Chapter 23 #2
“And Luna.” Sitting beside Mina, she merely crosses her arms over her chest, appearing bored and annoyed.
Freya turns in her chair. “This is Odr.” She points to the black-haired man on her right, who dips his chin in greeting.
“Harald.” She gestures to a blonde-haired man with simmering grey eyes.
Wing tattoos down his arms mark him as a royal guard.
He stands when she calls his name and saunters around the table towards me and bows lowly.
The sides of his head are shaved. A long ashy-blonde braid slips over his shoulder at his bow.
He’s huge, mirroring Tane’s height, but the width of him is staggering, like a bear. But there’s something about him that exudes mischief. It’s not the twinkle in his eyes or the permanent smirk on his lips. It’s a combination of the two and something else that I can’t quite put my finger on.
He takes my hand in his and presses a kiss to my knuckles. Lachlan shifts in his seat behind me. Surprise raises my brows.
“It’s an honor, Your Majesty.” His voice is deep, the accent richly Scandinavian.
His eyes hold my face and he brushes his thumb over the tops of my knuckles once more.
There it is—the mischief.
“That is enough,” Lachlan spits, standing abruptly and knocking his chair over with the movement. “Remove your hands from her.”
Tane and Mathilda quietly reach for their weapons under the table, but a small smile curves Mina’s and Luna’s lips.
Harald stands at his full height, his attention never leaving Lachlan. They stand toe-to-toe, a battle of wills blazes in their eyes. A current of power tenses the room. Mathilda’s eyes flick from Lachlan to me, a subtle warning I should end this, and now.
I stand between. “It’s fine Lach, he meant no harm.” I try my best to diffuse the situation, but Lachlan’s glower continues to burn through Harald.
Standing toe-to-toe like this, their opposite looks are made even more apparent. Harald is the day with his blonde hair and silver eyes while Lachlan is the night. His dark hair and black wings devour the fading sunlight and the flames that dance around the room in their sconces.
“Harald, we did not come here to start trouble,” Freya snaps. Her eyes bore onto the side of his face and he slowly turns while keeping Lachlan in his line of sight.
He cocks a smile before shrugging and walking around the table to take his seat. “Pity. Are all the pretty ones taken?” He eyes Mathilda as he sits, but then his gaze slides to Mina and lingers.
Freya heaves a sigh, annoyance still heavy in her gaze before she blinks and it’s gone. “And this is Piominko.” She waves to a tall male with long black hair braided down his back. The sides of his head are also shorn to the scalp.
He stands beside Evander with a silent, reverent expression, his gaze steady, despite the tension thrumming through the room. His name tickles something in my memory, a lesson my father once told me when we were traveling through Oklahoma.
My gaze roves over him. Swirling tattoos cover his bare chest, and a strand of intricately tied red and white beads hangs from his neck.
“Are you—from the Chickasaw tribe?”
Piominko turns to me and I see the eyes of a woodpecker tattooed upon his neck. “You know of the Chickasaw tribe?” He tilts his head, studying me.
“I do.” I smile, memories of my father sweep through me, easing some of my heartache. “My father taught me about the five nations when we traveled through their lands.”
Piominko smiles broadly and the pride in it springs forth my homesickness for Olundy. But there’s such rugged beauty in his smile, like the raw beauty of the very land he came from.
Freya watches the exchange with an unreadable expression before clearing her throat. “Now that introductions are complete, shall we proceed?”
I have no idea where to even begin. Might as well start with what they’ve seen.
“The asphidra you saw nailed to the wall was an imposter parading as Odessa. Who is also missing.”
Freya’s eyes flare. I hold up a hand, pausing the rush of questions that are about to spill from her lips.
“The asphidra was shifted thanks to one of our own, Julius. Which is why we had to check your blood. My apologies.” I look from Freya to Odr. “Together, they carried out a plan to render magic paralyzed in this realm. Cutting us off from the outside world. I arrived some months ago because of this.” I slip my mother’s necklace out from behind my leathers.
“They convinced everyone magic was fading because of my mother’s absence, and that there wasn’t a need to train for the Great War anymore.
Or to observe the olde ways. They stopped worshipping the Gods, as well.
” The air in the room thickens as Freya’s otherworldly eyes glow.
“I know you came for our help. But we don’t have enough weapons to arm our troops and we’re severely lacking in training.
I established a rebellion to take my throne back and undo all the damage they had done. But we have only just begun.”
