No Earthly Treason

by Genevra Black

  Marius was sprawled, still sleeping, his armor carefully resting on the other end of the sectional. Edie felt oddly scared—like if she woke him, he’d burn her to a crisp—but maybe she was just terrified of how freaking awkward it’d be to be the only two people awake in the house.

  As quietly as she could, she navigated the kitchen to get herself a glass of water and some human food. She wasn’t surprised to find the fridge filled with blood bags, but they were opaque, and carefully separated and labeled. Of course, she’d expect nothing less from Tilda.

  Her heart clenched when she heard stirring behind her. She let the fridge close and looked over her shoulder as Marius sat up, gazing around blearily.

  Then his eyes fell on her, and his focus sharpened considerably.

  “Morning,” she said. She felt a little ridiculous, standing there in Mercy’s pink pajamas with little witches all over them.

  Fortunately, he didn’t seem to notice. “Good morning.”

  Edie took a sip of water and approached, glancing around the room. Where the hell was Cal? Marius had helped save her, it was true, but she still wasn’t 100 percent on him. Most of their dealings had involved him telling her what an abomination she was, after all. “How come you’re sleeping down here?”

  “I couldn’t double up with … you know, a girl.”

  He was definitely less intimidating when he talked like a five-year-old. “Have you got something against girls?” she asked with a laugh.

  “No.” He looked away, then stood and went to his armor, starting to put it on. He was wearing a thin shirt and leggings, and Edie found herself staring as he geared up.

  He was…. What? No. What? It’s just the … mail is so shiny. Very shiny mail. Her glass of water was suddenly extremely interesting.

  “I’m sorry—do you mind helping me?”

  Edie looked up, blinking. “Huh?”

  Marius had armed himself as best he could, but was still missing some key components. He held up his breastplate and pauldron.

  “I wouldn’t know what I was doing,” she mumbled, though she set her glass down.

  “I’ll tell you what to do.”

  He beckoned her over, and she responded numbly, walking around the sectional until she was standing in front of him. His eyes were literally gold, huh? She’d looked into them before, obviously, but it was a shock every time. She wondered what gene that was, the golden-eyed gene, or if it was a vivid thing. It could be some kind of mutation, one of those harmless ones. Her eyes were technically a mutation of blue eyes, which were a mutation in and of themselves, and—

  He fitted the breastplate on himself the best he could, then turned, taking her hands and placing them on the straps. She fumbled her way through as he calmly explained exactly what to do.

  “Sorry. Fuck,” she said when she pinched him a little too tight. “Sorry, I’m dumb.”

  “You’re not dumb.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “It’s your first time. But you’ll get it. The squires who do this all day are considerably younger than you are.”

  Edie raised a brow, loosening the strap and trying again. “The only way I’ll get it is if I’m practicing it a lot, and I’m not sure I’m gonna be helping knights get dressed every morning.”

  Marius didn’t respond.

  After what felt to her like a painstakingly long time—though he didn’t lose his patience, thankfully—they were done. He moved his arms, shoulders, and neck, testing the fit. “Not bad for a beginner.”

  Edie smiled and looked him over. He looked how he always did when wearing his armor, so there was that, at least.

  The sound of Tilda’s front door opening made her jump. She turned to see Cal paused in the doorway, peering at the two of them.

  “Morning,” she said hurriedly, going back to her glass of water.

  “Uh … morning.” Cal stepped in and slowly closed the door.

  “Where were you?”

  He strode into the kitchen and unclipped a key from his sparse keyring, setting it on the dining room table. Tilda must have lent it to him. Weird that he didn’t want to keep something that would be so convenient. “Out.”

  No elaboration, and Edie figured she probably wouldn’t get one—especially not around Marius.

  Soon, the house started to wake. Tilda emerged from her bedroom first, her hair and face already made up; Satara came next, looking like she hadn’t slept a wink, which was entirely possible; and finally, Mercy woke, already showered and changed. Fisk was the only one who came upstairs, firmly patting himself with a fluffy towel after a night’s sleep at the bottom of Tilda’s pool.

