16. Halls of the Slain
17. I Don’t Believe In…
18. Your Mission, if you Choose…
19. Hvergelmir
20. A Confluence of Enemies
21. Starlight
22. A Parting Gift
23. Truffles
24. Word on the Vine
25. Mummy
26. De-Nile
27. Just Keep Climbing
28. Yew Dale
29. A Rainbow for a Redhead
30. A Room With A View
31. The Craven Claim
32. Valley of Doom
33. City of Ash: Part One
34. Rainbow Sky
35. City of Ash: Part Two
36. The Utgard Fortress
37. Thief in the Forest
38. A Problem Shared…
39. Maze of Memory: Part One
40. A Different Kind of Plan
41. A Prayer and Some Scissors
42. Maze of Memory: Part Two
43. Quake
44. Me, You, Her
Interlude
Interlude
Interlude
III. Gods Of Fire
EXCERPT
45. Dead Shore
46. All Fathers
47. Evacuation
48. Windy City
49. Hands Off My Cousin
50. That’s My Ride
51. Jewel in the Crown
52. Let’s See
53. Time Crystal
Interlude
IV. End of the Line
54. Merrily on High
55. Alfheim: Land of Ash
56. Mending the Tear
57. Inundated
58. Yule
Epilogue
Prologue
To my son, Theodore Alastair Clemensen,
I leave everything.
—The Last Will and Testament of Espen Clemensen
I watched the arrow soar.
The clutch of friends and family around me seemed to fall away, leaving nothing but the misty shore and majestic swoop of the Norwegian mountains as they met the tide. The arrow faultlessly whistled through the air, head aflame – Nikolaj never missed, especially not with Elvish weapons.
It struck the boat where my father lay, wrapped in a coat lined with falcon feathers, the sword he’d inherited from his own father tucked underneath. I let out a cry the second the arrow splintered the wood, as if it had split me in two instead.
‘Theo,’ Ava whispered, ‘stay strong for your father. He’s watching you.’ I looked at Nikolaj, who’d just lit his nephew’s funeral pyre, and saw nothing but madness in his eyes. I couldn’t even glance at my grandmother. Her only son was burning up before her, soon to be buried by the waters of his birthplace, along with my mother’s ashes.
Nikolaj hooked his bow and arrow over his back, touching his silver necklace so that they vanished from sight. He saluted us with an arm across his chest and fizzled away.
I
Farewell
Ava | Theo | Lorenzo | Menelaus | Raphael | Akhenaten
1
All Together Now
Three Days Earlier
For Ava, the Battle of Hellingstead had been crazy enough – Freyja riding down from the heavens in a golden chariot, Malachi slaughtering willy-nilly, emphasis on willy – naked and possessed by Loki. Not to mention Penny’s incarceration into a bottomless mirror and…
And Menelaus being dragged to Hel. Don’t go there, don’t think about it.
But none of that compared to the spectacle of watching a sea god form out of the Bristol Channel, presenting Espen’s icy corpse to her and Theo, before retreating back into the waves. The stink of rotting fish and Theo’s grief. It was too much.
Theo carried his Father back to Hellingstead Hall in his arms, cradling him like a broken doll. ‘Of course,’ he muttered. ‘Of course. This is how Father found Mum’s body. I always wondered why she hadn’t been swept away before he came for her.’
There wasn’t much she could say to that. They dried Espen’s body and laid him in his bed, and for a while she left Theo alone with his father, allowing him space.
She explored the library while she was waiting, trying to distract herself from the silence of the place. In the end, she sat at Espen’s huge mahogany desk. How did Theo feel, knowing that, as his father sacrificed himself to save Theo from the Valkyries, the Ducis Imperi of the Praefecti himself had strolled into these very grounds and stolen the amulet?
