34. Tree of Ash
Tree of Ash
Larissa
Soft blades of grass bent underneath Larissa’s prone form.
The last thing she remembered was fighting Calder on the volcanic shoreline of the Undarbrunnk Lake when the Norn had arrived.
Larissa shivered, recalling the youngest goddess’ cold touch.
She pushed herself up, her head rising only inches above the tall grasses that swayed around her, but her gaze fluttered upward.
Before her, bigger than it had appeared in her dream, stood the tree of ash and life, Yggdrasil .
Larissa’s mouth fell open as she craned her neck back, attempting to find the top of the tree, but the branches went on for miles, stretching out of sight.
In the thick branches themselves lived an array of creatures.
Larissa shook her head, convinced she was dreaming at the sight of four stags resting on the lowest branches.
An eagle cried out from much higher, and a squirrel scurried down the massive trunk only to disappear into the roots, chattering the whole way.
The roots wrapped around the well at the base of the tree, but the Norn were nowhere to be seen.
Larissa rose, reaching for her gun only to realize its absence.
Standing tall, she saw what had been hidden in the tall grasses.
Darien, Anara, Halla, Kai, and Masai lay in peaceful slumber.
They stirred, slowly coming to their senses as she had only moments before.
Their eyes widened in shock as they took in the sight of Yggdrasil , but Halla leapt to her feet first, her face alive with joy.
“I knew it was real, Lara!” Though Halla hadn’t said it, she wore a look that very clearly said I told you so .
Larissa could have laughed, if not for the additional figure on the fringe of the clearing that caught her eye.
Calder lay in the grass, his body still at rest though his chest rose and fell in a gentle rhythm.
Asleep, he looked nothing like the man that had hunted them, but all too close to the boy who’d skipped rocks with Larissa and helped her sneak food out of the kitchens.
Something in her gaze must have caught Darien’s attention, as he too turned to see Calder.
Pain flashed across Darien’s face, followed by longing so physical, Larissa nearly cried.
The others noticed as well, with varying reactions from alarm to anger. Even Kai seemed shaken by Calder’s presence. Larissa grabbed Darien’s hand in her own, but before they could decide what to do, a voice trilled over the clearing.
“He won’t wake. Not until I allow him to.” Vereandi rose from the well, swinging herself up on the stone ledges, perching on the edges like a bird ready to take flight.
At her presence, Masai fell to his knees in reverence as Halla, Kai, and Darien bowed low.
Even Anara cast her eyes toward the ground at the sight of the goddess, but Larissa remained unmoved.
In her mind, she saw Vereandi and her mother in their palace as Shiko’s sentries pounded down the door.
She remembered Vereandi pulling every ounce of galdr from her mother’s body until there was nothing left, until the light dimmed from her mother’s eyes. Anger made Larissa reckless.
“Well, we’re here,” Larissa said. “You better have answers for us.”
Though the others gasped, Anara only smirked, raising her head as she moved to stand beside Larissa.
Vereandi jumped from the well, landing lightly before them, though her toes hardly touched the ground. “Haven’t you missed me at all?”
Galdr pulsed from her tiny body in such immense waves that Larissa stepped back. “What are you talking about?”
A disembodied voice rose from the well. “I told you they would not remember.” An old crone, her hood still pulled around her face, rose from the well and situated herself on the outside edge, pulling out a ball of yarn from her cloak.
Larissa remembered enough of her history lessons to guess that this was Urer, the goddess who recorded the past. Urer snorted in an ungodly manner. “Mortals never do.”
Darien made a noncommittal noise of disagreement. “Considering you tampered with our memories, it might not be entirely fair to blame that on us.”
“The boy might be right.” The third voice, which echoed throughout the clearing, came from the base of the tree. The final Norn stepped out from its shadows, her hair a living flame that danced around her face. Larissa could only assume she was Skuld, the goddess who foretold the future.
“Boy?” Darien muttered. “I’ll be of age in a few months.”
“What are months to those who have lived for millennia?” Skuld asked, rotating pebbles between her fingers. Runes flashed from the faces of the rocks.
Halla bounded forward. “So you’re really the goddesses of fate?”
Vereandi rose to the tips of her toes, nearly face-to-face with Halla. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
Larissa cleared her throat, resisting the urge to pull Halla away from Vereandi’s reach. “You called for me. You said if I came, you would give me answers.”
