Redeemer (Night War Saga Book 3)

by Leia Stone

  My armor sent a sharp zap along my arm, making me wince. “I get it,” I complained. “The piece is here. Now stop trying to maim me so I can look for it already.” The electricity ebbed, and it took everything I had not to roll my eyes. “Thank you,” I muttered begrudgingly. A soothing pulse massaged my arm, and I tried not to freak out at the weirdness of my armor’s energetic ‘you’re welcome’.

  My gaze moved along the walls of the hut, but there were no shelves or drawers or hidden grooves in the wood that could mask a piece of an immortal weapon. I lifted the blanket, but stopped short of examining the bedpan. The fates wouldn’t possibly be that cruel. I hoped. Since there was no other furniture in the room, I deduced the piece must be beneath one of the floorboards. I scanned the planks that lined the tiny space, but each was securely wedged against its neighbor. None of them seemed to have a trick lever or any kind of divot that might trigger a secret compartment. I was about to give up and check the contents of the bedpan—ew!—when a glint of light from between two of the floorboards caught my eye.

  Oh, thank God.

  Sliding my dagger back into my boot, I used the tip of my sword to wedge it between the floorboards and pry one of them up. The piece of Gud Morder was half-buried beneath the icy dirt in the ground, but there was one bigtime problem: my weapon was saturated with dark energy. Only small shafts of the normally blinding blue light made their way past the black ball of energy surrounding the piece. Darkness draped so tightly around the weapon I wasn’t sure how I was going to extract it without getting infected. And no way was I going back under the darkness’s spell. No. Freaking. Way.

  Ever.

  Grunts and clangs in the distance let me know the fight continued outside, so calling Greta in for help wasn’t an option. Besides, at some point I had to accept the Alfödr’s words—I was the only one who could destroy Nott, which meant there were some things I’d have to learn to tackle alone. And extracting a weapon piece from a dark energy lock seemed like an easier opening move than a solo faceoff against the goddess of all things evil. Again.

  You’ve got this, Allie. And if you screw it up, well, Scarlet can evac you to the healing unit for another stay. Third time’s a charm, right?

  God, I hoped there wasn’t a third stay in the healing unit in my future.

  With a grounding breath, I called the Liv into my chest. It pulsed lightly before flaring to life, surging through my arm and into my palm.

  See? Totally got this.

  I hurriedly molded the Liv into its light whip form, then thickened the rope to twice its normal size. It responded with a fierce spark, so I pulled the whip back and cracked it at my weapon. A hissing noise rose from the black ball as it broke into a dozen pieces. The pieces skittered across the wooden floor, revealing my glowing blade beneath the planks. I reached down to grab it, but the black pieces bore down on my hand. I pulled my fingers out of the way just before the darkness touched them. The black energy reconvened in a disjointed mass atop my weapon piece. Dang it. I cracked my whip again, and this time when they separated, the black pieces moved stealthily along the floor towards my feet. Crappers, they were coming for me. Stumbling backward in panic, I stabbed at the ground, mercifully piercing the majority of the black blobs. When my back hit the wall of the hut I shrieked, thinking the darkness had attacked me from behind. Get a hold of yourself, Allie.

  ‘Master Allie okay?’ Scarlet pressed the thought into my head.

  ‘Never better.’ The surviving dark bits converged on the ground, forming a menacing blob that rose slowly to hover in front of my chest.

  Oh, hell no, blob.

  ‘Master Allie need help?’ Scarlet’s telepathy was frantic.

  ‘I got this,’ I replied. Without explaining further, I sent a fresh surge of the Liv through my hand. My light whip crackled beneath the influx of energy. Its raw power sent the blob scurrying backward. Good. It shifted from side to side, like a dark, spherical bull invisibly pawing the ground, and the moment it charged toward my chest I raised and lowered my arm. A fierce crack rang through the air as my whip made contact with the blob. The darkness split into two pieces, each melting into a shapeless puddle. Hoping this mutated form meant whatever I was doing had had some kind of impact, I cracked my whip at the closest of the puddles. Black sparks shot from its surface, disappearing as they rose, but the bulk of the darkness remained on the floorboards. Come on. Die already. A slow eternity passed while I hacked away at the puddle, pausing only to divert my attention to its slightly less aggressive twin. My arm quickly tired from the repeated strikes, and it wasn’t long before my chest burned from the effort of gulping shallow breaths between blows. Would these dark blobs never die?

