Chapter 17 Lokken #2
“You should all remove your clothes too.” My voice rasped. My skin heated, as if my blood caught fire in my veins. Even though I’d fed so deeply everyone except Myrk had been unconscious just last night, a vicious stab of hunger dropped my fangs so hard and fast it made me shudder.
Without the same care they’d given to my new clothes, they tossed shirts and pants aside. Unable to tear their gaze away from me.
It felt like I was moving in slow motion as I lifted my wrists to my mouth and pierced my skin on both arms. I started to move my arms outward, but the smooth wooden arms of the chair braced beneath my forearms. Even though I was still standing.
I started to tip my head down to look but the pit of my stomach dropped.
My head fell back against the carved wooden throne.
It was impossibly big, a giant’s chair. Tall. Soaring upward.
Yggdrasil. I felt its bark against my skin. Branches bridging other worlds and dimensions stretched out in all directions. I was just one tiny splinter of the mighty world tree.
:Not true, Daughter of Hel.: A strange male voice whispered in my head. Not as deep as Dorr’s rumble but more intense, echoing with power. Yggdrasil’s voice? I didn’t think so. :You are the wellspring from which all rivers flow.:
Rippling waters splashed and sparkled in my mind, cool and sweet and pure. Not filled with refuse and mud like before. My blood already flowed in the wellspring, which fed the endless roots arching throughout Hvergelmir. Carrying me like sap through the infinite trunk and branches.
I flowed in Yggdrasil’s trunk. In seconds, I could touch the darkness of Hel or soar to the very top levels of branches. Some were still dead and dark as before, but new growth unfurled on several branches. It wasn’t too late. The mighty tree wasn’t at risk of dying. Not at all.
Glittering light flickered through the many leaves, sparkling and dancing with joy all around me. Diamonds in the leaves. Prisms and crystals, spinning, casting blinding color in all directions.
:I’m forbidden from entering your world myself. But you may enter mine and bring me through.:
:Who are you? Where are you?:
:I cannot say. Let the rainbows guide you.:
Then he was gone. I pressed my cheek to the tree, sinking into its ageless, deep peace. :Take what you need from me.:
Rustling leaves rocked me slowly downward level by level, branch by branch.
The scents of pine and cedar filled my nose.
Acorns. Apple blossoms. Sweet Linden. My toes sank into rich, dark, soil, so fertile any seed planted here would grow with abandon.
Lush vegetation, tropical flowers, trees so large and tall I couldn’t see their highest branches.
I could still feel Yggdrasil’s rough bark against my skin, my arms outstretched around its trunk. Yet I walked through this jungle too.
It was trying to tell me something. Show me something. But what?
:Do you want me to find this garden?:
The rustling shifted, almost whispers on a gentle breeze.
Green ferns and thick branches parted, letting me see far into the distance.
Rolling hills of forests. Mountains. Glistening fields of snow.
Stormy gray seas. Ocean waves crashed against rocky cliffs and black sands.
Tumbling through the window into a night sky on my own wings.
The surge of emotion in my heart. A sense of belonging. Recognition. Home.
Yet something was missing.
:I don’t understand.:
Darkness wrapped around me like black velvet, carrying me through the night sky. Molten rubies gleamed through cracks in the black. Opening. Spreading. The volcano beneath this part of Iceland?
I opened my eyes. Dorr’s obsidian eyes gleamed inches away, his face close to mine. His arms steadied me. But why was I so tall?
Relief flooded his bond and he tipped his forehead to mine. “You were gone. The tree took you. I couldn’t feel your bond at all.”
I let out a long breath, closing my eyes for a moment. Trying to understand what I’d seen. “Yggdrasil wants… something. I’m not sure what, though.” I sighed with frustration. “I also talked to someone, a man, but he didn’t say who he was. He said it was forbidden.”
“A new Blood?”
“I don’t know. I—” I turned my head and froze. The Ironheart throne had filled the entire room with roots, branches, and leaves. I was standing on a flat spot several feet above the floor. “Wow. How long was I gone?”
“Just a few minutes, my queen, but it felt like an eternity.” Lightly, he plucked a leaf out of my hair, which had grown again. Now it hung past my shoulders and down over my breasts. “How do you feel? Do you need to feed?”
I ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth. My fangs had retracted, and I felt no great hunger at the moment. Though mentioning feeding made my mouth water. I started to reach up to wrap my arm around his neck, and realized there was something in my hand.
Turning my palm up, I opened my fingers. An oblong brown seed, as big as my thumb. Reverence brought tears to my eyes. “Of course. Yggdrasil wants me to plant a tree here.”
Gunnarr peeked out into the hallway to be sure no humans lurked outside.
Dorr carried me in his arms outside to the back part of the house.
The seed pulled me, as if it already knew exactly where it wanted to grow.
A large deck leaned out over the ocean beneath the clear night sky, but to the left, there was a walkway alongside the house.
A courtyard nestled between the house and the cliff.
Boulders tumbled in an arc as if placed by the goddess, forming a natural planting bed.
Dorr gently set me on my bare feet, and I knelt in the pillows of snow. I dug down with my other hand to the soil, not surprised in the slightest to find it as fertile and rich as the garden I’d seen in the vision. It was easy to dig a small hole and slip the seed inside.
The punctures on my wrists had already closed, so I reopened the bite on my right wrist so I could drizzle blood over the seed. I started to cover it with soil—but it sprouted immediately, already growing up out of the ground and above the snow.
“The circle begins here.” My words weighed heavy and thick in the air. Everything slowed. My heartbeat thudded, throbbing through my entire body. “Yggdrasil’s seed is the cornerstone.”
My Darkest shifted to his massive dark alfar form, his black wings blocking out the starlight above.
He enfolded me in his arms and barked orders to the others.
I heard the words, but they didn’t make sense.
My ears were too full of my heartbeat. The rustling of leaves.
A deep, soft grumble as roots pushed into the soil.
Rolling my head to the side, I watched crimson drop from my wrist, each drop blazing with power. Molten rubies of blood—not lava—gleaming against the black.
We soared through the night almost completely silent except for the occasional flap of leather.
Even Gunnarr. I touched his bond to be sure he was with us.
Myrk carried him, but instead of cradling him against his chest like Dorr carried me, Gunnarr had a death grip around Myrk’s ankles.
Lokken and Svar brought up the rear, though the dark alfar held my other Blood beneath his armpits.
My house spun below us. Steep black roofs reflected a million stars above. A dark shape perched out over the cliffs like a dark alfar, or gargoyle, guarding the beach below. It made me smile.
Magic pulsed higher. My ears hummed and throbbed with pressure.
The red glow of my blood lit up the night like a thousand bonfires.
I wasn’t sure if humans would see it or not.
Hopefully no one came to investigate or feared the volcano was about to erupt.
Dorr flew faster, his wings flapping more often in snaps that propelled us down toward the sheltered corner where we’d begun.
:Close the circle.: I turned my head and sank my fangs into his chest. :Then drop us down to the beach.:
He dipped one wing, wheeling us in a tight turn around the tree.
My blood rained down on the sapling. Power surged through me, a blast that sent us tumbling through the air.
Dizzy. My heart pounded so hard, so loud, I couldn’t think.
See. Wind whistled around us, trying to tear me away from him.
Thumps shook us, jarring my teeth. Snapping my head.
As if we rolled down the side of the cliff, bouncing off boulders. Spinning out of control.
:Dorr!: