Chapter 16 Helayna
HELAYNA
Istared at the intricate design, tracing the swirling threads down the many branches to the thick roots below.
Hel. My heritage. As such, most of the design centered in the dark space beneath the mighty world tree.
Glittering green wound through the arching roots, representing the coils of Jormungandr. Shimmering silver pooled like the wellspring I’d broken open.
In the darkest spot beneath the tree, a different black thread had been blended with the roots.
Flat, dull black, it stood out against the shining threads.
The longer I looked at it, the more it looked like a specific shape instead of simple shading or shadows.
Long curling neck, more like the world serpent, but I thought I could make out legs and long wings intertwined with the roots.
Níehoggr, Malice Striker, the dragon caged beneath Yggdrasil, gnawing on its roots.
A chair sat before the desk with a high, carved back. I assumed it was Clara’s, but she stood at the desk and turned to face me. “Please take your seat, Your Majesty.”
As soon as my body touched the wood, it seemed to come alive.
Eyes wide, I held my breath as the seat shifted and adjusted to me.
The arms and straight back gently curved to support and cradle my body.
Tendrils curled up, stretching out tender leaves.
The entire chair trembled, and for a moment, I could only think of the volcano simmering beneath the snow.
Roots shoved into the floor, seeking the earth. Taking my consciousness with them. Solid rock yielded to the magical roots. Ice receded. Until we found rich earth.
A sigh seemed to pass through the chair into me. A sigh of longing now eased. A need, once long endured, now had been met.
I didn’t realize I’d closed my eyes until I opened them. Clara gave me a tearful smile, her hands clasped as if in prayer.
“At last, a Daughter of Hel has taken her rightful seat. The Ironheart throne has been empty since your grandmother passed to the goddess. According to the stories passed down through my family, who’ve served as consiliari for generations, it was carved from a piece of Yggdrasil.”
My fingers trembled as I stroked the shining wood. It felt warm and alive beneath me, wooden but also somehow almost like flesh.
Images flickered through my mind. My grandmother, I thought, whose name I didn’t remember, her long silver hair winding through the roots and stems of the chair.
She sat for a very long time. Her face remained ageless with high, proud cheekbones and a hawkish nose that made her look fierce like a warrior, but her hair darkened as time wound backwards.
Silver changed to honeyed blonde. One eye flashed with silvery-white power, while her other gleamed like a black puddle of essence from one of my dark alfar.
Black wings fluttered in my mind, dozens of ravens taking flight. More images flickered through me, faster, queen after queen of my line for thousands of years.
But not my mother, Helle. Because she’d never sat in this chair.
I had to lift my hands from the wooden arms to stop the bombardment. “Whoa. What was my grandmother’s name?”
“Hrefna,” Clara replied. “She supposedly carried the gift of Huginn and Muninn, Odin’s ravens.”
“I believe it. Is this chair… sentient?”
“Possibly,” Clara said slowly. “For most of my life, no one has sat in the Ironheart throne, so I have very little personal experience to rely upon. Only myths and legends from my ancestors which more than likely have been exaggerated through the retelling. I do believe it has a great deal of power inherently woven into its wood.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but how old are you, Clara?”
A wry smile twisted her lips, and she bowed her head for a moment. “I was fifty-five in 1870 when your brother was born.”
Lokken made a low sound of surprise. “That’s impossibly old for a human, even if a queen gave you some of her blood.”
“It is,” she agreed. “I actually died in 1877.”
My throat ached and I reached out for her hand. Clutching my fingers, she dropped to her knees before me.
“I contracted tuberculosis. Your mother tried everything to heal me, but I slowly weakened no matter what she tried. I remember dying though I don’t know exactly where I was in the beyond, only that it was peaceful. Bright. White. I wasn’t in pain. I was surrounded with love.
“Then a child walked through the white and took my hand. We walked along a snowy shore, talking and laughing. She asked me to tell her all her favorite stories again of Yggdrasil as we walked. Then I opened my eyes…” She looked up, meeting my gaze, tears streaming down her lined cheeks.
“And you were with me, my queen. You brought me back. I haven’t aged a day since.
I’m never sick. I thought I was destined to serve as your consiliarius, but then you disappeared. ”
A light rap at the door paused her story.
