27. Forest
Forest
Find the keys, break the locks.
My chest seizes. Flashes of light blink at the periphery of my vision and I turn my face from the girl to the sky outside.
At last the strains of breath squeak through my clenched teeth but my heart hits too heavy against my ribs.
“Hold on, kid, hold on,” Helene urges. “I love you so big. You come back. Don’t let them use you.”
The poor maiden.
She doesn’t deserve to be the puppet of the weavers. Those three are nothing but trouble and they have the singular ability to convince a person that destiny is sealed to anyone else. Solid. Providence is as unchangeable as death.
Nothing is set in stone.
Thunder cracks, and Audra goes limp.
No one moves.
Freezing rain taps softly against the windows.
Footsteps stop beside me, and I twist my head toward Nicholas. Sweat cascades along my spine, absorbed by the furs around my waist. He stares straight into me and if I hold his gaze too long, I’ll lose myself in the void of his pupils.
He has always been able to convey his thoughts without words. Because of my position, because of the creature I used to be, I read them clearly.
Contain her.
The command settles heavily.
Nicholas says nothing else.
Helene drops to her knees and reaches a shaky hand toward Audra’s face. The girl's eyes flutter shut, and I’m not the only one who breathes easier once she does, as soon as the voices of the Norns fade to bad dreams.
Nicholas holds my attention for a second before turning, sweeping his all-seeing eyes across the room. “Let’s get her into bed.”
Helene shakes her head and slides her lower lip between her teeth. “We shouldn’t move her yet.”
“But—”
“I said no.”
The room stills, and Nicholas stiffens beside me. Only one of us is able to handle her when her mood—
“It’s better this way, monster. Let her rest in her own space.” Wren soothes, rising and brushing dirt and misplaced dust bunnies from his pants. “She’ll be more comfortable.”
The lights flicker, shadows darkening, a different sort of containment.
“It’s better to keep her in one place instead of move her,” Helene insists.
“When there’s a single caretaker, yes. Lucky for you, there are three of us. We’re more than capable of heavy lifting.”
“Wren.” I push his name through my teeth. “This is no time to flirt.”
Luckily for him, his eyelids stay where they belong rather than drop south for a wink.
“Leave her there.” Helene remains on the floor in a prayer position. Her knees tuck underneath her body like a fawn, too wobbly to rise yet, fury ebbing out of her. The ghost of a shadow brushes her jaw.
Freckles stand out against her cheeks as her pallor increases, and the space falls into an uncomfortable sort of quiet.
In a world that’s forgotten how to be silent, the hush should be a blessing. It’s not.
“This can’t keep happening. If learning about the past opens her up, makes her vulnerable to those vultures, then we stop here.”
Helene rises to her feet, and her steps slow until she reaches the apartment door, lingering there. A swift glance cast haphazardly over her shoulder has me desperate to move to her side.
“I need some air.”
Tension written on her features threatens to shatter into a grimace. Her nose crinkles as she heads into the hallway and leaves us trapped inside.
Another flash of lightning splits the room into shades of monochrome, and Wren’s shadows snake under the door to follow her.
He shakes his head. “Absolutely fucked.”
“A mouthful.” Nicholas hunches his shoulders forward and jerks his head toward the table. “Did you have to bring out the books this soon?”
“If this cycle is different?” I scratch a hand across my chin, stubble prickling. “I thought it was the best course of action.”
“Leave the thinking to us, bird brain,” Wren says.
How many times have the three of us gathered this way? There is always a table. There are always three seats, or stumps, or stools.
We’ve done this a thousand times. No one has never spoken of locks and keys before.
“The girl will sleep deeply. And Helene will be back,” Wren assures us. He folds himself down onto the chair, hardly enough cushion to absorb his weight. “Those bitches steal the energy from the bodies of their prophetesses. I’ve seen it.”
“Liar.” Nicholas snaps his teeth. “You’ve never seen them use an oracle this way. None of us have.”
“I’ve heard stories,” Wren clarifies.
