by Jenny Trout
“I would not have done it if I had not known,” Juliet said with a wry quirk of her lips. “Hildr has a husband she is separated from, as well. She understood our plight. But our destiny is written in crossed stars, Romeo. We are fated to love each other across impossible barriers. This was the only way I could ever see you again.”
“Did you get the third key?” Hamlet asked, starting forward. Horatio stopped him, and rightly. This moment was for Romeo and his Juliet. He did not want it interrupted, even by the friend who had stood beside them in the Afterjord.
Juliet nodded. “The Valkyrie share guardianship of the keys as one. I have the one that you gave me when we found my nurse, and since I murdered the berserker to claim it, it is mine by right. Just as the one you have is yours, by right of killing…of killing Fenrir, Hamlet.”
“So, we have all three keys?” Romeo said with a disbelieving laugh. “Then we control the veil! You can return to Midgard.”
“I cannot.” Juliet smiled sadly. “I made a sacred vow in trade for your life, to save you from the Afterjord. I am bound to it now, or you will perish.”
“He’ll perish anyway,” Hamlet said quietly. “Unless you can convince him to eat something.”
“No.” Romeo shook his head and held Juliet’s hands tighter. “If you’re staying there, I’m staying with you.”
“The Valkyrie maintain the balance between life and death. I’m protecting that balance now, too. Valhalla is only for warriors who have proven their loyalty to Odin.” She nodded toward Hamlet. “Or his descendants.”
“Descendant?” Hamlet’s surprise was evident.
“The gods weren’t always so far removed from mortals. Hamlet is of Odin’s line. Protect him, Romeo. Aid him, as you vowed you would, and you will earn your place in Valhalla. You can be with me.”
She might as well have plunged her fatal dagger into his heart, as well, if she would condemn him to a life without her. “I can’t, Juliet. I wanted to save you.”
“You did,” she told him, reaching up to touch his face. “In life and in death, you have saved me. There is nothing for me here in Midgard now. You told me as much. Let me have a life, then, one that is immortal. Go out, and have your own life, full of joy and love and happiness. In the end, you can return to me.”
“I am too weak now,” he despaired. “I cannot fight anything. I could barely walk here.”
She smiled bravely at him. “Romeo, I am being given a gift. A power over life and death. I already know what it is to fear death, to die. I would not have you suffer the same. That’s why I made this choice, and accepted Hildr’s offer.”
“I can’t change your,” he hiccuped, the sound shaming him. He didn’t want to cry in front of her. A mean part of him thought she did not deserve his tears, if she could sentence him to a life of such aching loneliness. “I can’t change your mind then?”
“No.” She rose up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his. “Now, let me give you the gift you have given me.”
She poured into her kiss every emotion they had shared in their short time together, and each one washed through him. All of the piercing sadness, the most exquisite joy. Threads of fear and hope and loss wound together into tendrils of sparkling mist that formed around him. He felt more than saw the change that came over him, the way his limbs became hale and healthy again, the way his shorn and patchy hair curled from his scalp to brush his collar. The weariness that had plagued him fled. He felt younger, as if the weight of all of his sadness had released him.
The mist surrounded Juliet as well, healing her wounds, enveloping her in white light that was too bright to look at. Romeo raised his forearm to shield himself from the glare, and when he lowered it, Romeo barely recognized the woman who stood before him. Clad in the same armor as the other Valkyrie, with her black curls tumbling over her shoulders and arms, Juliet was no longer mortal perfection; she was immortal and perfect, her brown skin gilded by sun that had not kissed her in the tomb. She stretched her two huge white wings behind her and sighed in pleasure as they fluttered closed gain. “That’s better.”
“God’s teeth,” Horatio breathed in the silence of the cavern.
Juliet turned to Hamlet. “Keep your key. If ever I should need either of you, I will use it. So you had best stick together from now on.”
Romeo noted how Hamlet trembled. He was frightened of her. No, not frightened. Awed by her.
Romeo was as well, but he felt a new sadness. His Juliet lived, but they would still be parted. She was not the maiden he had once loved.
