Wrath of Aten

by S. A. Ashdown

  I asked the question I dreaded the answer to as she split the coconut apart with her bare hands. ‘Where’s Ava? She’s in trouble, isn’t she?’

  Freyja passed me a piece of the white flesh. ‘Ava is exactly where she’s meant to be. Eat it, Theo, and focus on your strengths. Focus on what makes you stronger.’

  The coconut melted in my mouth and my body turned into a firework. I lost sight of Freyja as I was launched into a billion glittering stars. Colour shot around me – the Northern Lights?

  No, that’s not it. I swirled around, and found myself staring at Heimdall. We’re on the rainbow bridge, I realised. The god didn’t appear to notice me; he was fixed on the distance. But I witnessed the nightmare enfolding in his glassy eyes: an army of Golden Knives heading for us, heading for Asgard – Akhen at their head, wielding Surt’s blazing sword. So Menelaus had failed, as well. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse.

  I have to get back to my body. I zipped over the rainbow bridge and followed the tug of my corporeal form, searching for myself.

  47

  All Fathers

  Espen and Isobel appeared in front of Frigg’s villa, escorted by Thor and Sif, who not only had a vested interested in his son – Theo possessed Thor’s hammer and Sif’s hair – but whose energies also enabled Espen and his wife to travel from the realm of the dead to Asgard.

  ‘I’m getting very tired of our son almost dying,’ Espen snapped, striding into the mosaicked atrium, only to collide with a dishevelled Elf on his way out.

  ‘Espen! Isobel!’

  ‘Nikolaj?’

  His dear uncle hugged him close to his chest, just as he’d done when Espen was a boy. ‘Oh, my poor nephew. Oh, Isobel, my red-haired vixen! I couldn’t fathom we’d ever meet like this.’ Nikolaj was crying.

  ‘Uncle,’ he whispered, rubbing Nikolaj’s arm. ‘It brings me joy to see you again, but where is our son?’

  ‘Go through the peristyle into the garden. I must leave. Frigg has warned me! Alfheim is in flames! Surt has come!’ Without warning, Nikolaj fizzled away, leaving Espen awash with grief and confusion. Their reunion was too short, too—

  Theo. He ran with Isobel through the atrium and the dining room which looked out over the torch-lit, colonnaded garden. A ring of goddesses encircled Theo, chanting and swaying as they called upon the Orlog’s fire to melt his son’s frozen limbs.

  Just as they reached his side, Theo opened his eyes – opal. The Gatekeeper was alive.

  ‘Mum? Dad? Where’s Nik?’

  The goddesses broke their spell and parted to let them through. ‘Gone to bail out Alfheim. Surt has broken free.’ Theo suffered his kisses and ministrations before he gave way to Isobel.

  ‘Teddy, I—’

  ‘Sorry, Mum, but the sandglass is broken.’ Theo kicked off the mountain of blankets wrapped around him. ‘Akhen is on the rainbow bridge.’

  ‘Then you’ll need your weapons.’ A figure moved out of the shadows between the columns – the All Father himself. Thor and Sif immediately bowed, so Espen followed suit.

  Isobel ignored him, supporting Theo to his feet instead.

  Odin approached Theo, holding a white sword made of pure crystal across his palms. A huge sapphire glowed on the hilt.

  ‘You have it,’ Theo whispered. ‘I thought it was lost.’

  Theo took the sword from the ruler of the Nine Realms. ‘I have Istapp, Thor’s hammer, and Ormdreper. And the Gatekeeper inside of me.’

  ‘And my army,’ Espen interrupted. Theo raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Our army,’ Isobel corrected.

  ‘Plus the Fae and my coven,’ Theo said, ‘but I can’t afford to wait for them.’

  Thor rose to his feet and unhooked his hip flask. ‘Ambrosia. It’ll keep your energy levels at their peak. Careful not to drink too much at once.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’ll make you impatient and hot-headed.’

  ‘Which explains a lot about my husband,’ Sif interjected.

  ‘Got it, thanks.’ The air shuddered as Theo summoned Espen’s chainmail – one of the many items he’d bequeathed to him – pulled it on, and addressed Odin. ‘Gather every god and goddess and make sure they keep Surt out of Asgard.’ Theo turned to them. ‘Mum, Dad, fancy saving the world?’

