by Ann Gimpel
“Then I’ll go.”
Before I could draw arguments about why it had to be me, Bjorn shimmered to nothingness. I had to hand it to him. His spell was simple and stylish. Made sense. We were on a Norse world, and it was his go-to magic. No one so much as glanced our way—except Quade who nosed me in the back. Maybe a warning to hold my ground.
Yeah. I’ve never been much of a direction follower. Or a team player. I gave it a few more moments. By then, Odin, Thor, and Loki were fully engaged in a shouting match. The Morrigan had moved off to one side, nearer Dewi, Gwydion, and Bran than the Norse trio. Was it her subtle way of telling us she was playing the role of a double agent?
I caught up with myself. Trusting the Morrigan was a big mistake. And even though the other Celts were at least saying the right words, I didn’t exactly have faith in them, either. When the chips are down, people’s true colors bleed through. For some reason, it made me feel slightly better about the Morrigan. She’d been honest when she said she was looking out for number one. And her body language hadn’t been all that effusive when she’d let Loki embrace her.
Where was Bjorn? Why hadn’t he teleported back out here with our son?
The next nudge in my back came from Zelli. The barest brush of her in my mind told me we were going to follow Bjorn. He’d escaped notice. No way the two of us would, but I didn’t care.
Dragon magic with its baked clay and herbal scents swept me into its maw, and the lush thicket we’d been standing within ceded to cool darkness. I kindled my mage light and ran toward where Bjorn’s and Geir’s energy pulsed like stars.
I didn’t figure we’d have a lot of time before Loki followed us, but maybe Odin would pull a rabbit out of a hat and restrain him. Bjorn’s light glowed soft blue. He sat with his back against a wall, our son gathered against him.
“Geir! Baby, my baby!” I closed the remaining distance between us, but my son didn’t stir. Something grabbed my heart in a viselike grip. “What’s wrong with him?” I managed around a throat that was too thick to breathe through, let alone form words.
“Not sure.” Bjorn’s voice was even. “He lives.”
Zelli placed her snout against Geir’s body, breathing him in. “Not poison,” she said briskly. “He’s caught in enchantment.”
Magic jetted from me as I did my own assessment. I felt the edges of the spell, but they were obtuse, tangled. I couldn’t sort out where it began or where it ended. “Can we chop into the middle of it and just pull it aside?” I asked.
Bjorn shook his head. “Too risky. These things should be dismantled by the one who cast them, otherwise…”
“Otherwise, what?” My voice was far too shrill. I fell to my knees and wrapped my arms around my comatose child.
“We could damage his mind,” Zelli said.
“What happens if we take him back to Fire Mountain?” I was grasping at straws, but there had to be a way to defeat Loki’s casting, absent his cooperation.
“Won’t work, either,” Bjorn said in Old Norse. “Why do ye think I dinna leave with him. The working has its roots here, in Alfheim. We canna move him without stretching the spell. As it stretches, it will press against Geir, suffocating him. He willna die, but he will suffer.”
I stroked his golden scales, mollified by the beat of his heart and the warmth within his body. I inhaled, blew it out, and did it again. “Okay. So we can’t start at the midpoint of the spell, and we can’t move Geir away from Alfheim.”
“Correct,” Zelli and Bjorn said with one voice.
“What can we do?” At least now I understood why Loki hadn’t hightailed it in here after us. He assumed we’d be helpless in the face of his devious magic-craft.
“If we can reach Geir,” Zelli spoke slowly, “he can cut his own way free.”
“I tried.” Bjorn sounded forlorn. “He’s moved beyond my call.”
“Aye. He is in a type of stasis. ’Tis where dragons go when they doona wish to deal with something horrible.” Zelli’s words were stark, and they made me want to kill Loki.
“If Geir went to ground on his own,” I said, battling hope that jabbed me in the vicinity of my soul, “he can find his way back.”
“If he knew we were here, it would help,” Zelli muttered and puffed steam over Geir. No so much as a scale fluttered.
She kept steam flowing until it felt like a sauna in the cave. I reached into my son’s mind over and over again. Cajoling, shouting, urging him to find himself. Reassuring him we were here.
