Chapter 16 Helayna #2
Through her bond, I felt the small prick.
The scent of her blood perfumed the air, even though it was but a single drop.
My mouth watered, my heart thudding heavily against the cage of my chest. Her Blood drew near, drawn by the tantalizing scent of her blood.
Even Gunnarr, though he held a piece of cake in each of his hands.
With a small pop, the top of the box lifted in a slight crack. Light glowed from inside, casting rainbow prisms around the darkened room.
She gave a small nod to Clara, who reverently stretched out her hands and lifted off the lid, setting it aside on the desk. Light spun around the room in an arc, so bright it made my eyes water. Blinking away the moisture I could finally begin to discern its contents.
A small wooden ship with curled ends filled the interior, almost like it was embedded in a block of ice. Though the front end reared back out of the ice with a monstrous face.
“It’s a longship,” Gunnarr said. “With the drekahofue, dragon head. Wicked cool. It doesn’t have sails, but they’d represent the dragon’s wings.”
I let out a soft sigh of relief, afraid the head was supposed to represent us, the dark alfar.
Helayna released my hand so she could lean forward to examine the contents of the ship. “Is it alright to touch them?”
“Of course,” Clara replied. “They’re yours, Your Majesty. The items themselves have no power. They’re merely symbolic of Hel’s powers She passes to Her daughters. You already carry Her gifts in your blood.”
One by one, she pulled out small items and set them in front of the box.
A piece of flat silver hammered into an oval with three connected spirals. A black bowl of some sort, small enough to sit in the palm of her hand. A white sphere threaded with silver the size of my thumb. A flat round stone with a hole in the center. Runes were carved around its edge.
“Does anyone know what they are?” Helayna asked.
“May we touch them, my queen?” Lokken asked.
“Yes, please. That one—” she said as he picked up the black bowl. “Is surprisingly heavy.”
“It feels like cast iron,” he replied. “My guess is it’s a cauldron. There’s something carved inside it…” He held it closer to the nearby lamp. “Laguz, water.”
“The wellspring! My gift of water!” She looked back up at Clara. “How many of these gifts will I receive, do you know?”
Clara shook her head. “The goddess decides. There are no other daughters of Hel still alive, so technically you could receive them all, but I’m not sure what powers Helle may have had.”
“You said my grandmother had the power of Odin’s ravens. Which symbol represents that power?”
Clara hesitated a moment and then pointed to the white sphere. “My guess is that one. She had a white eye, and when she called her power, lightning sparked from it.”
“Odin’s eye!” Gunnarr exclaimed. “There’s a story about him sacrificing his eye to Mimir’s Well at the base of Yggdrasil to gain wisdom. That would make his eye part of Hel’s domain.”
“The ravens.” Helayna’s voice caught, cracking a little with emotion, so I cupped her shoulder with my palm, steadying her.
“Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory. I guess that’s why my memories are so convoluted.
I thought the damage was done by Jormungandr, but I’m beginning to suspect it was my mother’s power.
But why, Clara? Why did she hide so much from me? ”
“I don’t know, my queen. I’m so sorry.”
“She didn’t leave a letter for me? A diary? A history of our family?”
“There are some personal papers in the house in Reykjavík, but that was so long ago. I doubt it will be of much help.”
She sighed softly, her eyes fluttering closed, her head tipped slightly as if she saw something no one else could.
“I vaguely remember sitting at the table in the cabin, and her asking me to forgive her. She called me Lanie and prayed for the goddess to bring me home to safety one day. I wasn’t a child, though.
So that wasn’t when she sent me to be fostered in Norway. ”
“You came home once a year,” Clara said. “Always around Samhain before any storms would prevent the trip. You usually stayed a few days and then returned to House Fólkvangr. When you were younger, you often wept, begging to stay home, but she insisted it wasn’t safe and sent you back.”
“The cabin wasn’t safe? Was she worried about some kind of attack?”
Clara grimaced, shaking her head. “I have no idea. As I said, she was troubled. Paranoid. Once you were fostered, she disappeared into the basement for days or even weeks at a time. I always thought it was strange but at least Narve was there. I thought she meant to comfort him. Since it was her private space, I didn’t intrude unless invited, but one time I heard the phone ringing and she didn’t answer.
I went downstairs to answer, fearing it was news about you—and she wasn’t there.
Neither was Narve. I never saw them come upstairs to leave, though it’s possible they slipped past me when I slept. ”
Though the way her eyes narrowed and her tone sharpened, I doubted they’d managed to slip through the house without waking her.
“A few days later, she emerged from the basement and pretended as though she’d been there all along.”
“What did she say when you questioned her?”
Clara dropped her gaze, wringing her hands. “I didn’t. I didn’t feel like it was my place to question my queen.”
Helayna sat back in her chair and leaned against the arm, seeking comfort from me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and lightly stroked her hair, waiting for her to steady.
“Could she have traveled through a portal?” Svar asked. “Like the Isador queen?”
Myrk grunted. “Good thinking.”
“But where would she have gone?” She rubbed her face lightly against the new shirt. “She didn’t go to Reykjavík, did she?”
“No,” Clara replied. “Even after she closed the nest, we still had a skeleton crew living in the cottage on the grounds to ensure the house was well tended. They would’ve notified me at once.”
Helayna suddenly shot straight up. “You said phone.”
“Yes…?” Clara replied.
“In my head, I keep assuming everything happened in the late nineteenth century or early twentieth, but the telephone hadn’t even been invented, right? When did you discover I’d been taken?”
“1934. Why? Is that significant?”
“I don’t know.” Shock and confusion flooded our bond. “Eivind said I’d been gone for at least two hundred years. I’m not great at arithmetic in my head but that would’ve been before either of us was born. Would Mother have been messing with his memory too?”
Clara shook her head. “It’s possible, I suppose, but I doubt it.
For one thing, he was never home, and I don’t think her power would’ve affected him without him being in her presence or even possibly touching him.
More than likely he simply has no concept of the passing of time.
Unless things have changed a great deal in the years since you were taken, he runs with the wolves. ”
Helayna’s heart pained her so badly I squeezed her tighter against me, trying to ease the ache. “Maybe that’s why she had me come home once a year. Not to see me—but to ensure she could mess up my memory again.”
She allowed me to hold her for a few minutes but then my proud, strong queen lifted her face, wiped her damp cheeks, and put a determined smile on her face.
“I assure all of you I won’t be using such power against any of you.
I will never destroy or confuse your memories.
So I swear on Lady Hel, Goddess of Darkness and Death. ”