Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1)

by S. T. Bende

  That explained the makeup and fake lashes. And the extra spray of vanilla perfume… or three. I covered my grin. There was always looking your best, and then there was this. Brynn might not be allowed to date, but her massive crush was cute as a bug’s ear.

  “Now who was confused by Professor Antosie’s lecture yesterday?” Henrik looked around the room. “Nobody? You all understood everything he said in your first class?”

  I glanced at the students to my left, but they all stared at Henrik. Rule number one of Math Club: Don’t tell anyone you’re confused about Math Club.

  “Perfekt. Then I’m sure you’ll all sign up to be my lab assistants. Two open spots. One unit of elective credit. For my thesis project, I’m developing a robotic arm that operates intuitively by reading brainwaves projected via electrodes. The goal is for the prototype to function as a prosthetic.” Henrik leaned against the board and crossed his arms. “Let’s work some hypotheticals so I can see who’s got the right stuff. Sound fun?”

  Brynn squirmed in her seat next to me, and several students nodded enthusiastically. Freshmen weren’t usually given access to research projects, so Henrik’s project would have a lot of applications—mine included.

  We worked through the hour, and passed our notes to the front of the class when the time was up. A handful of students filed out of the room, but the rest of us stayed behind. When Henrik turned from erasing the whiteboard, he treated us to a big grin.

  “So you’re the fun ones.” He chuckled. “You guys have resumes?”

  I nodded. Brynn stared raptly at Henrik.

  “Great. E-mail them to me this week, and I’ll post the names of my new lab assistants when I make a decision. And feel free to get in touch if you get stuck on the homework.”

  The remaining students started to shuffle out of the room, so I nudged the frozen Brynn with my toe. “You coming?”

  “Hmm? Oh, sure!” She scooped up her backpack and skipped to the front of the class. “Bye, Henrik.”

  Henrik adjusted his glasses. “You down for dinner next week? I’m going to make my mom’s chicken picatta, and try out that chocolate bombe recipe from the cookbook you gave me last St. Lucia’s Day.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” Brynn sighed.

  Henrik turned to me. “You should come too. Do you like chocolate?”

  “Who doesn’t like chocolate?” I slung my bag over my shoulder as I stood.

  “Exactly. Come over. It’ll be fun.” He adjusted his glasses. “You settling in okay? Find the good takeout and all that?”

  “So far, so good.” I nodded at my roommate, who rocked on her toes. “Brynn and I are planning a hike this weekend. There are so many pretty trails behind campus. Have you been out there yet?”

  “Well, now that you mention it.” Henrik chuckled. “My house —”

  “You guys having a party and forget to invite me?”

  The back of my neck prickled at the sound of that voice. It was deep, and warm, and smooth, and ridiculously sexy. If the Scandinavian accent didn’t give him away, the trace of irony in his tone would have.

  Tyr.

  Henrik looked behind me and raised an eyebrow. “Play nice, Fredriksen.”

  “Hei hei again, Mia. Brynn.”

  “Hei, Tyr,” Brynn chirped.

  “Hello.” The word lodged in my throat.

  Tyr leaned against the door jam in fitted jeans, a black T-shirt, and black motorcycle boots. His arms were crossed, his palms resting on enormous biceps that strained against the thin material of his T-shirt. His dark blond hair was perfectly mussed, and his sparkling blue eyes betrayed an air of mischief. He pushed off the wall and sauntered toward me, casually hooking his thumbs through his belt loops. He stopped so he stood directly across from me, with a desk separating us. I looked straight up to meet his gaze. He was so close. Lord almighty, he smelled… intoxicating. Like a redwood grove, and a foggy morning, and… spearmint? Stop it, Mia. I closed my eyes and ordered myself to focus.

  When I opened my eyes again, Tyr was smirking. “What’s the matter? Still tired from yesterday’s run? I thought you said you were an athlete.”

  “I’m not tired.” My equilibrium betrayed me. I swayed.

  Tyr leaned forward so his mouth was next to my ear. His words came in a whisper. “Guess we need to step up the intensity tomorrow.”

  I shivered. Brynn snickered.

  “What were you lot talking about?” Tyr pulled back.

