Chapter 5
Gullveig
When I left my people, it was after years of preparation and training.
I was sent to kill Freja or her brother, the ice vanir offspring of Bjorn, or if I got very lucky, Bjorn himself. I knew my purpose. I knew who I was and what I was fighting against.
After meeting Freja, and after seeing the good things about her and the miserable way in which she was raised and treated, my perspective changed. She became someone I could trust, once I knew her.
That’s why I betrayed my people and forsook my purpose.
It’s why I committed treason.
I realized, in the moment when I was supposed to sacrifice my own life to make Freja’s death possible, that this cycle of killing was never going to end.
None of us could get enough ahead of the other, and that certainty, combined with my doubt about the actual evil nature of my enemy, caused me to protect the villain I was meant to help destroy.
I’m at peace with my own conscience, especially when Freja becomes Freya and helps me steal the heart stone from deep below the vanir caverns.
It pulsed with ancient magic as we stole it, and in gratitude for my choice, in appreciation for my love of both Freja and the earth children to whom I was born, the great and fabled Jore blessed my sword, gave me wings, and transformed Freja the vanir into an earth child shape.
Sadly, that transformation left us both stranded below the earth with no way to escape.
And her furious, murderous, power-starved father was coming.
I did have two swords that could do. . .
I wasn’t sure what. They’d been forged for me by Freja, and blessed for me by Jore, but I hadn’t trained to be a warrior.
I’d trained to be a self-sacrificing assassin.
The limited training Freja gave me before taking me to my first battle didn’t give me much hope.
I had wings, but couldn’t fly.
I had swords, but very little idea how to use them to good effect.
And I had a massive, powerful vanir on my side, but she was currently smaller than me and unable to do, well, anything, seemingly.
“We’re going to die down here,” I whisper.
Freja—now Freya—groans. “You could fly us out. He won’t automatically search down here, you know.”
Thanks to my previous attempts at flight, my arm’s bleeding profusely, and I have two cuts I haven’t even looked at on my legs.
When I got those, I wasn’t even trying to carry another person.
Freya’s far, far smaller than she was, but I’m not large, even by earth child standards.
I’m not even sure I can fly while carrying another earth child, but I’m quite positive I won’t be able to do it well.
After hearing another roar from Bjorn, I decide I should at least try.
The cavern we’re inside is long and flat and relatively shallow, but the only way I know out is a fairly sharp and winding tunnel.
Freja shot down it like a squirrel up a familiar tree, but I can’t remember all the twists and turns, and I don’t love our chances, even if I can make it.
“Is there more than one way out?”
Freya, sadly, shakes her head.
“I’m going to try to carry you, but brace yourself. I’m no good at this.”
“Clearly.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I say.
“You kind of did, though.” Freya’s scowling as she climbs on my back, carefully avoiding my wings. “Why did you ask Jore to make it so I could understand you? I already do.”
I don’t argue. We have no time for it, even though she’s wrong. Having sympathy for someone isn’t the same as understanding them. But this time when I take off, Freya’s there whispering in my ear. “Pump harder on the left. Now on the right.”
With her help, I manage to round the bend and head up the tunnel, only grazing the wall once.
“Bank right here, sharply.”
Just in time, I manage to shoot to the right and she yanks back on my shoulders, which lets me go almost straight up like I need to.
This route is insane. We go around three more turns, only ramming into one wall.
My knee was already injured, and this hit tears the gash open wider, but I grit my teeth and keep flying, the muscles in my wings burning.
I’m pretty proud of my improvement, made possible by Freya’s guidance.
We’re better as a team than we are alone.
But then I hear it. A loud, full-throated scream. I’ve been with the vanir long enough to recognize that it’s coming from her father.
Freya swears loudly in my ear. “We need to. . .”
Neither of us is sure what to do, because that scream’s still going, and it’s coming right at us. Sadly, the stupid tunnel’s both small and steep where we are, so there’s not even a place we could easily land. “I can’t stop, not right now.”
“There.” Again, Freya yanks on my shoulders, hard, and rams us into a wall.
I strike it full-on, and I worry that I’ve broken everything.
But my feet catch on a very narrow, very sloped edge, and Freya slides off, scrambling to the side and grabbing the outcropping herself.
