Warmth radiated down my spine as I thought about the Einherjar. “So the alliance with Freya, that was to feed Tyler the souls he needs as one of the Heimdall.”
Dalia’s smile faded. “He told you?”
I shrugged. “He tried to, but I figured it out. Are all the Heimdall soul-sucking monsters?”
The room darkened and another boom shook the Bifrost, but I had a feeling it wasn’t Baldr this time. “My son is no monster.”
“No,” I agreed. “He was just unfortunate enough to inherit the family trait.”
Dalia all but launched at me across the desk. She grabbed a telescope and chucked it at my face. I dodged just in time to catch another in my wing. “You will speak of my son with respect!”
I held up my hands in surrender. The Bifrost was a small enough room as it was without an enraged mother throwing telescopes at me. I rubbed my wing. “Fine, all right.” I shook the appendage and worked out the bruise. “Tyler is trapped on the Einherjar, did you know that? Baldr is attacking him and everyone on board.” I knew why Baldr didn’t want the Einherjar to survive. It was the one force in the universe that held the power—and the people—capable of stopping him. With the strengths of all the gods combined, there was a chance to do the impossible and stop Ragnarök itself. No Ragnarök, no darkness, and no Baldr.
“Why do you think I’m helping you?” she snapped and slammed another telescope on the desk instead of throwing it at me. The lens shattered and glass fell across the desk. “I’m the caretaker of the Bifrost and I can see everything that transpires within a hundred miles of my vicinity. I saw the Skuld and the Valkyrie head straight for him and that human of yours.” Her lower lip quivered before she sank her teeth into it. “Do you know how helpless it feels to have the power of space and time at your grasp, but to be unable to help your own son when darkness befalls him?”
I shrank my wings to my back. I knew exactly what it felt like to be unable to help those you loved. “Darkness haunts me,” I admitted. “I want this all to end.”
She straightened. “Darkness doesn’t have to haunt you, my dear. As a Heimdall, I for one know how to turn it into a strength.”
Kindred Souls
Lessons from Dalia, the goddess of the Bifrost, and a gangster who ruled New York, as well as few select planetary provinces (from her own testimony), led me to believe that we had a fighting chance against Baldr. There was one last thing I needed to stop him, and that was to get Tyler to admit he was a god.
He was going to love that.
I found Will sitting on the edge of the couch when I arrived. He stared into the dying flames and looked pensive with his hands folded as he rested his elbows on his knees. When my wings sent the fire flaring back to life, he finally glanced at me.
“You were gone,” he said, his voice raw from either sleep or emotion, I couldn’t tell.
I bit my lip. “Yeah, sorry. Dalia paid me a visit.”
He frowned. “You should have called for me. We’re supposed to be in this together.”
I swept past him, careful not to brush my feathers against his skin, and pulled the drapes aside. I frowned when the fabric blackened under my touch.
Outside, the morning sun cast cheery rays onto an emerald forest that spanned out in a long line between the forest of civilization. Modern sky rises looked almost out of place next to the trees and greenery. “I meant to tell you that I met your mother in Scandinavia.”
Will shot to his feet. “What?”
I leaned so close to the glass that the heat of my breath fogged it. “I tried to stop her from dedicating you to the gods.”
He came to my side and moved as if to touch me, then curled his fingers away. “When you used the Gulltop, you gave me the Yggdrasil fruit. I wondered what could have happened that you’d allow me to go through with sacrificing myself, even if you knew you could bring me back. But to go back to my first life…” I saw the pain in his eyes. He considered it betrayal to even consider altering the timeline so that we would have never met.
“She was different, back then. You were sick, and you had a sister who had died before you.” The truth spilled out of me like a wave and tears sizzled in my eyes. “I couldn’t stop her from dedicating you. I thought that if I did, none of this would happen, and you could have lived a normal human life like you were supposed to.” I sniffled and looked at the length of him. He was perfect, just the way he was, but I could almost sense the darkness running through his veins. I’d caused him so much suffering. Even now, wisps of torment glittered across his skin. “Why are you in so much pain?”
