Chapter 21
Azar
We’ve learned a lot from Liz’s dreams, and I know that her past lives hold a lot of information we can yet use. I can’t help being grateful to Jore or Ama or whoever’s sending these memories, but they’re hard on Liz.
She tosses.
She turns.
She sweats and cries out.
And even though we’re entwined, I can’t see the visions.
Maybe it’s that she’s finally starting to shield, or maybe I’m not meant to see them. Either way, the memory or vision or whatever she’s having now, is just blackness to me. I can tell she’s struggling, and I can sense her discomfort, but I don’t know how to help her.
When she bolts upright in the middle of the night, I pull her against me. “It’s okay.” I make a shushing sound and I run my hand down her hair. “I’m sorry.”
She turns toward me slowly. “Your mother went insane.”
Why does that not even surprise me? “Worse than yours just did?”
Her laughter’s a little unhinged. “Yeah, sadly, I think she might have been. Freya was well-intentioned, but I think my mom was, too.” She sighs and slumps against me. “Azar, I think she’s close to doing something very unsafe.”
“What did she do?”
“She’d just laid another red egg.”
“Mine?” I ask.
Liz shrugs. “I’m not sure. There was a whole room full of eggs, none of which were hatching.
She kept staring at them, cradling them, even the burned one that Euphrasia told us Hyperion hatched from.
She told me that the aesir and the vanir were the problem, and she wanted to call your father—Veralden Radien—to come and get you. ”
“To come and. . .what?”
“Pick you up and take you away from earth, I guess,” Liz says. “I don’t know. She sounded super nuts, and even Gullveig thought so.”
“Crazy or not, her plan worked, at least sort of,” I say. “I mean, she did trap all the vanir in the volcano, and we did leave earth.” I snort. “Actually, crazy or not, she must’ve been an evil genius, right? She did it, mostly.”
“She didn’t call Veralden Radien,” Liz says. “And he didn’t collect you.”
“Her plan shifted a little.” I shrug. “It happens.”
Liz laughs. “Please don’t go crazy.” She presses a kiss to my cheek. “I like you how you are.”
“My brain’s already swiss cheese,” I say. “I can’t remember anything past the moment we met.”
She closes her eyes and leans against my chest. “It’ll come. Freya the lunatic told me those memories are in there somewhere.”
“Oh, good, my insane mother’s the source of our hope.”
“She seemed super lucid right before I killed her,” Liz says. “And that’s when she told me that. And you did recover one memory, right?”
That’s true, but I can’t figure out why. It could have been that we had just entwined, or that we fought the vanir, or that I worked with Liz to do it. “It was a useless memory. You’re barely in it.”
She smiles. “Barely’s still something.”
“I guess.”
“And hey, if it’s fighting the vanir, I’m sure we’ll have another chance soon.”
“We should have thrown the Americans out on their rears,” I say, “when they came asking for help.”
“Except the vanir are bonding all the humans they can catch.”
“There’s that,” I say. “And eventually they’ll probably come for us.”
Liz yawns. “I should probably go back to sleep and see whether I can figure out how Freya went from trying to summon Veralden Radien to imprisoning all the vanir in that horrible-to-pronounce volcano.”
“You mean Eyjafjallajokull?”
She rolls her eyes. “Showoff.”
I say it three more times, just to see her smile.
“You are such a punk.” She shoves me, and I grab her hand.
“Do you need to go right back to sleep?” I can’t help staring at her every chance I get. Between wars and brothers attacking, there aren’t many chances. “It’s okay if you do.”
She runs her hand down the hard planes of my chest, and then she shivers. “Maybe not right away.” When she squirms backward, a half-smile on her face, I can’t help it.
Something inside me roars, and I stalk toward her, moving slowly, intently.
My hand slides up her thigh, and she squeals.
The fingers on my other hand slip underneath the strap of her camisole, sliding over her collarbone.
“Your skin is so smooth.” I move closer and press a kiss to the exact same spot I just touched.
She purrs, almost like a cat.
And then, a horrifying sound, a sound I’ve been dreading I might hear for months now, fills the night air, a sound like the screaming of a thousand dying blessed.
I freeze.
Liz’s big, beautiful, expressive eyes widen. “What was that?”
