The Goddess Embraced (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 3)

by Deborah Davitt

  Finally, a respite, and Zhi set Erida down on the ground. Her knees buckled a little; it was the first time in hours that she’d put weight on them, and carrying her own body-mass, after floating in the heart of his storm, always felt like pulling herself out of a pool onto dry ground. And the lack of wind roaring around her head made her feel oddly deaf. Erida keyed the ring . . . and went rigid as she heard the fear in her daughter’s voice whispering in her ear. Zhi! Zaya and the Archives are under attack!

  I know! Her attendant spirits have called to me as well!

  Go! Mercury told them, sharply. We can hold the line here. The archives must not fall into the hands of our enemies. The unNaming rituals held there alone could put many of us in great danger. Go!

  Erida was vaguely aware of Zhi, collapsing down the form of a man made of smoke and flame, rushing at her, and then a blur of sensations and visions, the usual incoherency of the Veil . . . .

  . . . and then they were through, and inside the Archives. Every one of Erida’s defensive devices flared, establishing wards against high and low temperatures, and provided a bubble of clean air around her face. She’d made most of them herself, to replace lost bargains with spirits, because Illa’zhi would not permit significant bargains between her and other entities. The technomantic device at her wrist, which let her oversee the wards and controls on the archive, spun to life, the various dials whirling to indicate that the CO2 fire retardant and defense system had been used. The electrical system was currently running at half power, and the ventilation system was cycling oxygen, but CO2 concentrations remained at dangerous levels. Erida choked on her own fear, her heartbeat slamming against her ears as she ran for the door to the office she’d shared with Zaya since she’d made the girl her apprentice.

  Zhi blew past her in a flicker of smoke and flame . . . and then she heard a muffled cry of anguish from the efreet, a tearing sound. I did not want to believe what my senses told me, Illa’zhi, the light of the dead, mourned, not in his smoke-and-fire form, but in the form in which he’d begotten all of his children. That of a human man in his mid-thirties, olive-skinned, dark-haired, and golden-eyed. He gathered Zaya into his arms, where their daughter lay slumped over her desk. I failed you, Fireflower, the efreet whispered. I failed you when I made you. If I had wrought better, you would yet live.

  Erida stood, shaking, in the door. “No,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “No. Not my Zaya. She’s . . . she’s just asleep.” She moved forwards, and shook Zaya’s shoulders, as Zhi held her. “Zaya. Come on. Wake up. Zaya!”

  She’s gone.

  No! I don’t accept that! I won’t accept that. Get her on her back, I’ll start CPR—

  Her spark is gone, Shadeslore. She’d never heard that tone of defeat from the efreet before, as Zhi slowly lowered their first-born to the floor, and knelt, stroking her hair back from her face. She thought, just for an instant, that human tears might be in his fire-filled eyes. I should have bound her to me. I thought it would be wrong, after her birth, to do so without her consent. And when she was of age, she bound herself to others, whom I thought powerful enough to protect her. I failed her.

  Erida dropped to her knees, and put her head down on her daughter’s shoulder. Still, cold, and motionless. Erida wailed, holding onto Illa’zhi’s human hand tightly. No. This is my fault. I should never have put her in the position of having to defend this place . . . . Her tears slipped down her face, and she knew, somehow, that she was mourning for him, as well. Illa’zhi had no experience with grief. In all the centuries of his long existence in the mortal plane, he’d come to understand power, control, and anger. He’d learned love, too, in the past thirty years. But he had never before experienced grief. And inside of him, grief was hardening, rapidly, into rage.

  I can smell a daeva here. Our child withstood it. She died untainted by it. I would smell its touch upon her, if it had taken her spirit from her. Illa’zhi’s teeth bared. She destroyed its mortal avatar. No mean thing, for a mortal. And I swear to you, across her body, that I will not rest until that daeva is destroyed. I will eat its heart for this.

  A shadow flickered over them, and Erida looked up, in confusion and despair. Kanmi and Minori had just arrived, and looked down at the body of her child, their faces turning ashen. “Erida . . . I’m so sorry,” Minori said, quietly. “We’ll help you move her to the Veil, along with the archives. Maybe . . .” the woman shook her head, the pale luminescence that burned under her skin shining more brightly for a moment, “It’s possible to return. Kanmi did it. Zaya knew her Name.”

  Fireflower knew her Name. I knew it the moment she was born. Illa’zhi stood, covering his mortal avatar once more in smoke and flame. Not permitting the others to see weakness, even for an instant. But she was human, Truthsayer. She did not have the core of will that Emberstone possesses. No. She is gone. But she will, someday, be avenged. His fists clenched. Though not today.

  Today we have to save everything that remains, Kanmi said, quietly. Perhaps Frittigil can help her. Though the gift of the Evening Star is but a trade, a transference of life-energy . . . .

  “I would pay that price,” Erida said, her throat constricting.

  No! Do not make me choose between you! Zhi turned his face aside, and said, dully, his fires dwindling, If you need for me to begin the transfer of the archives to your domain, Emberstone, I . . . need a moment with my daughter. And her mate. Her god-born husband . . . deserves to know.