He cornered me against the wall and slammed his fist. “Because, Val, I can’t touch you. I can’t make you stop grieving this life that you wanted for me. I can’t do anything.”
Helpless. I understood what Dalia meant now, how it felt to see everything that you wanted to fix and being powerless to do anything about it. I matched Will’s gaze, relaxing under the familiar chestnut calm of his mortality. “You know, when I first realized how I felt about you, it wasn’t because I felt a surge of passion or a wave of joy. It was the thought of being without you wrecking my insides until I felt sick. Being apart from you torments me, but I ignore it. I do what I think is right.”
He spread his fingers out against the wall and leaned as close as he could. The heat sizzled off my skin and turned his skin pink. His lips hovered over mine and I knew he wanted to crush into me, speak to me with his body when words wouldn’t work anymore. But I was a Valkyrie, and he was human. We could never be together and make it work. “That’s not love, Val. That’s duty.”
With the sting of his words hanging in the air, he shoved off the wall and stormed out of the room. The door closed behind him. He didn’t slam it. He simply closed it, and I’d never felt anything so final in all my life.
I expected Will to come home at least by nightfall. I rummaged through the refrigerator and found it stocked with sodas. In the freezer were plenty of dinners to tide a single human over as long as we needed. Until I figured out how to rescue Tyler, I had no plans on resuming my mortal form, as much as I missed frozen spaghetti.
A part of me never wanted to feel what it was to be human again. It was better this way. If Will could touch me, then I’d forget everything we’d just said to each other. I didn’t want to forget.
Even though I’d poured myself a carbonated drink and watched the ice swim around in the glass, I didn’t sip. The moment I touched it the ice would melt and the soda would turn into a bubbling frothy mess. I knew that Elena had somehow managed to control her heat, but she’d spent lifetimes on earth acclimating to this world. I didn’t have that kind of time.
When Will finally returned, I snapped my head up and blinked at the doorway. He wasn’t alone.
I’d just been thinking of the powerful Valkyrie with torn wings, and there she was, smiling at me until I almost didn’t recognize her. I’d never seen Elena smile like that, like she was truly happy.
Then I saw why. Behind her stepped out a man and he slipped an arm around her waist before giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Well would you look at that. This guy wasn’t nuts after all.”
I nearly swallowed my tongue. “…Michael?”
Apparently our little venture through time and space had a little consequence of twenty years passing us by. Ragnarök had such weight and mass, we’d slowed down while the rest of the world had kept spinning. It boggled my mind that even without the Gulltop, I still had to worry about slipping through time.
Michael hadn’t stopped grinning. Even though he wore a different body, I’d recognize that soul anywhere. He’d once been a vegetable and a mind trapped in a loop of permanent nightmare… but something had changed.
That’s when I had enough sense to check my leathers. “Where’s the fruit of Yggdrasil?” I snapped.
Will plucked it from his jacket and handed it back to me. “About burned off my hand trying to get that.”
Rage turned my vision red and Elena
stepped between me and Will. “Calm down, sweetie. Will just did a good thing.”
I allowed her to drag me away to the kitchen. It seemed to be where humans liked to talk and Elena had been around them long enough to adopt their quirks. Two male voices hummed in the background.
“He stole it,” I complained as I sat onto a chair. It creaked with warning under me, but I didn’t care if it burned to pieces. “He let me think he wanted to kiss me, and then he just stole it.”
Elena smirked, which didn’t help my mood. “Sweetie, that boy wants to kiss you more than anyone I’ve seen. I’m sure he can multitask.”
I narrowed my eyes, but the heat drained from me, leaving on a low warmth in my chest. “So, how did he find you?” I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for you. You finally have Michael back.”
