Raven Quest (Valhalla Book 4)

by Jennifer Willis

  Sally’s thoughts drifted to her pendulum, now buried in the depths of her backpack. It was that piece of obsidian that had drawn Loki to her when she was in distress. It had saved her life. But had Loki given it to her as a tracking device, so that he could keep tabs on her? Could the obsidian—not actual stone but hardened volcanic glass—have broadcast her magick and led Jonathan to her, as well?

  She imagined hurling the pendulum at Loki’s feet in a fit of rage and screaming that she never wanted to see him again. But Loki was nowhere to be found.

  Sally faced Frigga and the Yggdrasil on the slope below. The goddess held the girl’s gaze for a long, painful stretch while Sally’s heart pounded in her chest. The last of the day’s light faded from the sky, and Sally felt the physical weight of twilight for the first time in her life. She shivered against the evening’s chill.

  Frigga lifted a hand to beckon Sally toward a sturdy table near the Yggdrasil, left over from the wedding reception. Sally started forward, one numb foot after the other across the crisp grass. She readied herself. Maybe this was when Frigga would finally lay into her. For not saving Odin. For being duped by Hugh and Moon. For being born the Moon Witch in the first place.

  Frigga stood behind a huge yellow and blue tureen of cider. She grasped a wooden ladle and stirred. Chunks of apple and thin slices of orange swirled in a heady mixture of spices. Frigga filled a glass mug with caramel-colored cider and handed it across the wide table to Sally.

  Sally dipped her head in thanks and relief. After the physical and emotional beating of the wilderness and then the phantasmagoria of a Viking wedding-and-funeral combo, a warm, sweet beverage seemed a fine idea. She wrapped her hands around the mug and breathed in the calming scents of fruit, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. It was perfect. Everything was suddenly so painfully, impossibly perfect. Sally reached up and caught a fast moving tear on her fingertips before it could splash down into her cider.

  “Thank you, Sally.” Frigga’s voice was more tender than Sally had heard before. There was none of the warm condescension that normally came with Frigga’s frustrated pains to urge the young Moon Witch to release her ego and focus on her training. The rest of the family were now far out of earshot. Whatever Frigga wanted to say would be for Sally’s ears alone.

  Just like Odin.

  “You put on such a brave face,” Frigga continued. “I can honestly say there has never been another one like you.”

  When Frigga had said as much before, it always sounded like an exasperated complaint in the aftermath of yet another of Sally’s failures. Sally hadn’t heard too many stories about the Moon Witches who had come before her, but she was keenly aware of how she didn’t measure up. Now, the gentle, pained tone of Frigga’s voice and the soft look on her face made Sally wonder if those words might have conveyed a compliment all along.

  Sally sipped her cider.

  “It’s rare, what you are,” Frigga said. “And far from easy, even under the best circumstances.”

  Sally nearly laughed. She wondered what the “best circumstances” might possibly look like, given how far sideways things had tilted yet again. No matter what Sally did or didn’t do, someone’s life ended up on the line. The world as she knew it was always hanging in the balance. It was more than enough to keep her awake at night despite Opal’s increasingly potent herbal sleep aids.

  But, no. Her magick didn’t always go wrong. Sometimes it went right. She just couldn’t figure out what made the difference.

  Sally wanted to ask about those earlier Moon Witches. Had they struggled with mayhem in their magick? The constant need for training and testing didn’t seem right, and more and more she thought she detected surprise and even dismay in Frigga’s reactions to her progress.

  “But this is where our path’s diverge,” Frigga said.

  Sally’s eyes blinked wide and she felt the rapid flutter of her heart as her adrenaline surged. She wanted to throw her cider on the grass and storm away. She wanted everything to be calm and steady. She wanted just a few freaking minutes without some new chasm opening up beneath her feet.

  But Frigga was waiting for her response. Sally fought against the lump in her throat. “You want me to train with him.”

  “I want you to study his ways.”