  At the Lindworm barracks, Maccis had just stepped off the truck, steadied by Rig and Solinus, when Illa’zhi’s smoke and flame form appeared in front of him. Come with me, boy, if you would know the fate of your wife and child, the efreet said, in a voice that filled Maccis’ head like thunder. A glance at Athim. Come with me, son. We will tend your wounds in a place of safety.

  Fate of my wife and child . . . ? Maccis reeled. With only a glance at Solinus, and without caring what Vidarr, his commander, might think, Maccis took a step forward, and put his hand in Illa’zhi’s. And vanished, drawn through the Veil, to the dim light of the Archives, and the still form on the ground between the two desks.

  Maccis stood there, staring in disbelief, as every muscle in his body turned to wrought iron, tensing until he thought the bones themselves creaked under the pressure of his own muscles. “No,” he said, quietly, and dropped to his knees, looking at the still face. The dark eyes were closed. “You were . . . supposed to be safe here. You were supposed to be safe . . . How can this have happened?” The final word tore itself out of his throat as a howl, and then he put his head down, struggling to keep it all in. There was no shape that was a refuge. There was nowhere to go where there was surcease from the grief. The guilt. The knowledge that if he’d . . . just stayed home, at her heels as her faithful hound, she wouldn’t have died. He clutched her cold hands, as the Archives around him folded in and around him. Twisted. Distorted. And moved elsewhere.

  Mother, he called still staring down at Zaya’s body. Mother, please. It’s time. I have nothing left to give to this world. I have nothing left.

  Leaves and flowers appeared under Fireflower’s body, and when he looked up, he knelt beside her body under the green and twining branches of the Wood in the Veil. I told you that when you needed refuge, the Wood would be here for you, Saraid told him, gently. I will join you shortly. We all will.

  Mirrorshaper stared up into the sky his father had wrought, and wept, silently, his shoulders shaking, unable to fathom a universe so unfair that it could punish someone who had never done harm to others, who had only sought to add to the sum of knowledge in the universe. Who had laughed, and danced, and tried to understand the world, from behind her shy mask, but who had dared to love him, in spite of his inhumanity. And the scrap of paper, that Shadeslore had pressed into his hands? The unkindest, cruelest cut of all. There had been a child, though he’d have cheerfully traded that thread of possibility away to have her alive again. The words on the paper were a mockery of hope, and her
message about the godslayers didn’t even register. What did he care about order and chaos, when he’d lost the only person who’d kept him sane? He put his head down on the ground beside his wife, and tried to unmake himself. Tried to pass whatever power he had, into her still form. To call her spirit back.

  It didn’t work. Death had no place in the Veil. He would have to live, forever, with the knowledge of her death. Mirrorshaper kissed her hand, once more, and stood. Goodbye, Zee, he told her, with a sudden calm as resolution shaped itself. Your mother and father will be here to tend you, soon. They have not the luxury of grief that they have afforded me. I have to go now. I’ll see you soon, though. In the mortal realm . . . he could find a suitable end for himself. He just had to pass through the door at the center of the isle. He knew where it was.

  He started to move away, and a hand fell on his shoulder. He spun, staring at the tall figure, wrapped in the same flowing, mercury-like metal that made up Rig’s replaced hand. No visible eyes; the face was a featureless silver mask, with metal pits where the eyes should have been. His lips curled back from his teeth. Release me, spirit.

  I cannot allow you to leave. I will not permit you to visit the same pain upon your parents that Shadeslore and Illa’zhi now feel. I would do a poor job of repaying my debt to them, if I did so.

  No matter how Mirrorshaper twisted and fought, the man-shaped creature would not release him; in fact, he found himself on the ground, pinned, as effortlessly as if he had never once in his life been trained, or fought in battle. Let me go. Let me be with her.

  Let you die? Never. Not while there is hope.

  There is no hope. Have you seen the world in which we live? I have lived without any hope but her since I was a child. I will not stay in a world without light. I will not chain myself to an eternity of emptiness and grief in the Veil.

  Maccis. The use of his mortal name startled him, and the young man stopped struggling. She entered the Veil, carried here by her father once. While what dies in the mortal realm stays dead, here there are . . . echoes. Resonances. Especially if you knew, in life, your Name.

  She came to the Veil as a child, Mirrorshaper told the Guardian. Any echoes of her wouldn’t be her. Fireflower grew to adulthood. She was a true daughter of the Magi. She ate of the apples of Freya. She was my heart. He turned aside. The memory of the child she was, and that I was, once, is a sweet one. But it is just a memory. An echo would not be my wife.

  The game is not yet over.

  I do not understand.

  You do not need to. The Guardian stood, releasing Mirrorshaper. What is to come, you cannot control, until you enter the world again.

  You prevent me from entering the world.

  Not forever. Just for now.

  Now is forever in the Veil, spirit.

  The Veil’s time is a single point. The mortal realm is a line. All points on that line can touch this single point here. Which means that this single point here, can touch all the points on that line.

  And with those cryptic words, the Guardian departed.

