Descendant: A Starling Novel (Starling Saga)

by Lesley Livingston

  “We did,” Maddox said drily. “It grew back. And it’s proving to be a nexus of dangerous magick.”

  Fennrys raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Aw, hell. Don’t ask me for specifics.” Maddox put up a hand. “That’s all I know. Me and a few of the others, we’ve stayed Hereside. But Faerie is shutting itself off from the mortal realm for the time being. Just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “In case the mortal realm . . . ends.”

  “Oh, come on.” Fennrys snorted. “How likely do you think that is?”

  “You tell me.”

  Fennrys didn’t really have anything to say to that. For all he knew, yeah—it was pretty likely. He didn’t really care. Even if the sky fell or the seas boiled, there was only one thing on his mind. And that was finding Mason and bringing her home.

  “Now that I have a weapon,” Fenn said, grimacing, “anybody got an extra shirt? I don’t want to catch my death. Again.”

  Rafe snorted and left his position by the curtained doorway. He walked over to a cabinet in the wall that held an assortment of what looked like promotional T-shirts for various brands of beer and jazz bands. He pulled out a black one with a Blue Moon beer logo on the back side and tossed it over to Fennrys. Fenn remembered how Mason had once posited a theory that he was a werewolf—and how her theory was based partly on the fact that he had expressed a fondness for that particular brand of beverage. That was in the days before they had met Rafe, who was really Anubis, and really a werewolf. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It had only been a few days.

  Fennrys nodded his thanks to the Egyptian deity and pulled the shirt on over his head. His shoulder pained him only slightly as he tugged the shirt down. Webber had done good work.

  Suddenly, there was a low, sonorous rumbling that came from somewhere deep beneath them. Deeper than the subway tunnels. Much deeper. The overhead light fixtures in the club began to sway, and an entire stack of plates began to clatter and shimmy, rattling toward the edge of the shelf, where they toppled off and smashed on the floor with an earsplitting crash. The floor of the restaurant felt as if it was alive—a bucking, writhing, broad-backed creature trying to shake them off. From out in the main room of the jazz club, the sounds of the band tangled madly, stuttering to a discordant halt, and some of the patrons began to scream and shout in alarm.

  The dim overhead lights winked out completely, and aside from the candles on the tables, the whole club was plunged into darkness. It lasted for only a moment, and then the rumbling stopped and the lights sputtered reluctantly back to life. In the glow from the wall sconces, Fennrys noticed that Webber wore a deeply worried expression on his long face. His too-large eyes stared, unblinking, at Fennrys.

  “You’re a pre-cog,” Fenn said. “I remember you telling me that long ago. You can see the future. What do you see?”

  Webber held up one long hand. “I catch . . . glimpses. Mostly by accident. At least, I used to, but everything is so in flux right now that even if I wanted to I sincerely doubt I’d be able to tell you much of anything about what’s going to happen.”

  “Really? Then why is it that every time you think I’m not looking, you’re staring at me like I’m a rabid dog that should’ve been put down?” Fennrys asked. “Rather than patched up and let back out of his cage.”

  “Hey . . . I have nothing personal against you,” Webber said. “In fact, I happen to think that what you did—with the Valkyrie and all, saving Herne’s life and sacrificing your own—that was commendable.”

  “But now you’re wishing I’d just stayed dead after the fact, right?”

  Webber sighed and his tangled brows knit together in a fierce frown. “I hate prophecy. Hate it. Prophecies never come true in the way people expect they will, and the minute anyone hears one, they start running around like idiots, doing whatever they can to either make something happen or keep it from happening. And it invariably has exactly the opposite effect from what they’re trying to achieve. It’s terribly frustrating. That’s why I try so hard not to see the future. Any of it. And I don’t tell people what I see about them when I do.”

  “No exceptions?”

  Webber was quiet for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t have to make an exception for you, Fennrys Wolf. I don’t see you in the future.”

