Chapter 33
Lux
Tears dripped down the groove beneath my husband’s cheekbone. His ashen face blurred, and my vision swam with another swell of tears.
With my eyes brimming and overflowing, everything inside me suddenly cleared.
I blinked the wetness away, swiping my knuckles at the tears spilling over my cheeks.
I remembered Drak in this same position once before.
In the memory, no spear struck through him, but an axe had been embedded between his shoulder and collarbone.
Back then, the light faded from his eyes.
As I shoved the sword into his hand, he let go and lifted his arm, brushing his fingers across my jaw.
Where I once begged for Rune to come back to me, I now fell silent.
Because he had. He’d come back to me as Drak. He had found me, just as he’d promised.
Everything came back as clear as the crystalline water in the fjords surrounding Skaldir. Long before storms whipped the water into foam and ran red with my people’s blood, and long before they stained the wasteland, we lived here.
Drak and me. Rune and Myrah.
Our wedding day was a vibrant memory that consumed me now. All I could see was myself in a dress the same icy blue as his eyes, my body marked with wedding runes that glowed across my skin.
And Hel, it’d taken hours to paint those runes just right. Hours upon hours with a shaking hand, the muscles in my arm tired. But I married him as a farmer and fisherman’s daughter turned shield-maiden, and I wanted the runes to reflect both sides of me, showcasing my whole self.
I was back in that moment, that life, living as Myrah for one brief and beautiful moment, though it was only in my head.
On the night of our wedding, we fucked and fought, honing our skills as warriors for the battles to come. Rune’s eyes glittered with admiration as our weapons clashed. I shoved him with my shield, but he didn’t budge.
“Give me everything,” he said, grinning. “Like I’m the enemy.” I grunted and pushed with most of my weight. “Come on. My wife is wilder and fiercer than this.” He lifted his sword. “Hit hard, Skald.”
I laughed, and we sparred until the heat of the battle led us back to our bed, and we made love once again. Later, in a haze of pleasure, he followed me into the darkness where the dying fire cast an orange glow on the low-hanging fog.
Out there, my mind cleared with the sharp edge of the winter’s chill. Cold and awake, stories lingered on my lips. I craned my neck and smirked at Rune. He loved listening to my storytelling as much as I craved to share them.
Sagas of Loki turning into a mare to seduce a giant’s horse. This one always made Rune laugh, which was a warm sound, deep and full of a life he lost on the battlefield.
Sagas of Thor attempting to drink all the mead in the world, rivers and lake-fulls. The first time I recounted this story, Rune downed nine horns of ale and then fell asleep tangled in my hair, drunkenly drawling about how much he adored my ‘bedtime stories’.
Sagas of men and women like us, most notably a famous warrior who’d died only a few years earlier named Ragnar Lodbrok and the shield-maiden, Lagerda, who brought him to victory.
They trained and fought in honor of Odin and Freya, just as we prepared to do.
The more other villages pushed into the rich land of Vylheim, the harder we trained, ready to defend our home.
What did we have if not a home to share the sagas, put down roots, and raise livestock?
Alone in bed after our first full day and night as husband and wife, I curled into Rune’s arms, a sigh of relief escaping my lips.
“Tell me another story,” Rune said as he lay with his arm beneath my neck.
I arched my neck to look up at him, our naked bodies draped in soft furs.
Tomorrow, we would rise with the sun and march into battle against the kingdom of West Anglor, defending Vylheim from their king’s claim.
We would not allow ourselves to fall prey to someone else’s rule.
And we’d fought West Anglor once before, having crossed the sea to battle on their shores.
This fight would be easy enough. We’d won before, returning to Vylheim and Skaldir with gold and honor for our leaders.
Now they came to us.
I laughed. “Aren’t you sick of all the sagas by now?”
“I never tire of the light in your eyes when you bring another bedtime story to life.” He slid his arm out from under me and propped himself up. With his free hand, he brushed a lock of loose hair from my face, tucking it carefully behind my ear.
“It’s history,” I said, feigning irritation with the crook of my brow. “Not just a story.”
He leaned forward and whispered. “I know, Skald.” A shiver ran along my spine at the nickname.
I loved it when my husband used the title reserved for poets and storytellers.
Every time he said it, he was acknowledging what I cherished most in the world—aside from him.
