Skoll follow her out to some remote location on the other side of the country, but she didn’t. I think Tori ran for other reasons. Maybe she’s running from Helen’s spies inside the Aerie.” Skyla narrowed her eyes. “I’m trying to stay open to all possibilities.”
“So, we’re back to figuring out how we get the key,” I said. “If Embla even has it in the first place.”
“We need to search her room,” Skyla said.
“If you were the librarian, wouldn’t you keep the key with you most of the time?”
“So we’re going to mug her?” Val asked.
“You got any better ideas?”
“She usually trains in the barn in the mornings,” Skyla said. “If she keeps the key on her, she probably doesn’t wear it then. I can go ask her to fence with me in the morning—my sword work needs the practice anyway.”
Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles Book 2) Page 16