by Saga Berg
Nordic Fairies
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Nordic Fairies
By Saga Berg
Disclaimers and Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places or incidents are product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons is entirely coincidental.
2nd Edition
Copyright 2012 by Saga Berg All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing by the author Saga Berg, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.sagaberg.com
Front image by George Mayer.
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter 1
Svala froze. This was it.
Viggo sat between his co-stars, behind a desk at the end of the mall. The line of fans waiting to get their pictures autographed stretched so far it would take hours to reach him.
Hidden behind a herd of teenage girls, Svala observed the front table. Viggo’s female co-star, Amanda Jones, was beautiful. His male co-star with his crew-cut anonymous hair color and predictable good looks made no lasting impression next to Viggo. Then again, it wasn’t a fair comparison. The boy was undoubtedly a mortal.
“I can’t believe we finally get to meet Viggo Storm.” Megan shifted her feet and glanced past the crowd. “Do you think they’ll throw me out if I try to kiss him?”
“So worth it if they do,” said Sarah with a mischievous smile.
At his movie premiere the night before, Viggo had been surrounded by security and journalists, impossible to get close to. One girl tried. She managed to get past two dark suits, but the third stopped her and threw her out of the theater. After her stunt, no one dared anything of the sort. Not even Svala, though her main concern was not the threat of being thrown out by security.
“Oh God, there he is!” Sarah clasped the glossy promotional picture in her hand so hard it wrinkled. For a moment, she looked like she would pass out. Jen and Megan gasped at the sight of him.
Svala clutched her picture with both hands, no longer sure she wanted to know what she had come to find out. She’d taken a big risk being here.
Viggo offered the girl in front of him a half-hearted smile and handed her the signed picture. His fairy-blue eyes flickered over the mall. Svala ducked behind the girl in front of her while Megan, Jen and Sarah stepped out from the line and tip-toed for a better view. The girl in front of Svala wore eight inch heels and wobbled to the side while attempting to peek over the crowd.
Viggo continued scanning the room. His eyes narrowed, his brows drew together. He peered over the crowd until his male co-star nudged him. Viggo ran a hand through his chestnut-colored hair and forced a smile to the girl standing in front of him. The girl handed him a picture.
Megan consulted her watch. “I’ll absolutely die if I don’t get up there. I’ve already practiced what to say. Do you want to hear?”
The girls nodded with enthusiasm and moved forward as the line progressed. Megan presented her speech, Svala tried to focus on what she said, but her thoughts drifted to the consequences of failure. She glanced at the entrance. There was still time to leave, but if she did, it might be years before she found out what was going on, and by then it might be too late.
“Amanda Jones is so lucky.” Sarah studied Viggo’s female co-star with a pout. “It’s unfair. She’s not even that pretty.”
“Oh, really?” Megan sneered and crossed her arms over her chest.
Svala chose not to get involved. The thought of Amanda Jones made her insides turn, and her dark thoughts were not suitable for a fairy.
“I’m entitled to my opinion, and I don’t think she’s that pretty.” Sarah tried to sound confident but fiddled with her hair, pulling a strand of the blonde bob hair cut behind her ear.
“Viggo seems to think she is,” said Megan.
“That’s just a rumor. They’re pretending to be together. It’s a publicity stunt.” Sarah rolled her eyes.
Svala glanced over at Amanda Jones. The actress leaned over the table and signed a picture with slow, methodic strokes. Her long, straight, raven-black hair fell over her arm and onto the desk. When she handed back the photo, she tossed her hair and smiled, exposing a row of perfect white teeth. Her delicate features made her look like a doll. She was stunning.
Eight weeks had passed since Svala pretended to have won the tickets to the premiere of Moonlight in Venice. The movie was a success before it premiered, thanks to Viggo Storm in the leading role as Colin Hunter, the rich heir who falls in love with the wrong girl. Just your standard love story. Suffice it to say it wasn’t the plot that made teenage girls go into a frenzy every time someone mentioned the movie.
The seventeen-year-old wonder boy, with his intense blue eyes and contrasting dark hair, appeared out of nowhere. After a small but significant role in a prime-time TV show, his popularity had sky-rocketed overnight. Svala couldn’t go anywhere without running into his smiling face on the front page of a magazine or up on a billboard. Now he sat only a few feet away, behind a herd of girls who had come for the sole purpose of meeting him. In that respect, Svala was no exception.
“God, look at him.” Sarah gaped. “I didn’t think it possible to be that gorgeous.”