Nothing I did made a difference.
After a few minutes, I recognized we needed more than repeating what wasn’t getting through to him. Geir had been so excited to see Bjorn in his dragon form. Maybe, just maybe, if I found mine, the magic from my transformation would reach wherever he wandered. I tucked Bjorn’s arms more firmly around our son and rocked back on my heels.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You know me too well,” I said and got my feet under me. “I’m going to shift. You managed it, so I should be able to as well.”
“Might be just the thing.” Zelli cast hopeful, whirling eyes my way. “It will take especially strong magic your first time. Perhaps it will reach Geir.”
“Pointers?” I asked Bjorn.
“Don’t try too hard.” He made a face. “Visualize a dragon and fall into it.”
“Any dragon? How will I know what color I am?” I made a grab for the clearheaded place I valued. The one where magic simply flowed to me with very little energy output.
Zelli wrapped her talons around my shoulder. I felt a shot of dragon magic shudder through me. When it cleared, she said, “Ye’re red, like Dewi but with red-gold wings.”
I nodded and drew back a few paces, breathing to center myself. My thoughts were all over the map. Worry for my son superseded everything, but I couldn’t go there. Maybe if I was a dragon, there’d be some magical channel I could tap into to reach him. I shook my head. Nope. Bjorn had already tried that. Except he was in his human form, not his dragon.
“Quiet!” My inner voice was stern. Bjorn’s power flowed into me, and I grasped it like a lifeline. Nothing the two of us couldn’t do together. I readied myself as best I could. I didn’t want to fuck around making one mistake after another as I grappled with shift magic, something new for me.
I held an image of a red dragon with lighter-colored wings in my mind and pushed my consciousness into it.
Nothing.
Changing things up some. More fire. Less earth. I tried once more. Bjorn was in my magical center making adjustments. He’d been where I was, and I trusted him implicitly.
In my mind’s eye, I walked into a floating void. It tugged at me, tore at me, reshaped me. Bones altered, skin stretched, scales grew. Every sense was ten times more acute, but victory was a long way beyond me. I’d be a dragon once the alterations quit rippling through me, but the whole reason I’d done this was for my son.
“Momma?” Geir’s voice rushed into me. “What are you doing here?”
The vacuum—more of a dark place with undulating edges—expanded. In the light from my scales, I saw my son crawling toward me. It was hard forcing my unfamiliar body to do anything, but I lumbered toward him and then fell on my belly and wrapped my forelegs around him.
I understood plenty about astral travel. I’d done it enough to recognize the part of my son in my arms was a projection. Apparently, he had access to far more than I did when my astral portion separated from my body. For one thing, he could speak.
“I’m here to help you find your way back,” I told him. “Da is waiting. And Zelli. You must return to your body.”
“Bad place.” He shuddered in my forelegs. “Bad man.”
“Yes to both,” I agreed, “but you must do what’s hard. You must come back so we can take you home.”
“Take me now.”
I hesitated. How much truth could he stand? But there wasn’t any way around it. I had to tell him everything. “I can’t ta
ke you anywhere without the rest of you. The bad man cast a spell. He trapped you in it. We can’t unravel it, but you can. To do that, you have to find your way back to your body.”
I shifted my bulk and cradled him against my chest. No matter how desperately I wanted to do everything for him, the next move was his. I couldn’t force him to return to a place that had scared him so badly, he’d made a run for it.
“I understand,” he said in a surprisingly steady voice and gripped my foreleg in one of his. “You’ll be with me, right?”
“Every step of the way. I love you, heart of mine.”
“Love you too,” he chirped, sounding more like himself. The projection I held in my arms dispersed.
Dragon magic, rich and heady, coursed through me. I directed it to return me to Geir, Bjorn, and Zelli, but my power was different. Raised to the nth degree and damn near uncontrollable. When rocks rained down from above, I reeled my spell in several notches until everyone swam into focus.
The place where Geir had found me was obviously a kind of parallel universe, connected with this one, yet not wholly overlaying it.
