14. Forest
Forest
Iknow these men.
Their faces swim through the past, there and gone, a blink. Recognition clicks into place like well-oiled cogs in a machine that’s run for ages. Our trio has worked together before. Yes.
Odin’s balls. The exact details are out of reach, not even close to being within my grasp, and it doesn’t matter.
With the reek of history between us, in a room full of antiques and trinkets and dust, a Bloodletter and a Dokkálfar look at me with camaraderie, and battle sings in my blood.
Wren. Nicholas.
Why do they speak like they know Helene? The innermost parts of her she hasn’t shown even to herself?
I’ve only met her, watched her. When did they have a chance to make their introductions?
Confusion spikes like iron through my skull.
“Giving you information is straightforward,” Wren begins. “Having you accept them might prove more difficult.”
Helene scowls. “Typical. Man. Behavior.” She points to each of us in turn. “I’m demanding answers, and you’re looking at me like I’m aggressive.”
“You’re being aggressive.” Nicholas shrugs.
“Aw, we all know her aggression is the glue keeping us together.” Wren smirks, and my gaze narrows on him.
My thoughts and questions, grow wild and tangled and spread beneath my skin. I’m full of them.
I’d love some solutions as well.
Helene takes the term, the insult, to heart. “You’re out of your fucking mind! You show up here in my life, and now it’s in shambles. I know it has something to do with the three of you, and that troll outside is only a symptom of a much greater problem. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“The troll came for you,” Wren corrects in a manner not even delicate-adjacent. “Not us.”
“Try again,” she replies. “Although I doubt I’ll like your next answer better.”
She hovers near the sister, hands fluttering uselessly over open air. Not touching. Not retreating.
Trapped in a stasis like I am.
The hole in my memory is massive, spanning centuries, I know in my gut. I’m old, easily the oldest creature in the room, yet I’m not the center of any of this.
Are they as confined as we?
Helene is our nexus. She is the link connecting us. Why?
I’ll take responsibility...as soon as my woman starts breathing and not yelling. I might know the men but I’ve got no damn clue what’s happening, and Helene barely pauses to draw air into her delicate form.
She pulls away, pacing the length of the desk and dividing her attention between her sister and her three new problems.
“This was a nice and orderly town before the three of you showed up. Life made sense. It wasn’t great but at least I understood my place in it.
We’ve been here the longest, did you know?
Out of all the places we moved.” She shakes her head, dried blood cracking.
“Now the bookstore is ruined. It might as well be on the receiving end of a wrecking ball because who has the money to preserve it, and there is a wealth of old and first edition books in there that are a travesty to lose. A real fucking travesty, boys.”
She pushes hair out of her face, her braid a long tail along the curve of her spine.
Nicholas opens his mouth to say something, and Helene shuts him up with a well-placed glower. He flashes white teeth at her, his eyes glowing a dull crimson.
“Now there are trolls. There are vampires. Audra almost died, and she would have if you weren’t creeping around like a fucking stalker with your magic blood.” Her laugh turns hysterical. “A vampire stalker. It’s True Blood. Except I’m not getting paid.”
She’s pacing, yowling like a wench, demanding answers and leaving no time for anyone to give them to her.
My gut stirs and heat jets down to my cock. Fuck me if this wildcat isn’t sexy as sin. I want to soothe her by fucking her but I’m fairly certain if I try, I’ll get my dick cut off.
Soon, though.
Very soon.
We’ll pick up right where we left off, in this tomb of lost knowledge and torn books.
Wren pushes off the wall where he’s been holding up the joists and skulking. “Pretty monster. Your sister is safe. As safe as Sigrún can be. An important part of your life and history.”
Shadows dance around him with a mind of their own, and somehow even their movements, the twining serpentine wriggling along his skin, is natural.
“Her name is Audra,” Helene bites out. “Audra Blake. If you’re going to loom around, then at least call her by the right name.”
“My thoughts exactly.” She’s reading my mind.
Sigrún...
Snapshots fill my head, images of a fallen and broken woman with a crushed helmet, her winged horse dead and feathers blackened by decay. Sightless eyes stare into an unfeeling sky where even Valkyrie can die.
The girl who is cursed to break in every lifetime.
And Helene—
I glance between the two of them, like two sides of the same coin. One of them light and fair, the other dusky skinned and exotic, united by features and freckles.
I know their story. Don’t I? I have it memorized, how both of them die, but I’m not sure why Sigrún is important.
No. Audra.
The black hole in my head surrounds her, as well.
More pain spikes and splits the room into two blurry pieces. Images fly faster, darting behind closed lids. More and more of them. Lives and knowledge, stored away.
Someone has to mark them.
Someone has to seek out events, concepts. Ensure the collected wisdom is preserved.
A groan tears free, and I double over, clutching my head between my hands. No relief. A migraine rattles through me.
It can Fareu tar er smyl hafi tik.
Go where the trolls can have it.
The same black holes in my mind dot my vision when I straighten. The room goes dark, then light, the headache unrelenting.
“Forest? Are you okay?” Helene is near enough to worry but not to touch.