Svala looked at Viggo in silence. Her heart pounded. Viggo searched the room again and most of the girls stretched and tried to catch his attention. He looked back down, a line crossing his forehead. Svala’s heart continued to race, a growing feeling of nausea intensified. Maybe not knowing was better after all.
“I honestly thought they’d tampered with his pictures. I didn’t think his eyes were actually that blue. Like, where did he come from?” Jen said.
“I’ve read he’s Swedish,” Megan said.
“He’s said that?” Svala blurted.
“Yeah, in an interview ... In Cosmo, I think.” Megan frowned. “Why? Shouldn’t he have? You have something against Swedes?”
Svala smirked. “No.” What in God’s name was he up to? “I just didn’t know that.”
“Your family is Swedish too, aren’t they?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah, way back though,” Svala lied. “They immigrated here, like, in the 19th century.”
“Maybe you’re related then.” Megan grinned. “Like a hundred years back in time or so.”
“Yeah.” Svala looked away. “Maybe.”
A hundred years back in time equaled an eternity for her friends. She smiled to herself and glanced at Viggo. The temptation to tell mortals the truth never arose, but she sometimes wondered how they would react if she did.
Chapter 2
Svala had been fourteen years of age when Trym, her mentor, came to her the first time in the 1
0th century. She sat by the surf in the Swedish village of Birka, crying. Her father had left for another long trip out at sea, but not before he forbade her to meet that boy ever again. That boy who was only one year older and perfect for her.
“You cry because you are honest.”
Trym’s voice had been unexpected, his words even more so. Svala wiped her face with the back of her hand. A stranger stood on a rock a few feet away. She eased back and pursed her lips together, not sure of his intentions.
“Your father would never know if you met the boy while he’s gone, and yet you cry because you know you won’t disobey.”
His strange insight into her life made her tears subside. She opened her mouth to speak but not a sound came out. Instead, she stared at him. He was tall, wearing the traditional brown Viking attire but with a long silvery cloak over his shoulders. It was out of place, almost regal.
“I’ve been looking for you, Svala.”
“How do you know my name?”
In retrospect this was the least questionable thing in the whole scenario.
He took a moment to squint at the sun before he knelt beside her. When he studied her the light reflected off the water and onto his face. His skin was smooth and perfect; his blond hair fell like silk over his blue eyes.
“Do you want to be with this boy for eternity?”
She frowned.
“Do you love this boy?” He rephrased.
She nodded.
“You’re only fourteen. How do you know this?”
She looked at her hands and thought about it. How could you put words to something which could not be described?
“I don’t know. I just feel it.”
Trym smiled, like her answer pleased him. “I have an offer for you, Svala. I think you’ll like it.”
She never hesitated nor did she ever regret her decision. Trym told her what he was and what she would become if she agreed to his terms. She hadn’t grasped the whole concept at first, only the simplified version. Nordic fairies divided into light and dark; Liosálfar and Döckálfar. Trym recruited her on behalf of the Liosálfar. Given her honesty and pure heart, he considered her the perfect candidate. She was to help keep the balance in the mortal world; do good and uphold a sense of honesty.
Her incentive was Viggo. He had gone through the test and agreed to the same deal. His Liosálfar companion was a fairy named Alva.
From that day, Svala’s life always started at the age of fourteen and continued for as long as it took for her to fulfill her end of the deal. They aged, like any other mortal, but rarely reached old age. When the two of them accomplished their tasks, they could be together. Until then, they were kept apart and forbidden to meet. They had a strong drive to be together, but if they initiated their relationship before they finalized their assignments there would be consequences. Punishment. Only once they had proven themselves worthy, could they be together. When the powers that be decided it was enough, the whole process started over again.
Their time together usually lasted for years, on rare occasions months, once only a few weeks. They always remembered their past lives and experiences.
“Everything needs to be earned and should never be taken for granted,” Trym often said. Like he felt he needed to remind her from time to time.
She lived with Trym until she fulfilled her assignments. He took orders from the top of the chain, and made sure Svala didn’t connect with Viggo before it was time.
“Why would we be punished for our love, and what would happen?”
“You must focus on the assignments. That is what’s most important. If we don’t work with making this world a better place, the balance is lost. The Döckálfar might take over,” Trym explained.
“And what will happen if we disobey?”
“Then you risk losing each other forever.” He must have picked up on her terrified expression because he put a hand on her shoulder and added. “Don’t worry. You’ll soon find the time apart a small price to pay for eternal love.”
It had been two years since Svala had last seen Viggo. Their previous assignment took over six years to accomplish, yet their union had lasted only three weeks, making the time apart feel closer to eight years than two.
