Chapter twenty-five
Arik
I sat back, frowning at the old woman as Eisa looked at me plaintively.
“I…it…” She shook her head as if unsure how to explain what had happened to Sigrid. “It’s in me.”
Sigrid was certainly Volva. I wasn’t sure how Baldur hadn’t sensed it when we had first happened upon Henrik’s. She must have somehow masked the tang of magic that clung to her now. A sense of something ancient and not quite human radiated out from all three of the women.
“In you?“ Sigrid raised a shockingly silver brow.
“There was an attack at the Rift,” I said, not sure how else to explain what had happened. “Eisa somehow closed a portion of it with whatever power was in the necklace.”
“It sort of melted into me,” Eisa placed a hand over her heart. “Here. It left a diamond-shaped scar.”
I reached into my tunic to pull out the tiny crystal gem that lay against my breast. “But we have this one. My mother’s.”
“Ah.” Sigrid sat back, a look of triumph on her ancient face as her eyes landed on the blue stone.
“Well, it is always so gratifying to be right. May I?”
She reached out a hand for the necklace, and Eisa and I glanced at each other in mutual frustration. I wished I could reach her mind-to-mind, but there was still a blank hole of nothingness where that bridge had been, not a trace of Baldur anywhere.
“You’re not angry?” Eisa asked, her brow furrowed as she regarded the old woman.
“Of course not, child. It was bound to happen eventually.” Sigrid examined my mother’s necklace from every angle with a look of awe. “Where did you say your mother got this, boy?”
She looked at me, and I shook my head. “She didn’t say. Didn’t have time to explain.”
I could still her hear scream as they dragged me away.
“Interesting” Sigrid murmured, closing her fist around the gem and holding it out to Eisa. “It’s for you, child.”
Eisa pushed her hand back. “It’s Arik’s. His mother’s. Not the one you gave me, Mormor.”
“I know, child. I’m not completely senile.” Sigrid rolled her eyes irritably. “But he can’t do anything with it. You can.”
“Take it,” I told Eisa as Sigrid forced it back toward her. With some reluctance, she placed the chain around her neck. A sense of rightness filled me, and I wondered why I had held on to the damned thing so long. “What is it, Sigrid? What was bound to happen?”
“Goodness boy, do you know none of your history?” Sigrid looked at me expectantly, and I chafed a bit at being repeatedly called ‘boy.’ “You must know about the Tears of Elysia, being a prince and all.”
I blinked, my patience beginning to fray. “I’m no prince.”
“But you were. Recognized you as soon as you marched into Henrik’s place, and I decided I wanted you for my Eisa.”
I choked on a laugh. Baldur would have a lot to say about Sigrid taking credit for his discovery of our mate, but I decided it wasn’t worth getting derailed again. Every answer resulted in about fifteen more questions with Sigrid, and we had enough to be going on with.
“I don’t know the story.” I shook my head, looking around at the three priestesses.
They all frowned at each other, as if this surprised them.
“Unbelievable. You tell it then, Amaya, lest I cough to death,” Sigrid commanded. “And listen well, boy, because I expect you to tell it to others when I am gone.”
Eisa let out a small, choked noise as she grabbed Sigrid’s hand in hers.
“Well, let me see. Where to begin,” Amaya said thoughtfully, still stirring the soup in the great cauldron. “I suppose we must begin with the creation, really.”
“Blessed Mother, this story will take hours if you go all the way back to creation,” Freya barked, taking the spoon from Amaya and stirring violently, as if the soup had personally offended her. “Start with the Rift.”
“Yes, alright,” said Amaya good-naturedly, clapping her hands together once. “Well, if you recall, eons ago, a Rift in the Odemark was opened.”
“By a sorcerer,” Freya interjected, her tone dripping with disgust. “Primitive human spellcasters at best, menaces to the fabric of reality at worst.”
“Yes, the drage are aware of the history of the Rift,” I said, trying to keep my tone even. “We were created to fight the odemarksdyr.”
“Yes!” Amaya clapped her hands as if I were a schoolboy who had gotten the right answer. “Good, so you know some of the story then. The Rift was opened, and the darkness beyond terrorized the humans in Stalheim without hope.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand as Eisa looked at me in surprise. “What about the dragons?”
“She’s getting there,” Freya snapped. She turned back to Amaya and whispered loudly, “Perhaps you should have started with creation.”