“We did.” Skuld beckoned them forward, bringing them to the edge of the well. “There are many answers we can give you and many we cannot. Some answers you must earn, but first you must ask.”
Larissa paused, the questions swirling in her mind, but which did she ask first? Before she could make up her mind, Anara filled the silence.
“What exactly is the prophecy surrounding Larissa?” she asked.
Urer wound the yarn around her fingers. “The prophecy surrounding Lovisa must be earned.”
“So how do we earn it, wise ones?” Masai asked, though his question was filled with more reverence than Anara’s.
“In time,” Skuld said. “Ask another.”
Larissa shifted on her feet as the others looked to her, waiting for her to ask, but one question forced itself to her tongue. “Is my mother alive?”
The shock on Darien’s face was echoed in Anara’s. Halla’s eyes fell, and even Vereandi looked solemn.
“No,” the child-goddess answered. “Your mother died paying the price for your and Darien’s safety.”
“But Aagen said that my mother brought Darien to him. Hair like starlight and eyes like apples,” Larissa persisted, determined to not notice that sympathy on Darien’s face. “Who else could it be—”
Larissa’s question died in her throat as Vereandi’s small body sprouted toward the sky.
Her red hair dimmed until it shone silver.
Her face morphed and shifted, her glowing eyes replaced by the kindest green eyes Larissa had ever seen.
At the sight of her mother, Larissa’s legs shook and tears gathered in her eyes.
“This appearance was far less frightening to Aagen.” Vereandi’s voice was like a punch to the gut, identical to what Larissa remembered from her childhood. “For Dal and Vern, this form was reassuring.”
At the mention of her parents, Halla stepped toward Vereandi. “What do you mean?”
Vereandi turned to gaze down at Halla; then, her body shrank until they were eye-to-eye. “Didn’t you ever wonder why we chose Dal and Vern, and Aagen as well, to be your guardians?”
“Among other things,” Anara said dryly, but Larissa felt the other girl’s concern for her emanating like heat. She drew in a shaking breath, determined to pull herself together.
Vereandi turned to Urer, who sat on the edge of the well. The crone huffed in irritation but dragged her fingers along its surface. As if compelled, Larissa and the others circled the well in unison to stare into the images that swirled across the waters.
Skuld stepped forward, narrating the scenes that played out before them.
“In the years before Shiko’s uprising, we sent dreams to Queen Stjarna, reminding her of what was to come.
She walked with us often here in this clearing, questioning us about her mother’s prophecy.
We told her there was nothing she could do to stop it.
When we would not give her answers, she journeyed to the Jotnar.
” Skuld’s lips pulled back, and without meaning to, Larissa cowered back from the surge of galdr that stabbed out from the goddess.
“Meddlesome giants. They taught her to demand the test of óeinn to learn the knowledge she sought.”
“The test of óeinn?” Kai asked.
“He sacrificed himself to Yggdrasil to learn the language of the runes,” Halla whispered back.
Kai frowned. “If he sacrificed himself, shouldn’t he have died?”
“Not according to myth—” Halla stopped abruptly at Larissa’s look.
Larissa turned her attention back to the Norn. “What knowledge did my mother seek?”
“How to save you, of course,” Vereandi answered.
“Stjarna knew she could not stop the prophecy,” Skuld continued. “But she wanted to rewrite it. We warned her about the cost of such an attempt, but she would not listen. She’d passed óeinn’s test, and so she gained the knowledge of the eighteenth power of the gods, the power of time.”
“Time?” Darien asked, saving Larissa from asking herself.
The images on the well moved quickly now, and nausea clogged Larissa’s throat.
The girl in the water was clearly her, but as Lovisa, crawling through the palace tunnels after witnessing her father’s death.
Then Lovisa was in the room with her mother and Darien.
Shiko’s armies were breaking down the door, then it all stopped.
Stjarna stood hand-in-hand with Vereandi, light flowing out of her fingers and into the goddess’.
“The spell would hide your bodies in time. You would never grow old, never wake, until the time she’d allotted had passed,” Vereandi explained. “It was only ever meant to be used as a last resort.”
Larissa clenched her fists to keep her hands from shaking. “I don’t understand.”