  Mirrorshaper lifted his head, and wasn’t surprised when he turned his head to discover that Fireflower’s body was gone, covered entirely by vines. But he was startled to realize that he wasn’t alone in this mourning place in the Veil. Shadowweaver had arrived, carrying her egg in a sling wrapped tightly to her body for warmth. The erstwhile valkyrie now sat by a simple, white-draped bier on which Cloudwalker’s body rested, her cheek on his shoulder. Begging him softly to awaken, to return, her entire form shrouded by clouds of violet grief and gray regret.

  Mirrorshaper’s heart clenched. He didn’t know if he could deal with the unfairness of it, if the bear-warrior awoke, and Zaya did not. There was nothing that made one better than the other, more worthy of living. They’d both lived. In their own ways, they’d both fought. He could even grasp, faintly, that they’d both worked to pull their respective loved ones out of the shadows of their own minds.

  What separated them, in the end, was that one had, by mere chance, been born of the lineage of the gods. And one had not. And that was the crux of it. This was what so many mortals had risen up to protest, in the past forty years. Why should one person be favored over another? Why should not everyone be equal in the eyes of their gods?

  And the answer was, really, that some people had advantages early in life, and did nothing with them. Some people were disadvantaged—born poor, born crippled—and rose above it, through determination and willpower. Some people were born with advantages, and dedicated themselves to something greater than just their own existence. Some people were born disadvantaged, and wallowed self-pity and envy. And sometimes, there was just plain bad luck.

  Fireflower had worked hard. She’d dedicated herself to trying to save the world. To advance the sum of human knowledge. To her family, her friends, and her loved ones. So had Cloudwalker. Nothing separated them . . . but luck.

  But it was a bitter, bitter pill for Mirrorshaper, as he watched the bear-warrior’s hand slowly move, inch by inch, to touch the dark fall of Shadowweaver’s hair across his chest.

  Cloudwalker opened his eyes, seeing green leaves above him, and had no idea where he was. Perhaps the woods outside Novo Trier? But there was a cry of almost agonized relief in his mind, and pain in his body, as his hand caught and tangled in Shadowweaver’s hair . . . and all he was left with, was bewilderment. He’d known he was going to die. He’d died before . . . hadn’t he? You came back, she told him, over and over. I hardly dared believe. . . .

  Didn’t think I’d wake up. He struggled to sit up, pain in every part of his body. How long was I unconscious?

  You were dead for ten hours. No heartbeat. No breath.

  He froze, and stared around himself. I’m not in some Persian interrogation chamber, my mind fuddled with visions, am I? he said, slowly. This is . . . real. You’re real.

  This is the Veil. It’s real. Everything here is real. No illusions. She tried to push him back to whatever he’d been resting on, and he sagged back again. You’re staying here till you’re healed, you understand me? You’re still wounded, and I will not let you tear yourself apart from the inside. Just . . . rest. Please.

  His fingers tangled in her hair again as he stared once more up at the sky, and smelled the leaves all around them, fresh and green. But what about the war?

  She stroked his face. The war is lost. she said, her voice tired. It’s time for us to retreat, and regroup, and try again.

  No. I don’t accept that.

  Valhalla has fallen, beloved. The stars went out, and the sky went dark. She put her head down on his arm, and wept, unashamed, and he froze again, feeling anguish sweep through his heart. He’d trained hundreds of young bear-warriors. To think that they were all dead, to think that Thor was dead . . . .

  What do we do now?

  I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does. She touched his face. Abide, perhaps.

  In Judea, Adam ben Maor sat in his office on the second floor of the house on Shar’abi Street, reading by the light of a kerosene lantern. He’d spent the past ten days in a haze. He’d tried to pray, but the words had turned to ashes in his mouth. Even after a lifetime of patience, there was no answer, and the silence seemed to mock him. His words to the younger men in the Temple today were those he would have spoken as a younger man—We’re supposed to solve our problems ourselves . . . except that they now lacked the conviction, the assurance, with which his younger self might have spoken them.

  On the desk in front of him were a handful of items. None of them, technically should have been in his possession. He’d stopped by the Temple Archives earlier in the afternoon, and let himself in with his keycard; no one had been on duty. It had twinged at his conscience, but really, he wasn’t sure there was anyone in existence with a better right to take the scroll fragments he’d pieced back into a whole document, or the contents of the leaden reliquary. If he happened to be alive tomorrow, and if there was a world outside his window to which he
might wake, he’d return them.

  So, on one side of his desk, lead weights held down the ends of the scroll, with the words there in Aramaic, mocking him. At the far edge of the desk, the leaden reliquary with its preserved knucklebone, probably from the last body held by a godslayer. To the left, one of the apples from Freya’s tree. Adam had never tasted that fruit. Sigrun had refused to eat it at first, but had, eventually. He’d seen that the fruit had had no ill-effects on god-born, or even on sorcerers. Even Zaya had eaten the fruit without harm. But to Adam’s knowledge, no Judean had ever eaten of that tree, and a kind of superstitious dread had made him refrain. But sitting under the tree, in the smell of its blossoms, had made his aches and pains seem to diminish.