  “The girls were planning a hike this weekend.” Henrik picked up his books and walked over to Brynn.

  “Where?” Tyr narrowed his eyes.

  “Where do you think?” I teased. “I hear there’s this really pretty creek-side trail just behind campus…”

  Tyr balled his fists and the veins in his forearms popped up. When he spoke, his voice was low. “I told you no, Mia.”

  Adrenaline surged through my body, and my stomach churned. “I was kidding. Jeez. You sent your message loud and clear—stay away from the rabid animal trail.”

  “The rabid animal trail?” Henrik stared at Tyr.

  “The rangers found a rabid wolf on the Woodside Trail? Back behind the creek? Remember?” Tyr’s eyes looked as if they could shoot daggers. When Henrik didn’t flinch, Tyr turned to Brynn. “Re-member?”

  “Oh! The wolf!” Brynn’s hand flew to her forehead. “I’m so sorry, Mia! Tyr asked me to warn you and the girls, and I completely forgot. Stay away from the Woodside Trail. There’s a—”

  “Big bad wolf. Yeah, I got it. Mr. Congeniality over here told me himself. Ordered me to stay away from that neck of the woods, actually.” I rolled my eyes at Tyr, ignoring the throbbing in my arm where the phantom animal hadn’t bitten it.

  “I would hardly say I ordered you, Mia.” Tyr stared down at me.

  “Um, yes. You did. And you weren’t particularly nice about it.” I tapped my foot. “You didn’t even say please.”

  “I told you it was for your own good,” Tyr pointed out. “That’s nice.”

  “And I told you you don’t get to tell me where to go. You barely even know me.”

  “If I ask you to trust me, will you?” Tyr asked.

  I let out a sharp breath in frustration. “All I’m saying is a little explanation, and in the absence of that, a dose of good manners, can go a long way.”

  Tyr’s eyes twinkled as he leaned forward. Warm breath tickled my ear when he spoke. “Better get used to disappointment, prinsessa.”

  His expression was equal parts sexy and infuriating. My breath hitched as he gave one last wink, then turned on his heel and strode out of the classroom.

  “You coming, Andersson?” He spoke without turning around.

  Henrik looked from me to the door and back again. A thought percolated on his face, but he just shook his head and slung his bag over his shoulder.

  “See you next class. And send me your resumes for the research project.”

  With that, he walked out of the room, leaving Brynn and me alone.

  “Are they always that weird?” I turned to her.

  She shook her head with a wry smile. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  ****

  “Hey, Charlotte, can you come in here for a minute?” Papers and highlighters littered my desk, bed and floor. It was the kind of mess I usually would have deemed unfit for company, but at this point I was too confounded to care about tidiness. And that was saying a lot.

  “What’s up? Oh, my.” Charlotte stepped gingerly over to my bed and pointed to a clear spot. “May I?”

  “Go ahead.” I swept the sea of index cards to the side, making a bigger space for my roommate to sit. “I read ahead so I could pre-outline for next week’s lectures, and I am totally lost in art. Help.”

  “Oh, honey.” Charlotte lowered herself onto my bed and crossed her legs at the ankles. “Of course. What’s confusing you?”

  “It’s the mythology. There are too many characters to keep track of on top of the artists and
paintings and themes. I can diagram and spreadsheet and notecard, but I can’t memorize all of this if I don’t understand why it matters.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s easy enough. Pull up Wikipedia.” Charlotte nodded to my laptop, the beacon of information in a sea of wadded up papers.

  “I did that already. Plus I checked out John Lindow’s Norse Mythology from the library.” I handed her a spreadsheet I’d printed. It was filled with notes. “This is a highlighted breakdown of the gods, their functions, and their powers, sorted according to realm of residence. Asgard is in hot pink.”

  “I can see that. Wow, you are an uber-overachiever.” Charlotte shook her head.

  “Card-carrying member.”

  “So what’s your question?”

  “My question is what does all of it mean? There are like a thousand different gods and realms and battles and stories. It’s an entire religion, or it was for the Vikings, and the Nordic cultures that came before them. And there are so many different versions and variations—I’m not sure which ones are right. I don’t know how it relates to me, or our society, or Art History, or anything. Right now, they’re just facts on a spreadsheet to memorize, but I feel like I should be relating to it if I want to get the most out of the artwork it inspired. I should be feeling something when I look at the paintings. I should be connecting to the backstory.”