“Your gilded tongue won’t accomplish much.” My chest constricts, sending a spasm through my fingers. “Save your practiced patrician gymnastics for the courts, you bacraut.”
Warning shadows sharpen around my wrists, and I reach for a weapon.
“Call me an asshole one more time, Forest...” A savage glint in his black eyes wars with the haughty tone.
“And I disagree. There is always a usefulness for my skills. As you’ve found in the past. Unless you don’t remember them yet? ”
He clucks his tongue, and Nicholas growls. “Circles. Cycles. Take an ax to your bantering, and let’s focus.”
“I agree with the Visigoth.” I bob my head.
Wren studies his nails. “Of course you do.”
“The Norns are weaving a new tapestry. Freyja and Loki are on the move. And Rokkrheim?” I glare at Wren. I know who you met with. He reeks of Hrimfrey. “What of them?”
“Draven will do what he does best. He will advance and conquer. And gods help the rest of us if we get in this way,” Wren says.
“You know this for certain?” Nicholas asks.
“I'm as confident as a banished bacraut like me can be. Right? Fuck.” Wren tips his head backward.
I prop my hip against the side of the couch and pray for stability. “Nothing matters unless Helene accepts her fate. It’s wrong to ask her to make a choice and stand with us without understanding the full truth.”
It’s wrong to make demands out loud when I don’t know the full truth, either. There are pieces missing, ones that will snap my fingers if I seek them out. They're close enough to fear.
What will I find when the picture is complete?
How damned will I actually be?
“There may not come a choice. We maneuver her into a better position, or we face the consequences. This might be our last shot.” Nicholas stares at the door as though yearning alone will twist the knob.
Wren sneers. “I’m as big a proponent of choice as anyone else, and you know it.”
“The ego on you...” I trail off.
He dismisses me. “You don’t remember anything. Take a backseat until it all comes roaring back. We’ll need those parts of you faster than you think.”
They recall thousands of years I’ve lost.
I recall almost nothing.
I rest my palm on the hilt of my ax. “If you agree with me, then what can we do about it? We have to make a plan preceding the completed weaving.”
Nicholas crosses arms over his chest, claws barely concealed and the whites of his eyes spread through with red veins. “Be realistic, Forest. Each time is worse than the last.”
Forest Ulfson.
My name, before the AllFather picked me, plucked me from mortality. Before he labeled me greater, stronger, more forceful. Before he made me into his beast.
My past will live in my soul, but the identity no longer fits.
“If she won’t accept it on blind faith, then perhaps she’ll change her mind if she sees it,” I say, knee bobbing. “I can show her a memory. Something to help her believe.”
“She’ll still insist you’re insane and loop the rest of us in with the madness.” Wren waves a finger in the air. “Our existence is one long joke. A mockery.”
“The only thing I can do to convince her, if Nicholas giving his blood to her sister or the Norn’s prophecy isn’t enough, is to let her experience it for herself. The memories are mine to share. She’ll be able to see herself through my eyes.”
So why does the thought fill me with dread?
I spread my hands. The power is also mine, and along with the vision, she’ll experience everything I felt in the moment. My senses and my emotions.
The overwhelm could—
“I’ll wait for the right time to show her,” I continue in the strained silence.
Wren blows out a breath. “There's no such thing as the perfect time, is there? What do you suggest? When we aren’t being tracked and hunted by Odin’s hounds? When the sun decides to surface? Luck won’t hold off. The Norns. Are. Weaving.”
We may never get another shot at this.
“I won’t let you suck her into your memories until she agrees,” Nicholas argues. “She’s too worried about her sister to think clearly.”
“Then do you have a better idea?” I wait for him to do anything other than scowl and rub tight loops above my chest. The necklace of bone and metal clanks with the movement. “If I did, then I wouldn’t suggest the exchange in the first place. But something is pressing on me.”
“Go back to flying in circles.”
