The earth shook again and this time, I fell. I dug my fingers into the snow and stared at Loki—because the smirk told me it was him again—walking toward me. He had Branton thrown over my mother’s shoulder and I couldn’t tell if the kid was still alive because he was facedown, his chin smacking into my mother’s back as Loki walked her body to the edge of the water. But he had to be because of that fire.
The aurora borealis still shimmered across the sky. If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost see something behind it—something not of this world.
Loki didn’t bother with any speeches, didn’t go on as my sisters had told me he had with them. No, he only turned and looked to where we stood, and I didn’t imagine the flash of fear that streaked through his expression.
He was still afraid of us.
And I got it. The three of us together had been able to paralyze him before and he knew we could do it again. Do it before he got away.
“Take my hands,” I said to my sisters.
They each took one of my hands, and it was if our norns and the legendary Arapaho woman who’d given us the whirlwind power just flowed together. All those years of not knowing, of always being in the dark, coalesced into a blinding instant of complete understanding.
“We have to stop the world again. Together,” I said. And I didn’t say the rest because in my heart I knew what Skuld’s last message to me had meant.
The key to humanity’s survival?
It was our family. It was Raven, Coral and me. And it was also our mother.
Tears burned my eyes and streaked my cheeks as I joined with my sisters and our power built and stopped the world, letting Dru once more regain some control of her own body. Dru...no, Mom, staggered and dropped Branton onto the ground. She knelt there, so many yards away and I saw the agony in her expression, knew that Loki’s possession had torn her up, knew that she would never physically recover—but worse, never be able to lose him entirely. And in her eyes, I saw that she understood the only thing she could do.
She stood slowly, gave us a tremulous smile that said everything—absolutely everything—about how much she loved us, then she turned and dived into that fiery opening.
“No!” Coral screamed as she dropped to her knees.
Raven and I followed.
The three of us knelt there, in the snow and mud, and as we watched the hole close, the fire went out and we continued to stare at that spot as the world spun back to normal around us.
“She was the key,” Coral whispered.
“We all were,” Raven said.
Coral looked over her shoulder and I followed her gaze to the corpse of the elf that had created us. “So was he.”
“Coral’s right,” Raven said. “In the end, they both gave up their lives to save us.”
“And to stop the end of the world,” I added. My chest ached, and I turned back to where our mother had disappeared. “Mom’s really gone.”
The battle sounds abruptly cut off. The creatures seemed to realize as one that they’d lost, that whatever they’d been promised was not going to happen. Elves turned into blurs as they took off and the few remaining giants ran, as well. One by one, the warriors we’d originally set out to find separated from the mass and walked toward us. Streaks of blood and dirt covered them. Vanir had a lot of blood on his face. As he came closer, I winced at the cut slashing across one eye. He would lose it.
Raven cried out and ran to him, standing on her toes to brush back his hair and inspect his face.
Taran walked all the way to Coral and lifted her up into his arms without saying a word. He wasn’t as tall as Vanir and Arun, wasn’t as broad-shouldered, but he held a lot of strength—and he held my sister close. She still cried. She probably would for a long time because out of the three of us, she had always been closest to Mom.
But tears still poured down my face, too.
Arun stopped in front of me, knelt and lifted my chin. He looked rough with part of his hair clumped with blood on one side of his head and dark bruises forming on his cheek and neck. His poor hands looked so bad, still black and blistered.
“Is that your blood in your hair?” I asked, my voice shaking because I couldn’t stop crying.
“No. It’s from giants and I think some of it is Salvatore’s because they kept going after him—but he’ll be fine. Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered.
He sat and pulled me into his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on.
“You three stopped everything, didn’t you?” he asked. “Somehow, you did it all when we couldn’t see. Did you stop time?”
“Yes. It gave Mom a chance to reclaim herself before we lost her. Everything has changed now. Our power is different.”
“So is your hair.”
I leaned back and lifted a strand of it. “I hoped this would go back to normal.”
“Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. You’re still ridiculously hot—now you just kind of look like one of those girls on the cover of a fantasy novel. Rawr.”
I scowled at him and he chuckled, but it was more a sound of exhaustion than humor.
“There you are. I knew my prickly girl was still in there.” He touched my hair. “You and your sisters are crying. I only saw her briefly when she grabbed Branton, but your mother was here?”
I nodded. “She’s gone now. For good.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, pulling me close again. “We lost others. Brigg and Nanna both.” He looked at his hands. “I tried to bring them back and couldn’t. I think whatever Hildr shared was temporary.”
“She thought it would be.” I hadn’t known them long, but I knew my heart would ache over Nanna and Brigg a long time. I curled my fingers around his wrists, looked at the visible representation of my death in his blistered hands. “I can’t believe you brought me back from that.”