“I’m poking the bear,” he added. I smirked and released a ridiculous-sounding growl, bunching my nose into what probably looked more like a rabbit’s face.
“When will you realize for yourself what it is you love about storytelling?”
I blinked at him. Where had that come from? “Do I need to consider why I love it? I simply do.”
He chuckled and leaned forward, planting a gentle kiss where my forehead met my hairline. Loose waves of hair tumbled over the furs beneath us; my braids long undone. “Yes, my fierce Skald. You need to think about it.”
“Why?”
His icy gaze held mine, bright and clear, but chilling in its honesty. “Because then you’ll see yourself as I see you.”
I stretched my neck and lifted my mouth to his jaw. I brushed a light kiss over his rough beard, smiling as my lips lingered against his face. “And what is that?”
“Raw perfection. The most important woman in history.”
I laughed. “You’re too much.”
“I’m hardly enough. For you.”
“Lagerda is far more important,” I said.
“She is also important. But without skalds like you, she would be forgotten, and her importance erased. You are what keeps her alive, even in death. In the sagas, nobody truly dies.”
“And if we don’t die,” I started, quoting a phrase we’d shared with each other before.
“We’ll never be apart,” he finished it. He propped my chin on the inside of his index finger and guided me to him. He kissed me slowly, his tongue brushing mine before he pulled back to search my eyes. “Never apart,” he repeated.
“Never,” I echoed.
His mouth crashed against mine again. Ripples of excitement ignited my entire body. My skin pebbled with tiny bumps and warmth flourished between my legs.
With his fingers sinking into my hair, he cupped the nape of my neck.
I ground my center against his solid length.
Pleasure tingled along my core, and I sought more and more and more while I writhed and squirmed against his warm body.
He grew thicker and more in need of me. Moaning, he softly nipped at my neck, and my body rewarded him with my slickness.
“Skald,” he said between gasps. “You’re going to end it before it begins.”
“But we just fucked not an hour ago.”
His eyes flared open. “So what? Just thinking of you is enough to unravel me.”
My lips curved into a wicked grin, and I lifted my hips, positioning myself over his cock. Agonizingly slow, I sank onto the tip of him, letting his hardness split me open. I dropped another inch, desperate for him to be deeper.
In his own desperation, Rune’s hands found my hips and his fingertips dug into my skin.
He pressed my body down farther, filling me.
I cried out, frustrated that he wasn’t buried as deeply as possible and yet clinging to the slow tease of it.
My arm shot out and my fingers wrapped around his throat.
“I’m in charge, Rune.”
His eyes flashed with feral desire. “You always are.” A smile crooked his mouth. “You’re the only one allowed to tell me what to do.”
“And it will be that way forever,” I said as I sat lower.
Only another inch and I’d be full of him, stretched to the brink and shaking on the edge of pleasure accompanied by a delicious twinge of pain.
He should have been too much for me, but my desire coated his cock with just enough to fit him all the way inside of me.
I squeezed his throat, my eyes pinning him as I sank one more inch, pressing the inside of my thighs against his flesh.
Rolling forward and back, tension built both deep within me and at the nerves rubbing against his skin. Unencumbered pleasure always made me come at the same time as him—an ecstasy only possible with Rune.
As soon as pleasure rippled through me, Rune exploded, his low growl an animalistic release. I bent forward, lying across him, and feeling the sensitive tips of my nipples brush his bare chest.
Brushing hair from his face, he stared at the ceiling. His voice was feathery, barely a whisper after the intensity of what we’d shared. “Tell me the saga of Freya’s tears.”
“That’s a sad one.”
He smoothed his palm over my wild hair. “I know, Skald, but I want to remember that not even the gods have found a way to stay together forever.”
I scrunched my nose like a rabbit again. “Why?”
“Because it is motivation.” He paused, sucking in a breath.
“To become a god someday and be better than them. They squander their power, Skald. I will not waste it like Odin wastes his wisdom. I will give up my eye and endure longer than he did hanging from Yggdrasil, just to see the past and future and find the path that will keep us from ever being apart.”
My brow twitched, but I settled back against him, muscles melting into my husband’s warmth. I licked my lips and plunged into the saga of Freya’s husband, Odr, the Aesir god who brought her heartache.