The amulet Isobel had wanted Ava to find and protect. Well, she’d failed. She’d failed to prevent the horrendous visions that had plagued her, every single one. Menelaus was murdered and resurrected to fight in an undead army. Theo was killed and only came back because the gods – and Espen – intervened. What had she done to avert disaster? Work in a shop giving readings on the side. And she hadn’t even managed to stop Isis from being kidnapped. ‘Ugh,’ she shouted into the rafters. ‘What’s the point in having foreknowledge if I can’t change fate?’
And what was the point in yelling at a load of old beams? Not like there’s an answer up there.
Ava yelped as a brown-paper packet tumbled out of the air and landed with a thud in the middle of the desk. I stand corrected. She ran her fingers over the writing on the top and paused. This, whatever it was, wasn’t her answer. It was Theo’s.
He appeared in a shower of sparks at her shoulder. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘I heard you shouting. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine. It just appeared. I think it’s for you.’
He picked up the package. ‘It’s Father’s handwriting. I better open it.’ It didn’t take a clairvoyant to figure out what that look meant. This was something he needed to do himself.
She stood and kissed him on the cheek. All the passion he had for her before the battle had seeped out of him, and he avoided her eyes as he took his position at the desk. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Apologies rarely cared about timing in her experience. ‘Theo, I’m sorry we couldn’t stop Frigg’s prophecy. Maybe I could’ve tried harder, gleaned more from the visions—’
‘It’s not your fault,’ he said, deadpan. ‘It’s the Clemensen destiny. It’s why Father sent you away.’ He shrugged her hand off his shoulder and reached for the letter opener. ‘I never appreciated what he sacrificed to protect us, and because of my stupidity he had to leave me just when I need him most. Two parents, an aunt, and a cousin lost to the Praefecti, and now I must fight Akhen alone.’
‘You’re not alone, you have me.’
Yeah, because what could she do? Dream the bastard to death?
Theo didn’t reply. She left him at the desk and walked into the garden. Just in time for the portal to open.
As soon as Ava was out of sight, I sliced open the packet, my heart pounding. Although Father was upstairs, lifeless in bed, seeing his Last Will and Testament unfold in my hands was like receiving Thor’s hammer to the gut. I only had moments to skim it and riffle through the other letters that came with it before Ava called my name through the library window. I scooped up the little jewellery box from the desk – no time to examine the contents – and rushed outside to join her.
Raphael and Lorenzo appeared hand-in-hand through the trees that had bowed together to form the portal. I shuddered at the sight of Raphael’s delicate features lacerated with strange cuts, and the paleness of Lorenzo’s complexion. My first instinct was to embrace them, relieved they’d survived, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t even smile.
‘Where’s Nikolaj?’
‘Hello to you too, me’ansum,’ Lorenzo said. ‘He’s coming… but Theo, he’s a little different.’
Right on cue, Uncle Nik came hurtling through the portal, his long, blond hair spraying into the air as if gravity meant nothing to it, his vibrant green eyes burning with their full Elvish power.
‘You don’t say,’ I said, as Nik started hopping around on alternate legs, stopping to babble nonsense at a tree. He waved his arms in the air and the
portal sputtered out of existence. ‘What happened?’
Raphael pointed to his face. ‘Akhenaten used trapped landvættirs to imprison and torture me. Nikolaj absorbed them into his body to free me but we can’t get them out. We had to escape to Alfheim, but even his kin proved powerless.’
‘That, and I got stabbed in the back on the way there,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Almost got me in the heart.’
I swallowed. Ava approached Nikolaj like one might approach a wild beast ensnared in a trap. He swept her off her feet and swung her in the air, kissing her on the cheek and raining conjured flowers upon her head. ‘He seems harmless enough,’ she said, regaining her balance.
Nikolaj grinned, speeding toward me with open arms. The second he opened his mouth the air filled with high-pitch ringing of a million tuning forks. Lorenzo dived on the ground and covered his sensitive vampire ears with his hands.
‘Stop that!’ I yelled.
Nik shut his mouth and frowned.