  VI

  The cloak her mother wrapped her in was heavy and thick, but Mason still couldn’t stop shivering. There was no warmth emanating from Hel as she led Mason in a direction only she could discern. There was a horrifying sameness to the landscape, but it seemed as if her mother knew exactly which way to go, and so Mason stumbled blindly along at her side for what seemed like hours.

  Eventually, Mason noticed that the underground landscape had begun to alter. Subtly at first—almost in the way a scene in one of her dreams would shift—and then seemingly all at once. The craggy, jagged rocks had given way, abruptly, to a winding, unencumbered path and a vast, starry blackness that stretched above their heads—although Mason was positive they had never left the cavern. Sheer, mountainous cliffs rose on one side of the path and dropped off into endless chasms on the other. Mason’s footsteps began to falter as weariness threatened to finally overtake her, but her mother urged her on with a tightened grip on her aching shoulders. Deep purple shadows seamed the soaring rock faces, and Mason was almost certain she could feel eyes on her, peering out from the dark fissures.

  She halted in her tracks, tired of not knowing what was going on. Mother or no mother, she was not going to meekly follow this stern, dark woman up a mountain without knowing what was waiting for her once they got to the top. Her mother’s cloak fell from her shoulders as she kept moving past Mason up the path.

  “Tell me where we’re going,” Mason said.

  Her mother turned and cast her an unblinking stare.

  “Asgard,” Hel said finally, after a long pause. “To the great hall of Valhalla. There we will find the spear of Odin.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Bifrost has been shattered, and you need a way to get home.”

  “And . . . a spear can do that?”

  “A magick spear, yes,” Hel answered drily in the face of Mason’s skepticism. “The Odin spear can do a lot of things. Traveling between the realms is one of them. Now. Do you want to go home?”

  More than anything, Mason thought, and was almost shocked by how desperately she wanted to leave the dark woman at her side behind. What was wrong with her? She’d wanted all her life to meet her mother. So why did she react to her now as if she was a complete stranger—and a dangerous one at that?

  You should be ashamed of yourself, she thought.

  Her mother was dead. Because of her. Who knew what kinds of torments she’d endured in this place? Mason took a deep breath and tried to find a spark of compassion somewhere inside herself. After a long moment, she found it. But that was only because she’d thought fleetingly of her father. Suddenly, she could imagine what the look on Gunnar Starling’s face would be if she could somehow manage to find a way to bring his beloved Yelena back to him.

  “Will . . . you be coming with me?” Mason asked haltingly, a pang of hopeful longing in her chest. But it was a faint hope—instantly quashed by her mother’s flat response. “I cannot,” she said. “I am Hel. My place is here.” “Right.” Mason turned away, brutally shoving aside thoughts of her father’s happiness. Her mother wasn’t her mother anymore. Her mother was Hel, and a goddess. That was what Loki had said, too. But Mason still didn’t understand it. “And that happened . . . how exactly?”

  Hel sighed. “My daughter is full of questions, I see. I was not always as I am now. Not even here. There was a time when I was nothing but a shade in this place. Like all the rest. But I grew stronger.” She turned and placed one cool, long-fingered hand on Mason’s cheek. “Oh, Mason. How can I make you understand this? Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for the best. I only wanted to find a way, somehow, to make you safe in the
world.”

  “You sound as if you made a choice to leave me there.”

  “A choice. A sacrifice . . .” Hel seemed disinclined to elaborate and turned back to the path. She increased her pace up the winding way that led to the steep side of the craggy rock face in front of them. “When Loki offered power, I took it—took up the mantle of the goddess Hel—for you.”

  “And why, then, are you in such a rush to get me out of here again?”

  “Because you shouldn’t be here. You are a disruption. An imbalance. Anything that introduces an element of chaos into the delicate matrix of the realms of the gods is the province of those like Loki.” She frowned, as if disturbed by the very thought. “You could become an unwitting tool that he could use to bring about a terrible fate. It’s not that I don’t want you here, Mason. It’s that I can’t allow you to stay. Do you understand?”