  “Or you could just memorize the names of the paintings and the artists like everybody else and get by with a B.” Charlotte set the spreadsheet on my bed.

  “I can’t do that. And neither could you.”

  “You’re probably right.” Charlotte picked up the spreadsheet again. “Okay, let’s go over the basics. There’s way too much on this paper to tackle in one night.”

  “Fair enough.” I closed my laptop and swiveled my chair toward my roommate. “Enlighten me.”

  “Okay. So the Norse creation story is pretty standard—two opposite combined to make something bigger. The fire of Muspelheim and the ice of Niflheim created a giant called Ymir. Ymir fed off the milk of a cow, and created the first humans from his armpits before Odin and his brothers killed him.”

  “Hold on.” I ripped the spreadsheet out of Charlotte’s hands. “I didn’t read anything about armpits.”

  “Then you missed the fun part. Anyway, Odin and his brothers killed Ymir and created Midgard—Earth—from parts of the giant’s body. His blood became our oceans, his bones our mountains, and every time you pick up a rock, you’re touching one of his teeth.”

  “Ew.”

  “I know, right? Told you their myths were crazy.” Charlotte took the spreadsheet back. “Anyway, Earth was created, some other stuff happened, and big bang boom. We got the nine realms.” Charlotte glanced at the paper. “You’ve got that part on here. Asgard, the realm of the titled gods; Vanaheim, the realm of the next rung of gods; Alfheim, the realm of the light elves; Svartalfheim, the realm of the dark elves—seriously scary monsters, those; Midgard, Earth; Muspelheim, the realm of the fire giants; Jotunheim, the realm of the frost giants; Niflheim, the primordial ice realm; and Helheim, the realm of the dead.”

  “And then each realm has a ruler, and races, and where do the trolls live? I didn’t see a ‘heim’ for them.” I picked up an index card. “Nope. No Troll-heim.”

  “Trolls are actually inspired by the Sami people of Northern Scandinavia, but that’s not the point. What you need to know is that the nine realms were all connected to each other by Yggdrasil, the world tree. It was a living tree that was fed by three prophetic sisters called Norns. Every morning they gave Yggdrasil water taken from the well of wisdom, and that water kept the tree, and consequently the realms, alive.”

  “I saw the Thor movie.” I nodded.

  “Well, that’s a start. Remember the guy with the eye patch? That was Odin. He ruled Asgard, and he gave up his eye in exchange for wisdom.” Charlotte smoothed the front of her skirt.

  “Did he get it? Wisdom?” I asked.

  “Not the kind he was looking for, but he was a pretty smart guy anyway. He had two ravens that he sent on recon missions. They spied on the realms and reported back at the end of the day to tell Odin what was going on.”

  “And Thor is Odin and Flicka’s son?”

  “Frigga. And yes. Thor was the God of Thunder, and he married Sif, the Goddess of Beauty. She was also a pretty amazing warrior. She had a son named Ull, who was the God of Winter. And that’s the Asgardian royal bloodline, in a nutshell.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, committing Charlotte’s summary to memory. “What about the other gods? I found at least thirty who seemed to be big deals to Wikipedia.”

  “There are a lot. The most important were Odin, Thor, Sif, Ull, Freya—she was the Goddess of Love. Loki, the God of Mischief; Idunn, the Goddess of Wisdom; Balder, the God of Peace; and,” Charlotte snickered, “Tyr; the God of War.”

  “Right. Tyr, the God of War. Because I couldn’t have taken up running with some guy named after one of those nicer gods.”

  Charlotte stretched her legs. “You have to admit, it’s funny.”

  “I’ll make no admissions. Tell me more stories.”

  “It’s pretty late.” Charlotte handed me my spreadsheet. “And there’s a lot to Norse mythology. This is just the surface stuff. The actual stories are really dark—murders and rape and destruction and demons. Vikings saw a lot of terrible things in their world, so it makes sense that their pantheon was full of heavy characters. Let’s let this stuff simmer for a few days, and we’ll come back to it.”