  Sally gulped down the rest of the cider and made a deliberate effort to relax her hands instead of curling them into fists around the empty mug. The thought of becoming Loki’s pupil wrapped her body in ice and made her want to scream her sore throat raw and bloody again, but Sally knew Frigga was right. She had to face the mayhem head-on, and take a deep and deliberate dive into chaos if she were to have any hope of bringing her magick into equilibrium.

  “Heed my words, Moon Witch,” Frigga said, taking on her more usual tone of authority. “You would be wise to learn from another who waxes and wanes between darkness and light.” She dipped her head and swallowed hard. “I’ve not done right by you, Sally Dahl.”

  Sally looked down at her sandals. She shifted in place and watched the green blades of grass bend beneath her feet. “After what he just put me through?” Sally grimaced. “After what we’ve all just been through?”

  As she’d emerged from the violent clutches of the lava god’s song spell, everything was so crazy and awry. Everybody was upset. The volcanoes were smoking and spitting. And Sally didn’t know up from down in those confused hours, much less dark from light. Loki had spoken to her about the phases of the moon. Something about dark and light being two sides of the same coin, keeping things in balance.

  Sally took a breath. “He said that being the Moon Witch is like the moon itself, that there isn’t any good or bad in it. No positive and negative.” Sally lifted her gaze to the Yggdrasil, sturdy and strong and the polar opposite of how she felt. She dug her heels into the grass and pressed her lips into a thin line. “And yet . . .”

  Frigga blew out a light breath and almost smiled. “And yet.”

  “Look, it’s not like I don’t get the whole light and dark thing, keeping things in balance and all. You can’t have summer without winter. People have to die to make room for the children to be born.” Sally nearly clapped a hand over her mouth. How could she be so thoughtless as to banter about death with a recent widow? But Frigga didn’t flinch. She nodded for Sally to continue.

  Sally put the empty mug down and shook her hands as though loosening her fingers might release the knot in her stomach.

  Frigga stood on the other side of the table, waiting and watching. Sally got the feeling the goddess would remain there the rest of the night and into the new week, her face a serene mask of patience and concern, until Sally managed to pull herself together.

  “So I’m neither a good witch nor a bad witch.” She attempted a light chuckle. She sounded like a character out of The Wizard of Oz, but her face fell when she saw Frigga’s serious expression.

  “Try again,” the goddess said.

  Sally looked away. She tried to think of any Norse legend that spoke of some dark kind of magick-wielding mortal or any other explanation that might postpone the truth. She knew she was being ridiculous. “This is so much worse than finding out there’s no Santa Claus.”

  “I saw what you were, what you are, long ago. But I couldn’t accept it. And so I kept the truth to myself, at great disservice to . . .” Frigga’s mouth hardened into a tight smile. “You were never my Moon Witch, though I tried to make you so. I tried to mold you into something you were never destined to be.”

  Sally’s breath rose high and rapid in her chest. She wanted time to stop, to run backward. She wanted to go back to the soak in the hot spring before the fiasco in the forest, before the fights with Opal, before this terrible moment of being disowned by Odin’s Lodge.

  The realization kicked Sally in the gut before her mind could even process it. “You’re saying I’m your enemy.”

  Frigga frowned for a long moment, and then burst out laughing. “No. No, Sally dear. You are no one’s enemy.” She loo
ked like she wanted to say more, but she closed her mouth and waited.

  “I’m no one’s ally, either,” Sally said.

  “It’s time for you to be who you are, Sally. Who you truly are,” Frigga said. “You must continue your lessons, but not with me. My time is short now. My role has become . . . Somewhat obsolete.” She paused. “I will follow my husband to Valhalla.”

  Sally’s stomach clenched painfully and she covered her mouth with her hands in fear that she was about to be sick all over the table and grass. How could this happen twice in twenty-four hours? Sally pressed her hands over her ears and turned away. She didn’t care that she was being immature. “I don’t want to hear it! No!” Sally whined liked a child less than half her age. “You can’t make me listen to another word.”

