by Ann Gimpel
The dragon followed us inside; her gateway zipped shut. Both of us eyed Rowan. She glared back. “I’m fine,” she said, tightlipped. “And I’m getting off at Midgard.”
Normally, I’d have asked if she minded company, but I was afraid she’d tell me no. Instead, I asked, “What about the Norse-Celtic gathering?”
She clamped her jaws in a tense line. “I haven’t forgotten. We can go there next. I have to check in on the witches. They’re helpless without me. Or close to it.”
I inhaled briskly to mask my relief. She’d said we’d be going, not that she’d see me there. It was a small enough thing, but I’d take it.
“Tell me about these witches,” Zelli said.
This time, the emotion I rode herd on was surprise. Apparently, the dragon planned to stick with us. It was so unheard of, I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it. Dragons interacted with other dragons. Period. If that was changing, Nidhogg must be far more worried about the Breaking than he’d let on.
Or else he’d decided the stone by itself was insufficient to spy on me, and he’d assigned one of his own to take up the slack.
Chapter Five, Rowan
I was being rude and bitchy, but I was tired. I wanted my cozy little chamber. And my cat. And Tansy to make me a soothing cup of herbal tea infused with her witchy healing powers. Mostly, I wanted a place where I didn’t have to be on my guard every single fucking second.
That goddamned giant, the one who considered Mother the original goodtime girl, had pushed an unwelcome message right into my head. Their magic is different enough, neither Bjorn nor Zelli heard him. If they had, they’d have said something.
“Come on, ye hot-bodied darling. Ye know ye want it. I’ll be waiting whenever ye return. Or I could come to you. Just say the word.”
That was when he’d patted his crotch, and not vomiting had turned into a nip-and-tuck proposition. And then there was my not-so-stellar performance where I’d turned into the slut of the year as I invaded Bjorn’s space. I’d been so happy and relieved he was safe, my usual reticence to disclose much of anything personal had scattered to the four winds.
And damn but he felt perfect slathered against me. I wanted him with a singlemindedness that baffled me. The harder I tried to dig through to the bottom of it, the murkier things grew. I’d thought fooling around with him would have taken the edge off my bitch-in-heat routine, but it only made me want more. Lots more.
Guess it placed me squarely in the same court as the horny giant. And my mother. I was confused. And tired. And I had to stop whining and buck up. It had taken time to adapt after the Breaking. Just because all the rules had reshaped themselves again was no reason to pull the covers over my head and pretend my life hadn’t changed.
No more looking back. I shook a mental finger sternly in my face.
After we’d established everyone was coming to Midgard with me, no one had said anything. There was a time I’d have been delighted to have help. Hell, I should fall all over myself thanking Bjorn and Zelli for their support and caring. Instead, I’d clammed up.
What in the fuck was wrong with me? Something for sure, but I had too much else going on to figure it out. Meanwhile, I should stencil Ungrateful Bitch across my forehead.
I’d been watching the markers carved into pillars on Bifrost’s right side. Midgard should be next. I didn’t want to miss it and have to stay on the bridge for a whole other joy ride.
I muffled a snort, turning it into a cough. If I missed my stop, I’d get off at the next one and teleport. Bifrost wasn’t a bus, but it reminded me of riding them back before the world broke. I’d missed many a stop. All it meant was I got to walk a bit. Thinking about walking down city streets reminded me I missed mortals. Even though they lacked magic, their unique energy had made Earth a richer place.
“Get ready,” Zelli said.
I nodded. No reason to be defensive and tell her I hadn’t been a total slacker. I readied power to call a portal into being, but the dragon beat me to it. Next to me, Bjorn’s energy pulsed. Warm. Solid. It took a lot not to wrap an arm around him, but I had to cut my spontaneous displays off at the roots.
At least until I figured out what he and I were to each other.
Since I didn’t have to worry about the gateway, which was forming nicely, I prepared magic in case we walked into a shitstorm. It had happened before—not from Bifrost, but from teleporting—and I like to be ready. Worry about the witches ate at me. Maybe splitting their forces had been a huge mistake. With a few at Inverlochy and the rest beneath Ben Nevis, they were isolated from one another.