I growl at Wren. “At least I’m offering a solution. If our girl continues to fight against her fate then we’re doomed before we begin. Should she run—”
“We’ll find her.” Nicholas shakes his head.
These war conversations around a table with a glass of something strong in our hands...
Those days were no better than now. They were the same, and different, and familiar.
“What if this is the last one?” I press. “What if Odin doesn’t make good on his word? He might strip her away if we fail to break his curse this time. Somewhere worse than banishment in the halls of Helheim. An honorless death.”
“He wouldn’t.” Nicholas’s pupils expand, swallowing the red glow.
“Wouldn’t he?” Frustration seethes. I won’t let Helene go without making an attempt.
“I'll show her what I remember. Then she’ll realize the enormity of this. She won’t look at us like we’re ball-less, spineless liars.”
And maybe we are. Maybe there is something inherently wrong about us.
Warped by centuries of loss.
Maybe this love is a blight.
Or it might be the only thing in this vast universe worth living for.
“I don’t think she’ll go for it,” Nicholas insists.
“Things will get worse. We have to move now. She'll get herself hurt,” Wren adds.
“Finally, the shadow daddy is talking sense.”
No one laughs.
Wren’s grin falters for half a second before he glances away. “Oh, I’ve always loved your cutesy little nickname for me. You remembered.”
My jaw works. The apartment settles into uneasy quiet. Sleet and snow rattles through the gutters outside.
No one looks at anyone else.
“Show me, Forest.” Helene walks in behind us with her expression set in stubborn lines.
I hadn’t heard the door and rise at her approach. Another flash of lightning paints her face as she tips her chin up to face me.
“It’s dangerous,” I say, resigned.
She sets her knees. “So is anything.”
I groan. This, us, can’t start until she accepts what we are and what we could be.
Nicholas shifts, grasping for her hand and pulling himself up short. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“You’re talking about him sharing a memory with me, aren’t you? What’s the danger in it?” She chuckles. “It’s no crazier than the troll trashing the Longship Festival. In fact, this is probably the least crazy thing that’s happened in the past week.”
“You could be overwhelmed. You could get trapped in the memory and feel every excruciating detail of your death. What do you think that would do to the human mind?” Nicholas argues. His brows set in a harsh line.
The showdown between them stretches, although neither is looking at the other.
He is the first to break, anxiety etched in parallel creases above his hairline.
Helene hides her nervous swallow in a laugh. She waves a hand in my direction as though this kind of reckless decision is normal, the type she makes every day to keep things mixed up.
“Do it, Forest,” she insists. “Show me.”
My expression does nothing to reassure her or any of them while Wren waits for the final verdict to pass down on her authority.
But because the choice is hers, because she is the one we bow to.
I dip my head. “Then take my hand.”
None of us move. Tension throbs between us like a second pulse.
Wren leans back in his chair and taps his foot on the bowed floor and cracked linoleum. He memorizes the angles of her face and the blush on her cheeks, then looks at me like he’ll skin me alive if anything happens to her.
He’ll never say it out loud. He’ll never admit to anyone but her, in their private moments, what his true feelings are.
And in my periphery, I catch Nicholas's hand gripped tight at his side, his knuckles white. He meets my look with a glare that pins me to my seat.
“What? Are we waiting for something? I said let’s do this. I’m ready. And anybody who thinks I can’t do it will be in for a rude awakening,” Helene supplies.
Her grin spreads, but she doesn’t mean it. The smile refuses to go any higher than her nose.
Nicholas lifts his hands in a truce, but he isn’t convinced.
“I have no doubt you’ll kick our asses with glee, pretty monster.” Wren’s shadows whip around him, tendrils of agitated darkness.
My feet remain glued to the floor as Helene bears down on us, her expression goading us into action.
My memories will help her fill in the gaps, and I won’t let anything happen to her. They should know it. There’s no way to cheat the progression of this curse, but if I can help her connect the dots in any way, if I can satisfy in the voids with certainty...
Her fingers tremble once before they touch mine. She doesn’t pull away.