  My throat constricted as the putrid odor of death swept through the hut, and I could only imagine the guards were sweeping the encampment. They must not have cared that there was a life-or-death battle going on inside the prison hut, because while I tried not to allow the darkness to possess me, the stench lifted, taking the heavy energy of the guards along with it. My body moved on autopilot, and I continued to slash at the puddles with my whip. The black masses were slow to give up their fight, and I’d only just eviscerated one when Tore’s voice pierced the chilly Helheim air. His cry echoed from the icy plain to bounce around the tiny space of Vidar’s hut, filling my heart with dread.

  Terror was a mighty motivator, and with Tore’s wellbeing foremost in my mind, I focused my attention on the remaining black puddle. It had recovered somewhat, and now formed a more cohesive spherical shape. It launched itself upward in the general direction of my chest, but I hurled it to the side with a slash of my whip. The puddle-turned-orb hit the wall hard, sliding back to the ground. Good. Ignoring the inferno of exhaustion that was my entire right arm, I stepped forward and ripped into the orb. Tiny black flecks rose like ashes, dissipating in a flicker of energetic dust, until the entire mass of darkness was nothing but a memory.

  Thank God.

  When the air was darkness-free, I gripped my sword in one hand, and bent down to retrieve the twin blades of Gud Morder with the other. The piece was half buried in the frozen earth below the board, so icy dirt wedged between my fingernails as I struggled to pull it free. When it became clear this was a two-handed job, I checked the energy around me for immediate threats. Outside was a sea of darkness, peppered with the occasional protector-induced bright spot. But I didn’t pick up any dark energy signatures close enough to take me down in the next half-minute. With a healthy dose of trepidation, I allowed the Liv to simmer down in my chest. My light whip dimmed, then faded completely, so my only weapon was the dagger in my boot and the sword I laid cautiously on the ground. With a quick prayer to the collective cosmos of pantheons, I dropped to my knees and clawed at the ground. The ice-encrusted dirt dug into my skin, grating it raw and sending needle-like pain shooting through my hands. But I forced my mind away from the sensations, focusing instead on the increasingly bright glow of the weapon piece. After a small eternity, I’d dug deep enough to extract the blades, and as my fingers wrapped around the entwined pieces of metal, their glow faded to a light sheen.

  Relief coursed through me as I relayed the good news to my dragon. ‘Got it.’

  ‘I come for you,’ she replied, and I tucked the seventh piece of Gud Morder into the pouch at my waist.

  Thank God. Just one to go.

  A sickeningly hollow laugh came from outside. Ice coursed through my veins as I was jarred from my premature celebration. No way. How had Nott gotten to Helheim so fast? With my heart pounding in my chest, I tore out of the hut, my sword clenched tightly in my hand. My gaze roamed over the icy wasteland where more than a dozen men lay dead on the ground. My heart seized, but a quick scan revealed that none of them were ours. My knees buckled slightly, and I threw my hand out for balance just as my dragon’s talons touched down beside me. Scarlet snaked her long neck beneath my flailing arm, preventing me from bruising my tailbone on the icy ground.

  ‘Thanks,’ I
said, genuinely meaning it.

  ‘Master Allie, look up.’

  Any relief I felt at not breaking my butt evaporated the minute I followed my dragon’s sightline. The front wall of the encampment lay in icy shards on the ground, clearly blown apart by someone with no respect for Hel—or the Alfödr’s prison. But it was the acrid smell of evil that stimulated my gag reflex and sent my centers on lockdown. Someone truly heinous must be inside the camp for that level of dark energy to press down on me. And if that horrible, screeching laugh was any indication, evil was a lot closer than I’d thought. No way was I making it to the Bifrost without Nott catching me first. I was going to have to fight my way out of here.

  Crap.

  ‘Scarlet, go high. I’ll call you back when we need you.’ I didn’t know what made me tell my dragon to leave, but I had the distinct feeling that we’d need an ace in the hole in the near future. A hidden dragon was the best I could come up with on short notice.