Witches can’t teleport. They can’t even use telepathy unless they’re damned close. So if one group was in trouble, the other would never know about it. I slammed my teeth together. Growing crops in Inverlochy’s courtyards had been my idea, and the single item that made it doable, something beyond a suicide mission, was me.
I was the link between the two groups, and I’d been absent.
Granted, I was doing Nidhogg’s bidding, but still, it wasn’t right. If anything happened to any of my witch family because I couldn’t split myself in two, I’d carry the guilt forever.
The portal was open, and I leapt through. Familiar scents washed over me. Earth smelled different than the other Nine Worlds. More like mortals, less like magic. I stopped long enough to inhale deeply.
Zelli walked through last, and the opening shut behind her with a swishing sound. Now that I knew I could access Bifrost from Midgard—and that it wouldn’t play fast and loose with my magic—it might come in handy since it required far less magic than a full-on teleport spell.
“Where do you want to go first?” Bjorn asked.
I got my bearings. It took me a moment since we weren’t in Scotland. The rainbow bridge had spit us out in what looked like the remains of Cornwall on England’s southwestern coast. What had once been a bustling region was just as empty as the rest of the U.K. If mortals remained, they’d gone to ground.
Rusted cars sat at odd angles, and many buildings had fallen in on themselves, creating huge rubble piles. Coyotes and racoons dug through the wreckage, probably intent on unearthing mice. They didn’t even break stride to look our way.
Zelli turned in a full circle, taking it all in. “The Breaking did this?” she asked.
“Yup,” I answered her. “Tornadoes and hurricanes and torrential rain and earthquakes rolled through for years. Once the onslaught of unbelievably bad shit let up, this is what was left.” I spread my arms wide.
“But ’tis inexcusable.” She was still stomping about, using smallish steps to take in the devastation. “I’d heard rumors, but the reality of the destruction is disturbing and sad and heartbreaking.” Fire shot from her open jaws. “I’m glad that mother of yours is our prisoner. I will make certain all the dragons in Fire Mountain know the extent of her perfidy.”
Mother was the last of my concerns. The day I’d forgiven her—never mind, she didn’t deserve it—she’d mostly stopped haunting me. “We need to teleport to get to Scotland,” I said. “I can give you coordinates, or—”
“I will take us,” Zelli said. “Onto my back.”
“What about Bjorn?”
“Him too.” The ashy stream that had been spewing from her mouth turned to steam. Clearly, she liked Bjorn.
“I appreciate the kindness, but are you certain it won’t tax you?” he asked.
Zelli laughed. “I’m quite certain I can move us all to the Highlands with far less expenditure of effort than three of us traveling separately. Where precisely am I aiming for?”
“Inverlochy Castle. It’s north of Fort William.”
“I ken it.” Zelli’s tone was unreadable, but I guessed perhaps she’d had an unpleasant run-in with the Celts there.
I walked to Zelli’s side with Bjorn right behind me. Before I got my own magical assist together, his power surrounded me with its brine and clay scents. I ended up astride the dragon with him right behind me. Pressed up
against him like that, my back to his front, reminded me of us being naked near my special pool just beyond Inverlochy’s boundaries. I’d spent many a day lounging within a ring of standing stones—part of Earth, yet not—watching the water and dreaming of growing up.
Or of being grown up enough to escape my Celtic kin. Then, I’d viewed it as the beginnings of freedom. Brother, had I been young and naïve.
Bjorn wrapped his arms around me and gripped Zelli’s horns just above where I’d grabbed them. I was intensely aware of the press of his arms against mine, of his inner thighs curving around my hips and legs. The hard-hewn muscles of his chest pressed into my back, and his breath was warm near my neck. The swell of an erection pressed into my buttocks.
Why did he have to be so gorgeous?
But his looks were only part of my magnetic attraction to him. Men could be pretty and total assholes. Their attractiveness crashed and burned the second they opened their mouths. With a sinking sensation, I understood I’d fallen—and fallen hard—for Bjorn’s spirit. For the part of him that shone through every cell of his perfect body. He could have been old and wizened and I’d still crave him next to me.
