Chapter thirty-five
Arik
It wasn’t difficult to find the source of the destruction.
We’d left the temple as soon as Eisa was able to walk, packing whatever we could. She left her wedding gown with Sigrid, who made me promise to bring her back to retrieve it, but I knew from the looks on all three priestesses’ faces that they feared the worst.
“If we don’t return, go east. To ?strheim.” I said as Eisa hugged Amaya farewell. Even Freya looked teary, but Sigrid was stalwart. Steady. “My uncle will help you.”
“The third Tear is to the west,” she argued. “We must go in search of it.”
“Then he’ll give you horses,” I insisted.
Sigrid rolled her eyes, as if horses were a ridiculous form of transportation. “We’ll be fine, boy. You just make sure you bring her back.”
I nodded. “I swear it.”
Eisa hugged her goodbye, her face still pale and wan.
Baldur had wanted to carry her, but Idunn had insisted on flying herself while Baldur carried the Book.
Even the small act of fastening the Book, wrapped in three sets of priestess robes and stuffed at the bottom of our bag, to Baldur’s foreclaw had set off a nosebleed.
How will she read it if it hurts her? Baldur rumbled as we flew.
We will read it, I replied. How is she?
Her head still aches and her stomach turns. Baldur growled as if he could personally fight off the headache. I do not like this.
Me either. The others? I asked Baldur. Concern for our reirhold and our mate was a constant drumbeat in my mind, and I hated that I had no power to help with whatever Revna and the others were facing.
There was a pause as Baldur chased down our friends. Our family. Sigurd and Bryndis fight the odemarksdyr.
Odemarksdyr?
Fuck, there were odemarksdyr in Stalheim. We had already lost.
There are too many. Baldur’s voice was panicked. Kindra is with Arne. He is injured.
Shit. Let them know where we’re going.
Already done.
And call in the other reirholds. As many as can be spared. It would take twelve hours for them to arrive, and they’d be drained from flying, but we didn’t have a choice. If the odemarksdyr were here, it meant our battle was here, too.
It is done.
We followed the smoke in the distance, and before we had even crossed the Elfr, I knew what we would find. Where we were heading.
We were too late.
Hovedstaden was gone. And in its place…
It wasn’t the Rift. It couldn’t be. But it also couldn’t be anything else. A chasm at least twenty feet wide cracked the earth. Stormhold sat poised on its widest edge, as if a single gust of wind would topple the once mighty stronghold into its inky depths.
Inky, but for a faint blue glow deep, deep down.
The upper portions of the castle had already fallen, lost to the void below, and the rest of the city fared no better.
What hadn’t fallen into the darkness was burning, acrid smoke making the air thick and gray.
There were screams in the distance, and a putrid stench mingled with the burning to make the air practically unbearable.
Corpses, Eisa said, as Idunn searched the ground below. Bodies littered what remained of the streets, some burned, other mauled or partially consumed. Hundreds, if not thousands more, must have fallen into the chasm as it broke open.
Odemarksdyr, Baldur replied with a growl. I can smell them. In the distance.
How? Why here? Idunn searched the darkness, a puff of smoke emerging from her nostrils. What is special about this place?
I don’t know, I admitted. I had expected the Scar to break open again, but not here. Had believed that Stalheim was still safe as long as we watched the Rift. It shouldn’t be possible.
It smells of sorcery, Baldur growled. The magic is wrong.
Who could have done this?
Perhaps your father. Baldur rumbled, every scale pricking in alert as we crossed the remains of the outer wall of the castle. We left and thwarted his plans.
Why destroy a kingdom you hope to save? I reasoned. The whole point of my father’s plans to use the drage to invade fae lands was his misguided attempt to save our people.
Maybe he didn’t actually care about saving it.
“I have no desire to be king over the ashes.” It was what Edvard had told me before the Althing. Before my father told me of his plans to invade the fae realm and name me as heir. Had he known what my father planned? That he would summon something far worse if I didn’t cooperate?
Perhaps I should have fucking listened instead of assuming every word out of his vile mouth was meant to provoke me.
We need to stop this, Kjaere. I reached out to Eisa, relieved to find her easily across our mental bridge. We need to close the Rift. At least this section.
I know. She sounded determined, even though I could feel her terror, and a wave of pride that she was my mate—my wife—swept through me. How?
You have the Tear. Perhaps you can close it like last time.
I don’t know how I did it last time! I just…felt it. When you were in danger.
Pretty sure we’re all in danger now.
