“Your daughter,” I began, remembering how he felt looking down at the baby girl in his arms.
“Gone,” he said simply.
“Was she . . . ” I trailed off, hoping he’d catch my meaning so I wouldn’t have to say it out loud. She wasn’t around when we visited the village, at least I didn’t think . . .
He shook his head. “She wasn’t in the village the day they all died. She was lost to us long before that.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure of what else to say.
He nodded, looking suddenly determined. “I will not allow your child to suffer the same fate.”
I cringed and smoothed my fingers over my hair, turning my head to hide my expression. “I shouldn’t have told you,” I whispered. “I thought you of all people would understand I have to do this, no matter the cost. If I cannot destroy it, the key will find a way to destroy me regardless. If dying is my only choice, you can bet your ass I’ll be taking the key down with me.”
I turned back to Mikael to see his jaw set in a firm line. I could tell he wanted to argue with me, but before he could I said, “You know I’m right. Erykah escaped it without destroying it, and look what happened. I won’t let the key come back for us all with a new owner. What if it ends up with Aislin or Estus?”
Mikael sighed, signaling that I had won the argument. “Nothing is ever truly written in stone,” he said finally, “and I will do everything possible to keep you alive.”
“Because of our oath,” I added. “Letting me die when you could save me would probably count as a betrayal.”
He sighed again, and looked somehow sad. “Yes, Madeline, because of our oath.”
He stood and offered me a hand up. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to leave the bathroom yet, but it was worth a shot. Mikael took hold of my hand and lifted me effortlessly to my feet.
I felt more steady as I followed him out into the hall. The key had been silent during our entire exchange. I wasn’t sure if it was a bad sign, or a good one. Did it fear Mikael, or was it simply lulling us into complacency?
Sophie was coming toward us down the hall, but I didn’t see Alaric anywhere.
“We need to talk,” was all she said as she reached us.
Mikael handed me off to her without a word.
“Where’s Alaric?” I asked as Sophie led me away. I wanted to be the one to tell him that I thought the baby was still there. I didn’t want to miss his reaction.
A look crossed over Sophie’s face that I didn’t quite understand, making me apprehensive. What did she want to talk about that she couldn’t say in front of Mikael? I looked back over my shoulder to see that the Viking in question had disappeared down the stairs.
I went willingly with Sophie as she guided me the rest of the way down the hall and into the study. I felt oddly energized. Mikael’s assurances were still hanging in my mind. I was probably just delirious and hormonal, but as Sophie shut the door of the study behind us, I was overcome by a strange surge of energy.
I opened my mouth to ask why she needed to talk to me in private, but what came out was, “Get me out of here.”
I reflexively wanted to lift my hand to my mouth, surprised by my words, but my hand lifted toward Sophie instead. A dome of energy encircled my palm, though I wasn’t sure if it would be visible to the naked eye, or just mine.
I tried to lower my hand as Sophie’s dark eyes widened in shock. My heart should have been racing, but my body was no longer my own. I’d been pushed into the passenger seat as the key took over, but I couldn’t tell its intent. I might have learned to shield my thoughts, but so had the key.
29
“Put your hand down, Madeline,” Sophie scolded, not quite getting how serious the situation had become.
I wanted to call out to her, to warn her somehow, but it was like sitting in a dark projection room with my hands tied. I could see the scene playing before me, but was powerless to stop it.
“We are leaving this place,” I said against my will.
I tried to shake my head, but it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t imagine why the key wanted to leave now. Its host was protected, and we were starting a war. It was getting everything it wanted.
Sophie took a step back toward the door. “We’re not going anywhere,” she said calmly.
I reached my arm back and threw the energy collecting in my palm at her. She dove out of the way gracefully, rolling across the plush carpet, only to rise to her feet near one of the book cases. The energy hit the door harmlessly, dissipating to spread back into the environment.
I turned, stalking Sophie like a predator, ready to anticipate her next move. I threw another ball of energy just as the door opened behind us.
“I apologize—” said a woman’s voice before cutting off, realizing the situation she’d just walked into.
I didn’t hear her approach, but suddenly my body was leaping aside right before Aila could wrap her arms around me from behind. I landed back near the door, slamming it shut to trap Aila and Sophie inside with me. The two moved to stand shoulder to shoulder, ready for my next attack.
“The key seems to have taken her over,” Sophie explained, keeping her eyes firmly on me as she partially crouched, ready to move.
Worry crossed Aila’s face. “I don’t know what to do,” she admitted.
I watched the exchange between the two women while my mind was screaming at me to do something. I still couldn’t sense any of the key’s thoughts. I had learned how to shut it out of my mind, but not my body.
“Get—” I managed to force out through gritted teeth, but the key sent a searing wave of pain through my brain. It dizzied me enough I couldn’t see for a moment.
When I opened my eyes again, Sophie and Aila were flanking me. I could hear footsteps running down the hall. The women exchanged a subtle nod, then leapt for me at once. Sophie was going to reach me first, and the key turned my body to fend her off. At the last moment, Sophie side-stepped and Aila crashed into me from behind, knocking us both to the floor.