Oh girl, get a grip.
Dragon magic, clean and pure and laced with heat, turned the air around us into a kaleidoscopic mix of colors. The coyotes and racoons did look at us then. A few errant yips sounded as Zelli’s casting transported us north. It was fast, even quicker than I’d expected.
The devastation around Cornwall faded, replaced by an equally ravaged Carlisle. The castle was still recognizable, or I’d not have known where we were. This part of northern England never supported the sheer numbers of mortals Cornwall did, so there was less rubble. We were still hundreds of kilometers from Fort William and Inverlochy castle, though. Maybe Zelli hadn’t known quite where to aim for after all.
Before we could dismount, she said, “I dinna wish to teleport into trouble. We will fly from here. ’Twill be swift since I shall add enchantment to our journey. Once we’re closer, we will overfly the castle ruins.”
“Excellent,” Bjorn said from behind me. “Solid strategy.”
Zelli twisted her head around until she could see us. “Why thank you, Master Sorcerer.”
He laughed, and the sound warmed me. “Never claimed to be a warrior, but I’ve been reading about battles since I was able to hold a scroll.”
She puffed steam all over us and said, “Many methods must work in concert for us to win. Knowledge of tactics goes a long way.”
She spread her wings and turned forward in a single movement. Soon we were skimming through the air. If I hadn’t been in a godawful hurry to make sure the witches were unharmed, I’d have asked if we couldn’t check out Glasgow. I’d always suspected that if mortals remained, they’d have barricaded themselves into defensible positions in the larger cities. We should pass right over Edinburgh, though. It would be good enough.
“Do ye know if the remainder of Midgard looks like this?” Zelli dipped a wing toward the ravaged lands beneath us. What had once been rich farmland was pockmarked with burn scars, deep fissures left by earthquakes, and standing pools surrounded by the bones of long since rotted corpses. Humans. Cows. Horses. Goats. Pigs.
Crows perched on the remains, cawing their pyrrhic victory as they feasted on death.
“I’ve always meant to check,” I admitted. “Never made it farther than Europe, and it looks pretty much the same as here.”
“It was on my agenda as well,” Bjorn said, “but I never could clear the time.”
Something about viewing the wasted lands from my aerial perch iced my blood. I turned my head a little and said, “It looks worse from up here.”
“Know what you mean,” Bjorn agreed. “It’s the scale of things. When we’re standing on the ground, we don’t think about the next patch of dirt over.”
“Yeah. It’s not staring me in the face, so I guess I’ve pretended there have to be places everything is still like it was.”
“Was that why you never teleported to the States or Asia or Australia?” His deep voice tickled my ear.
“Maybe.”
Bjorn snugged his legs against mine and let go of one horn to wrap an arm around my waist. Him holding me felt too good to wriggle away. Besides, where would I have gone?
Rhetorical question. If I’d been serious about escaping his attentions, I could have teleported off the dragon’s back in the space between two breaths.
“We’ll figure something out,” Bjorn was saying when I dragged my fickle mind back from its meanderings.
Had I missed something before his reassurance?
“What do you mean?” I asked.
A whoosh of warm air coated my neck when he exhaled briskly. “I’m not saying everything will be fine because my crystal ball is cloudy. I have no idea what the future holds, but there must be a way to defeat whatever is intent on sucking the marrow from Midgard’s bones.”
“Ye raise a good point.” Zelli’s voice floated back to us. “It revolves around the word ‘whatever.’ Until we figure out precisely who our enemy is, we will be at a loss as to how to counteract them.”
“We fight what’s in front of us,” Bjorn said. “Eventually, the mastermind behind the destruction is bound to make a mistake and reveal himself.”
“Might be a herself.” Zelli shot fire ahead of our flight path.
“Or it might have no gender at all,” I retorted, debating whether to give voice to my true worries. They’d only just begun shaping up after our trip to Jotunheim.
“What if the target isn’t Midgard at all?” I asked.
“What do ye mean?” Zelli replied.
“What if Mother’s miscast spell offered a convenient opening into the Nine Worlds? What if whoever the villain in this piece is was lurking, just waiting for an entry point?”