“Right, well,” Amaya continued, smiling patiently at the older woman.
“For centuries, Elysia, the Hearthmother and patron Goddess of humanity, watched her creations suffer and die because of the hubris of that sorcerer. For the realms were meant to be separate always, the fabric of one world never touching another.”
“But the dragons are from another world,“ Eisa interjected, looking to me for confirmation. “They struck a deal with the humans to protect them.”
“Oh dear, maybe I should go back farther,“ Amaya said, looking worriedly at Sigrid.
“The dragons are from no world, child,” Sigrid said, giving me a hard glare as if it were my fault that Eisa was ill-informed. “They are guardians of creation. The offspring of the stars in the divine cosmos that guard our very existence. They live between.”
“Between?” I was relieved that Eisa asked so I wouldn’t have to look any more stupid than I already did.
“Between the worlds. Between the fabrics of our realities,” Sigrid added, waving her question away impatiently.
“It matters not. The point is that the opening of the was an act of destruction so material to our world and the gods who created it, that something else was born out of that act. An evil determined to unravel creation. To devour our world, and possibly all worlds.”
“We do not speak its name,” Eisa murmured, her eyes distant as if she were speaking with Idunn.
“What is it?” I asked, squeezing her thigh.
“Idunn told me. Something…hunted the dragons in the darkness. She said they do not speak its name.” She looked up, her eyes clearing as they met mine, terror shining behind them. “And I heard it. In the cave where the Rift had been healed over. It wants to devour everything.”
“And it nearly succeeded once,” Sigrid said, nodding and patting Eisa’s hand. “When the Rift was first opened, it tried to come through. Its darkness seeped into the land like an infection, stripping it until it was nothing but ice and death.
“And so the volva broke the continent,” Freya said, sounding irritated about how long this story was taking. “With Elysia’s blessing, we sundered the world and banished the darkness to cold and ice and nothing, where it would be unable to find a foothold in the world.”
“The Odemark used to be connected to Stalheim?” I tried and failed to remember the coastline from the map I’d seen in the dragehersker’s office.
Amaya nodded, her expression somber. “Many died in the process, their lives and magic given to isolate the Rift so that the darkness had nothing on which to feed.”
“So it sent monsters,” Freya said, clanging the wooden spoon against the copper pot. “Solving one problem to create a different one, as usual.”
“It was never supposed to be a permanent solution,” Amaya said, her patient smile faltering.
“Anyway, Elysia wept tears of her own essence for the loyal priestesses who had given their lives to protect humanity. Those Tears fell to the earth, filled with Elysia’s own magic in the hopes that one day, they could be used to close the Rift entirely. ”
“The remaining volva guarded the Tears.” Sigrid interjected.
“But the king at the time feared our power and hunted us relentlessly. Our temples were sacked. Priestesses were hanged. Those who remained went into hiding, quietly raising their daughters in the old ways and guarding the Tears for one who might wield them.”
I reeled. If this story was in the Book of Chaos, it was in a part I had never seen a record of. Why hide this part of our history from the drage, if we needed the Tears to close the Rift?
I had about a thousand other questions, but as always, my mate had anticipated me.
“Go back to the dragons. Why bother with the drage if the Tears are supposed to close the Rift? Who needs to wield them?”
“One question at a time, child,” Sigrid sighed, coughing again. The old woman looked exhausted, and her decline suddenly made sense.
“The Tear protected you,” I realized. Sigrid had told Eisa that the necklace would keep her safe. The Tear must have kept Sigrid healthy, if not young, while it was still in her possession. She must have known that giving it to Eisa would mean her own decline. “How long?”
Sigrid shrugged. “‘Far longer than it should have.”
She dissolved into another fit of coughing, and Amaya continued for her as Freya refilled her tea.
“It was the Norns who sent the dragons. The fates, who sit on the outside of creation.”
I had to fight not to roll my eyes, wishing Baldur were here to make a snarky comment about my disbelief in fate.
Amaya shot me a disapproving look, as if she knew exactly what blasphemy I’d been considering. “The Norns foresaw that no human, not even a Chaosborn, could wield the power of a goddess and survive long enough to close the Rift.”
“Why not have the volva seal the Rift then?” Eisa asked. “You have magic.”
Amaya shook her head. “It must be a human, for it was a human who opened the Rift. The universe requires balance. So they sent their guardians to give humanity the power they would need.”