  With a reluctant nod, I closed my laptop and straightened the pile of papers on my desk. Then I followed Charlotte downstairs and sat at the table while she pulled a gallon of rocky road ice cream out of the freezer. “You’re running with Tyr tomorrow morning?”

  “I’m running. We’ll see if he shows up.”

  “Hmm.” Charlotte took two bowls out of the cupboard and opened the utensil drawer.

  “Hmm what? What does hmm mean?”

  “Well, it’s probably nothing, but when I was leaving the gallery tonight, I saw him heading into that Italian restaurant downtown.” Charlotte set two spoons and a scoop in the bowls, then carried everything to the table. She set the ice cream carton in front of me.

  “Yeah, he mentioned Italian once.” I opened the lid and started scooping.

  “Well, he wasn’t alone.” Charlotte bit her bottom lip. “He was with a girl who had strawberry-blond hair.”

  Oh. My hand froze mid scoop.

  “I wouldn’t have said anything, except she was hanging on his arm and looking up at him all goo-goo eyed. He had on a big smile, and it kind of looked like a date.”

  A tiny weight settled in my heart. “I see.” Why did this news bother me? It wasn’t like I had any claim on the guy. I finished scooping ice cream and pushed a bowl to Charlotte. “Did he seem into her?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he looked pretty happy. She was laughing at something he said; had to be an ego boost for him, if nothing else.”

  The girl. His muscles. His face. Being named after a god. Tyr’s list of ego boosters was endless.

  “You okay?” Charlotte asked gently. She took the utensil from me and added another scoop to my bowl.

  “I’m fine. It’s no big deal. Good to know where I stand with him, right?” I stilled the disappointment churning in my gut. Any connection between us was the product of my hyperactive imagination. Obviously, I was just a new running buddy he barely knew. Nothing more.

  So why couldn’t I get Tyr Fredriksen out of my head?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “GOD MORGEN, MIA.”

  The husky voice took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting to find anyone sitting on my porch steps. The front door slammed behind me as I spun around. Hopefully my roommates were heavy sleepers.

  “You came,” I blurted. Then I mentally palmed my forehead. Did I have to sound like a kid on Christmas?

  “Of cou
rse I came.” Tyr’s brow furrowed. “Did you not think I would?”

  “I… erm… how long have you been out here?” When in doubt, deflect. Jason’s old football adage came in mighty handy now and then. Or was that the best defense is an offense? My brother had a lot of adages.

  “Just a few minutes.” Tyr stood, stretching his impossibly long legs as he walked down the porch steps. “Shall we?”

  “Sure.” I turned toward the house as I bent down to double knot my shoe. “Thanks for picking me up at such an… are you staring at me?”

  “No.” Tyr quickly shifted his gaze.

  As I straightened up, I bit the inside of my lip. “Tyr Fredriksen, you were totally checking out my bootie.”

  “Do you want to run or not?” he muttered.

  “Fine.” I jogged toward the sidewalk, nudging him with my elbow as I passed. “What would Red think?”

  “Who?” Tyr fell in step beside me.

  “My roommate saw you out with a girl with reddish-blond hair. Your girlfriend?” I deliberately kept my tone light.

  “You keeping tabs on me, Ahlström?” One corner of Tyr’s mouth turned up.

  “No.”

  But I’d tipped my hand. We ran in silence until we reached the edge of the forest. Tyr ran ahead of me, then turned so he was running backwards. Uphill.

  “Showoff,” I muttered.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend.” He kept his eyes on me as he ran.

  “Oh.” I shrugged. Inside I was turning inverted aerials off a bumps course. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah.” Tyr grinned. “Race you to the top of the hill.”

  He turned and sprinted for the peak. I tried to keep up, pushing off the balls of my feet with everything I had, but Tyr was taller, stronger, and a whole lot faster than me. Plus, he’d had a solid head start.

  He made it to the top a whole minute before I did. By the time I got there, he stood with crossed arms and a smirk. He wasn’t even out of breath.

  “No fair.” I put my hands on my knees and panted. “You cheated. How did you run so fast?”