He framed my face with his hands—though that had to hurt so much—and looked at me for what felt like forever with those seal-brown eyes I was completely attached to now. “I chased down that last spark of you because I couldn’t face it being gone completely. I am not ready to let you go. I’m smitten.”
“Smitten. I can’t believe you just used that word.” Instead of rolling my eyes, I closed them. Then I rested my forehead against his, utter exhaustion making me unable to face what was left to do.
“I plan to use a lot of those cheesy words and I plan to receive a lot of scowls, and the first thing I’m going to do is see if Mom is interested at all in rebuilding in a warmer climate.”
I leaned back. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m not interested in long-distance scowls and eye-rolls.” He moved me so he could stand, then pulled me to my feet. “Come on, let’s go find my mom. Last time I saw her, she was playing doctor. She fought along with Grady and Hallur. They took down two of the smaller giants.” His voice was full of pride.
“Go on ahead,” I said as I saw that Raven and Coral had walked to the edge of the water. “I need to be with them a moment.”
He followed my gaze, then nodded and smiled. I watched his long-legged—albeit tired—stride across the snow, then I joined my sisters, wrapping my right arm around Coral right over the place where Raven had her left arm. We hugged her between us, all of us staring at the now calm water.
“What do you think the Valkyries will do now?” Coral asked.
“Who knows?” I didn’t want to think about Valkyries. I kept seeing that last expression on my mother’s face. “She did the only thing she could, you know.”
I didn’t have to elaborate. They knew who I was talking about.
Coral nodded.
Raven let out a long breath. “She was a true warrior.”
And for once, I didn’t smirk at the term. None of us did. I looked at
all the exhausted, hurt kids, at Alva, Grady and Hallur dolling out first aid. “I still feel Skuld. In me. It’s different now. She’s different now. She’s not as intrusive, but I can still feel her moving. I don’t know what that means.”
“What do we do now?” Coral wrapped an arm around Raven and me.
“We go on,” Raven said softly. “We go to college. We live.”
“And we date,” I added.
They both turned to me.
I shrugged and laughed. “I like my warrior and think I’m going to keep him. Now we just have to figure out where because that plan does not include being away from either of you.”
Raven nodded. “I think we’re going to need each other quite a bit for a while.” She looked back at the lake. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe we should see if Alva wants to rebuild and set this place up as a home for displaced gods and goddesses.”
“Now there’s an idea.” I liked that one a lot actually.
“Like I’d ever get Taran’s dad to even think of moving here.” Coral laughed.
I pointed to where he was hovering around Alva.
“Oh.” She smiled. “That could be interesting. And weird if you’re going out with her son while I’m going out with his. But think how fun it could be if we talked her into putting in a greenhouse just for herbs. Ooh, do you think Arun could keep them all healthy?”
She continued to go on and inside I breathed a sigh of relief. I met Raven’s eyes as Coral chattered between us. She smiled at me, and I knew she was feeling exactly the same thing.
We had no way of knowing how things would turn out or where we’d end up. And it would take all three of us a long time to get over losing our mother as we had. But we would recover and we would go on, and if our goddesses were sticking around because the real Ragnarok was still to come?
Then we’d be ready to kick ass.
Epilogue
“It’s the time of their gathering again, Dru Lockwood. Would you like to see?”
Dru nodded and took Hildr’s hand. Five years had passed since she’d been pulled out of a burning volcano, surprised to find herself alive and saved by a warrior Valkyrie who felt her sacrifice had made her worthy. Five years that felt like a blink of time here in Valhalla.
The massive span of this magical plane never failed to stun Dru into silence as they walked toward the courtyard that held the golden tree, Glasir. She always wondered if the never-ending land she saw in every direction was nothing more than illusion. She’d asked, but Hildr had only offered her usual enigmatic smile.
Glasir stood tall and massive, gold from its darker exposed roots to the shimmering brightness of the leaves that crowded the long limbs.
Hildr waved her hand and the air around the tree flickered and rippled until they no longer looked at Valhalla’s beautiful landscape and instead saw a fiery sunset ripped across the sky.
Dru’s girls were in Wyoming again.
Long, shining greenhouses filled the still-sunny valley but it wasn’t the buildings that drew her gaze as she and Hildr stepped through the veil. It was the sounds coming from the grassy clearing beside them. At first, one would think the clank of swords clashing, the thuds of arrows hitting targets, and the grunts of fists hitting flesh belonged to a battle, but the occasional laughter belied that. The kids—no, they were adults now—still trained. There were so many this year.