  She did. And she was trying desperately not to take it personally. “Okay . . .” She shrugged. “So we get to Valhalla and find this spear. And then you can get rid of me and carry on being a goddess. That’s great.”

  “It’s not like—”

  “Whatever.” Mason ignored her mother’s protest. “Look. I’m not stupid, and I’ve read enough to know that it’s never that easy. You don’t just walk into a magickal land and fetch a mystical object and walk back out again unchallenged. There’s always something standing by that wants to eat your face or rip your arms off or turn you into a newt.” Mason’s hand dropped to rest on the hilt of her sword. “So what’s it going to be? Because I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s waiting there to greet me with a big ugly hug.”

  Hel’s spine was stiff with disapproval. It was abundantly clear that she wasn’t used to being challenged. Her deep sapphire eyes flashed dangerously for an instant. But then she seemed to pause, to take a breath—although Mason hadn’t been able to discern whether her mother actually did that—and her mouth bent into a soft, gentle smile. The expression changed her, and Mason felt suddenly as if the sun had broken through the bleak, ashen clouds overhead and poured its warmth down upon her. For a moment, she wavered and almost gave in to the desire to follow her mother anywhere. But she wrapped her hand tightly around the hilt of her rapier—so tightly that the coiled silver wire bit into her palm, and the pain brought a fresh welling of tears to her eyes and kept her focused. She saw her mother’s glance flick down to the sword. She stared at the elegant, silvery weapon for a long moment, and then her eyes shifted back up to Mason’s face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice was actually soothing for the first time. “My dear girl. I know this isn’t easy for you. The truth of the matter is this: You are right. It never is easy. And there was a time when you would have had to fight your way through hordes of draugr just to even set foot on the path that leads to Asgard.”

  The word “draugr” sent a cold wave of fear washing over Mason. Those were the gray-skinned monstrosities that had attacked her and Fennrys twice in New York City. And she could wave her bravado flag all she wanted, but if it came to facing down those things again, Mason knew she couldn’t do it.

  Her mother must have seen the fear in her eyes. She put a hand on Mason’s shoulder. “That isn’t going to happen. Valhalla is . . . not the same as it once was. The great sadness of it is that it’s just not a place worth fighting to get to anymore. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “Oh .”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint.”

  “That’s okay.” Mason looked down at her tattered fencing whites and then back up at her mother, trying her hardest to muster a smile. “I’m not really dressed for a great hall, anyway. . . .”

  Hel reached out with her other hand so that she held Mason by both shoulders. Her grip was firm, but surprisingly gentle, and Mason felt an electric tingling running all over her body. Dark, sparkling energy engulfed her in a wave. After a moment, the sensation faded and her mother lifted away her hands, her fingers combing through Mason’s suddenly shining, tangle-free hair as she did. It fell in a silken curtain that Mason could see in her peripheral vision on either side of her face. In the weird, stormy light, it looked almost as if the dark fall of strands was shot through with indigo highlights. When Mason looked down, she saw that her destroyed fencing whites were gone. Instead, she found herself wearing her favorite pair of dark jeans and boots and the sleek, shimmery top that she’d been wearing the last time she’d gone over to Fennrys’s for an evening of surreptitious swordplay and moonlit strolling through the after-hours High Line park in Manhattan.

  Thinking about that moment now, Mason understood why her mother had chosen those clothes. Because what she’d been wearing when Fennrys had looked at her the way he had that night really had made her feel like a princess. “Dressed for a great hall,” like she’d said . . . Her black tooled-leather baldric—the gift Fenn had given her to go with the silver, swept-hilt rapier—still hung across her body, the blue jewel in the silver buckle winking at her. She lifted a hand to the buckle and saw that her hands, torn and bloodied from escaping Rory’s car, were whole again; her long, pale fingers clean and unmarked, her nails unbroken.

  Mason felt the tightness in her chest loosen a little.

  “Now,” Hel said quietly. “Will you come with me?” She gestured back toward the path.

  Mason nodded, and they began to climb once more, up toward Valhalla, the home of her ancestors’ gods.

