Chapter thirty
Arik
I don’t care about the fucking flowers, I grumbled for the tenth time as I moved through the isometric exercises I had performed every day for twenty years. I just want Eisa.
Women care about such things, Baldur insisted sagely. You should care for her.
You’ve been back for a grand total of twelve hours, and you’re already bossing me around. I gave Baldur’s eye ridges a mental scratch. I was so relieved to have him back that I’d gladly let him boss me around every day for eternity.
Just remember that those are your thoughts, not mine, Baldur chuffed, reading my mind.
In our time apart, all of the careful mental shields I’d built over two decades of being drage seemed to have crumbled to dust. He was hearing every thought, no matter how mundane, and he had opinions on all of them.
Roses are nice, he decided as I dropped into a plank. The grass was wet, but I couldn’t care less. Or perhaps daffodils.
Daffodils are not a wedding flower.
Why not? They are a flower. This is a wedding.
A sudden jolt of anguish dropped me from my plank.
She cries, Baldur growled with quiet menace. Our mate cries.
She’s with Sigrid, I reminded him, mostly to reassure myself. And she will call for us if she needs us. This is private between them.
There was no crying before we came to this place, Baldur grumbled.
There was actually quite a lot of crying. You were just unconscious for the majority of it.
I should have known you would be useless without me.
I missed you too. I return to my plank, trying to still my mind as I focused on holding my strength through my arms and chest. The burn was a grounding pain that always anchored me when the rest of my life was feeling unsettled.
After three counts of one hundred, I pushed up into a stretch, then rose to stand.
Arne is with Jorgen and Branka.
I nearly fell over again. What?
Sigurd reached out. He has returned to Jorgen as well.
I gathered that. I took a swig of water and tried to slow my heartbeat. What do you mean Arne is with them?
There was a beat of silence as Baldur sought more information. They are near the sea. Arne happened upon them. He was quite ill.
I tried desperately to do the math in my head. Today would be the third day—fourth day?—from the mistletoe and the disastrous attempt to reach the Book. Which meant…
He lives, Baldur rumbled reassuringly. Kindra is with him.
Kindra? Revna’s on the continent?
She flew in to find you. She is his mate. Or rather, she will be.
I sat, feeling like the wind had been knocked from me once again. What?
Arne will host Kindra’s mate, Baldur repeated irritably. Keep up.
It’s fucking hard when you keep dropping new revelations on me. I scrubbed a hand over my face, trying to think. Was Arne Chaosborn? Neither he nor my mother had ever said anything about it, but they must have been tested. And if both Edvard and I were Chaosborn…
How? I pushed.
The Norns know all, Baldur said enigmatically. It took all my restraint not to mentally throttle him.
Baldur’s trust in the Norns may be unquestioning, but they’d caused me quite a bit of trouble, and I wasn’t inclined to forgive them if it was they who decreed that Eisa should grow up in that monster’s tavern.
Fuck your Norns.
Baldur rolled his eyes and huffed. Shall I tell them about the handfasting? Kindra wishes for orders.
I don’t—
A bolt of something–excitement maybe, or anxiety–pierced my chest, and I frowned, uncertain what it had come from.
Eisa, Baldur said, growling protectively as he forced me to my feet.
We’re coming. I shot the thought over the mental bridge, now whole and shimmering in my mind as I ran for the hidden entrance to the temple’s lower levels. What is it?
Eisa didn’t reply, and I was already halfway down the spiralling stairs when Baldur whooped with excitement.
The priestesses have the Book.
“Well this isn’t ominous,” Eisa murmured, the stone hallway of the temple glowing faintly blue and casting Sigrid in an eerie light.
“Your mother always hated it down here,” Sigrid said, leaning heavily on a wooden cane she had produced from somewhere with one gnarled hand. She placed the other on one of the stone doors. It ground open instantly, and I was fairly certain that it would open only for one of the Volva.
“Why?” Eisa was wearing her borrowed dress, and I had to discreetly adjust myself as I thought about lifting it over her heated center the other night. About how she felt coming around my fingers. How I’d spilled myself like a boy, unable to hold back with her need pulsing into me.
You alright? Eisa’s voice was teasing, and I knew Idunn must have told her exactly what I was thinking of.
I sent her a mental image of how I’d like to take her tonight–naked under the starlight in the damp grass, my face between her thighs.
She stumbled once, and I caught her by the waist. Are you?
She glowered at me, and I had to work to restrain my grin.
“You’ll see,” Sigrid said, completely unaware—I hoped—of our silent conversation. Her voice echoed strangely as she lit the torches at the entrance to the priestess’ archive with a snap of her fingers. “She said it made her skin itch.”
Eisa and I exchanged a look as we followed behind the old woman.
The archive room was slightly curved like the rest of the rooms built into the stone hallway, its ceiling sloping up toward the inner sanctum and down to the floor on the other side.
Bookshelves were carved into the stone walls, and several wooden tables for study sat in the center of the space like in the castle library.
But I didn’t have to ask where the Book of Chaos was. In the center of the library, a single tome sat atop a stone plinth, its pages glowing a pulsing blue.
Eisa gasped, taking a step back as if she had been struck. I put an arm out to steady her, feeling the cloying pulse of Chaos in my head. Alright?
She nodded, eyes wide. Idunn said the Book in your father’s library felt wrong.