Geir stood between Bjorn and Zelli, listening as they instructed him on how to defeat the spell that bound him from within.
Bjorn broke off long enough to say, “Here’s your momma. I told you she’d be right behind you.”
Zelli dropped a foreleg onto my shoulder. “Nice work, Dragon Heir, but I’ll miss having you on my back.”
“Who says I’m done riding?” I countered and focused on Geir.
His whirling eyes were closed, and dragon enchantment swirled around him. I employed the same psychic vision I accessed in my other form and illuminated the warp and weft of Loki’s spell. Damn. Maybe Bjorn had been able to see it far better than I, but it was impressive.
Just as perverted and twisted as the one who’d cast it, it wove under and over and through Geir’s magical center. A couple of passes would have had the same effect, but Loki had just kept going. At least a dozen rounds of corruption snaked through my son. No wonder the poor kid ran away. Anyone would have.
Just looking at the casting made me feel dirty, and fury rocked me to my clumsy hind feet. “Ye’re disturbing his concentration.” Zelli tightened her hold on my shoulder.
I tossed a damper over my ire. It was harder than I expected. I’ve always been quick to blow up, but something about the dragon being in ascendency exacerbated that part of things. Bjorn’s power shone brightly within me. He’d never withdrawn, and I glommed onto his levelheaded presence. I might not need his magic right this moment, but I needed him.
Admitting it to myself was empowering in an odd sort of way. Me, who’d never needed anyone, had finally taken an unvarnished look at my solitary existence and found it lacking.
I’ve never been patient. I suppose it goes along with a tendency to lash out first and ask questions later, but standing by watching as Geir solved his problem, biting through one strand at a time with magic, was hard.
“Can we help?” I asked.
“He doesn’t need our help,” Bjorn said, pride shining through his words.
He didn’t, but I wanted things to go faster. “What happens once he’s free?” I murmured.
“I will take him to Fire Mountain,” Zelli said. “Immediately. He will be safe there.”
I didn’t like the idea of being separated from my son again, but I recognized the wisdom in her suggestion. I wasn’t done with Loki—or the Celts. And I didn’t want my son subjected to the scene I was about to unleash. He’d been scarred enough by today’s events.
“I will go with you,” Bjorn told Zelli and exchanged a pointed glance with me. I read him well enough. He was telling me to let everything go and accompany them.
I shook my head. “I’ll be along soon enough, but I’m not done here.”
Geir was nearing the end of Loki’s convoluted casting. He had Bjorn’s temperament. Instead of rushing, and maybe making a mistake, he continued as he had been. Even. Methodical. Love for him nearly flattened me. Admiration too.
“There.” Geir opened his eyes and shook himself until his scales rattled. “I did it. I’m free.”
Steam puffed from me. I was surprised by how reflexive it was. I felt the beginnings of Zelli’s teleport spell and said, “Zelli and Da are taking you to Fire Mountain.”
“Where will you be?” He gripped me with his bright-red talons.
“I will be there soon. First, there are a few things I need to say to the bad man who did this to you.”
Geir puffed out his chest. “Take me. I want to tell him off too.”
Bjorn walked in front of our son and shook his head. “Not a good idea. He snared you once, which means he knows the feel of your unguarded places.”
“I’d do better defending myself,” Geir insisted. “I know how he does things too.”
I blew out a breath. This one contained a column of fiery ash. I turned my head to the side to avoid hitting anyone. Crap. Every exhalation was a shocker, and all this was brand new.
“My place is with you,” Geir said.
My insides melted, but he was right. I nudged Zelli and shook my head. “We are a family, and we will do this together.”
“Ye’re coming to Fire Mountain?” She raised a scaled brow in disbelief.
“Eventually. First, we’re going outside. If Loki is still there, I plan to give him a dose of his own medicine.”
“We are stronger than him when we join our magic,” Bjorn reminded me. “Not cannier, but stronger.”
He turned to Geir. “Are you certain?”
Our son nodded solemnly. “He hurt me. I get to tell him what a bad man he is.”
“Whatever you say won’t change Loki,” I cautioned my son. “He’s been running roughshod over everything in his path his whole life.”