Lachlan clears his throat. “The invasion.” He grimaces, his clenched teeth flashing against his tan skin.
I slap my palms on the table and lean back in my chair, embarrassment flooding my cheeks. “Oh yeah! Demons invaded us and when I killed the asphidra, Julius escaped.”
Freya shifts in her chair before exchanging a silent understanding with Odr.
“Is that all?” Her voice is like quiet death.
Fear walks its way down my spine as I prepare for what I presume is going to be the ass-chewing of a lifetime.
“That about sums it up.” I grimace and scan my gathered friends. Guilt, in varying degrees, reflects on their faces. We were bested, in the worst of ways, and now our failures are being laid bare.
Freya slides her hands onto the table before heaving herself upright. Her cloak slips from her shoulders and, sure enough, the body of a goddess appears before us.
Golden skin and lean, toned muscles. She is a warrior and a powerful one at that.
She takes the time to stare each person in the eye. “Odin is missing, your aunt is missing,”—she waves to me—“and war is on the horizon.”
Her words are icy as each one slips through clenched teeth. She’s furious, understandably so, but I have no intention of letting her cast that anger towards the people who matter most to me.
The people that picked me up and helped me during the darkest of my days.
I nod, crossing my arms over my chest. “We know of all that already.”
Annoyance douses my fear.
This is my kingdom, my council room.
She may be centuries older than I am, but she does not outrank me, not here at least.
“And where is your mother?” she asks me, raising a brow as she shifts towards me.
The patronizing in that one arched brow is enough to tip me over the edge.
“Dead.” The word cracks like thunder from me as I level her with a look.
Her face shudders with shock and she lowers herself back into her chair.
“Tyr, help us,” she whispers under her breath, her head held aloft with her hands.
“I’m sorry—but do you know of anything useful?” Luna’s voice cuts across the room, and I bite my cheek to hold back a grimace.
Odr tenses and whips his head to her.
“We’re getting to that sorceress,” he spits. His lips curl with disgust as his eyes rake over her.
My blood boils at his audacity. “Watch it,” I snarl. My finger pointed directly at his chest.
Luna’s eyes swing to mine. Surprise and appreciation radiate in them. Freya raises her head, sensing the new spike of tension in the room.
“Odr,” she tuts, patting his hand before addressing me. “My apologies, Lena. Tensions seem to be higher than usual due to the circumstances.”
I’m relieved she didn’t ignore the interaction or take his side, and instead tried to diffuse the situation. My shoulders relax a fraction.
“Thank you, Freya. Now—what do you know?”
“We have reason to believe the Fomorians have Odin. We hadn’t realized they could have had Odessa, too.
” She grimaces and looks at the map beside us.
“There have been signs and whispers among the realms. But most noticeable, were the impenetrable mists that began surrounding Toraigh. The Tuadanaan have the most powerful seers and even they can’t see through them. ”
“We know next to nothing about the other realms, so forgive me. Are the mists not normally there?”
“Don’t you read the texts?” Odr asks, confusion creasing his brow as he looks between us.
“We have no texts. They burned our books.”
The harsh scraping of wood against stone pierces the silence as Freya lurches upright like she’s been set on fire. “Are you saying that someone destroyed your libraries?”
I heave a sigh, nodding, having felt the same when I first heard it too. “Yes, most of the books about magic, our enemies, and even our allies,”—I wave to her — “are gone. Besides the few we recovered from their lair.”
I feel the weight of so many stares upon me, and I square my shoulders, withstanding it.
“How?” Freya whispers.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I wasn’t here.”
A shadow crosses her brow and the flames around the room flicker violently. “You all believed the imposter so completely. Believed that your gods had forsaken you. And you what? Were just so ready to turn your backs on them? And the knowledge they granted you?”
Her voice climbs higher with each word as she stands again.
It’s a challenge, not to me, but to my court. My friends. I ease out of my chair. Standing, I pull her attention to me, meeting her summons head-on.
Head on, but not alone. Lachlan stands beside me, and together we present a united front.
“No. They started a rebellion. A rebellion that I finished, which is why we’re standing here now.”
Freya blinks. The consequence of her words registering before she dips her chin in apology and plops back down. Her chest heaves with a deep breath.
I glance sidelong at Lachlan wanting to share in this victory with him, but his eyes stay on her. Monitoring the threat against me still. A hint of worry creases his brow. Or is that confusion?