“Then why do we have no tales of them? No songs? How could we forget so many wondrous things?”
“Folk tales are ever dependent upon the storyteller. One word here, another there. Over time…” Frigga spread her hands. “The legend of Mighty Thrain bringing down the mountain with his magical song became ‘by the blow of his mighty horn and the beat of his warhammer against the rocks’.”
Nausea twisted her stomach as she thought of how many mages they had wrongfully locked away. “Freya must be so disappointed in us.”
“Do not blame yourself, Brynhildr. You know the truth now, and you’ve seen with your own eyes the twisted paths destiny has taken. All that is left is to speak with Odin.”
“I… What?”
With a quiet laugh, Frigga gestured to the towering doors at the end of the hall. “He is waiting.”
Then Frigga was gone, vanishing in the time it took Bryn to blink. The great doors opened. Not wishing to keep the great all-father waiting, Bryn squared her shoulders and marched inside.
Odin’s great hall shone in silver and gold, lit by torches and a roaring fire in a massive hearth. The all-father stood at the far end, taller than the giant jotuns, a magnificent silver-haired figure in shining armor. Strangely, the nearer she drew to the god, the smaller he appeared. When she finally reached his side, he stood no taller than she.
“Brynhildr, welcome. You must have many questions.”
Many barely scratched the surface. She met the god’s cobalt, one-eyed gaze and tried to sort through the hundred questions buzzing through her mind.
“All-father, I do not understand why you have done nothing,” she finally said, deciding a direct manner was needed. Especially here, where the gods liked to play games with their words. “Why have you allowed Gunnar’s family to destroy so much?”
“Because we are not allowed to interfere.” With one hand set against her back, Odin guided Bryn to a velvet-cushioned bench beneath a tree growing in the hall. Golden apples hung from the branches, filling the air around them with the sweetness of honey. “Long ago, in a time of great darkness, the gods walked the physical realm and battled on behalf of their peoples. In doing this, we nearly destroyed the world. And so it was agreed that we would keep to the divine realms, no longer able to interfere directly in mortal affairs.”
“Then what do you call this?” She gestured to herself.
“A loophole, for you are not dead, yet your spirit roams our halls in limbo. Thus, my telling you things helps no one…unless you were to be awakened.”
“Awakened? Who would be riding to—” she caught herself, thinking on all that she had seen. “Sigurd. Because he didn’t leave, they sent assassins after him. Why? Why didn’t he leave?”
“He made his choice, as you must make your own.”
“What choice?”
Odin reached up and plucked an apple from a low-hanging branch. He buffed it against his shirt then tossed it gently to Bryn. Startled, she lifted her hands to catch the golden fruit, but the moment her fingers skimmed the flesh, she felt as if she were being dragged along with its momentum. The world around her blurred, the only constant Odin’s voice.
“Gunnar leads Ridaeron into a dark future,” the god said, his sonorous voice surrounding her. “The allies he so desperately seeks to court favor with do not share his goals and ideals.”
The swirling mists faded away, leaving Bryn standing alongside Odin in a barren field of snow-crusted grass. Smoke rose from the chimneys of an unfamiliar mountain town.
No, not unfamiliar. Different. Changed. All colors and life had been stripped away. There were no runes, no engravings, no statues of the gods or incense perfuming the smoke billowing from the chimneys.
Bryn strode down the quiet streets of Steinnvik, brows drawn together as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The stone plinths bearing Frigga’s likeness were gone, nothing but bits of rubble beneath a metal statue of an unfamiliar symbol. Shackles hung from chains attached to a post, bits of dried blood flecking the rough metal.
“Where is everyone?” she asked, turning to Odin. “What is this?”
Her answer came the moment the words left her mouth, a nearby door flinging open, spilling noise and people into the street. Guards in black uniforms dragged a woman across the square. She struggled, defiant and proud, to little avail. The guards shackled her to the idol while a tall, thin man in heavy robes approached.
“Your gods are lies,” he said. “Only Aroglov can forgive your sins.”
“I will never praise him,” the woman spat, and Bryn recognized the voice. Beneath the bruises and dried blood, she made out Lagertha’s features. She was older, gray threading her once-lustrous hair.
“Then you will remain as an example to the others and live out your final days knowing your resistance means nothing. King Casparan and his Black Watch will find the others, with or without your help.” The priest gestured to a waiting guard. “Remove her tongue, by Aroglov’s will. The rest of you, let us begin devotions.”
Bryn watched in horror as no one tried to help her friend. She tried to pull the approaching guard away, but her hands drifted right through him, as though she were a ghost. When the screaming began, no one seemed to care. The people had all knelt to the ground in prayer while the priest spoke over them.
Once Odin touched her shoulder, celestial mists surrounded them, ensconced them and concealed the savage scene from her view, though the tears burning in her eyes had already turned everything into a watery blur.
When the present coalesced again, they were sitting beneath the apple tree, making her wonder if they had actually moved at all and if the entire thing had been in her head.
“What was that?”
“Ridaeron’s fate if the oathbreaker succeeds. Those foreigners will bring about doom for all our people, as well as the gods.”
“I don’t understand. How could they harm you?”
“By taking away your belief,” Odin replied, wiping her wet cheeks with his callused thumb. “The choice now stands before you. Shed your burdens and let your body die while you remain in Valhalla. Your rightful death was stolen from you, and I can make this one allowance.”
“And my other option?” she asked in a whisper.
“Return your soul to your body and wait, but with this warning: your body is close to a natural death, having lain there for some time with neither food nor water. You risk dying before Sigurd can reach you, and your soul will not return to Valhalla. Hel will claim you instead.”
Chapter 9
Despite the beast’s blood staining his skin, Sigurd pressed on.
The tombs felt more welcoming somehow, the air warmer and sweeter now that the basilisk was slain. Maybe it was his imagination. He turned down the path marked by the regal queen, taking one of the lit torches from the wall to light his way. One chamber after the next, he passed tombs belonging to majestic female warriors and queens, certain that, at last, he would find Bryn’s resting place.
Knowing that reinvigorated him, and the pain in his thigh faded. His back no longer ached. Nothing mattered more than finding Bryn and dragging her back to the land of the living.
Desperate to reach her, Sigurd rounded a corner and skidded to an abrupt halt, both arms raising to shield his face against the sudden onslaught of light and the scorching blast of heat that radiated down the hall. He approached slowly, able to make out shapes in the room beyond through the twisting, crackling flames. Bryn had not been entombed. Instead, she lay on a stone table, golden-red hair spilling over the sides.