Chapter 35 Freya
Fear flooded my veins as the roots burst from the ground, black and terrifying. They wrapped around my arms and legs, but I didn’t fight them. Didn’t struggle. Gave in to them as they dragged me down.
Dirt closed around me, pressing against my face as though I were being buried alive, and that was when panic setin.
I clawed at the roots, desperate to breathe, trying to climb my way back up, but they dragged me down with relentless strength.
This was no escape.
This was death.
My chest was agony with the need for air, and I tried to pull a hand up to carve the dirt away from my mouth, but my arms were pinned.
I’d made a mistake, oh gods, the worst of mistakes.
But then I was falling.
I managed to suck in a breath of air right before my back struck a root, knocking it back out of my lungs. My mouth opened in a scream of pain, but no sound came out as my body bounced and ricocheted off the tangled web of blackened roots, tumbling down and down.
To hit stone with an impact that sent stars spinning across my vision, my shield clattering down nextme.
Whimpering, I twisted on my side, the only cares in my head for getting air into my lungs and easing the pain in nearly every part of my body.
Then the scuff of a foot against stone filled my ears, and my eyes snapped open to take in a pair of feet next to me. My still-spinning vision climbed up ankles, then a skirt, higher and higher until it landed on a face I recognized, for I had seen Harald wear it before. “Saga?”
Bjorn’s mother smiled, then sat next to me. “You’re supposed to climb down, not fall.”
“Next time,” I croaked, pushing up on one elbow, it taking far too much effort to get my frozen and battered legs beneath me. Only then did I look around, finding that we sat upon a road of stone, all around us blackness and mist, and above…
“Yggdrasil,” I breathed, staring up into the web of roots that I’d fallen through. “I’m in Helheim.”
“No,” Saga said. “You are between realms, Freya. On the road to Helheim, specifically. A place for mortal souls, but your body was able to come to this place because of the divine blood in your veins. Only the dead may reside in Helheim, and as I’m sure you are aware, you are very much among the living. So do not enter the golden gates.”
Dabbing at a cut on one of my hands that was seeping blood, I had to grudgingly admit that I was indeed alive. “How are you here, Saga?”
“Because my thread is tangled with yours,” she said. “I walk the paths between realms, and while I might step into the mortal world, it is not without cost, for I must be as I was when I drew my last breath.”
Burned, burning, and my stomach twisted at the agony she must endure. “Will you ever be free?”
“I cannot see my own fate,” she answered. “Only pieces of yours, which are ever shifting. Ever changing. And right now, you are caught by the trickster’s choices, and it is he who determines the future of all. To free us, you must cut his thread short.”
Such a simple thing, and yet I knew that to kill Harald would be no easy task because he was as clever as a mortal could be. “I’m sorry,” I said. “For not seeing through the mask he wore to mimic you.”
In hindsight, it felt so obvious that Harald-as-Saga had been a construct, for she’d been too perfect. Inhuman in her beauty, whereas the woman before me bore the signs of a life lived. Young as she’d been when she was killed, but hands marked with tiny scars, another scar on her chin, and the beginning of smile lines creasing her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. A woman who had lived and laughed and loved, not the marble statue that Harald remembered her as. It made me think he’d never truly known her, nor loved her heart, only desired to possess Saga’s body and the gift of magic in her blood.
“He has fooled many.”
“Did he fool you?”
“For a time,” Saga answered, then sighed. “Harald is not inherently cruel—the suffering of others is not his goal, which is why Nordeland has thrived for so long. Why the people love him as their king. What drives him is the desire to manipulate others, to control them, to outwit them, and suffering is merely the consequence. But above all else, he desires to be loved and adored, and nearly all he does is to achieve those ends. I saw many visions of his future, but they were ever changing and always contradictory, and he did not reveal his bloodline to me. Many times he tried to entice me to join him in Nordeland, but I always declined, for even not knowing what he was, I saw in him the desire to manipulate others. A dangerous trait in all men, but so much worse in a child of the gods, for they have the power to change fate.”
“Is that why he killed you?” I only knew what Harald had told me, and I had no certainty it hadn’t all been lies.
Saga’s green eyes grew distant. “My death was unintended, Freya. He believed that my unwillingness to join his growing cabal was because of Snorri, so he thought to turn my loyalties by making a pretense of Snorri threatening me. The fire was an accident, and though he claims otherwise, I think Harald was motivated by guilt when he took Bjorn with him so as to bring him to a child of Eir for healing. An emotion that faded once he realized my son was a tool he could use, and his nature took control once more.”