  Though Edie longed to pretend this was a regular morning with old friends, what had happened yesterday had sobered everyone, and there wasn’t much conversation. As soon as Tilda had coaxed the humans into eating something, Satara was ready to leave.

  It was still raining when Satara, Edie, Marius, and Cal stepped out onto the sidewalk. Cal would drive to Shipshaven, but the other three would be taking the much faster route.

  Satara fished Astrid’s glass whistle from one of her deep pockets and called the wolf. For a moment, Edie was afraid that since Astrid was gone and it was bound to her, it wouldn’t come at all. But fortunately, it did, leaving a bloody wound in the universe as usual. The smell of the battlefield overwhelmed Edie, and she was the last one to climb on. She hated that smell so damn much.

  When they arrived at Harbinger Trinket & Tome, the lights were off, the CLOSED sign still in place. Satara drew the spare key from under a shrub and whispered a short spell to activate it. When the door unlocked with a tiny spark, she led Edie and Marius inside.

  The place was empty and untouched, looking like it had been abandoned for a year instead of a day. Satara walked to the ironbound door at the back of the shop, then stopped, breath hitching.

  Edie was silent for a moment before touching her arm. “Are you going to be all right? We can always come back here some other day….”

  The shieldmaiden shook her head and reached down to unlatch the door. When it opened, the smell of fading incense and herbs washed over them—a calming scent, but one distinctly Astrid. The valkyrie’s living quarters were just as she had left them. Satara moved through them like a ghost, brushing her fingers over things as she went.

  Edie glanced back at Marius. His expression was disturbed, and she wondered what he was thinking. About his father’s death, perhaps? The one he’d seen in the mirror?

  Satara left the hearth room behind and stepped into the short hall. There was a door at the end—Astrid’s workshop—and one in the right-hand wall. She stopped at the right-hand door as she had the ironbound one, taking a deep breath. It was almost like she was preparing herself to face a particularly powerful enemy. Maybe, in a way, she was.

  Slowly, she opened it.

  Astrid’s room was simple and clean, a picture of rustic Scandinavian design. Her scent was even stronger here. Marius and Edie stood just inside the door as Satara went to her battlemother’s wardrobe and opened it, rifling through the clothing there for a moment.

  Edie wondered what she was looking for, but didn’t dare break the silence. After a few moments, Satara went instead to a trunk at the end of the bed. She unlatched it and began taking out carefully preserved books, papers, artifacts wrapped in cloth. She looked at it all, touched it, but didn’t explain herself. It was almost like she was searching for something more.

  At length, Edie ventured a question that had been on her mind since the night before, her voice barely above a whisper. “Is she really gone?”

  The shieldmaiden didn’t raise her head, but she nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice equally as soft. “I can feel it in my soul. I can’t describe it. Grief always leaves an emptiness, but it’s … more.”

  Her face crumpled, then, and she sank to her knees next to the bed, face in her hands. Her shoulders trembled.

  Edie practically leapt over the bed to go to her, kneeling beside and putting her a
rms around her. “It’s okay.” She smoothed a hand over Satara’s braids as she cried, and rested her cheek on the shieldmaiden’s cold shoulder. “It’s going to be all right. We’re still here. We’ll figure it out.”

  She wasn’t sure if any of those things were true. Astrid had been the nucleus holding what remained of the Reach together. Would they all drift away, now?

  “I can’t do this without her,” Satara managed through fits of tears. She went from kneeling to sitting, and leaned into Edie’s chest. “She wasn’t supposed to leave me like this. I can’t….”

  The way Satara said it, it sounded like Edie was missing something. “What do you mean?” she asked slowly.

  Satara inhaled shakily, raising her face to the soft morning light streaming in through the bedroom’s sole window. She tried to steady her voice, but it was thick and uneven as she spoke.

