“Me leaving him? Didn’t you hear the things he said to me? Not to mention I haven’t been able to summon the sword since I lost my arm.”
“You mean since you found love,” she said.
Gwynn paused, not able to answer. When had he first tried to summon the sword again? How many months did Sophia help him back to health? Days of pain, frustration, and guilt. Through them all, she’d been the only thing to keep him going. All he’d done in the past seven years, the man he’d managed to become, was thanks to her.
“Look, don’t make me deal with the past too much,” Skuld said. “Let’s just say all the things in your heart when you first summoned that sword aren’t really the same anymore. And if they are, they’re nowhere near as strong as they used to be. Your heart has changed, so you can’t just go calling the same old sword anymore.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said. “First, you’re going to spend some time thinking more about what that tree might reveal to you instead of being Oh boohoo me, I’m stuck to a tree. Once you’ve gained the insights you need, and you will gain those insights,” she cut him off, “you’ll be ready to visit the well and retrieve your arm.”
“Well?”
“Oh yes, Mimir’s Well. He’s typically an approachable giant, but he doesn’t like people taking things back from his well. So, you might have some problems there. But then, you never know, he might be convinced it’s in his best interests to let you have it back. Either way, I’m pretty sure you’ll get it back. Once you’ve got it, go back to that dusty bookshop in Iraq.”
“And then?”
She hmphed, set her jaw and tapped her foot. After a minute she shook her head.
“If you don’t know what to do by then, we’ve made a huge mistake believing in you.”
Gwynn thumped his head back against the tree.
“Believed in me for what? You haven’t told me what you expect me to do.”
Skuld took a few steps back from the tree, joining Veroandi and Uror who had left their table.
“We expect you to be who you are,” they said in unison. “We believe you will be the word.”
Light radiated from their bodies, increasing in intensity until Gwynn could no longer keep his eyes open. A minute later, he opened them again to see the women and their table of knitting had disappeared.
21
The Silenced Heart
Quetzalcoatl stormed into the room, his shirt half-buttoned.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
Fuyuko and Jason both were kneeling with their heads bowed.
“I am sorry for the interruption, My Lord,” Fuyuko said. “But something has come to light we thought needed your immediate attention.”
“I’ve been told one of my elite guards, Hildy, is in the cells?”
“Indeed. She attacked the prisoner.”
Quetzalcoatl cast a disdainful glance toward Jason.
“Given his insolence, I suppose her actions could be seen as defending my honor.”
Fuyuko’s body stiffened. Jason, beside her, felt it as opposed to seeing her body move.
“Perhaps,” she said, “but we were monitoring the room’s surveillance feed as the prisoner informed me he recognized Hildy as being in the service of Woten.”
Quetzalcoatl, who’d been pacing the entire time, came to a halt.
“And what did you see and hear?”
“Hildy confessed to being one of Woten’s agents. In short, she previously faced Jason in a skirmish on Asgard, hence how they recognized each other. She sought to eliminate him before he could tell you.”
“Why not tell me when we first met?” Quetzalcoatl asked Jason.
Jason paused, licking his dry lips.
“Given my situation, without proof, you would take her word over mine. I believed you would frown on me further if you thought I was making false accusations.”
“You read situations well, I’ll give you that. But tell me, was there ever really a list of these operatives, or was it a gamble to draw out the traitor within my own ranks?”
Fuyuko’s movement was far more obvious this time. Jason hoped Quetzalcoatl’s attention was too focused on him to notice. Despite trying to be subtle, it was clear she was readying herself to strike should the need arise. Would she attack an Ageless One to save him? If so, perhaps he hadn’t lost entirely.
“It was not a complete lie, no,” Jason said. “We did hear operatives had arrived on this world and we did have spies seeking a list. The only outright lie I told you was that Adrastia would be delivering it in the next two days. As far as I know, the list still doesn’t exist.”
Quetzalcoatl’s open hand struck Jason across the right cheek—sending him sprawling across the floor.
Jason chanced a brief glance at Fuyuko, imploring her to hold. Before turning his attention fully to Quetzalcoatl, he saw her resume a begrudging rigidity.
“I do not tolerate being lied to.” Anything not bolted down shook from the force of Quetzalcoatl’s voice.
“Nor,” he said toward Fuyuko, “appreciate having operations planned and executed under my own roof without my approval.”
He looked toward one of the guards who had accompanied Fuyuko and Jason.
“Is this video footage available on the server?” he asked.
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Then I’ll watch it in my office. You two,” he said with a pointed finger that made Jason feel like an ant watching an approaching boot, “will stay right there. And you,” he said to some guards, “bring Hildy here. But take precautions, in case the story of her betrayal is true.”
The guard gave a bow and walked just short of a sprint from the room.
“This great plan of yours isn’t going so well,” Fuyuko said after Quetzalcoatl left the room.
“None of my plans for this operation were ever going to go well,” Jason replied. “But I still had to take the risk.”
“For your new friends on Asgard?”
“Not just for them. It was the first chance I’d had to come looking for you.”
Fuyuko broke away from his gaze.
“Don’t try to change this into a romance. You’re my chance for revenge. That’s what I’m focussing on right now.”
