She picked the pillow up from the floor and tossed it back by my head then told me she’d get Tyr and the two of us could just order room service. I propped myself up on my elbows again and stopped her before she could leave. “Hey, did you ever look up whether or not kittens could drown?”
Keira’s mouth hung open briefly but then she smiled at me and it still wasn’t one of her patronizing-the-village-idiot smiles. “Yes, and if you want to run around saving kittens in distress in your spare time, I won’t stop you.”
Then the most beautiful woman I’d ever met left my hotel room, and I didn’t even stop her to ask if that would impress her enough to sleep with me.
The next day, they brought me back to that same field, only this time, I pouted and complained enough about Hunter being stuck with a witch and an increasingly grumpier Celtic god who still wouldn’t let me call him Carlos. Keira reminded me, again, that Agnes wasn’t a witch but a war goddess herself, and that Hunter was fine. I reminded her again that if we were going to have a test of who could be more stubborn and a bigger pain in the ass, she should know by now she was destined to always lose that battle.
Hunter got to come with me.
As soon as I saw Frey in the field, sword in hand ready to pick up where we’d left off the day before, I called out to him, “Hey, didn’t you give up your own magic sword for some chick?”
Frey smiled at me and shrugged. “Will be the cause of my death one day, but it was totally worth it.”
I reached him and he handed me the other sword he was holding. “Whatever happened to her?” I asked. I couldn’t remember if the myth ever got that far or not. Or maybe I’d skimmed it. That was a lot of reading.
Frey smiled at me again and pushed his blond curls behind an ear. “I married her. You ready?”
No, actually, I wasn’t. I’m not sure what was worse: being dragged into this mess when I thought everyone was crazy or being dragged into this mess when I was finally starting to believe them. I put the gloves I’d gotten from him the day before back on and Tyr wanted to protest but Frey waved him off. “He’s not going to drop the sword just because he’s wearing gloves.”
My mind was still stuck on Frey’s marriage though. “Are you still married to her?”
Frey’s smooth ivory forehead wrinkled in the same way it had in that conference room when he tried to understand how I could possibly be any kind of hero, let alone the one this Seer had insisted would be so great. “Of course we’re still married.”
“How is that even possible? Seems like most people can’t even make a two year marriage work, and you’ve been married for what… two thousand?”
Frey’s forehead smoothed out again as he laughed and told me he’d lost count of years a long time ago, but it was likely far longer. Hunter shivered as a breeze hit us but he was eyeing Frey in a way that promised me I was going to get out of sword fighting for a while. “Not buying it. Maybe you’re technically still married, but you probably don’t even live together anymore.”
Hunter was convinced no marriage could survive more than two decades. And who could blame him? His parents had divorced shortly after moving to Baton Rouge. And unfortunately for Hunter, it had been one of those brutal divorces where they fought over everything—including him.
“Still love her and we still live together. Now let’s go. We’re wasting time.” Frey wasn’t as easily distracted as he’d been in the conference room. Maybe he was more in his element out here in the open field or maybe he just loved trying to massacre me with his sword, but whatever the reason, he hadn’t been stalled by Hunter’s insistence that no marriage could be so permanent so I groaned and followed him. And just like yesterday, Tyr stood off to the side like some coach and barked orders and commands at me and when I tried to get lazy, they’d both stop and make me start all over. I flipped them both off.
About an hour into the morning’s lesson, Frey’s phone rang and Keira handed me a bottle of water while he walked away from us to take his call. I didn’t like the way Hunter was looking at me so I told him to knock it off. Hunter smiled at me and I knew he wasn’t going to knock it off. “You’re like some superhero.”
I drained half the bottle of water before answering him. “If I were a superhero, I would have some kind of superpower.”
“Fine,” Hunter relented, but he was still smiling at me in that way that assured me he was not going to knock it off anytime soon. “Then you’re like Leonidas.”
“Who?” Keira asked.