As if she could hear his thoughts, Juliet took Romeo’s hands in hers, the keys pressed between their palms. “Nothing has changed. You are still my love. My husband. We’ll just be separated for a little while.”
“For the rest of my life.” A tear rolled down Romeo’s cheek.
“Everything ends. Even time itself,” Juliet told him. She rose up to press her lips to his and murmured, “Everything except my love. I will be with you, always.”
He did not want to let her go, but he knew he must. Still, he held onto her hand as she stepped through the arch, his fingertips lingering on hers until the very last moment, until the light of the corpseway closed between them.
The surface of the portal did not close again, and it took a great strength not to lunge through it, after her.
Hamlet must have known this, for he clapped his hand over Romeo’s shoulder. “You look well, sir. Shall we adjourn to your prison cell?”
It spoke well for a man, Romeo thought, to know when to indulge sorrow, and when to leave well enough alone. He could not have loved his friend more at that moment.
…
“Remarkable,” Friar Laurence said for the tenth time in as many minutes as he examined Romeo.
Hamlet lounged on the mildew-ridden bed in the tower room, watching with cautious optimism. Romeo was indeed a new man; he no longer resembled the emaciated, desperate stranger he’d met in the tavern a year before.
“I suppose being married to a Valkyrie has its perks,” Hamlet observed. He would continue to joke and remind Romeo, as often as possible, so that their separation wouldn’t seem so definite. For if Juliet were a Valkyrie, she would no doubt find him in the Afterjord after he passed.
And there was no doubt in Hamlet’s mind that Romeo could earn a place among the exalted in Valhalla.
“Thank you,” Romeo said, turning to him. He pulled his shirt back on, after doffing it to show further proof to the good Friar that he was, indeed, restored to youthful vigor and had the impressive musculature to prove it. He mussed his glossy black curls and shook out his strong arms. “Without you, Hamlet, I would never—”
“You would have,” Hamlet insisted. “I’ve no doubt in my mind that you would have found her, eventually. With or without my help.”
“I made a vow to you, that I would help you avenge your father,” Romeo said, lower, so that the guards outside the door would not hear. They had just begun to wake from their drugged stupor, no doubt hoping that they wouldn’t be punished for their collective lapse in loyalty and judgment.
“I know you did,” Hamlet said with a nod. “And I know that you will not forsake it. Dark times are coming for us all, Romeo. I am glad beyond measure that you are willing to stand with me through them.”
Romeo extended his hand to grip Hamlet’s wrist. Hamlet returned the gesture. “You have my sword, and my service,” Romeo said, reaffirming his vow.
“I’ll work on getting you out of here,” Hamlet promised. He hesitated before adding, “You will make powerful enemies.”
“So?” Romeo lifted an eyebrow.
“Your very life may be at stake,” Hamlet reminded him.
Romeo shrugged.
“You two. Your bravery will be the end of you,” Friar Laurence warned.
Romeo released Hamlet’s arm and reached for his empty sword belt, to buckle it on. He was, Hamlet realized, gearing up for battle even as he was imprisoned and disarmed.
“That, my dear Friar, is entirely the point.”
…
In the caverns below Elsinore, the corpseway whispered.
Claudius, bathed in its blue light, felt its power, and he did not quaver in his resolve.
The shadowy figure beside him held up his hands, drawing some of the shimmering azure from the surface of the portal.
“And you are certain?” Claudius asked the sorcerer.
The light took the shape of a figure, glimmering blue. A figure that looked very much like Claudius’s nephew, Hamlet. A spectral sword pierced the vision, sprouting from the ghostly Hamlet’s chest like some poisonous flower.
“You will rule not only Denmark, but any kingdom you desire, your majesty,” the sorcerer promised.
Outside, the heavens raged, and a tempest stirred the sea.
About the Author
Jenny Trout is a writer, blogger, and funny person. Writing as Jennifer Armintrout, she made the USA Today bestseller list with Blood Ties Book One: The Turning. Her novel American Vampire was named one of the top ten horror novels of 2011 by Booklist Magazine Online. She is a proud Michigander, mother of two, and wife to the only person alive capable of spending extended periods of time with her without wanting to strangle her. Please visit her website at www.jennytrout.com.
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