The first one she saw was Taran, the boy who loved her middle daughter. He’d grown taller and broader; his arms swinging in a graceful arc as he sparred with Mist and Tyrone. Dru saw that he was still as quick as the lightning he could lasso with his hand.
“I’m sorry you can only see them when they come here for their summer reunion and training,” Hildr said.
“I know,” Dru murmured, her gaze scanning the grounds for three with snow-white hair. “It’s only because we’re close to Bifrost and the veil is thin here.” She repeated the apology Hildr gave her every single year. It didn’t matter. This was enough. More than she could have hoped for—to see her children thriving. Hildr would bring her daily while they were in Wyoming.
Dru closed her eyes and took a deep breath, though no new tastes came onto her tongue. She couldn’t smell the freshly cut grass spewing from the side of a riding lawn mower, but she could hear its engine. The breeze didn’t brush over her skin, but it moved the leaves on the trees around her.
She was only an invisible visitor here.
A loud peal of laughter pulled her attention to the edge of the clearing, a grin stretching her mouth wide as she watched Raven jump onto her boyfriend’s back to attack the much taller Magnus. Vanir, who’d obviously been expecting the practiced maneuver also laughed as their startled friend stumbled under the blow from her clenched fists. Vanir swung Raven around, smacked a kiss on her still-smiling mouth, then set her down fast as Magnus came at them again. Dru’s eyebrows lifted when Raven dropped quicker than her eye could follow, and swept the near-giant’s feet out from under him.
The white hair wasn’t the only thing her daughters had inherited from the...creature who’d fathered them.
Vanir’s wolves quietly watched from the sidelines. They had to be getting old, yet they didn’t seem to be and the faint glow of yellow from their eyes made Dru wonder if the creatures housed gods as well—that maybe they would be living longer for a reason. Though, that reason terrified her.
Dru’s gaze moved on to Kat, who was arguing with a couple of redheaded twin men. When one reached for the staff leaning against the side of a tree, Dru stepped forward instinctively though she could do nothing here to help.
“It’s okay,” Hildr said. “Neither of the Tanner men would hurt her.”
“But that staff looks like—” Dru broke off.
“It’s enchanted, along with the silver glove the other one wears. Those two don’t have god powers, but they train just as hard and use Gridr’s weapons with her full consent.”
“I don’t see Coral.” Dru bit her lip much the same way her middle daughter always had.
“She’s here. Her powers have grown beyond those of her sisters’ because of the magic she inherited from you and she works with Arun in the greenhouses most of the time.” A true smile graced the muscled Valkyrie’s narrow face. “Those two working together will be able to feed the masses, should the reasons for all the training come to pass.”
Dru spun toward her. “Come to pass? But it finished. It’s over.”
“Is it?”
Dru waited for Hildr to go on, feeling as if her heart would stop. She knew, of course, that the Ragnarok they’d gone through had been heavily manipulated by Loki. How could she not have, with the irritating god inside her for so long? But he had instigated the reincarnations, he had pulled all the underworld creatures onto earth for battle. It had happened. “I don’t understand.”
“None of us do.” Hildr had lost her smile with the subject, but it quickly came back as she pointed toward the greenhouses.
Dru watched as Coral and Arun emerged. Her middle daughter, still the most colorful of the group with her long, bright yellow shirt over purple leggings, flung something into the air and laughed in delight when whatever it was sparkled, then exploded like tiny fireworks. Dru’s eyebrows lifted at the faint, white glow that came from her daughter’s hands. “Is that magic visible to them?”
“No, though her sisters can see it when they stop the world to share the norns’ messages.”
“So they still get them?”
Hildr nodded and crossed her muscled arms. “That’s why none of us know if the time of the ravens and wolves will come again.” She swept her hand across the valley. “They all kept their powers and there must be a reason.”
Dru couldn’t find words after that, so she settled onto the ground and watched as her daughters—beautiful women now—interacted
with the group that was much larger than it had been last year. Every year more came, ones who hadn’t been called here when Loki had tried to set off Yellowstone.
Once dark settled in, most paired off to sit around a bonfire and it warmed her heart to find that her daughters seemed so happy with the men they were still with. She listened to them talk of college. Listened to them talk of the homes they were making. Watched her youngest daughter, one who’d had such a hard time trusting, lean back in Arun’s arms.
Hildr brought her every day and on the sixth day, Dru watched as everyone sparring in the grassy clearing suddenly stopped and looked to the sky. A stillness, a breath-stealing hush crept over the valley.
Raven, Coral and Kat moved closer together, each one taking another’s hands as they too looked up.
Looked at the snow that began falling from the sky.
In August.
* * * * *
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Foresworn Page 23