  Theo didn’t wait for their answer. He held up his arms and flew into the night. That’s one thing spirits are good at, Espen thought, linking his wife’s arm. The ground fell away as they joined the shooting star their love had created.

  48

  Evacuation

  ‘That’s the last arrow,’ Lorenzo said to Lori while watching it sail through the lava. He grabbed her and jumped down the side of the volcano as it spurted again. ‘We need a better plan.’

  He’d received seventeen burns in the last hour, trying to keep Surt on the other side of the divide, while Freyr melted into a wisp and darted through the flames to plug the tears in the magic that kept the two realms apart. Just because he healed quickly, didn’t stop his skin melting in the first place.

  Lori wriggled out of his arms and joined the rest of the coven, who’d abandoned the far side of the volcano. ‘Maybe we should get out of here and find Theo,’ she said. The others nodded. Why were they giving up so easily?

  ‘You’re a bunch of witch-vampires!’ Lorenzo shouted. ‘If anyone can hold back Surt, surely you can?’

  ‘Our allegiance is to Theo, whatever he has done. Our oaths demand we fight beside him.’

  ‘And leave Alfheim to burn? You think he wants that?’

  Uncertainty rippled through them.

  And then the ground split apart. ‘It’s gonna blow!’ Lorenzo yelled, zipping into the forest as the earth undulated like a carpet being ripped from under his feet. They were too late. Where was Freyr? The air filled with black smoke, blocking out the last dregs of light. Lorenzo’s vision switched to night mode.

  ‘Lori? Ricarda? Strix?’ The owl-witch flew above his head. He stopped running and faced the lava-firework filling the sky. ‘Freyr! Freyr! Raphael!’

  ‘I’m here.’

  Lorenzo spun around. His lover looked like a ghost, a pale outline in a forest lit by falling embers. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Gods.’ Freyr smiled weakly. To think the first time the boy had corrected him, they’d been entwined in the bell tower of St. Michael’s, contemplating the outcome of Theo’s trial. How had their current situation become direr than that one?

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Choose our first opponent,’ Freyr said as the rest of the coven caught up. ‘Loki or Surt?’

  ‘I doubt either are here for a neighbourly chat,’ Lorenzo hissed, annoyed at the one-hundred-percent increase in deadly enemies and the fact he’d lost all of his arrows in the volcano. ‘Freyr, I don’t suppose you have any other incredible, godly powers, do you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘but I sealed them in my sword for safekeeping. Until I get it back…’

  Lorenzo rolled his eyes and glanced at Lori. She was staring into the canopy with the rest of the coven. ‘Guys? What are you looking at?’

  Whispers. Lorenzo started and yanked Freyr to his side. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Freyr said.

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘No, the coven—’

  Their faces and limbs were waxen, pale, unmoving dolls with unnatural fingernails and sharp teeth. Then in a blink, Lori snapped her head towards Lorenzo. ‘Understood, Master.’

  She dived at Lorenzo like a stray cat and clawed those long fingernails at his face. Lorenzo caught her midair and flung her into a tree as the rest of the coven attacked. Freyr dodged each assault with the deftness of liquid moving through unseen cracks.

  ‘This is Loki’s handiwork!’ Lorenzo kicked Faflon in the stomach and head-butted Ricarda as he heard Freyr’s shout.

  Of course. The realisation smacked into the back of his head as surely as Carlotta whacking him with a log.
They gave some of their Essence to Hel and Loki. He’s controlling them.

  Lorenzo was strong. But these were Lamia. A magical loop tripped up his feet and sent him sprawling across the forest floor. He spat the dirt out of his mouth, spinning round to seize the stake that Lori was trying to drive into his chest.

  Fuck, no. He would not die like this, he couldn’t die knowing he’d failed Theo and Freyr and had hit a woman – Lamia or not. ‘Lori, snap out of it! Remember your oath to Theo!’

  A teardrop fell on his face. ‘I’m sorry. Master demands it.’

  A beam of emerald light shot overhead. Lorenzo shoved Lori off his chest and struggled against the loop around his feet. Freyr shot out his hand from nowhere and the rope untied itself, leaving him free to jump back up.

  The emerald light came from the figure running towards them through the trees. Freyr – or the wind – spoke: ‘The Fae Heart. Of course.’