“It will change me,” Geir replied.
Everything was harder to control in my dragon body, including my emotions. Tears formed and fell as a collection of gems worthy of a king’s ransom. Bjorn scooped them into his pockets and grinned rakishly. “We can fight over who gets what later.”
Magic swelled around us, cutting through me, and we emerged close to the spot we’d left. Not much had changed. The dragons had formed a circle around Loki, and the pleasant day had disintegrated into a roaring electrical storm, courtesy of Thor’s anger.
The only one to notice us at first was Quade. With a delighted bugle, he scooped Geir into his forelegs and swung him high. Geir squealed, and I began to hope Loki’s perfidy wouldn’t scar him for life.
Pushing between Dewi and Nidhogg, I planted my bulk in front of Loki. His odd, cream-shaded eyes narrowed. “Och, so ye found your dragon’s form, eh? I told Cadir ’twas bound to happen sooner or—”
“Silence.” Fire blasted from me, along with a rain of ashy smoke. Pleasing as it would have been to douse the trickster in dragon fire, I had a feeling it wouldn’t touch him.
A quick shot of power returned me to my familiar body, clothes and all. I crossed my arms beneath my breasts. “You will never touch my son again.”
Geir had taken to the air. He shot fire at Loki’s head shrieking, “Never. Bad man. Bad bad man.”
Loki laughed. “I’ve been called far worse, child. Good on you for finding your way back.”
Bjorn stood next to me. I felt his power coil within me like a serpent on the hunt and went with his lead. Together, we crafted a net of dragon, Norse, and Celtic magic while Loki capered and joked, ignoring ash raining on his head from Geir still flying above him.
Our child would be a force to be reckoned with. Undeterred by Loki ignoring him, he kept right on telling the trickster what a bag of shit he was. Somehow, Geir intuited what Bjorn and I were doing, and threaded his power in with ours as our netting grew large enough to hopefully contain the trickster.
Like ours, yet not, our son’s magic acted as a linchpin. When we got around to kindling the snare, it just might do the trick.
Odin,
Thor, and the Morrigan maintained a steady stream of arguments. Our trap was nearly set when an infusion of Norse magic nearly knocked me off my feet. Odin reached within me as easily as if I’d been an open paper sack. He wrenched the mixed magical weave from Bjorn and me and tossed it neatly over Loki.
Satisfied howls flew from Geir, right along with a shot of power from his outstretched talons. The net blazed bright red before it turned a blinding white.
The trickster laughed harder—until his efforts to defeat the thing failed. Norse power rose around him until the air burned blue-white with it, but our enchantment clung to him like a limpet.
I’d been right about Geir’s contribution providing the edge we needed to do the job.
“Many thanks.” Odin bowed in our direction. “I do believe that will hold him.”
“What are you going to do with him?” I shouted.
“Not for you to know,” Thor told me.
He mounted Ysien. Odin vaulted astride Nidhogg, and the Norse dragon picked up the trickster in his forelegs. “Behave,” he snarled, “or ye’ll get a face full of fire.”
Geir flapped to a landing in front of Bjorn and me. “Punish him,” he shouted after the retreating Norse gods.
“Never fear, princeling,” Odin called over a shoulder. “We plan to.”
There it was again. Princeling. What the hell was that all about? I was too tired to get into it with anyone, and I didn’t want to lay anything more over my son’s shoulders. Not today. He’d had enough. We all had.
“Let’s go home,” Bjorn suggested. “Fire Mountain first, and then Midgard.”
“Not Vanaheim?” I quirked a weary brow.
“We’ll get there too, but after we’ve reassured the witches all is well.”
A rush of love so profound it brought more tears—and more gems—to my eyes seared me.
Gwydion and Bran hurried over. “We will welcome you in Inverlochy whenever ye choose to visit.”
I looked around. “Where’s the Morrigan?”
Dewi joined us and laughed, but without much mirth. “Och, that one. As soon as ye emerged with Geir, she bid us a not-so-fond farewell. Ye’ll see her at Inverlochy. She did her part, and a bargain is a bargain.”