“Spartan king from 300. And he dies at the end. I sure as hell hope I’m not like Leonidas,” I answered.
“Dude, if one of those Sumerian gods morphs into that Xerxes freak, I’m out of here,” Hunter told me, and I nodded in agreement.
“Me, too. Sorry, Keira, but it’s not in my DNA to fight Persian freaks of nature.”
“I need to see this movie,” Tyr announced, and Keira apparently decided there was either far too much testosterone or far too much stupidity in the area for her to stick around. She turned to leave, but Frey stopped her.
“Wait, that was Freyja.” He sprinted back to the small circle where we’d huddled together and his eyes were bright and excited. “She found Brokkr and he didn’t know anything about a god named Havard either, but he was able to tell her something about the ring.”
“Two questions,” I interjected.
Frey exhaled impatiently and stared at me.
“One, who is Brokkr?”
“A dwarf and master blacksmith. One of the best.”
“I think the politically correct term is ‘vertically challenged’,” I informed him.
Tyr let out an honest-to-god guffaw and Frey rolled his eyes. “That wasn’t a question, Gavyn.”
“Fine. Why did she take it to him in the first place?”
“Because he’s most likely the one who made it,” Frey told me. Then his green-blue eyes narrowed at me as he waited to see if I was going to let him finish his story.
“That was two,” I reminded him.
Frey kept his eyes on me like he didn’t trust me. I didn’t blame him. We didn’t exactly have the best track record. “He told her what the ring was made for. It’s a charm, like an amulet. And he said it seems to have been made to breed horses.”
I leaned back against the table that had scattered weapons on it. Of course, Frey had heard that part of the dream. I had told him everything, so he could be making this up. It wasn’t necessarily confirmation of anything.
For once, Hunter had gotten serious because he was concerned about me, but I’d never told him about those dreams. He didn’t know why Frey’s announcement had turned my blood cold. Hunter stood by my side and for the first time in a long time, he looked angry and ready to fight someone himself. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Hunter demanded.
Tyr looked away from Frey, his pale gray eyes burning with a curiosity and amazement, and that made me feel even worse. He was supposed to be a god. Anything that he found amazing I was pretty sure I should find horrifying. “It means Keira was right. Gavyn is dreaming about the god who connects him to us, but for some reason, none of us can remember him.”
“No dreams last night?” Frey asked.
I shook my head but kept my eyes on the ground.
“But he told you about these dreams,” Hunter insisted, still angry and ready to fight on my behalf. “And you’ve been messing with him since you picked us up in Baton Rouge. Gavyn, don’t let them get in your head. They’re just screwing with your mind.”
I nodded but it was a weak effort to appease my friend. In the span of five minutes, he’d gone from insisting I was like some dead Spartan king to being too stupid to realize they might be manipulating me. But I’d known Hunter for fifteen years. He was good at hiding it, but he was scared shitless by our abduction and captivity and the people claiming to be gods and watching a major landmark in Los Angeles crumble to the ground. And he was my best friend: he wanted to protect me.
&nb
sp; I was vaguely aware that Hunter and Frey were arguing about something, but I hadn’t been listening. I couldn’t seem to focus on whatever they were saying. My mind was somewhere else: a land I knew I couldn’t find on any map and would never be able to; a country with lush green hills and rows of orchards, fields of barley and rye, and palaces that spiraled to a cloudless cerulean sky. In the farthest distance, far beyond those palaces and fields and orchards and fountains, the dull gray shape of a massive wall lined the horizon.
Because my body was in a cold, barren field outside of Reykjavik, Iceland, but my mind had journeyed to Asgard.
Havard Commits Fratricide
(Yes, I know what that word means, smartass.)
I found my brother, my real brother, near the stables in the morning. He was dumping oats into a feeder and murmuring softly to his favorite stallion, much like I used to do with mine. He saw me approaching and patted his horse on the neck and closed the stable gate behind him. Our mother had loved horses, and we’d inherited her admiration for these magnificent creatures from her. Yngvarr dropped the empty bucket outside of the stable gate and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
“Did you find the peasant who killed him?” he asked.