Jason nodded grimly.
Hildy was escorted into the room as Quetzalcoatl returned. Something Jason figured the self-appointed god had timed, seeing as the time to travel to the cells and back would’ve been longer than the surveillance footage.
I’m surprised he didn’t leave us alone in this room for a while to see what happened, Jason thought.
The two guards escorting Hildy forced her down on her knees. A collar like Jason’s hung around her neck and her hands were bound behind her back.
Quetzalcoatl walked straight to Hildy and bent down so his eyes were parallel with her own.
“Tell me the truth,” he said.
Will she try to lie? Jason wondered. Could she actually manage to convince him this is all some conspiracy against her?
He glanced at Fuyuko. She was biting her bottom lip and her hands flexed and contracted.
Hildy couldn’t get to her feet—the guards pressing down on her shoulders prevented it. She did have enough strength to push against them so she could straighten her back and neck. She was on her knees but still managed a defiant poise.
“You’ve seen the video?” she asked.
Quetzalcoatl nodded.
“Then you have the truth.”
Despite her having tried to kill him, Jason still winced at the force Quetzalcoatl slapped her with. It left her on the ground, a huge welt already bruising across her cheek, and blood trickling from her mouth.
“How many more of you?” Quetzalcoatl asked.
The guards dove for her as she rose back to her knees in the same elegant defiance.
She spat a wad of blood on the ground by Quetzalcoatl’s shoes.
“Refuse to free me and you will find out,” she said.
“Free you?” he laughed incredulously.
He grabbed her chin, dragging her face to within inches of his own. For the briefest moment, his face lost all traces of humanity, replaced by a serpentine head with squared jaw. When he spoke, he appeared normal once again.
“You’ll be lucky if I don’t feast on your heart tonight.”
“It will swell with disdain and choke you,” she said. “I know the glory of a true planet bound god. You are meaningless specks of dust compared with Woten. If you kill me, the silence my stilled heart leaves will be the signal you are to be cleansed.”
Quetzalcoatl turned his head to regard Jason and Fuyuko.
“You know, your actions angered me. But at least you knew enough to grovel and still speak with respect.”
He jerked his hand, snapping Hildy’s neck. Lifting her lifeless body, he plunged his free hand into her chest, tearing her heart out in his clenched fist.
Jason’s eyes went wide.
“Fuyuko,” he said in a hushed voice, unable to take his eyes off Quetzalcoatl, who was taking a large bite of Hildy’s stilled heart. “I think you better get ready to take this collar off me.”
“Why? Do you think he’s—”
A series of nearby explosions cut her off.
22
Yggdrasil
Gwynn closed his eyes, enjoying the silence. Being pinned to a tree didn’t seem so bad when he was alone. The only sounds reaching him were those of the forest—trees whispering in the breeze, the odd scurry of small animals, and insect songs. Here, he could let oblivion quietly take him away.
Which didn’t seem like the entirely right thing to do.
He’d forgotten something.
Something clear not too long ago, when those women were speaking with him.
How long ago had they left?
Did they ever exist to begin with?
No, probably not. If anything, they’d just been his imagination. Sometimes the brain needs company, even if it has to invent it.
Company.
Being with someone.
Was there someone he wanted as company?
He’d forgotten something.
But if he’d forgotten so easily, it couldn’t be important.
What could compare to the limitless power and glory of the Veil? Within his soul, everything he imagined was reality. Who needed anything more?
There was a flaw in this logic. A twisting in his gut kept pressing the idea into his mind something wasn’t right.
Become the Word.
The women said that before disappearing. If they were his imagination, was it trying to tell him something?
Someone said those words to him before—or something similar to them.
Be the word…
Become the word…
You are the word…
And I am the knowledge.
“Adrastia,” he said aloud, the name passing through his mind like a lightning bolt, awakening dulled synapses and fading memories.
This was the danger of the Veil—to lose your way, both physically and psychologically. It was easy to forget yourself when surrounded by eternity.
He brought up his left hand and gripped Xanthe’s handle. He struggled for a few minutes, trying to pull the sword free. But it remained stubbornly wedged in the tree.
The tree.
They’d said the tree held answers. So many Odin, or Woten, had skewered himself to find them. The Norns seemed to think he could find those same answers—maybe more. Could those answers free him?
“It might be the only way,” he said aloud.
Gwynn released Xanthe’s hilt and pressed his arm, along with the rest of his body, against the tree’s trunk.
He strained his limbs, trying to cover as much of the tree’s surface with his body.
Time passed. Minutes, hours, he couldn’t be sure—time lost meaning after Xanthe impaled him. All he was aware of was his aching muscles.
Aching muscles. He could feel them. When he’d spoken to the Norns, he’d been numb. Was this progress, or did it signal his physical condition worsening?
One thing was certain, he was getting nowhere.
Maybe it’s the approach. The tree probably doesn’t take too kindly to me trying to force myself on it.
He let his muscles go slack. Instead of focusing on the tree, he focused on himself—closing his eyes to the illusionary world around him, following the rhythm of in and out of each breath.