I swallow. “My father’s here.”
She swears, loudly.
“I have to shift now,” I whisper. “But.” I crouch over her, and I press one finger to her mouth. “No matter what anyone says or asks or does, don’t tell my father or anyone else that you killed Freya. Are we clear?”
“I think Thunar knows,” Liz says. “I told him I took the heart from her.”
I shake my head. “We’re going to deny it. No matter who says it, we deny it. Are you clear?”
Liz nods slowly. “Okay.”
“Because as crazy as you say she was. . .” I sigh.
“My father’s far, far worse, and he’s still alive.
So if he still loved her, and if he’s likely to be upset about something, we had nothing to do with it.
” I hop out of the bed, reluctantly, but not slowly, and as soon as I’m clear of our chamber walls, I shift into my Azar form.
Liz follows me out slowly, shucking her pajamas in favor of her dragonskin warrior garb.
I have to go, but you will stay.
She lifts both eyebrows. “No way.”
Please.
“When has it ever gone well for us to separate?”
When you met my father.
“I haven’t met him,” she says.
Exactly. Trust me on this one, and stay here, please.
She doesn’t look happy, but she folds her arms and sits on the bed.
I mean it, Liz. Stay here, like you did when I went to see Thunar.
She frowns. “I think we’re stronger together, always, but it’s your family. I’ll stay as long as you’re safe. If they start to attack you.” She shrugs.
I wouldn’t be able to stop her then, anyway.
“Don’t forget. If you die, I die already.” She stands and crosses the room, and then she presses a hand against my side. “Be careful.”
I bob my head, and then I launch from our home, leaving my heart behind. I wish I had known before I started to care for someone so much that the more you care, the more scared you become.
As a hatchling, I would have said I was an expert on fear. Thanks to my secret, I always had to worry about being caught, but the only person at stake other than me was Euphrasia. I worried for her, but it’s nothing to how I worry about Liz. The more you love, the more you can hurt.
It’s worth it, though.
I head north, angling the same direction where I found Thunar last time—that’s where I heard Father portal in, too. Hyperion joins me a moment later, and sure enough, we find them waiting for us, Thunar also present, head bowed.
I shouldn’t be surprised that there are three massive portals set back from the area where Thunar landed, blessed pouring through them. Water, earth, strike, and even a flame blessed flying through as I watch.
Frigg’s other three children are already here, flanking Father.
Hyperion and I have to circle once, but we find a place to land not far from Father, right on the coastline of the island.
Earth has been good for you, Father says.
He hasn’t changed at all. Where Thunar looks bulky, almost massive, Father simply is.
He’s bigger than Thunar, bigger than all of us, but he looks proportionately long and lean.
He’s not too dense for his space, like his older son.
It’s the intelligence and ferocity in his eyes that terrifies me most.
I bow my head.
I hear you finally recovered the heart, and yet still you failed to return.
He’s not asking me questions, so I don’t answer. I’ve learned my lesson there. It was a painful one.
You were ordered to come to earth, retrieve the heart, and return.
It was a simple task. Yet you came, with a large force of blessed, you had sufficient time, and you didn’t return.
Father circles me, and then he eyes Hyperion.
I sent you next, sure you’d encourage your brother to make it back to report his progress.
You reached out once, letting me know he had been following leads and was close, and then, nothing.
Hyperion’s smart enough to keep quiet as well.
I notice that our supporters have begun to appear, water blessed circling the area near the coast. The earth blessed are lining up all around, behind Hyperion and me.
The strike blessed, as usual, prefer to stay in the sky, but the sparks and zaps in the clouds give them away.
Clearly earth was good for all of you, the earth blessed most of all. He pauses then, surveying the arriving blessed. It appears the water blessed have also reaped significant benefits from their time.
Blessed may still be pouring through the massive portal a few hundred yards away, but our people are showing that they’re with us.
Then I sent my most loyal, my most pragmatic son, and it’s been more than a week, and even Thunar has not returned.
You told me you were following after me. Thunar sounds. . . strange. I turn enough that I can see him, and sure enough, Thunar’s standing just like we are, head bowed, eyes downward. Why would he be in trouble?