‘What the hell?’ Ava said.
‘The landvættirs are trying to communicate with you, Gatekeeper.’ Raphael edged over to my uncle and placed his elfin hand on Nik’s arm. He started to sing, and the way Raphael sung was with birdsong and the hidden rhythms of the earth. It calmed the chaos raging inside Nikolaj and his hair settled back on his shoulders. ‘That will help for a little while.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Put them to sleep.’
‘Of course.’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘How many land-sprites are trapped in my uncle?’
Raphael glanced at Lorenzo, who was only just back on his feet. ‘Ah… no more than a few—’
‘Okay, that’s mana—’
‘Hundred.’ Raphael shrivelled under my expression. ‘On the bright side, he would’ve gone mad by now if it wasn’t for his Elvish blood and his experience of sharing his body with the Gatekeeper.’
Nikolaj, now somewhat normal, gave me that hug. ‘I am so glad you’re safe, Nevø. Why isn’t Espen here?’ He waved my reply away. ‘Silly question – he’s probably busy dealing with the aftermath at the Headquarters.’
I wished the ground would open up and swallow me as it had Menelaus. ‘Father,’ I said, and then I fell into Uncle’s arms and sobbed into his chest. Only a few hours would’ve passed during their time in Alfheim, whereas a day had in Midgard. How would they know of the battle’s outcome when they’d left before it had ended? ‘He died for me,’ I said. ‘He gave himself up to save my life and the Nine Realms.’
‘No!’ Nikolaj pulled away, the fire in his eyes igniting again. ‘No!’ He screamed at the sky. ‘Espen, I forbid it! Do you hear me? You get right back here now or I swear to Odin I’ll drag you back myself!’
I jumped to catch him as he suddenly levitated into the air, but I missed. Raphael melted into the wind and stretched rope-like around Nikolaj’s waist, anchoring him to the ground. ‘He’s with Mum,’ I croaked, not having the energy to recount the tale of my own ascent into the heavens with Freyja and my bittersweet reunion with the souls of my dead parents. ‘There’s no way he’s coming back.’
Nikolaj sunk back down. ‘Oh, my sweet nephew. Oh.’
‘You can shout at him inside,’ I said. ‘He’s in bed.’
Lorenzo stepped forward, ready to offer his condolences but I couldn’t take it. I spun away and marched into the rear hallway.
‘Nevø,’ Nikolaj called, ‘where are you going?’
‘Where’s Menelaus?’ Lorenzo asked.
‘Ava will catch you up,’ I said, as the back door closed behind me. ‘I have a funeral to arrange.’
2
Home Is Where The Fear Is
The wake was held at my grandmother’s house – a solid structure built into the rocky mountain side, a glacier-fed river at its feet. She held onto my arm, her nails biting through my cloak, our mutual pain shared through touch.
The house was packed. ‘I never knew Father had so many friends,’ I said.
‘I was always complaining to your Farfar that the village children spent more time with us than their own parents. That all changed after Espen’s twenty-first birthday.’
‘After the avalanche,’ I said.
She cleared her throat and waved at someone who’d just arrived from the veranda. ‘He didn’t want to hurt anyone,’ she said. I squeezed her hand. ‘Excuse me, I need a drink.’ She slipped from my arm and hurried into the kitchen, head down.
This is all my fault. She lost her son because of me. I’d done the exact opposite of Father; once I inherited the Gatekeeper burden, I’d dived into danger, ignoring his warnings that determining my own destiny meant exposing myself to the Praefecti. My mother had tried the same, and she’d died too. Well, they say you inherit your intelligence from your mother.
Ava thrust a glass of mead into my hand. ‘It’s buzzing in here,’ she said, ‘I can sense the magic everywhere…’
‘Pneuma outnumber sapiens in these mountains,’ I said, not meeting her eye. Odin, Thor, and Freyr, I hated how much danger I’d put Ava in. Akhenaten knew about her, and I’d announced my identity as the Gatekeeper to an entire battlefield. ‘Not to mention the entire Highlander clan of witches and warlocks on the veranda.’ At that moment, my grandfather, Alastair, waved at me through the front window. I tried to smile but I grimaced instead.