“How do I stop him?” I asked. “How do I get close enough to kill him? Hel’s magic doesn’t harm the Unfated, and it won’t even touch him.”
“Loki is Hel’s father,” Saga said with a shrug. “Though whether she is motivated by fear or loyalty, you would have to ask her.”
My blood chilled, and I looked into the mists around us, half convinced that the goddess of death would appear. But there was only darkness and mist.
And Saga had not answered my question.
“Have you seen what I will do?” I asked. “Do you see how I can stop him?”
“No,” Saga answered. “I have only seen you fail. Seen you die. Seen Harald in a crown, king of Skaland and Nordeland both.”
My stomach dropped, my tongue incapable of words.
“But you can change your fate.” Saga took my hands. “You have the power to save Bjorn. To save Skaland. To save yourself.” She gestured to the roots. “Climb a different path than you fell, and you will emerge away from the prison on that island. As to what you do next, it must be a weave of your own making.”
Rising to my feet, I stared up at the tangle of roots, not relishing the climb, but as I contemplated how to manage it, a rush of air washed over me like the sigh of a giant. Turning, I looked down the road into the mist. “This leads to Helheim, then?”
“Yes. But only the dead cross the threshold into her domain, and they never return. She does not care to part with what belongs to her.”
“I know.” I’d heard Hel’s voice in my head enough times to have a sense of her… covetousness. A trait that, for better or worse, I’d inherited.
“Climb, Freya,” Saga urged. “Ylva means to trade my son for hers. I fear the fate the trickster will have in store for him. You are his only salvation.”
I will be at your back until I cross the threshold to Valhalla, Born-in-Fire, Bjorn’s voice echoed in my thoughts because though I’d never said it, my heart had made the same promise to him.
My aching body trembled, because every instinct in my soul demanded that I go to him. That I protect him from whatever horrible fate Harald would invent for him, because I didn’t think it would be as easy as death. Reaching up, I took hold of one of the roots. Save him, my heart whispered. You know he would come for you.
Visions of a future with him filled my mind, of a life beyond this where we could be happy. Gods, but I wanted that life. Wanted it so badly that it hurt to breathe.
“I will weave my own fate,” I whispered, then let go of the root and picked up my shield.
“Freya?”
I was already running. Sprinting down the road, knowing that Saga was too afraid of being pulled into the afterlife to follow. Faster and faster, I ran, my boots slapping against the midnight stones forming the road and my shield bouncing on my back, mists pressing in on all sides. Sounds emanated from them, the growls of beastly throats and the scratch of talons, and fear coursed through my veins.
The air smelled of earth and moisture, and above me, the roots of Yggdrasil shifted and moved, though I wasn’t certain whether it was because the tree was sentient or if the motion was caused by something else.
Or someone.
I slid to a stop at the sight of a great river stretching before me, waters black and bottomless. Instead of sounding like rushing water, it was as though a battle raged in its depths in an endless clash of steel against steel. A bridge of dark stone that glittered with gold stretched over it, and on the far side, a golden wall reached up to impossible heights. In the wall was a pair of twin gates that would need the hands of giants to open. Before them stood a black hound the size of a bear, its gleaming eyes fixed onme.
Garmr.
The creature let out a low growl, sensing that I did not belong. For I was among the living, and this was a place for the dead.
He prowled onto the bridge, and I swallowed hard as I saw the crimson droplets dripping from his dark fur.
“I am Freya, Erik’s daughter,” I said to the beast, though I had no notion of whether he could comprehend my words. “Child of Hlin and of Hel. I would speak to my divine mother.”
Lips pulled back to reveal teeth as long as my hand, and the hound let out another low growl.
I reached for my shield but then thought better of it and whispered, “Hel, grant me your power.”
Magic boiled up inside me, burning hot, and the hound paused, eyeing me with a crimson gaze that I suspected mirrored my own. He leaned forward, sniffing, and it was all I could do to hold my ground. His breath reeked like a week-dead corpse but was somehow cold as a winter wind.
Then he lowered his head and stepped to one side of the bridge.
Taking a deep breath, I crossed and then stopped, my eyes fixed on the closed gates to Hel’s hall. Only the dead could enter and, once inside, no one left again. Which suggested that I was best served by remaining here.