She what?
Sigrid chuckled as Eisa rushed toward the plinth, and I offered the old woman my arm as we followed more slowly. The top of her head barely reached my waist, so it was exceptionally slow going.
Sigrid said your father only has a copy. This is the original. Eisa bounced excitedly on her toes as she stood before the Book, the blue reflected in her eyes as Idunn peered out with interest. And Idunn kept saying it didn’t feel right. This is why. The real one is full of Chaos.
The Book was unobtrusive, except for the pulsing blue light that glowed from within it. Its leather binding was clasped shut with metal latches, and Eisa reached out to open it.
“Wait–” I reached for her, but she was already flicking the iron latch.
She hissed, withdrawing her hand as the Book pulsed placidly, uncaring about her pain.
“Iron bindings,” I murmured, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to the palm. I let Baldur’s magic ease the sting, absurdly pleased I could do so once again. “To contain the magic?”
Probably. Baldur’s ancient voice was filled with awe. I can feel it.
“Let me.” I took Eisa’s place before the Book and braced myself, sucking in a breath as pain shot up my arm. The latch clicked open.
Eisa crowded in next to me, and I shifted so she could see the pages before us.
They were utterly blank.
“What exactly do you see?” Sigrid asked curiously as Eisa flipped to the next page.
It was an illuminated manuscript. Elegant black text covered the next two pages, images of dragons scrawled up the margins of the page. For a moment, it looked like any other old book, and I couldn’t understand why it had glowed from a distance.
Baldur pushed forward into my vision, and that’s when I saw it.
Behind the words was something else. Symbols that glowed a faint blue and only became intelligible if I focused on letting Baldur see them.
“What is that?” Eisa frowned down at the page, and the longer I looked at it, the more I recognized it. I wore it on my fucking skin, after all.
In the beginning, there was the Darkness, translated Baldur. And only one with a soul of fire can hope to stand against it.
“Dragon language.” I looked at Sigrid, and the old woman smiled triumphantly. “You don’t see it. Why?”
And how? I asked Baldur in my mind. There were no written examples of dragon language.
The dragons believed their writing to be sacred, and the only reason Revna had been able to tattoo it on my skin was by having Kindra show her the words mind to mind.
How is there dragon language if the Book of Chaos was written by men?
Baldur rumbled a laugh. Who told you it was written by men?
I reached over Eisa’s shoulder, turning to the next page. Under a diagram of the different sizes and abilities of dragonkind was more of that glowing blue text. We flipped through several more pages.
It was on every single one.
“It is a skjult tunge,” Sigrid said, sitting heavily upon a stone bench and tapping her cane absently against the ground. “A palimpsest.”
“What in the name of the Goddess is a—ah!” Eisa asked, before swearing and covering her nose with her sleeve. The fabric turned crimson.
“Kjaere.” I placed my hand on her lower back, catching her arm as she swayed and guiding her to the bench where Sigrid sat.
“Goodness, child!” Sigrid handed her a handkerchief, and she dabbed her nose as I held her steady.
“It’s the Chaos.” Eisa’s voice was muffled by the fabric, but I could tell she was trying to smile at Sigrid. “It’s stronger than at Ironholm. More insistent.”
“And does this always happen?”
“More or less,” I interjected so that Eisa wouldn’t have to talk. “Go on, Mormor.”
Sigrid looked unreasonably pleased at my use of Eisa’s pet name and tapped her cane on the stone floor.
“A palimpsest is a text in which the original writing is scraped away and another text is written atop it. Though, in this case, I believe it was designed to hide this dragon language you say is on the pages. Since I am not drage, I cannot be sure.”
“Why hide a message only the drage can see?”
Use your brain, Baldur rumbled, speaking so both Eisa and I could hear him. Because it contains information that is too dangerous for humans to possess.
I scowled as Eisa choked on a laugh, and Sigrid smiled. I wondered if she had somehow heard Baldur as well. “I presume it will tell you how to use the Tears of Elysia. And how to close the Rift.”
Eisa dabbed at her nose to check that the bleeding had stopped. “And humans might use the power for something else. Something selfish.”
“Exactly.” Sigrid stood and shuffled over to the plinth, closing the cover gently and clasping the seals. If the iron bothered her, she didn’t let on. Did iron bother witches? I shook my head, unable to remember the fairy stories from my childhood.
“They may have bonded with you, but even the dragons knew not to trust the humans outright. We tend to use power to destroy, rather than to heal.” Sigrid looked at me expectantly. “Well? You can’t expect an old woman to carry this great heavy thing, and I suppose you will wish to take it with you.”
“You are giving it to us?” I asked, removing my jacket and lifting the Book from its resting place. It was heavier than expected, and I was careful not to touch the iron bindings as I wrapped it in the leather.
“I give it to her,” Sigrid clarified, nodding toward my mate “You may carry it for her.”
Eisa laughed, putting her arms around the old woman as I tucked the Book under my arm.
I had hoped wrapping it might dampen the Chaos somewhat, but it was not to be. It thrummed painfully through me, and I was thankful it was me holding the damned thing rather than Eisa. We would need to keep it wrapped up and hidden away as we travelled so it wouldn’t hurt her.
“Well, if that’s all settled,” Sigrid said, clapping her hands in a fair imitation of Amaya, “then I suppose we have a handfasting to get to.”