Focus. Baldur was tense as a bowstring, his normally good-natured grumpiness replaced by terror. For his mate. For us. We will land near the widest section.
The castle walls rose beneath us, half crumbled in ruin on either side of the Rift. The great hall still stood, and half of the keep, but the training ring, the stables, and most of the surrounding walls and courtyards were now at the bottom of the Rift.
We landed in the middle of the broken courtyard, the ground littered with the remains of guards and servants whose bodies had been ripped to shreds or charred to ash. The place should have been crawling with odemarksdyr or filled with anguished cries of the dying, but it was utterly silent. Still.
Idunn snorted and I felt Eisa’s horror down the bond. They’re all dead.
Panic warred within me. Was my mother alive? Had she been in the part of the castle that now lay in ruins?
Or fled. I had to try and stay calm, even though my heart was thundering in panic. Let’s hope for the latter.
Idunn edged toward the chasm, smoke billowing from her nostrils. Do you think I need to stand somewhere particular?
I have no idea, Kjaere. Baldur cast his senses out, as if something might appear that screamed, “stand here.” I don’t know that your position matters as much as your intent.
Goddess help me, Eisa murmured as Idunn began breathing deeply, preparing her fire. Stand back. Just in case.
For a moment, nothing happened. All was still as Idunn stood on the edge of the crevasse, the blue gem around her neck glowing faintly against her scales in the darkness.
And then fire, brighter than the bottom of the Rift itself, poured out of her. Idunn’s flames engulfed the entirety of the hole before us, spreading wide and filling every visible portion of the Rift.
Is she doing it? I asked Baldur, looking for some sign that something was happening.
Not sure. Baldur edged backward, his eyes fixed on his mate. Wait.
Idunn roared, and her fire intensified. I imagined the land knitting back together. The Tear against her heart glowing the same blue as the fire as it embedded itself over her heart.
One moment, the blue dragon stood on the edge of utter blackness. And then suddenly she was a woman again, small and pale and fragile as she fell to her knees.
Eisa! Baldur shifted, and I caught her before she toppled over, a stream of red dribbling from her nose.
“I tried.” She wiped her hand over her face, shaking as I helped her sit. The necklace was dull and lifeless against her chest, the diamond scar unchanged beneath it. “Nothing happened. I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s fine, Kjaere.” I held her tightly as she shivered and buried my face in her hair, breathing in her scent of night roses. “It was a long shot. We need to study the Book. Find out more.”
Perhaps the Book was the problem. Could it stop her from using whatever magic she needed to use to close the Rift?
“Your mother.” Eisa struggled, and I helped her stand. “We need to find her. Idunn says someone is still alive in the castle.”
Baldur growled protectively at the idea of letting Eisa anywhere near the crumbling castle. There is one heartbeat. But I do not know if it is her.
Fucking gods, I prayed she’d made it out alive.
“I’ll find my mother,” I said, shaking Eisa’s shoulders gently but firmly. “Not you. You should stay out here. Or better yet, shift back and fly as far away from here as you can get.”
“There is no way I’m letting you go in there alone,” Eisa said, color returning to her cheeks. She paused, canting her head, then reached for the pack that held our clothes and the Book. “Idunn agrees with me.”
“Baldur agrees with me,“ I argued, grabbing her hand before she could reach into the bag. “Every single fiber in my being is telling me this is a bad idea, Kjaere. The Book weakens you. Who knows what caused this thing to open up, but I doubt it’s something friendly. If you go in there now—“
She melted into me, her arms wrapping tightly around my waist.
“I know. I know you are frightened. I’m scared too.
” She looked up at me, her eyes big and blue and full of fire.
“But I will not lose you. You will not lose me. I have Idunn. You have Baldur. We will both shift the moment they sense danger. And I will burn anyone who tries to take you from me to ash.”
Gods, I fucking loved this woman. She didn’t try to fix me. Try to reason with me. She made space for my fear. Shared the burden.
It wouldn’t be fair to withhold my trust from her.
She is strong, Baldur said, trying to reassure himself as much as me. Idunn will protect her.
“Promise me,” I said, pulling back so I could meet her gaze, “that you will run if something happens.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “I can’t leave you. I won’t. Not unless you make the same promise to me.”
I blew out a breath. She knew I couldn’t. “Stubborn woman.”
“Bossy man.” She reached onto her tiptoes and brushed a gentle kiss across my lips. “Clothes now. Evil won’t fight itself.”
“And I’m the bossy one.”
She threw a shirt at me.