  “When someone becomes a shieldmaiden, there is always a chance that they may become a valkyrie one day. If they show great valor, if they sacrifice themselves in battle.” She twined her hands together and looked down at them. “There are some politics to it. Becoming a valkyrie is a high honor for followers of Odin and Freyja, and— and most people vie for it.”

  “But not you,” Edie murmured. She’d known that since Satara had first opened up about her past, how her parents had sent her away to Astrid when she was sixteen. They hadn’t had the opportunity to talk about it since.

  “But not me,” Satara echoed, a bitter smile twisting her gorgeous features. “Yet there are ancient rules, edicts put in place so the valkyrie army can only grow larger. The gods’ laws say that in the rare event that a valkyrie is truly obliterated, her shieldmaiden must take her place.”

  Edie blinked, automatically looking to Marius, who was still standing in the doorway. He bowed his head, but his expression told her he had already known this.

  She pulled away slightly so she could look Satara in the eyes. “But … you’ll need to die.”

  The shieldmaiden shrugged one shoulder. The bitter smile tried to return, but it was fooling no one, trembling then turning to a grimace. “This is what my family was hoping for me when they had me begin my training. I was supposed to— my brother—” She stopped dead and clamped her mouth shut.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Edie took both of her shoulders, frantically searching her face. “You can help the Reach in some other way, if you want.”

  Satara shook her head. “No one defies the gods.”

  Gently, she brushed Edie off and stood. Edie watched in astonishment as a pair of black wings unfolded, fanning out behind the shieldmaiden. They were noticeably smaller and fluffier than Astrid’s, more like a real bird’s, but weren’t entirely opaque. The sunlight from the window filtered through them slightly, especially at the ends of the feathers.

  Edie stood. She felt the strange urge to reach out and touch the wings, but refrained, simply gazing from them to Satara. “Have you always had these?”

  “No.” They relaxed and shifted forward slightly, almost like she was cradling herself with them. “They appeared after….” She trailed off and sighed. “They symbolize my becoming a fledgling valkyrie.”

  “But why? Won’t you just get new ones if you, uh, change?”

  Satara combed her fingers through them. A feather came loose in her hand. “They’re more of a warning than anything. If I don’t transition like I’m supposed to, they’ll start to decay, and I’ll die of the infection.”

  Edie’s face went numb and cold. Blood drained to her heart.

  “I’ve already pledged myself to Freyja, and the gods don’t take oaths lightly. If I don’t do this, I could get sent to Náströnd.”

  “Na-what-now?”

  “The Shore of Corpses,” Satara said. She folded her wings back, and they disappeared. “A castle made of snakes, with rivers of venom and a rotting dragon that chews on the inhabitants.”

  Okay, well, no wonder she didn’t want to go there.

  “I’ve heard tales of fledglings who have died and gone there before. Ghost stories from where I grew up. They become horrible, twisted creatures.”

  Edie bit her lip thoughtfully. “I— I guess there’s no choice, then.” After a deep breath, she added, “But if there anything I can do to help, I want to do it. So, what’s next?”

  Satara sat on the bed, and another surge of tears came. She shook her head so hard her braids flew. “I don’t know! That’s the problem. I can’t do this without Astrid. She never prepared me for this, never told me what it is I have to do.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. Astrid was very proud. Perhaps she thought she would never need to? That she would live forever?” She turned up one palm. “I thought she would.”

  Edie left shortly to get her a tissue, then returned. Satara’s shoulders sank as she wiped her nose and eyes.

  “I … I suppose the first step would be to journey to the gods’ World, Asgard,” she said, at a loss, “but I have no idea what happens then. I’ll have to find someone who can get me that information.”

  “I’ll do it,” Marius said abruptly. Both women looked up at him, and he shuffled in the doorway. “My father has a vast personal library. If it doesn’t hold the answers, the mages’ library might.”

  Satara bowed her head. “I would appreciate that. A lot.”

  Silently, Edie held Marius’s gaze. Since when had he become so decent?