Energy coursed through me, attacking the weight on my back. Aila screamed, then I was free. I rose shakily to my feet, just as Alaric and Mikael came rushing into the room, followed by Faas, Tabitha, and James. With so many of us, the study became suddenly claustrophobic. A small measure of the key’s panic leaked into my mind. I had thought it was completely in control of the situation, but it was scared. We didn’t have much energy left, and wouldn’t be able to fend our captors off for long.
Involuntarily, I backed away toward the large window that sat behind the desk, opposite the door to the room. Horror overcame me as I realized the key might try making us jump out the second story window to escape.
The key held up my hands in front of me as I continued backing away. Both of my hands were glowing, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who could see it, given James’ awestruck expression. However, no one else seemed surprised.
All at once, the room exploded into movement. Energy shot from my hands as I was attacked, harming some, but not enough to get them away from me. We hadn’t received any new energy since we’d used it all up on the battlefield, and fighting Mikael had pushed us past our limit. I looked around frantically. No one here was weak enough to drain. We were too weak.
Just as I realized the key was no longer shielding its thoughts, Alaric and Sophie simultaneously tackled me, knocking me onto my back and pinning my arms against the carpet. Faas moved to stand over us, his blond top knot of hair falling forward to cover half his face. He reached his hands toward me, but didn’t close the distance. At first I couldn’t tell what he was doing, then my last bit of energy began to drain away. He was stealing it from me, like I could do from a corpse, but I wasn’t a corpse, and I wasn’t weak enough to die.
“Get it off of her,” Mikael demanded, stepping into view beside Faas.
“We can’t, remember?” Alaric growled. I could hear his voice, but couldn’t see his face. All I could see was Faas, and blearily, Mika
el.
“They’re both weakened. Try,” Mikael demanded.
Not arguing, Sophie kept my arm pinned with one hand, while she used the other to lower the collar of my shirt, revealing the key. Alaric mirrored her pose, using his free hand to reach for the key itself.
Before Alaric’s hand finished its descent, I was overcome with pain like I’d never known. It felt like the key was tearing apart the flesh and bones it laid upon.
“It cannot be,” Faas said in shock as he hovered over me, struggling to keep the key from using me to lash out.
I had a moment to take in the awestricken faces around me, then I was out.
I woke up lying on cold stone, or maybe I wasn’t awake. I didn’t feel awake. In fact, I didn’t feel real at all. I propped myself up into a seated position, then instinctively reached for my throat. I gasped. The key wasn’t there.
Elation filled me, but it was brief. Why could I still sense its presence? I looked around the shadowy room. It was oddly familiar, but somehow not. Something shifted in the near-darkness and I leapt to my feet.
I let out a sigh of relief as a Norn came into view, the same one we’d met when we’d travelled back in time. Suddenly I realized where I was. I was in the cave where the Norn had sent me back to the World Tree.
“Am I really here?” I asked, though I knew I didn’t need to ask out loud for the Norn to hear me.
Not entirely, a voice echoed in my head. You are here visiting me, just as much as you were present in your visit with Yggdrasil.
“Where is the key?” I asked shakily.
The Norn took a few steps forward to tower over me, then lowered her wolf-like paw to my chest. You are one.
I gasped and pulled away. That wasn’t possible. “Why am I here?” I asked, feeling almost angry in my desperation.
I did not bring you here, the Norn answered.
I shook my head. The key could have brought me, but that wasn’t right. It wouldn’t want to be here, but I wasn’t capable of any sort of subconscious travel myself, was I?
I took a shaky breath. How I’d gotten there wasn’t important. There were far more pressing matters. “What do you mean, the key and I are one?”
The Norn approached me again and put her massive paw on my shoulder. I can feel its energy, intermingling with yours. It was not always an object, but pure energy made when Yggdrasil was torn apart. It has reverted to that state, within you.
The Norn caught me as I almost fell, holding on to my arms until I became steady once more. At some point I’d began to cry, but the tears didn’t feel wet. I knew they were there, but they weren’t entirely physical, just like I wasn’t entirely physical.
“How do I get rid of it?” I sobbed.
You and the key may both die, she explained, releasing your energies into the universe.
My thoughts jumped from Alaric, to Mikael, to the child inside of me.
There may be another way, the Norn thought suddenly. She crouched to lower her paw to my belly. Perhaps the foreign energy could be focused into your child, giving the wild magic human form.
I pulled forcefully away from the Norn. “How dare you!” I gasped. “I won’t sacrifice a child just to save myself.”
The Norn didn’t seem offended, and instead continued to look down at me impassively. Then you all shall die.
I closed my eyes and shook my head over and over again. I needed to get out of there. I knew my body was still back in the present time, but I didn’t know how to reach it.
As you wish, the Norn thought sadly. I lurched backward as she shoved me, then sat bolt upright in a cushy bed, laboring to catch my breath.
Alaric had been in a hunched, seated position next to me, silhouetted by the moonlight peeking in through the window. As soon as I woke, he turned to face me and gripped both my arms in his hands, searching my face for some sign that I was myself.
He looked scared, and whether it was of me, or for me, I could not tell.