  ‘What?’ Lorenzo asked, ducking as Strix attempted to scalp him. He jumped into defensive position, ready to take on Loki. He squinted against the bright light coming from the orb above the figure’s head but his vision adapted quickly, settling on the man’s features: the static, blond hair, the Clemensen clasp on the cloak.

  Nikolaj.

  Theo’s mad uncle yelled in Elvish and yet with many voices as the light poured from the orb, splitting into beams and smacking into the heads of the Lamia, engulfing their hollow auras, illuminating them anew with something…else.

  Nikolaj dropped the orb into the soft undergrowth and fell to his knees. ‘Quickly, Freyr. They have the sprites now. Lead your kin to fight. Ensnare Surt as Akhen imprisoned you.’

  Lorenzo felt Freyr brushing against his lips, and then the boy rose through the canopy, carrying the coven with him as a hot air balloon was attached to a basket. This was the part of the battle he couldn’t join, so he ran to Nikolaj’s side instead, and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘What did you just do, Nik? How did you get here?’

  ‘A little help from the All Father and Aurelia,’ Nikolaj said, ‘and my mind finally belongs to me alone.’

  ‘The sprites are in the coven?’

  ‘Yes.’ Nikolaj coughed as a cloud of smog choked the forest. ‘And the sprites recognise Freyr as their brother. They will obey his commands.’

  ‘Because he was an Elder.’

  ‘Correct. I know you won’t leave your lover here willingly, but Theo needs you now.’ Before Lorenzo had the chance to process Nik’s statement, the Elf took hold of him and teleported him onto the last remaining bridge – which was rapidly disappearing in the heat of the volcano – that led to the Fae Isles.

  In the distance, the sky was ripped apart as every creature who called Alfheim home escaped to the gleaming city on the other side of the portal. ‘Odin has opened the gates to Asgard,’ Nikolaj said, teleporting him again, this time to the top of the tower where Aurelia had held Nikolaj prisoner once upon a time. ‘They will shut soon.’

  Lorenzo caught sight of Menelaus herding the Sarrows towards the portal on the farthest island from the volcano. He scanned the sky for any sign of Surt, Loki, Freyr, or the coven, but the enormous ejections screened the Elven land off entirely. ‘I can’t leave without Freyr,’ Lorenzo said. ‘I promised I’d protect him, no matter what.’

  ‘And you promised my nephew you’d have his back.’

  Damn it. He’s right. Theo has saved my life but it means nothing without Freyr. ‘You go, Nik. I’ll be right behind you. The portal can’t close before Freyr is free.’

  ‘If Odin believes Alfheim is comprised he will close it down to prevent Surt breaking into Asgard!’

  ‘So be it.’

  ‘Insufferable love-sick fool.’ Nik sighed.

  ‘You’d do the same for Aurelia, wouldn’t you?’

  Nikolaj frowned. ‘Take the Fae Heart. It might come in useful.’ He handed him the orb.

  ‘What does it actually do?’

  ‘Like any magical object, it manipulates energy to your will by channeling your Essence. Use it with care. Good luck, Dökkálfar.’ He gripped his forearm.

  ‘Ditto,’ he said as Nikolaj popped out of sight. Lorenzo tossed the orb from hand to hand, the smoke around the volcano clearing away, leaving a vision of Surt climbing out of the ruined mountain, a pillar of fire unfurling into the sky. Loki zipped into the air above him.

  The orb started to glow.

  Loki swivelled round and locked onto Lorenzo. The god laughed and charged across the ocean on a collision course with him. He wants the orb. Lorenzo considered running but Loki would be faster. He could fight but Loki would be stronger. And Lorenzo couldn’t fly. He clutched the orb against his chest.

  Save me, he willed. Save me from Loki. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact.

  A rush of air almost knocked him off balance. His eyes snapped open. A blur of feathers, a razor-sharp beak. Lorenzo’s pulse pounded as the Craven careered into Loki and disappeared with him into the sea. He struggled to believe what he’d just seen. Jesus Christ, it worked.

  The blood rushed from his head and Lorenzo fell to his knees, blinking against the blackness. His arms and legs felt like lead. It manipulates energy to your will by channeling your Essence. Use it with care.

  Come on, Lorenzo. Get up.

