Chapter 23 Aura #2
“What did she ask?” Her breathy question is like wind on the fields.
“For my soul. She requires it to leave my body for a darker, more malevolent presence to replace it.”
Even as she considers asking, she knows in her heart the answer before he utters the words.
“Makt needed a body. She wanted me, her only son, to die to become the vessel for a Draemonium.”
She can offer no comfort, only her heart in rapt attention.
“My ex-wife pressured me to accept him as she was a firm worshipper. Except I refused. And when I did, she grew unhinged and attacked me with Freyja. In our struggle, she admitted to offering our son as a sacrifice to Makt in Chillbury. She suffered more than anyone when my ice banished her soul to the Abyss.” Finally, he tears himself away from the statue to look at Aura with so much disgrace that she reaches out and squeezes his hand.
He doesn’t respond.
However, he does not pull away.
“You followed your son to Chillbury?”
Calder nods. “Except they had already sacrificed him. Makt embodied the husk of my child while his young soul entered the Abyss, where all those children who die young descend.” He gestures further down the street, where the wind swirls dead leaves, and a light dusting of snow drapes from building to building.
“I slew the body of my son to destroy Makt. But the God of Power was already free of his shackles in the Abyss and unwilling to return. He began inhibiting any body he could possess.” Calder clutches her upper arm, stopping her from turning away, “I did what was necessary to stop Makt. Even if it was all for naught.”
She tilts her head away to look at the field between the town and the docks and experiences a complete, horrific shock.
She has nothing to compare the sight.
Fleeing in various hair-raising acts of terror are the people of Chillbury.
Men, women, and children abandoned all thought and reason to escape the panic induced by the sacrifice.
As she nears the first victim, that of a woman, she realizes they are all frozen solid.
Forever stuck in paralysis. Most were frightened, some in hysterics, and others bore a cruel understanding of their fate.
She stumbles backward.
This is what Calder meant.
He froze every last person to death to catch Makt.
“I don’t understand,” she shakes her head, “how did he kill them all? Briny and Freyr possessed Grandpa Thord and left him alive each time.”
Calder’s tense expression lessens to pity. “Gods have a choice. Makt is the only one who chooses to kill the hosts.”
Aura stops beside a little girl, who clings to her mother as she averts her gaze from the demon overtaking them. The Princess clutches the auburn-haired doll in her hands, wondering if this child had one in her home.
She is not sure how long she wanders through the carnage, memorizing every expression, shedding silent tears for the unnecessary loss of life.
And for the Iss Drengr’s soul.
Gods of the Endless Shore, I humbly beseech you to watch over Calder with your blessings of strength, wisdom, and good fortune. Briny and Maeve, please guide him. Ingvar and Astrid, Noxumbra and Gullveig. Do not forsake your son.
Maeve’s voice whispers in her mind, “He is not our child to protect. But his redemption will come if he chooses it.”
She sniffles back the tears as she returns to his side with the mystic words of her grandmother seared in her mind. “Why did you never free their bodies?”
“I couldn’t face them. Not after I buried my ex-wife and son along the shoreline.”
She clutches the Sacred Stone.
“Briny? May I control ice?”
“Yes, Aurie, dear.”
She feels the frost energy pulsing in her hands as she strides toward the first woman.
Delicately, she holds her in her arms while focusing on reversing the seidr. The woman collapses into her embrace, long dead but no longer frozen in fear.
She has released about ten corpses when she hears Calder behind her, unfreezing the other villagers.
They spend the rest of the afternoon until they all lay in the snow, free of their ice prison.
“Briny? May I control the earth?”
Maeve answers this time. “Yes, Aurie.”
She places her hands on the ground, urging the earth to open graves for all of the bodies. Calder follows her progress up and down the rows, placing the bodies into the frozen ground.
Skalor burial culture prefers deep catacombs of embalmed dead, but will bury bodies in the ground in a pinch.
Before they finish, she places the doll into the young girl's grave.
To think these townsfolk sacrificed Calder’s son without a second thought.
Vengeance wasn’t even on his mind, only saving them from the Draemonium.
Makt.
When Aura looks down into the pit of the girl, curled on her side, she feels a pang of grief that she was innocent in all this. She didn’t deserve to be possessed by Makt or murdered by Calder.
But was his icy touch murder or mercy? Makt sent their souls to the Abyss before the Iss Drengr relieved them of their mortal bodies.
She kneels at the foot of the child’s grave, her palms turned upward. Hail to the earth that accepts this child's mortal body, and may your roots welcome them to your eternal slumber.
After covering their bodies using the earth elemental, she trudges to the dock, where she spots two faint disturbances along the ground.
She deduces the ancient word for son in frosted runes and realizes she is looking at Calder’s child’s final resting place—the boy who would have been a couple of years younger than Aura.
Would they have met had this tragedy not occurred?
She shivers, unable to shake the horror that transpired in this village. Yet, she still holds the Jarl of Kaldrgataness in the highest esteem.
She has just perched along the edge of the pier when she hears his heavy boots thunk along the decking before he sits beside her, looking out on the Bay of Souls.
“Lavinia manipulated you. She and Makt punished your son because you told her no.” She whispers. “We will destroy her and Makt once and for all.”
Calder’s finger traces her jaw before gripping her chin. “You are an exceptional woman. Most see me as the Iss Drengr–a demon wrought from the Abyss. But when you look at me, I feel like myself for the first time in ages.”
She rests a hand on his thigh, searching his eyes and feeling only comfort and reassurance, for he has fully embraced her, in all her parts. His other hand gently caresses her cheek, sending a shock through her body as he pulls her face close to his.
Her breathing quickens as Calder’s beard brushes against her chin.
He holds her tightly, and his lips find hers in a passion that ignites lightning within her core.
She gasps, her lips parting as she inhales his tantalizing breath, savoring his intimacy.
Her hands clutch his cuirass, yearning to offer all she can to him.
Yet, she still pulls away gently. “I shall not be the reason you lose control.”
He lifts her waist and settles her in his lap so she straddles him. With a growl that vibrates her entire body, he whispers, “I refuse to suffer another day in which you are beyond my touch.”
And then he devours her lips like a man starved.