***
Several months before she stood in line at the mall, Svala zapped through channels while eating chocolate ice cream straight out of the box. She slouched on the living room couch back in Washington D.C. and dug her spoon into the almost empty container when Viggo appeared on the screen. She froze at the sight of him and the ice cream slowly slid off the spoon and back into the box.
With her gaze fixed on the screen she shouted in a high-pitched, panicked voice, “Trym!”
Trym emerged from the kitchen moments later. He wore an old apron and clutched two potholders in each hand, his face filled with worry. He opened his mouth to speak, but paused at the sight of Viggo on the screen. The color drained from his face. He turned around and backed up against the couch until he reached it and sat down with a thud.
Together they watched Viggo in tense silence for over ten minutes.
“My God, what is he doing?” Trym asked.
Svala couldn’t tear her gaze from the screen, and her eyes welled up. “I don’t understand. What does this mean?”
Trym watched her with concern then turned to the TV where Viggo had taken off his shirt, exposing a tattoo on his left shoulder blade they both recognized.
“I don’t know,” Trym said. “There could be a number of reasons. I... I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t we do something?”
The remains of the ice cream had turned into a slow moving liquid at the bottom of the carton. Svala placed it on the coffee table and kept staring at the screen.
“We have to find out what this means.” Trym said, a worried frown on his face. “And we have to be very careful.”
They waited for Viggo’s next move, the movie premiere. Once they announced the release date, Trym made the necessary arrangements. No one would be suspicious of four sixteen-year-old girls going to the premiere of a movie most teenage girls were dying to see. Svala’s friends had been over the moon when she informed them about the tickets.
***
“I know it’s difficult, but try to stay out of his sight. The more you can find out without contacting him, the better.” Trym offered a stern look.
They stood in her room while Svala packed for their trip. She fingered a red dress she planned to wear to the premiere. Running a hand over the smooth fabric, Svala sighed. “That’s asking a lot.”
“I know, but you must.”
“Would you? I mean if it was...” She trailed off, ashamed for bringing it up.
Trym let it pass, but she knew it was an exception. They both grew silent.
“I would suggest you wear something less... eye catching.” He nodded to the dress. “And dye your hair. Dark.”
“How dark?” She didn’t want to meet his gaze again, too upset with him for pointing out what she already knew.
“Just dark.”
Svala grabbed the end of her blonde hair and groaned. She didn’t mind going dark, but he would not be looking for a brunette.
“Can I trust you?” Trym asked.
She nodded, her focus still on the dress.
Trym sighed.
“You have to be stronger than this. You know that.”
She managed another nod and looked at him. Her eyes teared and Trym looked helpless. His shoulders slouched, his gaze never settled. She knew he only wanted to protect her from what he had been forced to go through. She was being unfair.
“You can trust me. I’m sorry, I...” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I just miss him so much.”
***
They flew to New York for the premiere. Trym told her friends’ parents he would accompany them and make sure they returned safe. To Svala’s friends, Trym was her uncle who raised her since her parents died in an accident when she was five. They’d
used that version the last two hundred years, and it worked well. Trym was too young to be her father and too old to be anything else.
“Mr. Linné, do we have to go back to the hotel right after the movie, or can we stay out a bit longer?” Jen turned to Trym in the cab, on the way from La Guardia airport to their hotel in central Manhattan.
“I’m afraid I promised your parents I’d have you back in bed by eleven o clock. I won’t be able to go with you to the premiere, so I trust you do as I say.” Trym let his gaze wander over Svala. She turned to the window, hiding her tense expression.
He wasn’t her uncle, but he still decided what she was allowed to do. He had ever since the first time she met him.
“But what if there is a party after?” Sarah asked. “Could we go?”
“No.” Trym tried to smooth over the words with a smile. “I need you to come back to the hotel.”
“But what if we get to meet Viggo Storm in person?” Jen insisted.
Svala bit her tongue and evaded Trym’s worried gaze.
“Then definitely no,” he said.
Her friends were surprised. Trym was usually more easygoing than the other parents; he didn’t give them a hard time for coming home late or smelling of cigarettes. That was only because he didn’t think of Svala as a teenage girl and sometimes forgot her friends were.
***
Once the other girls unpacked, Trym took Svala aside in the hotel room. He had rented a suite at the top floor of a five-star hotel, a way to compensate for what she was going through. She appreciated the gesture, but he should have known her better than to think it mattered.
“You need to find out what is going on before you approach him.”