A scream rang out from the kitchen. I ran towards the noise and found my grandmother hacking at a vase of lilies with a kitchen knife. ‘What’s going on?’
She pointed to the elegant card on the counter with the knife. ‘It’s from him. He thinks he can threaten me in my home? At my son’s funeral?’ She threw the vase on the floor.
I snatched the knife from her hand and pinned her to my chest. Ava held up the card, In Sympathy looping across its front.
Dear Elsa and Theodore Clemensen,
Death will come to us all…to some sooner than others. May the scorching face of Aten shine down upon dear Espen’s soul for eternity. I imagine such a fate preferable to freezing in a watery grave. Rest assured, the Glorious Aten is watching over your family always. Akhenaten.
I wanted to vomit. That thing – the Midgard Serpent himself – had sent this, timing its arrival while we’d been occupied by enacting my Father’s wish for a traditional Viking sea burial. ‘He will burn for this,’ I said.
Rainbows decorated Hellingstead upon our return. I’d transported everyone ‘home’ in that unique Clemensen way, and promptly left them to drink the ale and mead supplies in the kitchen, while I popped and fizzed to the expansive rooftop. The early summer sun broke through the rain and occasional rumble of thunder – my fault again. Nikolaj had taught me how to tame my thoughts and loosen my grip on the local weather system, but I just didn’t care, and he and his many land-sprites had abandoned us after the funeral. Let it rain. Let the lightning skewer the clouds and the rainbows fight them off. It was like watching Ava trying to console me with her words.
From this vantage point I could see the devastation wrought by the Battle of Hellingstead. Ava had suggested repairing the Praetoriani HQ magically but it was wrong to glaze over the tragedies that had played out over that hill. Alastair told me that the area had been protected from sapien eyes during the fight with a careful net of spells Father had worked around the Praetoriani’s borders. Belle, after finding her wife, Isis, among those who’d escaped through the tunnels, had started work by organising the Pneuma clans, and had convinced the media the damage had been due to a major gas leak and an internal explosion.
Julian and Michele were nowhere to be found. Isis – thankfully unharmed – glimpsed them during her own escape. As far as I knew, they had no idea Menelaus had been stolen once again by Hel.
Is he even alive? Lorenzo had murdered him, albeit under Malachi’s Enthralment, before his resurrection as Hel’s soldier. I hoped the fact that he hadn’t exploded into dust, like the rest of Loki’s undead army, meant Menelaus was okay.
Just before we had left for Norway, Julian sent a parce
l containing all my mother’s diaries that he’d stolen after her death. I still didn’t have an explanation as to why he stole them in the first place, but it was something. Maybe I could use his connection to the diaries to track him down.
My coven had vanished too – I couldn’t blame them for that after I’d trapped Penny in the cursed mirror. Maybe they’d fled back to Tuscany with Michele. Whatever they’d done, I was still their leader. I was responsible for them. I was responsible for everyone.
‘What a strange evening, Gatekeeper.’
I pushed the wet curls out of my eyes and saw Raphael at my shoulder. The rain appeared to run off his hair and skin without getting it wet. ‘I don’t like seeing those cuts on your face,’ I said, noting that they were silvered now. ‘I thought nothing could hurt you?’
He hooked his little finger around mine and lifted his marred face to the rain. ‘I love being high up,’ he breathed, ‘letting Jörð carry me in her currents. The earth may seem mighty and endless, but she is a delicate system. Fragile even, when the right pressure is applied.’ He pressed his fingertips into my chest. ‘As is the human heart. I truly grieve for you, Clemensen. Espen was a good man. He may not have always behaved how I would’ve liked, but his intentions were always pure, especially when it came to you.’
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 74