She beamed. “It’s just, it’s incredible. I never imagined I’d get to talk to him and he’d know who I was.” She reached out and took my hand. I flinched, but then relaxed when I realized she couldn’t get burned. She was just as much a Valkyrie as I was. “Will went to Dalia’s restaurant and asked for her help to find us. Dalia keeps tabs on all Immortals, especially those like myself.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So, there are more out there like Michael?” Perhaps it wasn’t so uncommon to break the first law of the Valkyrie.
She nodded. “Yes, and with your help, we can find them and help them like Will helped Michael. It’s incredible.”
I untangled my fingers from hers and pulled the fruit from my pouch. A slice was missing now, the wound next to the teeth-mark where Will had taken his bite. “Do you know what this is?” I asked.
She folded her hands. “I believe I do. What I don’t know is how you got your hands on it.”
I tucked it back into my pouch. “I’m a Frigg, remember?”
Her eyes went wide. “You must be a powerful one if you can travel all the way to Yggdrasil and make it back alive.”
I told her the whole story, not leaving out the bit that I didn’t think I could ever travel to Yggdrasil again. I got the one shot—and we had the one piece of fruit. I couldn’t just go squandering it on lost souls, as much as I wanted to.
Elena opened her mouth to protest, but then the table’s centerpiece, a vase with a wilted rose, lifted on its own and floated in midair. I stared at it. “Are you doing that?”
She shook her head slowly from side-to-side.
The vase crashed to the table, breaking into splintered pieces and tossing the contents to the ground. I jumped when Michael cleared his throat.
Will grinned. “Turns out Michael has a little secret.”
Elena shot to her feet. “You have telekinesis?”
Michael blew her a kiss and she flinched, her hand flinging up to her face. By the look of shock, I suspected he’d just made sure she’d felt that. “You bet I do, and we’re going to kick some serious Norn butt. It’s about time the tables have turned.”
Michael’s powers were only the start of the weirdness. What worried me the most was that Will hadn’t seemed surprised by Michael’s inhuman ability.
When I tried to talk to him about it, he told me that he had to find the others. When I asked him what he meant, he sputtered and said Dalia had told him—but had she?
I paid the Heimdall a visit myself, which revealed that there were three other cases of Valkyries who were exiled and still watched over their charges. Will ventured out, determined to find each one.
Still looking like a freak who’d just walked out of a comic convention, I couldn’t leave the condo. I’d never felt so confined in all my life, not even when I’d spent five years training in the caverns of Jotunheim.
Each time Will returned, Yggdrasil’s fruit had a little bit less power, and our household grew until everywhere I turned was a friendly face.
The other Valkyries looked similar to Elena. Freya had ripped off their wings and banished them to earth. I would have expected them to hold some sort of resentment against me. I still had my wings even though I’d broken the first law of the Valkyrie, but they weren’t like my sisters. They were loving and kind and quick to embrace me as one of their own. That just made everything worse.
The new couples were so amazingly happy to finally be together that their bliss gave no room for sorrow. They’d experienced the horror of Elena and Michael’s same situation for lifetimes.
Iris and Paul. They’d been the closest and easiest to find. Dalia had taken Will off to Windsor, one of the provinces of Canada to pick them up. Iris mesmerized me with the way her eyes changed. One green and one a ruby red. Even though she was ancient, she had the body of a fit, but mature thirty-year-old and she claimed she was becoming more human every day. She wanted to age, and I wondered if she was starting to succeed. Most Valkyries looked to be around sixteen to twenty. Her goal had always been to embrace mortality so that one day, she could find a way to free Paul from his torment and join him in the bliss of Yggdrasil. It was a novel concept, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that even if she found a way to become truly mortal, her soul would always belong to Muspelheim.
Nina and Henry. They took Dalia a few tries to locate, as they were buried in the deep lush of the Amazon. Nina prowled like a wild animal, playfully snapping at anyone who dared venture to close to Henry. He encouraged the primal behavior, petting her as if she were a cat. What made her stand out the most was that her eyes weren’t red at all, but an aquamarine blue that matched her exotic appearance.