I nodded and told him Arnbjorg’s story and how our half-brother had lied to me and sent me out to kill an innocent person. Yngvarr’s sky blue eyes darkened and he exhaled slowly. “We’ll take care of Leifr first, and then we’ll take this girl back to her father in Midgard.”
I flinched and backed away from him. “No. She’s staying.”
Yngvarr’s expression changed from fury to confusion. “But why? She has no business here. Her father didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I know, but…” I looked away from my older brother and kicked at the hay on the ground.
Yngvarr’s laughter surprised me and I had to stop scattering the hay with my boot to look at him again. “So what if you’ve already slept with her, Havard? Consider it your compensation for the trouble this has caused.”
“I haven’t,” I told him through gritted teeth, but I forced myself to remember this was my brother. I loved him and he loved me. He was only trying to help.
Yngvarr shrugged and picked up the oats bucket so he could hang it on the wall. “There’s no problem then. Come on—Leifr is probably still in bed. We’ll catch him before he’s even up.”
As Yngvarr tried to pass me, I grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Arnbjorg is staying with me. If that’s unacceptable to you, then I’ll deal with Leifr on my own.”
Confusion passed quickly through Yngvarr’s eyes again before recognition finally pushed through and he slowly smiled at me. “Little brother,” he said, “this girl has cast a spell on you.”
I slowly smiled back at him. “She doesn’t need magic, Yngvarr. She must hate me now, but one day, I will earn her affection.”
“Humans are far more finicky than goddesses. They usually can’t be won over by gold.” Yngvarr’s smile had turned sly and I groaned. He knew all about Freyja’s attempts to get me in bed with her, and he still thought I should just get over my own moral misgivings and sleep with her. She’d already gotten Yngvarr to sleep with her. Quite a few times, actually.
“Let’s go find Leifr,” I mumbled.
The morning dew on the grass left footprints behind us as we crossed one of the hills to the palace Leifr shared with his mother and several other half-siblings of ours. I used to share my palace with my mother, too. Only Yngvarr lived there with me now.
Sometimes, we talked about her still, this extraordinary goddess of love and beauty, but most of the time, her loss was still too painful for us to talk about. And what we had done to avenge her death was never talked about.
Our sisters had married and moved out, and in that enormous palace with only my brother and me, we often felt like we lived alone. I was the youngest of the five children born to a war god and a love goddess, and the combination of their personalities often manifested in unusual ways in us. We were angered easily but just as easily placated.
Yngvarr pointed to the palace in the distance. “Not even the servants are up yet.”
It did seem strangely quiet.
“What do you think he was doing in Midgard?” I asked. “Magni shouldn’t have been loose to begin with.”
Yngvarr looked thoughtfully at the palace we were quickly approaching. “We should find out first, I suppose. He has no excuse for lying to you, but whatever he was doing may have been important.”
“Doubt it,” I muttered. Leifr never did anything important. I had a feeling what had distracted him in Midgard could one day be bearing his bastard child.
Yngvarr slowed down and grabbed my arm, pointing to the entrance of the palace. Someone was leaving. He let out a slow hissing breath as he recognized the man walking away from our father’s former mistress. “Odin,” Yngvarr murmured. “He’s just as bad as our father. He doesn’t deserve Frigg.”
That was true. Yngvarr and I also knew we were an exception to the thoughts most people—gods and humans alike—had about the fidelity of husbands. Nobody ever seemed to expect it, but perhaps that was because even their wives seemed to accept their husbands were allowed to take any number of lovers they wanted. Our mother had been different. She had never even met my father when she was promised to him, and as soon as he saw her, radiant in her unparalleled beauty, he wanted her. My mother asked for his loyalty and he had promised it. His definition of loyalty apparently only lasted two years.