  After a pause, she took Satara’s hand and helped her off the bed. While Marius busied himself with research, she’d treat Satara to the modern woman’s proper cry-fest, pint of ice cream and all. “Come on, let’s put this stuff away so we can go check on the cats. I’ll even put on a Die Hard movie for you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Time was of the essence, so Marius wasted none. The distance from Shipshaven to Anster was an hour by car, but on his lightsteed he made the trip in 40 minutes. It was almost noon by the time he trotted into the Temple of the Rising Divine and made a beeline for his father’s office.

  Radiant Eirik himself stopped him outside the oak doors. “Ah, Marius. I was just about to send someone to go looking for you.”

  “Your Grace,” the vivid said with a bow. “I came to use the library.”

  The Radiant sighed and came closer, putting an arm around his son’s shoulders. “You really don’t have to call me that when it’s only us. I am still your father.”

  Marius blinked, a little confused. Eirik had never taken issue with that before. Regardless, he nodded. “What was it you wanted me for?”

  “Congratulations are in order. A new vivid is about to join your ranks.”

  He could only be talking about Ynga. Marius nodded again, stiffly.

  “I expect you to be there for her Rite. It will take place tomorrow, when the sun reaches its zenith.” The Radiant smiled tiredly and patted his son on the back, then passed him, his voice echoing more the farther he walked. “I have some business to attend to. The library is yours. We’ll talk more tomorrow. I love you.”

  Ynga had proven herself, but to undergo Tyr’s Rite so soon…. His father must be desperate for more vivids. Or she had manipulated him in some way. And Marius was expected to be there?

  Oh, he’d be there—to reveal her as the traitor, or at least demand answers.

  He walked into the library, deep in thought. Ynga was a strange case. If anyone had good reason to hate the Gloaming, it was her; they had killed her family and taken her as a child slave. So then why would she betray the Aurora to them? Was she being blackmailed or threatened? She’d never allow it. It didn’t make any sense—but he had heard her talking about meeting Zaedicus with his own ears.

  Marius tried to put it out of his mind for now. He was here to help a friend, maybe, if he could call Satara that. She seemed decent. If nothing else, she was a devout follower of the gods, set to be a valkyrie, and it was his duty to help her any way he could. Both to adhere to the gods’ laws—he was a Bla
de of Tyr, after all—and because, frankly, he didn’t want her to die. To turn into one of those twisted fledglings she had described. Even if she was Reach, she didn’t deserve that.

  The library was vast, but Marius had had his whole life to familiarize himself with his father’s system. He peered into the section for knowledge of ancient rites. If was doubtful that anyone had written a glossary of the thousands upon thousands of investitural ceremonies associated with their Pantheons. It could take days to find the right book, and if it was written in another language, it would take even longer to then read.

  Carefully, he selected a few books about Odin. Freyja was the Mother Valkyrie, their commander, but Odin ruled them. Plus, if Marius was going to find an ancient ritual anywhere, it would be in a book about the god of secrets and magic.

  He flipped through the first few pages of the first one, mood souring. He liked reading fine, but only on his own terms, and he could already see that the text would be dry as kindling.

  As he was mustering the will he’d need to get through even a page, one of the library’s huge doors creaked open, and he looked up.

  Standing there was a young woman wearing a sweater dress, leggings, and an oversized scarf. Her skin was the color of bark, and her voluminous curls were woven with baby’s breath and pink blossoms. Her pointed ears told him she was not human. She looked around the library nervously.

  He lowered his book, turning. “Can I help you, miss?”

  Her eyes darted to him, and she nodded and produced an envelope from a well-loved leather shoulder bag. “Perhaps? I’m sorry. I have this letter….”

  “For whom?” Marius set his book on a nearby table and went to meet her at the door. She was easily under five feet tall, and now that he was closer, he noticed faint emerald moss highlighting her cheekbones and hairline. The blossoms in her hair were closing and blooming at intervals, and her eyes matched the pale pink of the buds. Definitely a landvættr, then.

  “It’s for Radiant Eirik. It’s very, very urgent.” She shuffled from foot to foot as she offered him the letter, eyes darting around the room.