Her easy agility in this brand new form might annoy me if I wasn’t so terrified.
“He’ll see us for sure.” Apparently when I’m nervous, I point out the obvious.
With Freya’s stabilizing hand, I turn to the side, my wings keeping me from being able to stand like she is, back to the rock wall. “At least pull your swords out and have them ready.”
Because I’d have some hope of what? Wounding her massive and magical father with my abysmal sword-handling? “Uh, okay. Maybe you can take one.”
She shakes her head. “Jore blessed them for you.”
It’s hard, what with the wings, and the steep tunnel, and the almost plunging straight down, but I manage to get out one sword and then the other. I clutch them in my trembling hands while my heart beats loudly in my ears. The screaming has finally stopped, but that hardly seems like a good sign.
“Hey, you still have the heart, right?” I whisper. It would be terrible if we dropped it in all our haste to leave.
Freya’s eyes widen, and then she pats on the strange billowy clothing Jore shifted her into, sighing. “Yes. It’s in this pouch.”
“A pocket,” I whisper. “That’s called a pocket. Keep it there. Perhaps your father will be so busy looking for you and checking on the heart that he blows right past us.”
“Your wings are bright white,” she says. “There’s not much hope of that.”
But with all the times I rammed into the wall, and with the blood stains, they aren’t very bright anymore. “I’ll be praying he doesn’t see us,” I say. “Crouch closer and—”
But then it’s too late.
There’s a whooshing of air, and then a strange sort of almost popping sound, and then Bjorn’s enormous form rockets past. I hold my breath, and Freya does, too. I think, over and over, Don’t see us, don’t see us, don’t see us.
At first, it seems like maybe he didn’t.
But then he throws his wings out straight and a wall of air shoots back toward us, and he stops.
He crashes into the angled wall of the tunnel and scrabbles around, but he manages to turn, and unlike us, with his massive clawed feet, he’s able to climb up the side wall of the tunnel.
His nostrils flare. His eyes frantically search the dark, almost black side walls of the tunnel.
Perhaps he can’t see well in the dark? Maybe—but he would still smell us.
As he creeps closer, my heart hammers in my chest. This is it.
It’s how I’m about to die, all my efforts, even committing treason against my own people, all for nothing.
I’ll be nothing more than a frozen lump of feathery flesh, stuck to the side of an old, barren tunnel. . .forever.
But there’s a slight glow coming from Freya’s pocket, and I realize that even my swords are glowing softly, and Bjorn still hasn’t done a thing.
He’s close enough to lick me with his massive tongue, and still, his eyes are unfocused and his nostrils flaring as he sniffs us out.
I’m not sure how long we shake and tremble against the wall, but eventually, Bjorn lets out a gust of air, spins around, shearing massive chunks of rock away from the wall as he turns, and then launches back into motion and shoots down the tunnel toward the chamber we vacated.
“How did we. . .” Freya has no idea either.
“I think the heart, or maybe the swords. . .” I trail off, unsure what happened.
The heart stone’s still glowing a little, so it’s easier to make out her movements than it was before, with nothing but the glowworms to light the dark space. “Well, we can’t just sit here in this tunnel. He’ll find us on his way back for sure.” She tosses her head at my swords. “Let’s go.”
It takes a few moments of bumbling and fumbling, and I nearly drop one sword, but I finally get them put back into the sheaths Jore made, and then I manage to stay on the ledge while Freya remounts my back.
“We’re about halfway up,” she says.
“Halfway?” If I’m groaning, I refuse to feel bad about it. I’m bleeding all over my body. Carrying someone else while I fly is just as exhausting as I expected.
But Freya patiently guides me up and out for several more turns before we hear a massive, very angry roar from below. “Shoot,” I hiss. “Looks like he found the missing stone.”
“Go,” Freya cries.
And I do.
As hard as I can possibly pump my wings, I fly.
The muscles powering my wings are burning.
My legs are numb. My shoulders scream where Freya’s clinging to them.
But I know that the second Bjorn reaches us this time.
. .it’s game over. When we finally shoot out of the opening at the top of the tunnel, there are several other vanir standing around the rim of the cavern like they’re guarding it.
It’s strange, since it’s in a secluded spot in the caverns already.
“Who are they?” I wheeze.