Chapter twenty-seven
Eisa
Dragonborn.
The word felt somehow both incredibly wrong and undeniably right. I was Dragonborn.
“How?” I asked, unsure if I should direct the question to Sigrid or to Arik.
Arik gripped my knee, his hand a steady anchor in a sea of panic.
Sigrid gave me a sad smile. “Half-Dragonborn, to be fair. Your mother was born of two drage, and you were born of a human father. Two worlds, my Eisa.”
“No. I stood, taking a step away from them both. The word still felt foreign on my tongue. “You’re wrong. Drage cannot bear children.”
“Cannot and will not are different things, my girl.” Sigrid looked at Arik expectantly.
He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “If her mother didn’t shift, it’s theoretically possible.” He looked at me. “You know it is, Kjaere.”
I swallowed. The evidence that pregnancy must be possible was still causing me a dull ache on and off.
“That’s why they came here. They ran. Deserted.” He looked at Sigrid, who confirmed with a nod.
“I did not know them well,” Sigrid said gently. “But I believe you are right. You would have to check the records at Ironholm to be sure.”
“Check the records?” I asked incredulously, taking another step away from the woman whose secrets had commandeered my life.
“Your mother gave you their surname,” Sigrid said sadly, taking another sip of tea as a cough burbled out of her. “Eldsen. A name for someone born of two worlds.”
“Stop saying that,” I snapped, fighting away the instant regret I felt. I had never shouted or snapped at Sigrid, not even when I was young. Not even upon losing my mother.
But this was all too much, and it felt like a betrayal that Sigrid had kept all of this from me for so long.
Sigrid’s face crumpled. “My Eisa—“
My chest was too tight. Like the walls were closing in on me. “No. No, I need some air.”
“Kjaere.”
I marched past Arik and out into the sanctum, which was tinted pink from the witchfire in the sconces.
“It’s dark—“
“We’ll be fine.” I heard Arik cut Amaya off as he followed me, his stride eating up the distance between us. “Kjaere.”
“I need air.” My voice was breathless, my chest tight as I pushed open the door and began climbing the stairs. I was so out of shape that my thighs were burning by the time I hit the tenth step, but I kept pushing forward even as my breathing turned to ragged gasps.
“Just breathe.” Arik placed his hand on my back, a reassurance and support as I continued climbing. When I slowed, he matched my pace, never telling me to stop but also never leaving my side.
Drageling, Idunn intoned as she curled around my mind. Her presence was a soothing balm to my rioting heart. I am with you.
I’m sorry. The words felt choked even in my mind as I struggled to take in gasping breaths. You should have bonded someone stronger. Someone better.
There is no one I would wish to bind my soul to but you, Drageling. Breathe.
We emerged into the chill night wind, stars flickering in and out between the clouds that constantly blocked out the sky over Stalheim.
I breathed in the crisp air, feeling like the weight of the temple had finally lifted somewhat.
My lungs felt like they had been run through a meat grinder.
“Breathe, Eisa.” Arik held me by the shoulders, his steady warmth and scent of leather and smoke encircling me. “In and out. Nice and slow.”
“I’m sorry.” I gasped out the words between ragged breaths, holding on to him as I tried to calm my racing heart. “I’m sorry.”
“Breathe, Kjaere. I have you.”
I leaned forward until my forehead rested against the hollow of his throat, and his arms came around me. He stroked soothing circles against my back in time with my breathing, until it had slowed enough that I could think again.
We stood there for a time, letting the night air soothe my racing heart.
It felt like every answer Sigrid had given me had resulted in a thousand more questions.
How could my mother have been Dragonborn?
How did Sigrid know any of this, about the Rift, about the Goddess?
And if this was all true, why had we languished under Henrik’s thumb for so very long? Why didn’t Sigrid bring me here?
“I should have listened to you.”
“Hmm?” Arik murmured against the top of my head.
My face was still buried in his throat, as if the scent of him could chase away the darkness that might be coming for all of us.