“If that’s true—and I’m not saying it’s not”—Bjorn tightened his grip around my waist—“how come it’s taken them so long to make a move?”
Before I could develop a reply, Zelli said, “Time is relative. The years since the Breaking are of no consequence to those like you or me. It might have happened yesterday or a hundred years ago.”
“True enough, and grist for the mill,” Bjorn murmured.
It was. I’d make a point of floating my suspicions after we got to the council meeting. Unless they kicked us out so fast we never got a chance to say boo. Zelli had been right about it not taking much time to reach Inverlochy. The bulk of Ben Nevis flashed past on our left.
A ripple in the center of a scorched field caught my eye. “What was that?” I pointed.
Bjorn leaned that direction. “What? I don’t see—”
The cracked, muddy earth exploded as horrors crawled out of it. Snakelike, they had multiple sets of legs, menacing triangular heads, and scuttled like cockroaches once they were free of the hole. At least they didn’t stink of poison. It didn’t mean they weren’t lethal, but they couldn’t burn skin from bones on contact.
Some were black. Some gray. And they varied in length from garden snake size to the largest cobra.
“Hang on!” Zelli bugled. “’Tis going to get rough. Can the two of you close the fissure?”
“Aye, I believe so.” Bjorn’s power slammed into me with such force I almost fell off the dragon. As our magic slotted together, the whole far greater than the sum of both parts, the raw spots from how he’d been wrenched from me healed on contact.
The sky chose that moment to open up. Lightning forked ahead of us, followed by peals of thunder. Rain followed in huge, punishing gouts that drenched me immediately. The wind howled and shrieked like an entire herd of Banshees had been ejected from the Dreaming.
Meanwhile, Zelli focused dragonfire on the snake monsters. Her weapon burned hot and true, impervious to the buckets of rain. I worked with Bjorn, mixing fire and air to deal with the fissure. All the rain wasn’t helping. It only made the muddy gash crumbly and harder to address. For every bit of magic w
e tossed at it, rain made the next part cave in. And for every cave in, ten more snakes slithered out.
They were moving faster now, as if sheer numbers offered them protection and added to their weak magic.
“Hurry!” Zelli cried between two blasts of fire. “The wee bastards are developing wings. I doona wish to deal with them up here.”
My eyes widened. I hadn’t noticed, but wing buds were indeed forming on the snakes, and growing like the beanstalk from an old children’s tale. “We need a different approach,” I told Bjorn.
“Aye, and tell me something I haven’t already figured out. How about we skip air and fire and simply move earth over the hole, smother it, as it were, and glue things together with magic.”
“But then we’ll have to keep power flowing to keep it shut,” I protested.
“We can do that for a short time. Until we figure out something better. Come on. While we’ve been talking, twenty more of those fuckers have materialized.”
He was right. Zelli was doing a decent job killing the snakes. They must have had oil in their scaled hides because they burst into mini-pyres and were still burning. Ignoring their fallen comrades, others slithered around them.
“Go,” I said, and poured magic into Bjorn’s casting. No holding back. We’d give this all we had. Once the hole was shut, we could back off. Beneath us, the earth rumbled and groaned alarmingly as we shunted dirt and rocks from nearby locations, funneling everything into the gash.
An enormous boom that made my ears ache was accompanied by air pockets that dragged us first up and then down. Zelli was on top of it, though. Her instructions to hang on had been unnecessary. One of my hands held her neck horn in a death grip. Bjorn clasped my body with his legs, but he’d freed both hands. A steady stream of blueish light raced from his fingertips, skirting our target and encouraging bushels of dirt to pile into the hole.
Meanwhile, Zelli dealt death. Smoke from burning flesh rose despite rain that hadn’t let up. It carried the stench of rot and evil. So much so, I breathed shallowly, not wanting it in my lungs. Worry for the witches ate at me. If something like the fuckers below us attacked Inverlochy, the closest thing I had to family would be done for. Maybe the castle’s magic would protect them, but I wasn’t at all certain of it. Power needed to be renewed to be effective, and the Celts had left their erstwhile lodging behind a long while back.