  ‘Yes, Master Allie. Be careful.’ Without objection, Scarlet launched herself into the sky, soaring to the right and obscuring herself within the forest beyond the encampment.

  ‘You too.’ I sighed, wondering if my dragon and I would ever do normal, pet/owner things like take walks or just hang out without the threat of imminent death. Life goals.

  My attention snapped back to the present, and I hastened to Tore’s side as the bone-thin night goddess stormed into the encampment, flanked by two dozen of her demonic night elves. They marched through the broken ice wall, their evil eyes roving across the landscape. I had no doubt they intended to steal any soul they decided should be theirs . . . including mine.

  My grip tightened on my sword as my favorite protector motioned our team back. We met in a loose cluster, weapons in hand and game faces set. Even Vidar clutched a metal pipe in one hand, and the anger he shot at Nott made me think he was actually on our side. I really hoped he wasn’t going to disappoint his son—or the rest of us—by turning traitor.

  Nott’s cold eyes scanned our group. She held up one hand and the horde of night elves slowed to a stop behind her. Her thin lips quirked up in a cruel smile, and she allowed her gaze to settle on the black-haired, tooth-impaired god clutching a crude weapon. “Revenge,” she crooned at Vidar. “It’s lovely to see you.”

  Vidar tightened his grip on the pipe before stepping forward to stand a few feet in front of his son. “Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, dining on the souls of small children?” he challenged.

  Nott threw her hair over her shoulder, a low hiss escaping her clenched teeth. “You chose the wrong side. You should have accepted when I offered you a top seat in my new Midgard.”

  Goddess of Awful did what now?

  “I like my place in Asgard just fine.” Vidar moved his pipe in a slow circle, whether warming up or working out a nervous twitch, I wasn’t quite sure. The night elves had fanned out behind Nott, and the guards who’d been displaced by the fallen ice wall were bearing down on us with angry, hollow eyes. Rage, evil, and death formed an energetic blanket that threatened to suffocate me, and I drew shallow breaths to keep myself afloat.

  “Tore, we need to get our team out of here,” I whispered. I shuffled closer to his back, and he chanced a look over his shoulder. His eyes fell on my satchel, and I gave a tight nod to let him know the weapon piece was inside before tilting my head backward. Though we were pretty good at understanding each other, it was highly unlikely he was able to glean, ‘My mind-reading dragon is hiding in the forest, so if we can book it to the back of the encampment and summon the Bifrost, she can dive-bomb Nott until we’re in the clear,’ from my loaded look. But before I could spell out my protect-the-piece strategy, Nott glided eerily forward until she stood in front of Vidar. The blackness of her energy was thick and cloying and I stepped backward, trying to keep her out of my space. Tore moved with me, reaching behind him with his sword-free hand to touch my arm.

  “If she attacks, run,” Tore whispered. “Find Scarlet and get out of here. I’ll follow when I can.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” I vowed.

  “You can argue with me when we’re back home. But do what I’m asking now.” He gave my arm a light squeeze, then placed both hands on his broadsword and turned his attention forward. Apparently, our little chat was over.

  Which was good, because the Goddess of Night looked way too happy to be standing solo with Tore’s dad. Oh, no. She had a plan. And in one twisted way or another, by letting her isolate Vidar, we’d played right into it.

  “Tore,” I hissed. “Your dad.”

  Sure enough, Nott’s hand snaked out to wrap around Vidar’s arm. Icicles laced my vertebrae as she whirled him around so his back was pressed against her bony ribcage. “It took some work,” she seethed into his ear, “but I’ve finally found a way to control the realms’ most destructive force. Want to see?”

  Oh, God. She didn’t mean . . . no way had she figured out how to . . . crap.

  The green light only flickered in Nott’s hand for a second before she threw it to the ground. But that second stretched for an eternity as memories of death, despair, and immediate evisceration raced across my mind. And when the glowing, green fire erupted at my feet in a blaze of inglorious destruction, I scrambled backward in a wave of sheer terror.