“Doing more squats.”
Arik huffed a laugh as he pushed a lock of hair back from my sweaty brow. “You’ll certainly feel it tomorrow.” He cupped my cheek. “Are you alright, Kjaere?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
“I thought not.” He looked down at me, lifting my face with his hands. “We’ll weather this together, Kjaere—whatever it means. For you. For us. For the whole godsdamned realm. You won’t do this alone.”
He stroked his thumbs over my cheekbones, and I sank into the touch, letting my eyes close. “I suppose you were right after all.”
“About what?”
“About me being able to close the Rift. About Idunn.” I swallowed, opening my eyes to meet his steely gaze. “You told me you thought she could close the Rift because she burned blue.”
“I fucking hate being right,” he sighed, folding me back into his embrace. “The last blue must have been Dragonborn too. It’s the only way any of this makes sense. Why she tried and failed to close the Rift.”
I released a disbelieving laugh. “If she wasn’t able to close the Rift, I’m not sure what hope I have.”
Arik shook his head and leaned down. He pressed his lips to my forehead in a chaste kiss before resting his brow against mine.
“You have something she didn’t.” His breath was warm between us. Intimate.
“What’s that?” I whispered, feeling myself begin to tremble from cold or fear, or all of it—I wasn’t sure.
He tilted my chin up and gave me a half-smirk. “Me.”
And then he was pressing his lips to mine, the kiss consuming in a way that chased the fear to a dark place in the corner of my mind. Idunn surged, her need pulsing as something flickered against the barren wasteland of our mental bridge. Something white and hot and familiar.
We gasped, breaking apart at the same time. “Baldur.”
“I felt him,” Arik said, grinning more widely than I had seen in days.
“Does that mean the mistletoe is wearing off?”
“I fucking hope so.” His mouth crashed against mine again, and I felt that bright spark of white light writhe against the darkness in my mind.
Idunn purred, wrapping her own sinewy blue form around the white spark and tugging insistently. Mine.
Arik’s hands roamed my body, their path casting a blaze against my chilled skin.
A break in the clouds above us bathed the clearing and the broken stones in silvery moonlight, and we broke apart again, both panting harder than when we had climbed a hundred stairs.
“This is it,” Arik murmured, grabbing my waist and pulling me close. “The perfect place. The perfect moment.”
“For what?” I was still breathing heavily, and Idunn was stoking the fire in me with a need for Baldur that was stronger than I’d ever felt.
“To make you my wife.” I looked up to find him smiling down at me, his eyes soft in the moonlight. “Marry me, Kjaere. Here. Tonight, if the priestesses will do the honors. Or tomorrow, if you prefer. Or really any day. Just say you’ll be my wife.”
I gaped, not sure what to say. Idunn was battering at the wall between her and Baldur so loudly, it was difficult to think. All I could choke out was, “Why?”
Arik laughed. “Why? I thought that was a rather elegant proposal, under the moonlight, and your response is ‘why’?”
I shook my head, feeling like all the words were jumbling up incorrectly in my head. “I mean, your father isn’t forcing us.”
Arik’s eyes went hard for a moment before he dropped his forehead to mine again and sighed. “Just listen to me for a minute, Kjaere. I need to put the words in order, and I’m worried I won’t get them right if you try to argue with me.”
“But–”
He kissed me again, and the argument I’d been about to make died on my lips. “No arguing. Just listening.”
I nodded, biting my lip to stop another word from escaping me. Something like excitement was rising in my stomach, making me feel giddy and nauseated and joyful all at once.
“I have loved you from the moment I saw you in Henrik’s tavern, even when I wasn’t ready to admit it. Baldur knew you were meant for us, but he isn’t here, so believe me when I say this.” Arik tilted my chin up so I was forced to hold his gaze, and his eyes were bright with reflected starlight.