I was trying to think of how to explain everything to Alaric, when there was a knock on the door. Neither of us told the visitor to come in, but the door opened anyway.
There were several visitors I would have expected at that moment, but Faas wasn’t one of them. He looked almost like a kicked puppy as he pushed the door aside and slowly entered the room to approach the bed. I would have glared at him if I’d had the strength.
“What do you want?” Alaric asked, his anger at the interruption clear in his voice.
Faas raked his swatch of blond hair away from his face, unperturbed by Alaric’s tone, then turned his gaze to me. “I wanted to apologize.”
If I’d been shocked by his appearance, now I was doubly shocked. “Come again?”
“I thought you unworthy to be the bearer of such a power as the Lykill,” he explained. “For lack of a better word, I was jealous. Now I see what a burden it truly is. I pity you.”
I wasn’t sure I liked his explanation, but at least he was trying. “Thanks, I guess,” I conceded. “And thanks for keeping me from killing anyone.”
He replied with a sharp nod. “Before you lost consciousness, the key seemed to melt,” he went on. “It slid across your skin like molten metal. Is it gone?”
I held my breath. I hadn’t yet figured out how I would explain things to Alaric, but it looked like now was the time, whether I liked it or not.
I exhaled. “It’s inside of me—part of me . . . or something.”
Alaric inhaled sharply, then turned to meet my eyes. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. “While I was . . . out, I visited the Norn back in time, just like what happened when I visited Yggdrasil.”
“Yggdrasil?” Faas hissed.
I waved him off and continued to speak to Alaric. “She told me the key was part of me now.”
“I must inform Mikael,” Faas interrupted again.
“Go,” Alaric ordered, clearly not desiring any more interruptions. As Faas left, Alaric turned back to me. “Did she tell you how to undo it?”
I shook my head. I felt like I should be crying, but I was oddly calm. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the key exerting its influence over me. “She said the key and I could die together, or perhaps we could put the key’s energy into our baby, thus giving it a physical form. I refused either option.”
He took my hand in his, lifting it to kiss my knuckles. “Good,” he breathed.
I closed my eyes, reveling in the simple sensation of his lips on my skin. Just that morning I could have killed him. I might still. I shivered.
“Is it good?” I asked softly. “I’m a danger to everyone. Perhaps I should have let the Norn end things for me right then.”
Alaric squeezed my hand and gave me a dark look. “Your risk is more than ours. At least we can choose to put ourselves in harm’s way. This was all thrust upon you.”
Movement caught my eye, and I turned to see Mikael standing in the doorway, his head nearly reaching the moulding. “How do you feel?” he asked.
I laughed, though it was more of a bitter grunt. “I’m sharing my body with a force of corrupted, wild magic that could take me over at any time. How do you think I feel?”
“There may still be a way to defeat it,” he stated.
“How?” Alaric asked instantly, before I could close my gaping jaw.
“The key is an ancient power,” Mikael began as he approached the bed. “It is a concentration of the forces of chaos and corruption that destroyed Yggdrasil, the dark to balance the light. The old gods left this world long before Yggdrasil, and that is why the Norns created so many of us in their image.”
I clenched my fists in impatience. We needed an answer and Mikael was just standing around talking about long dead myths. Yggdrasil and the old gods were gone. There was nothing they could do to help us.
Mikael looked at me like he was reading my thoughts, then gave me a slightly mocking smile. “The power of Yggdrasil is still within the key, just as it still resides within the Norns. The powe
r to jump through time, and to different worlds. That power is now within you.”
“Please don’t tell me your plan is for me to travel to a different world to find the old gods.”
Mikael scoffed. “Of course not. That would be ridiculous. My plan is for you to bring the old gods to us, using the power of Yggdrasil, and the connection of our blood to draw them forth. You have a direct link to Bastet sitting right beside you.”
Alaric looked stunned. “You’re mad.”
Mikael smiled at Alaric, then knelt on the floor in front of us to take my free hand in his. “And what about you, Madeline? As someone who has touched Yggdrasil itself, as someone who has tasted the power of the Norns, and in effect, of the old gods, do you think me mad?”
Fear tickled down my spine, but it wasn’t my fear. I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it, feeling more than thinking about what he’d said.
After a moment, I smiled. “Quite the contrary, I think you’re on to something.”
Alaric turned to me in disbelief. I really didn’t know if Mikael’s plan could work, but the key seemed to think it might be a possibility. It shivered again. It was afraid of the old gods. Something about this new closeness let me sense its emotions more keenly. We were one in the same now, after all.
Epilogue
I finally obtained new clothes. The dark wash jeans fit me like a second skin, complementing the magenta silk blouse. It felt unbelievably good to be back in normal clothes, and even better to have clean underwear. Tabitha had done the shopping, though I could have trusted any of the women with us to get me jeans that were long enough. They all knew the tall girl struggle.
We were all packed up and planned to leave Clive and Marie’s home later that evening, under the cover of night. According to Mikael, we were heading North, far North. Someplace remote, where police weren’t looking for a group of murderers, and where another altercation with our enemies might go unnoticed. The only other hint I’d been given was that it would be cold. Full winter gear was laid out across mine and Alaric’s bed.
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