“Uh oh. You know what this means.” Wren’s voice sounds through a wall of water.
He’s not speaking to me.
“What does it mean? What’s happening to him?”
A brush of a hand up my chest, along the sides of my face. The second she makes contact with my temples I fall, hitting the floor with my knees first.
“Forest! Come on, talk to me.”
I push her hands away, on all fours. The coolness of the wood floor is nothing but a layer of gauze on an amputated limb. The migraine refuses to abate.
“I suppose we should get him comfortable. These memories are too much for him. Like clockwork.” Wren’s shadows link around my wrists and haul me upright.
“Step aside. You won’t be able to help him,” Nicholas warns.
Help me. There is no help.
No end.
“You wanna bet?”
Helene hasn’t gotten her answers. She’ll need them if she has any chance of fighting—
Shadows thicker than night lift me higher and balance me on my feet. Nothing matters. Nothing erases the pain.
Why should it?
If Thought and Mind do not obey the All-Father, what is left?
The words scarcely form in my head before I’m doubled over again. I pry my eyes open. An anchor. I need something to tether me to the present.
“Where should we take him?” Nicholas carries the girl who now goes by Audra.
Her head rests on his chest, and his jacket lies forgotten on the desk.
He’ll need it against the sun. If the sun deigns to show its face in this forsaken place.
Helene worries her lower lip. “We’ll go to my house. He can have my bed. It’s only a few blocks over. Not a hard trip. Those shadows of yours, can they carry him?”
“It’s a hard trip if he can’t manage to walk himself,” Wren replies.
I grind my teeth down and take a step on my own, ignoring the crippling pain. It resists like a hungry snake. “I’m fine.”
The words slur, more images filling the empty spaces in my head. They blur. Faster now. A bombardment of color and memory and information long lost.
Eventually we leave the bookstore a mess behind us.
I hate Helene’s home.
It’s not secure. There are too many windows, too many weaknesses. The house itself is one strong breeze away from tilting and pulling free from the foundation. It’s an unsuitable dwelling for her, unbecoming of her value and status.
The others should know it’s impossible to protect.
Hundrs.
They ignore my feeble protests. Kari’s weather turns the wind cutting, sluicing underneath my sweater and scattering autumn leaves.
The beast’s corps is a dwindling drift at the periphery of my vision as I’m maneuvered down the sidewalk.
Damn this town. Damn the veil for thinning and allowing the creatures to come through with such ease.
The nine worlds are bleeding together. And the second the knowledge lands, the pain strikes again.
“Easy there, bird brain. We can’t have you locking up on us. Not when we have two blocks to go.” Wren’s voice holds none of the teasing notes I’m used to.
My legs are not under my control. Neither is my breathing.
My lungs pump, then stall. Nicholas leads the initiate like he knows exactly where we’re going and has marked the path many times. He probably has.
Helene stills any protest she desperately wants to make and soon the cracking steps of the old Victorian swim into view.
“Only a couple of stairs and then you’ll be able to rest,” she tells me. “You’re going to be okay, Forest. And please for the love of all that’s holy, do not kick down the door. My landlord will charge me to replace it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Nicholas pauses at the door before maneuvering the girl in his arms and opening the door with his hand instead of his boot.
“Good call,” Wren agrees.
I’ve never cared for him. Have I? Dokkálfar are notorious for being untrustworthy.
The moment the thought airs, it dissipates under another swell of pain. “My head is splitting open,” I force out.
“We’re almost there. Another few steps and you’ll be able to rest. I’ll...get some medicine. I’ve got migraine pills in my First Aid.”
The staircase groans underneath our combined weight, like it’s only built to handle a single person at a time. My toe catches the scuffmarks from their daily march up and down, the scrapes of Audra’s crutches.
Shadows haul me over the last riser and bite deeper than chains.
“You better lay off those meatballs, asshole,” he whispers to me alone. “Getting a little heavy.”
Helene unlocks the door and directs us forward. “There’s only one bedroom. We, ah, we share it. But my bed is larger so put him there. His feet will still probably dangle over the edge. It’s only a double.”
“We’ve got it,” Nicholas growls.
He takes the girl over to the couch while Wren maneuvers and unceremoniously dumps me on the mattress. Shadows pat the back of my head in parting mockery as I roll to my side.
Pain flashes, scalds. The moment I stretch out onto my spine, my vision whites out, the rest of the world clicking off.
I’m forced into memories more solid than anything I’m able to touch.
Helene’s scent, the one connection I had to reality, fades.
I stand on the battlefield with the same Valkyrie I saw earlier crushed beneath her dead horse, her sightless eyes a beacon. The wind rattles my braids and sends beads rattling together.
Overhead, a raven circle, relaying information back to his master.
My master.
For Hugin, I fear, lest he come not home.
“Hello!” I call out to any alive on the field.
There is nothing. There is only me and no matter how I struggle against it, I’m a visitor to this memory. I’m an outsider looking in as well as an inextricable part of it, experiencing the scene from two different perspectives. Only one of them is whole.
And I’m trapped.