“Odr wandered often,” I began, my voice soft as I nestled into the gentle wave of his chest. “Leaving Freya alone to cry tears of red and gold. Blood-filled tears. Tears that will someday rip the very foundation of Midgard apart. Perhaps during Ragnarok, or sooner, she’ll flood the earth with proof of her anguish, crying over Odr’s decisions to abandon her, choosing other women over her and disrespecting their marriage. ”
Rune’s breathing quickened. He hated this story. Something more than the simple recounting of Odr’s betrayal and Freya’s pain deeply disturbed him. Almost as if it directly affected him.
“Soon, Freya sought to punish Odr. This desire for punishment stretched and stretched like a Valkyrie’s wings expanding across the length of the sky. And Freya grieved, wanting others to share in her pain. She took mothers from fathers, husbands from their brides. And warriors from…”
The words slipped away from me, and I blinked back to the present. I hadn’t realized I was whispering the saga I told to him a lifetime ago, but now I spoke it over Drak’s limp body.
Was this Freya’s punishment? Having reached into Midgard? She’d already cried tears of blood that destroyed the lush land of the former Vylheim. The prophecy—the saga—was fulfilled. So what was her punishment?
I winced. “The gods are cruel.” My words came out in a whisper despite how raw and honest it felt to say this. I was still too scared to give it my full voice.
Hel, these were the gods I’d worshiped alongside my mother.
The gods I’d so desperately wanted to bring back to the forefront of our culture.
The gods I’d given my life and purpose to hunt for were cruel and untrustworthy.
I grimaced and lifted my eyes to the grey sky. “You did this. All of you.” Odin had convinced me to take up the mantle of this madness, and Freya forced us apart. That was why she chose me for Folkvangr; she knew the Valkyries would take Rune to Valhalla.
We weren’t only separated; we were torn asunder to grieve the loss of one another until the end of time.
Tears pricked my eyes. When I blinked, they spilled over my cheeks, rolling in fat rivers.
“I hate you,” I breathed. “I hate what you’ve made me.
” Foolish and daring, I defied Odin and Freya, yet they stayed silent, watching the storm inside me.
Pain shot through my jaw as my teeth clenched, and I lifted my eyes toward Yggdrasil’s looming branches.
The gods were near. I’d almost reached them. “If Drak does not kill you, I will.”
Pain lanced across my skull like lightning, forcing a ragged cry from my throat. I shut my eyes tight and dropped my chin.
Freya moaned with a strange, haunting grief, and Loki laughed cruelly. But it was Odin’s silence that disturbed me the most. He didn’t scream at me and he made no move to resist as his silence was absolute, like his voice and very being had been erased.
A shiver rippled through me.
I shoved the laughing and moaning behind the walls in my mind so that I could focus on Drak. I pressed my ear to his broad chest beside the spear. There was no heartbeat, though there hadn’t been one even before the Valkyrie had struck him.
If I trusted the skald who recorded my actions as Myrah, I knew that the only way for Drak to die was from a stake fashioned from Yggdrasil itself. This spear was gold, which cursed him to suffer, but not to die. I had to trust another skald over the gods.
My spine went as straight as the spear. Climbing to my feet, I wrapped my fingers around the golden weapon. Though it was white-hot and seared the flesh of my palms, I gripped as hard as I could and pulled.
No matter how hard I tugged, it refused to move. Sweat beaded along my hairline. Rivulets of my effort trickled down my temples as I stood over Drak with one foot on either side of his broad body. I pulled harder, desperate to release him.
Even if I collapsed, and Silver’s army found us first, I would not leave him.
“Never apart,” I grunted as I tugged. My palms went numb from the overwhelming pain, but I bent my legs and pulled again, finally jarring it slightly. Hope flooded me despite the tears that had dried salty and tight against my cheeks.
With another fierce pull, I ripped the spear from his chest, and as soon as it released, I tossed it to the ground. It clattered against the dirt and rolled off the path and into the brush, looking dull and lifeless now that it’d lost its purpose and the one who wielded it.
“Drak,” I crouched over him. His eyes didn’t so much as flutter. “Please.” Drawing my legs beneath me, I pressed close and tucked the hair from his face. “Let me tell you the saga of Myrah and Rune.”