  Sally squeezed her eyes closed, but Frigga’s gentle hands slowly turned her back around. Sally started keening some non-sensical tune without melody or even a consistent key, but she could still hear Frigga’s steadying voice.

  “King Thrym was right. This world is no longer a proper place for Old Ones. Odin knew as much, long before such words were spoken, but I hadn’t wanted to hear it.” Frigga cupped Sally’s chin in her hand. “Much as you fight not to hear this now.”

  Sally opened her eyes. “I’m trying.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and swallowed her remaining tears.

  “As I was saying, I don’t have much time.”

  Sally’s eyes grew wide. “You mean, here and now?”

  Frigga nodded.

  Sally shivered and looked up again into the Yggdrasil’s branches. She wished she knew how to tap into the World Tree’s strength as she felt her own foundation crumbling beneath her.

  “So you’re just sneaking off, without a word to your children?” Sally demanded in a shrill voice she hadn’t intended. This was Odin all over again. Heimdall, Thor, and Saga should be here for Frigga’s last words. And Freya would know how to handle this passage with grace and respect. “You think that’s fair to them? They’re already pissed they didn’t get to say goodbye to Odin.”

  Frigga took a quick breath and made a visible effort to brighten her expression. “I don’t expect you to understand, Sally. I require only that you bear witness, just as you did for Odin.”

  Sally wanted to turn on her heel and storm away in defiance, but that wouldn’t keep Frigga from leaving. Sally’s cheeks flushed red in shame when she realized how selfish she was being. Frigga wouldn’t have called her to the Tree, alone, without good reason. She owed the goddess her full attention.

  Frigga was determined to make her own way to Valhalla—by what means Sally didn’t know, and she had to admit she was more than a little curious. Despite the betrayal to her friends in the Lodge—if they were still her friends—Sally was steadied by the sudden weight of purpose.

  “You need me to help you.”

  “Just as Odin did,” Frigga replied.

  Sally brushed the tears from her cheeks and lifted her chin. “What do I have to do?”

  Frigga smiled. “Take my hand, Sally Dahl. Open for me a way between worlds.”

  Sally accepted Frigga’s outstretched hand though her own body trembled. She had no idea how to do what Frigga asked of her. Still, Frigga smiled without a trace of doubt in her eyes.

  Frigga squeezed Sally’s fingers. “Simply open your mind. Let this be your initiation.”

  Sally squared her feet in the grass and wished again for the strength and endurance of the Yggdrasil. As she took a settling breath, the Tree’s branches swayed in a sudden wind that rose from the ground to swirl around them.

  Epilogue

  Raven alighted on the highest branch of the tallest fir tree and looked out over its creation. Sturdy evergreens and deciduous trees covered the land in green, interrupted only by flowing rivers, golden fields, and the volcanic mountains’ snowy peaks. There had been wild eddies of excitement these past days, so much to see and do and hear and feel. The forests would whisper of the dark endings for generations to come, but there had been new beginnings as well.

  “This is my world!” Raven cried out. So very long ago, Raven had given the world to itself and to the living things that grew and thrived on these lands and in these waters.

  And all this time, Raven had watched.

  Now there was a new chapter in the story of how the world came into its present being, a tale of gods and humans and other creatures clashing and cooperating. One ancient and honorable race had come to a noble almost-end, and that pained Raven. The world had lost one of its truest gifts, and only time would reveal if the sacrifice was worth the lives spared and the tenuous peace that now reigned. And Raven wondered how long the hush would last before the bickering between the fiery peaks sparked again.

  Raven took a moment to preen, plunging its dark beak deep between even darker feathers. Then it lifted its head and cawed.

  Raven delighted in playing the trickster—stealing light to create the sun, moon, and stars in one legend, inventing fire in another, and always ready to shapeshift when necessary. The kindred wings who had abandoned the old one-eyed god’s service to join with their indigenous brethren had brought many valuable lessons with them. Raven had enjoyed looking in on the Old One and his kin from time to time, even capering with them on occasion, and Raven was sometimes amused and sometimes saddened when they didn’t seem to understand the game.