  Freyr and the coven appeared between blinks, flocking around Surt like birds. Surt struck out at Freyr but Lorenzo didn’t see the outcome; his head hit the stone floor. For a moment, he relived the nightmares of his childhood, his mother screaming as Lorenzo listened behind closed doors, cowering under his bed. The time she almost died. He had ridden with her in the ambulance and when they came home, his father had fled. Never again would he allow anyone to hurt his family like that. He refused to be that helpless.

  Slowly, the blood returned and awoke his mind. He quickly counted the coven members. Two missing. What was Freyr’s plan?

  Ensnare Surt as Akhen imprisoned you. Nikolaj’s instructions: the sprites could lock together and form a cage, which is how Akhen had trapped and tortured Raphael. Maybe it could hold Surt.

  But the fire-giant had other ideas. He knocked Freyr into the bubbling sea.

  ‘No!’ Lorenzo screamed, and the falling volcanic ash echoed his hopes. He could dive in, swim through it, find Freyr somehow—

  Freyr blasted out of the water.

  Surt twisted round, his right arm following the motion, scooping up flaming rock into his massive hand and fixing his diamond eyes on his prey.

  Lorenzo reacted by instinct. What use was he on the tower? He might as well be unconscious if he didn’t help now. Even with Freyr leading them, the coven were struggling to coordinate their actions in the smog. He held up the orb once more, visualising the smoke strangling Surt, cutting off his vision and clearing the atmosphere for Freyr.

  He aimed the green, pulsing light above Surt’s head. The air contorted, shifting and tugging and smothering the fire-giant in his own smoke. He counted the coven again and realised they were back to full strength – the two he thought were missing had just been lost in the haze. ‘Or getting into position,’ Lorenzo whispered, as the orb slipped from his hands and smashed beside his feet.

  Freyr raised his arms as Surt heaved the rock in his hand. The load smashed into Freyr’s shoulder. Lorenzo yelled again, fighting the sickness spreading through his chest as Freyr spun like a corkscrew. He counted the somersaults: one, two, three. Freyr’s head dipped back into the water. Then he flipped round, soaring higher and higher, unleashing his deafening screech – the siren of the sprites.

  The noise erupted from the chests of the coven, an ear-splitting chain as they joined hands in the air above Surt, blue light crackling between them, forming a dome above their heads, which moved slowly downwards, the sides pinning the fire-giant into place. Surt roared.

  Have they done it? Have they trapped him? Lorenzo couldn’t keep his eyes open. His legs trembled and this time he succumbed to the darkness.

  A cool
hand against his cheek. Lorenzo gazed at the soft mouth and amethyst eyes through a watery film. For a moment he thought he was in the bell tower, Raphael gently waking him, pulling back the blanket.

  The vision of the boy’s face was marred by scotch marks and sweat. ‘I’ve never seen you so dirty,’ Lorenzo croaked.

  Raph— no, Freyr, smiled. Several pairs of arms latched onto his limbs and bore Lorenzo towards the stars. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked, still uncomprehending.

  Freyr flew vertically beside him, hand on Lorenzo’s chest. ‘To Asgard. To Theo.’

  ‘Did you trap Surt?’

  ‘For now,’ Freyr said, but he didn’t look happy. ‘Thanks to you.’ His lovely god leaned over and kissed him. ‘But we couldn’t leave the sprites in place. My magic should hold their residue for a time but it won’t last for long. Did you see what happened to Loki?’

  Lorenzo grinned. ‘He’s inside the Craven’s beak. Let’s hope Odin’s raven chewed his fucking head off.’

  Freyr nodded solemnly. Yeah, he didn’t think it was likely either.

  Another voice – Lori’s, cursing in Italian. ‘We’re too late. The portal has closed. We’re stuck here.’

  49

  Windy City

  I ran onto the rainbow bridge, cloak swaying behind me, ready to defend Asgard.

  First problem: Heimdall. Despite my warning to him at the War Council, he was lifting the horn that would signal Ragnarök to his lips, ready to summon the Nine Realms to war.

  Not gonna happen. My chance to defeat Akhen resided in hand-to-hand combat; once the End of all Things began, it was my destiny to die. And since Frigg’s prophecy, fate hadn’t been my friend.

  Now fully occupying my body, closing the gap between me and Heimdall felt like running on top of the Aurora Borealis, a semi-opaque seven-lane highway of colour. Below it was the earth – or a version of it. The veil was thinning between Asgard and Midgard, that much was for sure.