  They reached another bend in the path, and the ground beneath Mason’s feet shuddered—the movement coinciding with another now-familiar distant wail of pain. Loki. Mason remembered reading in her myth classes that the ancient Norse had used the bound god’s convulsions deep below the earth as an explanation for the cause of earthquakes. It didn’t seem like such a far-fetched theory to her anymore.

  “Just how often does he get subjected to the snake spit?” she asked her mother as they stepped out of the mouth of the cavern they’d been traveling up through.

  The ghost of a frown swept over Hel’s face. Shadows stirred in her deep blue gaze, and Mason tried to read what she was thinking. It was impossible. “I know it’s hard for you to understand what goes on here, Mason. It was hard, at first, for me too. But there is a very good reason that monster is kept in the state he’s in.”

  “Imprisoned and tortured? You’re okay with that?”

  “Imprisoned, yes. Absolutely.” Hel’s voice was firm. “And as for what you call torture . . . I know it seems cruel, but it keeps Loki weak. Distracted. The pain directs his energies elsewhere, energies that otherwise would be wholly dedicated to finding an avenue of escape. That cannot happen.” Hel turned and lifted a hand, laying it gently on Mason’s cheek. “I so loved the world when I walked upon it. I would do anything to preserve it. Even if it means keeping that treacherous beast chained and hurting in the darkness. Even if it means sending you back into the world . . . when all I want to do is keep you by my side and never let you go again.”

  The warmth of her mother’s sad smile almost made up for the fact that her hand, where it lay along Mason’s cheek, was ice-cold.

  “But,” she said, “here we are.”

  She turned and led Mason around a last sharp bend of the cavern path that led to where an arching hole in the mountain opened up onto a wide rock shelf. Hel gestured Mason forward and she stepped through into the open air and marveled at the vista that spread before her. It was the most breathtaking landscape she had ever seen. In the far distance, a range of high, sharp-peaked mountains rose, purple in the fading light of what seemed to Mason like late afternoon, although she couldn’t see the sun and didn’t know exactly where the light was coming from. Snowcaps shimmered silvery white on top while below, situated at the center of a lush green vale several miles wide, the golden roofs of a cluster of buildings surrounded by a high, palisaded wall sparked blinding fire. The largest structure of all was a huge, long hall, with a roof tiled with what looked like thousands of gold and silver scales—warriors’ shields—and
its gables curved upward like the fore and aft of a great dragon-prowed ship. Mason knew, instinctively, what this place was. Asgard.

  Valhalla.

  Home . . .

  She shook her head to dispel the subtle voice that whispered that last word inside her head. It had sounded a little bit like Loki, but she knew that it had to be just her imagination playing tricks on her.

  The cave they had just come out of was a little ways up one of the lesser mountains that ringed the valley plain. Mason took another step forward so she could better take in the view. She walked to the very edge of a steep descending staircase cut into the side of the mountain and peered over a rocky outcropping to look straight down. Directly below where she stood, she could see the green plain that stretched out toward the Asgardian halls. . . . At least, Mason imagined it would be a green plain, when it wasn’t covered in fighting men and blood and body parts.

  “I thought you said I wouldn’t have to fight anyone!” she said, drawing back from the edge of the rock shelf, horrified. There were so many men fighting, and it wasn’t just on one front. The fighting actually completely encircled the cluster of buildings that was their destination. They didn’t have a hope of reaching it . . .

  Beside her, Mason heard her mother laugh for the first time.

  “What?”

  “Those are Odin’s Einherjar. The Lone Warriors.”

  “None of those guys is alone,” Mason said. “There are a bazillion of them. And they are what’s standing between us and the hall.” She couldn’t even tell if there were two sides to the battle. It just seemed to her that, once a warrior had dispatched the man in front of him, he just turned to the next nearest and repeated the process. Friend and foe seemed utterly indistinguishable to her. It was chaos.

  “They will not lift a hand against you,” her mother said, and started forth. “You must trust me.”