WHERE’S THE HEART? Father’s sudden rage has all of us shaking. Why have none of you returned home to bring it to me? How could you all have failed so miserably? Your failure forced me to come back to this wretched place.
He launches into the air and roars, circling overhead, his tail whipping back and forth as he rages. But when he lands, it’s in front of me, and he brings his head back, ready to teach me another lesson, apparently.
“They couldn’t take the heart home to you,” a familiar voice says up above me. “Because it’s stuck inside of me.”
I lift my head upward and confirm that Liz is indeed floating above me, her wings beating furiously. So much for her staying away. I sort of knew I would only have a head start. She’s not the kind of person who stays away when I’m in danger, even if she is more of a liability than anything else.
“If you weren’t such a miserable bully, your sons might not all have stayed here.
They might have returned home as you demanded.
” Her face is angry—defiant. Classic Liz.
“That’s why Azar didn’t return home. He didn’t have any faith that his father wouldn’t harm or punish him by hurting me.
” She tosses her head. “So, let’s see whether he was right.
Is that who you are, Odin, Freya’s husband?
Are you the kind of person who harms others to vent your own rage, or are you in better control of your own emotions than that? ”
You? Father’s face contorts with rage. How are you still alive? It’s been thousands of years.
“I’m not Gullveig,” Liz says. “When you knew me I was, but I’ve been reborn. I’m only twenty-three years old now.”
You poisoned Freya’s mind. Father launches into the sky, aiming at Liz. I couldn’t attack you then without harming her, but I can now. He arrows downward, toward her.
I vault upward, blocking him with my body. No, I say. Mine.
When Father’s enormous form collides with mine, we both careen sideways, neither of us able to recover before slamming into the ground. The earth around us shakes, but I recover faster than Father.
And I blast him with the hottest flame I can manage.
Of course, my flames do nothing but irritate him. You would attack your own father for one earth child?
She’s my earth child, I say. I would attack anyone for her. You will not harm her.
You’re just like your mother. He has never mentioned her to me before. To my surprise, he laughs. Alright, who told you that bringing your earth child, whatever her name is now, back home would kill her?
I glance at Liz. She looks as confused as I am.
I’m sure Euphrasia told him, Thunar says. Even though you forbade it.
“She told us nothing,” Liz says. “We were pretty frustrated about her failure to tell us about the past with the vanir and the aesir. I’ve been relying on regaining my memories to figure it out.”
Father lands, but he peers up at Liz. Frustrated about what?
Liz flies in a slow circle. She knows how to draw and keep attention, I’ll give her that.
She said she’d show up if I was in trouble, and here she is.
“You knew that when you were here before, the blessed needed to be bonded to humans to consume earth’s food and to process it.
You knew that the heart was a stone. You knew a great deal of things you didn’t share with the recovery leader or the earth blessed who came with him. ”
And he never confessed to me that he was also earth blessed. Father crosses his front legs and drops his head to rest on top of them. He narrows his eyes. Apparently we all had our secrets.
You knew? I don’t understand. I took great pains to keep that a secret.
Euphrasia wanted to show me that you could keep it from the others. She was right. You did. It was impressive for a hatchling.
But. . . If you knew, why did it need to be kept secret?
Father sits up again and looks around slowly.
The earth blessed are large now, strong, and they can fly.
He arches one eyebrow. That was not the case then.
Others would have seen your second affinity as a liability, not an asset.
You made it public when it could no longer harm you. It was well played.
It wasn’t a play—I apparently shared that information in an attempt to keep Hyperion from throwing Liz into the volcano. It failed, but still. I don’t share my reasons.
You didn’t bring the heart back, because you were worried I’d slice open your human to recover it? Father tilts his head. Was that the only reason?
“It wasn’t always in my chest,” Liz says. “That was more recent. Using the stone’s tricky.”
That has always been the case, Father says. But why else didn’t you return?
In order to recover the heart stone, we had to release the vanir. I can’t help cringing a little. We stayed to help the humans they’re killing.
Father looks unimpressed. That’s not your problem. Gather up the blessed. They can leave their bonded earth children here, or they can bring them. Perhaps they won’t die this time.
What about Liz? I ask. Do you think the heart will protect her?
Father scoffs. No, I just don’t care whether she survives as long as we have the heart.