  Nott had summoned the eternal flame. We were completely and totally at her mercy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE GREEN FLAMES LAPPED forward with a ferocity that sent my team scrambling back. Nott held Vidar at the edge of the blaze. He didn’t utter a word as the green fire moved toward him, but his knuckles whitened, tightening their grip on the pipe. No way could he stave off the immortal embodiment of evil and her magical death fire with a pipe, for crying out loud.

  “Go.” I shouted to Tore over the roar of the fire. “Help him.”

  “You’re my priority, Allie.” Tore glanced over his shoulder, but I pushed him forward.

  “I’ll have your back, just go. Now!”

  “All right.” Tore stormed toward his father as a cry from my left pulled my attention to Malena. She and the warriors had charged at the night elves, and now swung their swords overhead as they bore down on their opponents. Greta marched behind them, wands up and ready to clap, but she favored one leg as she moved forward. Had she been hurt in the earlier attack? And if so, why hadn’t she healed?

  My friend’s survival trumped any advantage we’d gain from a surprise air attack, and I sent a silent message to the forest. ‘Scarlet, pick up Greta and let her ride you out of here.’

  ‘Yes, master. Scarlet like Greta.’

  The eternal flame lapped at my feet and I jumped backward, putting some space between me and imminent energetic dissipation. How the hell had Nott learned to summon it? Did that mean she could control its movements, too? So not good, Allie. If that was the case, Nott needed to be weakened before she could smother all of us in a fiery, eviscerative death. With a ragged inhale, I called the Liv into my chest, running it down through my palm until my whip cracked to life. Tore had nearly reached Nott and his father, and I charged forward, looking for an angle from which to strike Nott without hurting Vidar, too. Her arm now snaked around Revenge’s throat, and his mouth dropped open as if he struggled to breathe.

  “Hey! Nott!” I shouted as I approached, aiming to distract her from my advancing boyfriend. Her head snapped up, and she treated me to a cold smile. In my periphery I saw the whirling metal of my teammates’ swords, and though my stomach churned at the danger I knew they were in, I had to trust that they could handle Nott’s night elves on their own. I had the mother of all evil beasts in my sights. And it was up to me to keep her focus away from Tore. “Nott,” I repeated, stamping down the anxiety that wanted to grab me by the neck and drag me back to Norway. Not yet.

  “What?” the night goddess seethed.

  “Tell me. How did you learn to control the eternal flame?” My whip sparked at my side, but I didn’t strike. From this position, lashing out
at Nott would most likely make her hurt Vidar. And Tore was close enough to her right side that I knew he’d attack soon. Once she was distracted enough to release Revenge, I could make my move. The whip wouldn’t kill her, but hopefully it would weaken her enough that she’d retreat like she had in Muspelheim.

  “Oh, I can control much more than the flame.” Nott kept one hand on Revenge and raised the other to the right. Her fingers rotated as if turning a dial, and Tore skidded forward.

  “What the Hel?” He dug in his heels but continued his forward trajectory, seeming to move against his will. Fear doused my centers, coursing through me like a tidal wave. Don’t hurt him!

  Nott grinned like the lunatic she was, the sickly green flames dancing in shadows across her macabre face. “Come join your daddy,” she crooned, slowly drawing Tore closer with an invisible energy cord, bringing him precariously near the eternal flame.

  I cried out in terror. “Tore!”

  “Stay back, Allie!” Tore shouted. But I ignored him, sprinting forward until an unseen force knocked me flat on my back. Air whooshed from my lungs but I scrambled to sit up, blinking in horror at the energetic dome that settled into place around Tore, Nott and Vidar. Its charge was enough to flatten me, though whatever was happening on its inside clearly didn’t impact Nott’s hold on Tore. My boyfriend struggled to stave off the night goddess’s continual draw, jamming his sword into the ground and pulling to gain some level of traction. But it was no use—Nott kept dragging him closer.

  “Please, stop!” I choked. Nott’s smile widened, and she shifted her fingers again. Now Tore’s neck and face were tinged purple, as if Nott had cut off his air supply. “Please,” I begged. I couldn’t imagine a life without Tore. My pain-in-the-butt protector had become an essential part of my soul’s happiness, and I wasn’t letting Nott take him from me. Not now, not ever.

  Screw begging—I was taking Nott down. Vidar better just duck.