  What a delightful charade! Even the dark one—around whom so much glorious chaos swirled, the one the others both feared and revered with comical force—had provided a potent spectacle. The loss of the volcano spirit had been worth the merriment alone, and his participation ensured that the talented girl sent her power into the Earth with her hands and her tears. Without her, enchantment might not have returned to enrich Raven’s world.

  But the old one-eye was gone. So, too, his mate. This loss weighed heavily in Raven’s breast. Raven had sung a proper dirge to send them both on their way, but the shadowy passage of the Norsemen’s afterlife remained a mystery. The siatco, however, had earned a genuine requiem, and Raven had seen to it that the guardian’s soul found its way to peace and rest.

  Raven cawed a slow, wistful round of its creation song and recalled the delightful materialization of the land and seas, the sun and moon, the trees and mountains and flowers and rain. In the distance, echoing voices of Raven’s mortal brothers repeated snatches of the song, the calls expanding steadily outward like ripples across a pond.

  It was time to be still and watch again, but there was a prideful restlessness stirring from Raven’s sharp claws to the tips of its feathers. A boastful cry of joy and grief burst from the dark beak as the sun’s last rays disappeared below the horizon. Raven spread its black wings and took flight.

  Wait!

  I hope you enjoyed reading this book, and that you will continue with the Valhalla series. If you have a few minutes, would you mind posting a review on your favorite retailer website (e.g., Amazon, Kobo) or reader channel (e.g., Goodreads)?

  Thanks for helping to spread the word to other readers who might enjoy this book, too, and for helping to support me as an author.

  And keep an eye out for the final two books in the Valhalla series: The Chaos Witch (volume 5) and Ragnarok (volume 6).

  Acknowledgments

  This book sat and waited and went through endless revisions and waited some more and got picked apart and put back together over and over again over the course of several years. That madness was all thanks to dysautonomia and the chronic daily headache/migraine. So cheers to chronic illness and pain for that adventure.

  However, this book and my so-called writing career would in all probability not exist without the support and patience of some really great people:

  The Masked Hucksters, because truly no more exceptional writers group has ever existed. Dale Ivan Smith, Wendy Wagner, and Rebecca Stefoff, you are my tribe. You are more dear to me than my pomodoro timer and as essential as punctuation and maybe even Scrivener.<
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  The Raven Quest beta readers: Tuffy Black, Rebecca, Mike, and Laurel Standley, some of whom valiantly read through several different versions of the manuscript over the course of about three years.

  The readers who approached me at Orycon 38 to demand to know precisely when this next book would be released. I’m sorry I made you wait! But it was a delight taking friendly abuse from every one of you. And my thanks to Orycon for putting on a fantastic event year after year. I am so very lucky to have you as my home con.

  The members and officers of the Northwest Independent Writers Association. Yes, I could blame some of this book’s delay on my service to NIWA, but that’s no one’s fault but my own. I continue to be inspired by our little community and how we encourage each other to reach higher.

  Everyone who asked, “But what happens next?” Now you know. And yes, there are more books coming—with luck, much sooner than this last interval might suggest.

  As always, Mike Volk, who reads these manuscripts much earlier than most and who remains the Valhalla series’ biggest cheerleader.

  About the Author

  Author photograph by Rachel Hadiashar.

  Jennifer Willis is a writer and editor based in Portland, Oregon. In her non-fiction work, she specializes in topics related to sustainability, spirituality/religion, and living. Her articles have appeared in The Oregonian, The Christian Science Monitor, Salon.com, The Portland Tribune, The Writer, Ancestry Magazine, Skirt!, Vegetarian Times, Spirituality & Health, and other print and online publications at home and across the globe.

  In fiction, she focuses on urban fantasy and playful mayhem.

  This is her fifth novel, and the fourth volume in the Valhalla series. Her first book, rhythm, was released in 2001.