Yngvarr and I had never understood our mother’s love for our father—he was a handsome god, an extremely powerful one, but he was humorless and deceptive and indifferent. And our mother was everything he was not: faithful and joyful and compassionate. At least until he chipped away at everything that had made her so resplendent to begin with.
Yngvarr’s fingers were digging into my arm as we watched Odin’s back retreating from the palace gates, and I grimaced and freed my arm. He only partly seemed to notice what I was doing. His eyes were fixed on this god who was supposed to sit above us. “Why does everyone revere him so much?” he spit out. His hatred for this god was stronger than my own.
I shrugged, wanting to rub my arm where Yngvarr’s fingers had gripped it too tightly, but I didn’t want to look like such a child in front of my older brother. “He’s quite old. And his wisdom supposedly surpasses that of all the other gods.” I offered my brother a sarcastic smile. “That’s supposedly how he lost that eye, remember?”
Yngvarr grunted and rolled his eyes. Odin wanted us to believe he’d given it up willingly for greater knowledge, but we all knew he’d lost it in a fight that he’d only survived and won because his son, Thor, had to rescue him. But none of us were supposed to talk about that—not that it ever stopped us.
“Think he’ll give us any trouble then? If he’s sleeping with Leifr’s mother?” Yngvarr asked.
“This doesn’t concern him. He has no right to interfere or try to punish us. This is a family matter.”
Yngvarr nodded at me as we reached the gates of Leifr’s palace, the oldest son of our father’s former mistress who apparently wasn’t picky about the men who shared her bed either. It’s not that I judged women who were willing to have sex outside of marriage. But I could never forgive the women who had participated in killing my mother, and this woman was one of the worst offenders. There were entire weeks my father would spend in this palace, as if this goddess was a second wife, and it was this betrayal more than others that had slowly destroyed our mother.
We had reached the palace door and Yngvarr pulled on the handle but it was locked. “I’m in no mood to knock,” Yngvarr grumbled.
Coming anywhere near this place always put us both in a bad mood. I just agreed with him and helped him destroy the door instead. There were few gods in Asgard with the kind of power Yngvarr and I could wield, and everyone inside this palace knew it. The servants who had awakened and were preparing the fire and dining hall cowered against the walls as Yng
varr and I ascended the stairs to find our half-brother.
His mother emerged from her bedroom, uncovered in only her nightgown and gaped at us. Her eyes narrowed and she stood defiantly in her doorway. “You boys get out of my home,” she ordered us.
Yngvarr crossed the hallway quickly and pushed her inside her bedroom. “You think because you’re Odin’s whore now, you can order us around?”
I heard her crash into something in her bedroom and fall and she cried out in pain, but Yngvarr had entered her room. I was afraid he was going to kill her. “Brother,” I called out to him, “close her door. We aren’t here for her.”
I listened as Yngvarr exhaled angrily and another crash, another cry of pain, then he emerged from the bedroom, slamming the door closed behind him.
“If she tries to stop us, I will murder her, too,” Yngvarr muttered.
I didn’t have time to reason with him. He was already storming down the hallway to Leifr’s room and the noise had surely woken everyone up now. I hurried to catch up to him since there was no way we were going to surprise Leifr now.
Yngvarr burst into his room and I was right behind him, my sword already in my hand. Leifr was holding his own sword but the expression on his face told my brother and me he was terrified. He had every reason to be.
“You lied to my brother and sent him to murder an innocent man,” Yngvarr growled. He crossed the room just as quickly as he’d crossed this long hallway; his speed had always been one of his strengths. Yngvarr cut through the air with his sword and Leifr’s sword fell to the ground, along with the bloody hand that had been holding it. Leifr cried out in pain and dropped to his knees, whimpering and begging for mercy.
“Why did you lie to him?” Yngvarr yelled.
“Because I knew he would kill me if he found out I lost Magni,” he cried, tears streaming down his ashen cheeks as he clutched the handless arm to his chest. His robe was soaked with his blood.
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