Helena and Daniel. Now they were an even odder pair. Helena sat straight with her hands folded over her knee as she sat across from Daniel. They both reeked of sophistication and wealth. As seemed customary, they challenged each other with a game of poker that no one else was allowed to play. Helena took an elegant finger and slid a chip across the table. Straight out of Vegas, she’d made sure that Daniel had every luxury. What had started as a dancer gig where even a Valkyrie might fit in had turned into a long-term game where she played backdoor poker games and lost just enough hands not to get thrown out of the house.
They were the latest addition to our growing cluster of weirdos, and now that it was all said and done, only a single sliver of Yggdrasil’s fruit remained.
Will had taken me aside to return it to me. We’d hardly spoken these last few days while he’d been out on his “field trips.”
He held out what was left of the precious fruit. Having saved the final soul on Dalia’s list, I suppose he thought he had no use for it anymore. He grimaced, having the nerve to look apologetic that perhaps he’d squeezed all the use out of it.
I snatched the core back from him. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The words spilled out of me on their own as rage glimmered in the backs of my eyes, tinging my vision red. “I know I’m supposed to understand, or whatever, but I went all the way to Yggdrasil to get this fruit for you, not anybody else. I’m not some kind of charity. And not to sound selfish about it, but we still have Ragnarök to worry about.” I hadn’t told him, but I’d felt its icy fingers growing ever closer to this world. Once it drained Muspelheim dry, there’d be nothing to hold it back. Not even Baldr—no matter how pompous and arrogant he thought he was—couldn’t stop a force like that from devouring entire worlds. “None of this matters if we all die.”
Will crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Normally he would have immediately sniped back at me, but he was exhausted, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Dark circles under his eyes betrayed how little he’d slept while he’d been off playing hero. Being human again took its toll and as much as he pretended he could keep up, he couldn’t fool me.
“Just look at them, Val,” he said, his voice gravely, but stern.
I followed his gaze through the thin glass that separated us from the rest of the living room where the odd matchup of Valkyrie and human pairs seemed to all get along. The Valkyries took turns lighting the wood while Nina doused the flames with water, just to see if they could still burn it.
The contents of the fireplace sizzled with protest and Nina squealed with delight when she managed to snuff it out. Even though smoke billowed into the room, Henry smiled at her as if she were the most adorable thing in the world.
My new housemates had been cooped up in this condo nearly as long as I had been, but they didn’t seem to mind. Even if the other Valkyries had learned how to contain the majority of the supernatural heat in their bodies, they certainly couldn’t pass for human. Metallic skin and gorgeous glowing eyes made them stand out, as well as their supernatural grace and beauty that came with being one of Freya’s daughters.
“Yes, they seem happy,” I admitted, although the edge of my voice made it clear that was irrelevant to this conversation.
Will narrowed his eyes. “Isn’t that enough? If you’ve learned anything from me, it’s that I believe in the power of the present.”
He was starting to get on my nerves, and he knew it. “News flash,” I snapped, “I’m a Frigg. I live in the constant flow of time and space. There is more to the universe than the present. Without the future, you have nothing, and I intend to make sure there’s a future for all of us if I can help it.”
Will frowned. “I know you’re angry.”
I tossed the fruit to the ground. It didn’t bounce like I’d expect fruit to do. Instead it ricocheted and sent a crack through the tiles. I glanced at the Valkyries and their men and found them watching us now. “I’m not angry. I’m pissed.”
Will knelt and picked up the core. His fingers turned pink at its raw heat before he wrapped it in a towel. “I’m sorry I used so much of it. It’s just, when I heard there were others like me—”
“It’s not about the fruit,” I snapped, then lowered my voice, hoping the others couldn’t hear me. “I just.” I looked down at my hands. The perfectly smooth skin glimmered as embers blazed through my veins. “I don’t get why things are like this between us now.” I met his gaze, hating how pathetic I sounded. “Is it because you can’t touch me?”
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