“So any drage can wield them?” Eisa asked, looking between the three women. I didn’t miss the hopeful note in her tone, and my heart sank at Amaya’s answering wince.
“No…not exactly.” She glanced at Sigrid, who gave her a subtle nod. “Only one born of both worlds–a human with a soul of fire–is strong enough to destroy the darkness for good.”
The vaguest shimmering of a truth had started to materialize in my mind, but I couldn’t figure out how it would be possible.
Sigrid took Eisa’s hand, her eyes sad. “Which brings us to your mother, child.”
“My mother.” Eisa’s face had gone white, and she shook her head vehemently. “She wasn’t drage.”
She had said as much when Baldur had found her, and I knew that she was right. Her mother couldn’t have been drage.
Unless…
But no. There would surely be records.
“No, no. She was human.” The look she cast on my mate was as fond as any grandmother’s, but filled with regret. “Less human than you, though, child.”
“Less human?” Eisa looked at me, and I took her hand.
I squeezed Eisa’s hand and turned my attention fully on Sigrid, my heart pounding in anticipation. In terror. “Who are her parents, Sigrid?”
“It’s Mormor to you, boy, and exactly who she thinks,” Sigrid said huffily as if I were accusing her of lying.
She looked at Eisa, her eyes softening again.
“Your father was, I’m sad to say, a ne’er-do-well who lost all of his money gambling.
But your mother loved him, once. She left this temple to wed him, in fact.
Insisted to me that she would be happy and safe with the man she loved. ”
Freya scoffed. “That didn’t last long.”
“Freya,” Amaya chastised. The older woman rolled her eyes, but remained silent.
“My mother grew up here,” Eisa said slowly, as if trying to weave the narrative together in her mind.
“She was a foundling,” Sigrid replied, sounding hesitant for the first time since beginning her narrative. “Born in the temple ruins and abandoned here by her parents as a babe.”
“Abandoned?”
Fuck. That’s why there were no records.
“They knew that she wouldn’t be safe anywhere else. Asked me to watch over her. I fear…” Sigrid shook her head, looking devastated, “I failed them, in the end. Them, and her.”
I kept my breaths shallow as the import of what Sigrid was telling us fully hit me. It wasn’t possible, but it was the only explanation that made sense. “They were drage.”
“What?” Eisa looked at me, but I kept my eyes on Sigrid, waiting for confirmation.
She nodded once, her gaze darting to my mate before returning to mine. “Born of two worlds.”
Holy gods above.
“It’s why you burn blue,” I took Eisa’s hands in mine as all the pieces finally clicked into place. As I fought the panic that rose in me. Having Baldur’s mate close the Rift had been all well and good in theory, but now that I knew what it would entail…what was on the other side of it…
Fuck.
“It’s why Chaos affects you so much more than the rest of us,” I continued. “Why you are sick with it. Why your mother was even more sick. There’s too much.”
Had Baldur known this whole time? He had warned me months ago. She is something new. Something different. And it had taken trekking across the continent twice for me to finally put the fucking pieces together.
“What are you saying?” Eisa asked, eyes wide and pleading with mine.
I wanted so badly to carry this burden for her. My beautiful, beloved mate. But the burden was hers, and if I understood what the priestesses were saying, that burden was greater than either of us had anticipated.
I took her face between my palms and stroked my thumbs over her cheekbones, which had only just started to fill out from the starvation of her youth.
“You’re scaring me, Arik.”
“Don’t be scared. I’m with you, no matter what.” I pressed my forehead to hers, willing my strength into her. Praying that Idunn would ease her panic.
I would carry this burden with her. I would protect her until my dying breath, and there wasn’t a force on this or any other world that could tear me from her side.
“Your mother–you–are not Chaosborn, Kjaere. I don’t know how it’s possible, but it explains everything.”
“But I bonded Idunn.” Eisa pulled back, her eyes glowing faintly blue with Idunn’s anger. At me, I expected, and my inability to get the words out. “What am I then, if I’m not Chaosborn?”
My chest felt tight with awe and terror for this woman–my mate–who I loved more fiercely than anything in this world and the next.
And there was a name for what she was. One so obscure, I’d only seen it written once, and immediately dismissed it as fantasy. A name that described the last woman who bonded a blue dragon.
A woman who had already tried and failed to close the Rift.
“You are Dragonborn, my love.”