We waited for a few moments while Pàtair and Arnar set up a tray for my tea and placed other dessert trays in the rear of the room.
Clara remained on her knees, holding my hand.
Her eyes shimmered with tears. Expectation, anticipation, and then grief when she lost me.
Only for me to be returned to her now, when she should have died long ago.
I must have found her on the shores of Nástrond and brought her back to life, the same as Bj?rg. But as a child? How? I hadn’t come into power yet.
Finally the two men bowed and quietly shut the door behind them. “I always thought Eivind was my twin, but he wasn’t, was he?”
She shook her head. “You were born five years before him, but your mother didn’t want you to remember.
Why, I don’t know. She wasn’t… I hate to speak ill of the dead and my former queen, but she wasn’t right in the head.
She was so secretive, even before you were born.
She would disappear for months at a time.
Queen Hrefna demanded answers, which she always refused to give.
When Hrefna passed, we didn’t even know where Helle was for over a year.
We knew she lived, for the magic still held in the nest. But when she did return, she refused to sit in the Ironheart throne.
She refused to even look at the legacy. She immediately began making plans to move to America.
Any stubborn, reclusive, paranoid tendencies Eivind inherited came from her, not Narve. ”
“Did she have Blood?”
“She must have, for she did come into her power. She tried to heal me when I took sick, and she established a blood circle in Minnesota. But I never saw her with anyone except Narve, and he didn’t serve as Blood.
My mother served as Queen Hrefna’s primary consiliarius for decades, but the queen passed away a few years after I began assisting.
I served your mother, of course, but she wasn’t queen in the same way.
We lived a very different life in Minnesota, and as she withdrew into her private world, I acted more as a mother to you and your brother than consiliarius. ”
A memory shimmered through me. Eivind, holding me while I cried. I thought it was our mother’s death I grieved, but it’d been Clara’s. Even then, she’d been more of a mother to me than my own.
She gave my hand a squeeze and then released me and stood. “I hope some of what you seek may be revealed to you through the legacy, especially since Helle never embraced it. But I will answer any of your questions if I’m able.”
Reverently, she pulled the embroidered cloth away and handed it to Lokken to fold, revealing a chest with glistening bluish-white sides.
The same stunning blue as his ice giant’s skin, it looked like glacial ice though it didn’t melt.
Designs were carved into the sides and the curved lid.
Yggdrasil, wolves, ravens, and Jormungandr’s coils mixed with runes like the tattoos on Lokken’s chest.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “What does it do?”
Shaking her head, she shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never seen it open. From my mother’s records, I know you should press your thumb here.” She indicated a circular hole near the roots of Yggdrasil. “It will draw a small amount of your blood to verify you’re Hel’s daughter before it will open.”
I stretched out my hand, not surprised my fingers trembled slightly. First, I touched the top of the box. It burned cold, like Lokken’s ice.
Frowning, I removed my fingers and looked back over my shoulder, catching Dorr’s attention. “It seems strange that Hel’s legacy doesn’t have any markings relating to Her Darkness.”
“Perhaps She meant to spare Her daughters.” His bond weighed heavily, a deep, silent, black river. “You were never meant to carry so much Darkness, my queen.”
D?RR
My queen yearned to fill the holes of her memory, especially of her mother. Yet I couldn’t help but fear the more she learned, the more she would hurt.
She’d already endured so much suffering. I only wanted joy and peace to fill her heart. Not sorrow or dread, especially as the weight of her queendom began to materialize around her.
Power flowed through her like an endless wellspring.
Even now, seated in her Yggdrasil throne, she seemed unaware of her might.
I might be a stranger to her world, but I understood the crushing weight of power and responsibility.
I would gladly take the weight from her shoulders, if she would allow me.
Though what she must endure as queen was beyond my capabilities and understanding.
“Come closer, Darkest. I need your courage at my side.”
I moved to her left and dropped to my knees at her side, reluctant to touch the throne in any way.
Even though I was in the human form, I feared I might stain it with essence.
She held out her hand, and I wrapped her fingers in both of my palms. She took a deep breath and then pressed her right thumb into the circular depression on the box.