“I would speak to my divine mother,” I shouted, expecting to be ignored. But no sooner did the words exit my lips than did the gates crack open. Beyond, all I could see was a wall of mist that obscured whatever lay behind the gates, and through it stepped a giant.
I took a staggering step back, my eyes climbing up the giant’s form, but even as I watched, she began to shrink. Diminishing in size with each step until Hel and I were of the same height when she stopped before me. Her changed stature made her no more human in appearance. Wiry and stooped, half her face was a beauty to behold, golden hair falling in lush curls to her waist. But the other…it was the bluish hue of a bruise or of flesh lost to frostbite, so sunken that I could see the shape of her skull beneath, and her hair hung in wispy lengths of the darkest gray.
Half alive. Half dead. The goddess of death.
“Daughter.”
Her voice was the sound of snakes crawling through dead leaves, terrible and horrifying, and I dropped to my knees. “Mother.”
“This is not a place for the living.”
“I am of your blood,” I countered. “It is my place.”
Icy cold fingers touched my chin and lifted my face to meet her gaze. One eye was blue, the other was milky white. Not red, as I’d thought they might be, and I didn’t know what to make of that. “I need your aid.”
Her head tilted.
“I must defeat Harald of Nordeland,” I said. “But when I try to send his soul to your realm, you will not take it. Why? Is it because he’s Loki’s child?”
“Souls of the Unfated are not so easily claimed. To do so risks the ire of my brethren, which I’ll not do without worthy cause.”
“Fair enough, but at least with the others, the roots appear. For him, you don’t even try. Do you fear retaliation from Loki?”
“Fear?” Hel smiled in amusement, and I recoiled at her teeth. Half pristine white and half rotten, but all fangs.
Every instinct in my body screamed that I should run, but I held my ground. “Why, then? Do you favor Harald over your own daughter? Do you desire him to triumph over your own blood? Already he’s made a fool of me. Tried to kill me. Imprisoned me. You could have prevented all of it by telling me his nature.”
“You are not imprisoned.”
I clenched my teeth, annoyance beginning to rise above my fear because it seemed she would give me no straight answers. “Don’t you want his soul?”
Hel bent closer and exhaled, the stench of a corpse wafting over me. “Yes, Freya. I do.”
“Then why won’t you help me kill him!” The words came out as a shout, which I immediately regretted as she bent even closer. The hair on her dead side brushed my hand, and it felt like barrow worms crawling over my skin.
“I have given you power over death,” she hissed. “Power to make those destined for Valhalla tremble in terror. Weave your own fate, daughter.”
And then she was gone.
I curled up tightly and wrapped my arms around myself, my breath coming in great heaving gasps. Shakes wracked my body and my throat burned with nausea. I’d come here for nothing, and who knew what horrors had befallen Bjorn in the time I’d wasted here.
Then a warm tongue slid up my arm.
I cried out and toppled sideways, my shield striking the ground with a clatter. It was Garmr who’d licked me, and he now stood watchingme.
“What do you want?” I asked him. “Do you have a solution?”
He only snuffled my arm with his huge snout, then turned his great head to watch as shadowed shapes climbed out of the river and walked toward the open gates of Helheim, what lay beyond obscured by mist.
“I have to go back,” I said to the hound. “I need to help Bjorn.”
My voice cracked on his name, because I had no idea how I’d save him. But I had to try. Shoving to my feet, I tried to walk back over the bridge. But Garmr blocked my path.
“Let me go,” I snapped at him, trying to go around, but the hound only stepped again into my path. “Bjorn needs me!”
Bjorn.
I froze, his name having drawn up from the recesses of my mind the story of Baldur. Of how he’d been sent to Helheim through Loki’s trickery. Hel had agreed to release him if all the world wept, and though that had not come to pass, it struck me that the offer had still been made.
Hel had the power to release souls from Helheim.
I have given you power over death. Power to make those destined for Valhalla tremble in terror. Weave your own fate, daughter.
Slowly, I turned to watch as the gates opened for yet another soul, watching as it disappeared into the swirling mist. Not long ago, I’d sent hundreds upon hundreds of Skalanders through those gates, though they hadn’t deserved it. Warriors who deserved a chance at Valhalla.
The gates began to slowly close.
Hel had given me her power. All of her power. But I had one that she did not.
Sucking in a deep breath, I bolted toward the gates and dived through their opening.
Right before they closed with an echoing thud.