“I would burn the world for you. I would break open the Rift to find you, and I would damn the rest of humanity as long as it meant you were safe. I love you more than my very soul-bonded dragon, and it’s not because we are mates, and it’s not because the fucking Norns decreed it to be so.
It’s because you are strong and bold. You love fiercely and feel deeply, and you are everything that has been missing from my life for so long.
And it would be the greatest honor to call you my wife, before this kingdom and the world.
” He brushed a tear aside with the pad of his thumb.
“Marry me, Kjaere.” My eyelids fluttered shut under the intensity of his gaze, and he pressed a kiss to one cheek. “Be my wife.” The other cheek. “Be my mate.” My nose. “And for the love of all that is good and right in this world, let me be yours.”
His lips hovered over mine, and I knew he was waiting for an answer. My heartbeat thrummed in time with the gem over my heart—the literal tear of a goddess—and all of the fear and anger from today’s revelations melted away under the force of his love.
So I gave him the only answer I could. The one my heart had longed to give since before Idunn awoke in me. Before the kiss in the archives. Before the moment he had looked into my eyes and pleaded with me to help him close the Rift.
“Yes.”
Arik closed the distance, his lips meeting mine with such force that I lost my balance and stumbled backward. He caught me, cushioning my head with his hand as he righted us against one of the still-standing stone columns that had once been part of the exterior of the temple.
He continued kissing me, his beard leaving shivers as he worked his way down the slope of my neck. “Say it again.”
I laughed. “Yes, Arik. I will marry you.” I slid my hands into his hair, not caring that I may ruin the braids on the sides of his scalp as I tugged. “I love you, and I will marry you.”
“Fuck, I love you,” he groaned against my neck. “I have loved you for so long, Kjaere.”
“You do?”
Arik stilled, lifting his head to frown down at me. He brushed away the tear that tracked down my face. “More than life itself, Eisa.”
I shook my head, feeling like my heart might beat right out of my chest. “You never said it. Before now, I mean.”
More kissing, growled Idunn. What is this talking for?
“Because I’m a fucking idiot,” Arik growled, pressing low to trail kisses down the other side of my neck. I felt my nipples pebble beneath my serk as a fire lit low in my core. “Let me make it up to you.”
His hand slid down my body to where I was aching for him, and I let out a gasp as he nipped my collarbone with his teeth.
More, Idunn demanded. She was a being of pure need and energy, still flitting around the white light that seemed to blink in and out of existence at the end of our mental bridge. I need more.
Her need became mine, and it wasn’t sated with so many layers of fabric between us. I tugged at the overdress, letting out a whine when I couldn’t tug the skirts up high enough.
“Let me.” Arik hitched up my overdress and pressed his muscular thigh between my legs, and I gasped. His fingers caressed me with only the linen serk between us, stoking the fire Idunn was building. “How’s that?”
“Good,” I gasped as I rocked against his hand and leg, the friction too good to stop even if I’d wanted to. “So good. But I’m still bleeding.”
“I don’t fucking care,” Arik grunted, removing his hand from my waist to adjust himself before lifting the underdress.
Cool air was immediately replaced by the heat of his leather-clad thighs and hand between my legs, and I let my head fall back against the stone as Idunn’s desire grew to a feverish intensity. “Do you want me to stop?”
“The mess–”
“Fuck the mess.” He nipped at my throat, one finger slipping inside me as I moved. Then another. I moaned at the pleasure of his intrusion, the slick between my thighs growing more heated.
He was breathing hard, his body rocking against mine as I ground out my pleasure. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” I shook my head, uncertain I could stop even if he did. Positive Idunn wouldn’t let me. “Don’t stop.”
He grunted, his length hard against my stomach. “Fuck, Eisa, I can’t–”
Pleasure spiraled out from the place where his fingers met my heat in a glorious wave. Arik’s eyes turned molten silver in the moonlight as he spilled himself into his trousers with a groan, his fingers still inside me.
White light flared in both of our minds as Baldur came roaring back into consciousness.