Gwynn felt calmer, maybe closer, but he was still just a man stuck to a tree. The secrets of the universe didn’t seem in any greater hurry to reveal themselves.
What had Odin done differently?
Stupid, Gwynn thought, he chose this. I just stood there like an idiot and let it happen.
A sacrifice. Of a god, to a god. In his case, Odin to Odin. But Odin wasn’t a god—he was just a man with gifts no greater than Gwynn’s. An Anunnaki’s power came from tapping his own soul. Whatever ability or knowledge Odin gained, he gained it for his own soul.
The same way Cain infused our soul with energy stolen from other Anunnaki.
But Cain stole those abilities for himself without making any sacrifice. He never gave of himself to better himself. Odin did. Odin came here—the Veil—to sacrifice himself on Yggdrasil. He knew. He understood the power wasn’t held in his own body, it was his soul.
Gwynn’s eyes snapped open. He craned his neck to look at the blade sticking out of his chest. It hadn’t been driven all the way to the hilt—perhaps an inch or two of the blade still protruded from his chest.
Will that be enough?
He grasped the hilt once more and took a few steadying breaths.
“I give to my soul the greatest sacrifice I can—myself.”
He yelled it out. Truthfully, he thought it would be dramatic, echoing to all corners of the Veil. Instead, it sounded thin and hollow. But he couldn’t dwell on it, or waste the truth of his intention.
With every ounce of strength he could muster, Gwynn pulled the sword into his chest.
It slammed against him—the hilt fracturing a few ribs.
He cried out. It wasn’t just the sword pushing into his chest—stabs shot through his arms, legs, and up into his head. He imagined the sword shattering inside him, fragments tearing through every part of his body.
Darkness converged from the edge of his vision, eventually rendering him blind.
I’m dying.
“Yes, you are,” a familiar voice said. “But it’s all right. It’ll only be for a little while.”
“Sophia?”
He wasn’t sure if he’d actually spoken her name, or just thought it.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “They’re basically the same thing here. But yes, it’s me.”
“How did you…”
The pain of a thousand shards subsided, but a new throbbing ache started in his chest. Sophia could only be within the Veil if…
“She was dead?” Sophia said. “Or at least, if one of them were dead.”
“I… Oh god, Sophia.”
Not the Sophia he married. The Sophia he’d watched die. The Sophia he’d failed.
“I never asked you to save me,” she said, her voice gentler than Gwynn thought he deserved. “I did exactly what I needed to, when I needed to do it.”
“Pridament said…” He was pretty sure he wasn’t speaking aloud—the words would never come out so clear. “He said you might have sacrificed yourself so I would be able to fight—because you would’ve distracted me.”
She laughed—soft and sad.
“I saw the future. Two futures, to be precise.”
Gwynn felt nauseas.
“I chose this path because it was my choice. Not yours, not my father’s, mine. I sacrificed myself in my own name and found my way here. I knew you would visit the tree one day. I stayed nearby, waiting. Because when you came, you would need me to save you. You often need saving, don’t you, my dear, Gwynn.”
He didn�
��t know if he could smile, but it was the impulse he had. A tiny, knowing smile that said she was right. Yes, Gwynn Dormath needed his fair share of saving. He’d like to think he’d done some saving in return. Maybe things were balanced—but probably not.
“Nothing is ever balanced,” Sophia said. “It’s sort of the point. All of existence is the push and pull of trying to find a balance. If we achieved it, everything would simply end, because what would be the point of doing anything more? We’d be too afraid of destroying the balance we’d found.”
He felt the softness of her pressing against his back. Her left arm curled around his waist.
“Do you know where you are?” she asked.
“The Veil,” he answered.
Though it felt too real to just be his mind interpreting energy. Her warm breath tickled his ear.
“More specific than that.”
“I thought you said I was dying. Am I dead?”
“Just a little bit.” She sighed contently, nuzzling her cheek against his back. “Right now, you’re flowing through Yggdrasil—not travelling its branches, but through, like the trunk was hollow and you were falling through.”
“Is that a good thing?” he asked.
“Mhmm. You gave yourself, and it accepted. It’s why I’m here too—I gave myself for myself.”
“So is this Heaven?”
He felt her shoulders move as she shrugged.
“Maybe. I guess it’s open to interpretation. I don’t mind it right now.”
Heat filled Gwynn’s cheeks, along with a healthy dose of guilt.
“Don’t feel guilty,” Sophia said. “We’re not doing anything wrong. Just two close friends holding each other to keep the scary darkness away. Besides, I’m still a part of her too. Just think of me as the dream version.”
Her right arm slid beneath the remains of his own.
“Open your eyes,” she said. “And look to your right arm.”
Had his eyes been closed this whole time? That didn’t seem right. But he did as she asked.
Darkness still surrounded him on all sides. He couldn’t make out any details of the inside of the tree. But looking toward where his right hand should’ve been, he could see himself. There was the remains of his right arm, non-existent just below the elbow. But Sophia placed her arm inline with his own, palm facing up, and her arm bent just enough, it created the illusion his arm was still intact. Though softer and more delicate.
Resonance 4th Edits - Bleeding Worlds Bk 3 Page 20