The Fires of Muspelheim Read online

  “I wasn’t aware I sought anything,” Abagail said. “I didn’t come here by choice.”

  “Abagail might not have, but the All Father did,” Bellvin told her. “Answers you say?” she turned to Surt. “I think you’re right. This vessel won’t believe she holds the soul of the All Father without some proof.”

  “The vessel has a name,” Abagail said. “I’m Abagail, whatever I may have inside me, I’m Abagail.”

  Bellvin smiled at her. “Yes. You are Abagail, but Abagail is also an incarnation of the All Father.”

  Abagail frowned.

  “Let me show you,” Bellvin said, holding out a dark, delicate hand for Abagail.

  Abagail hesitated a moment, unsure if she wanted to know what she was. She didn’t want to know that the warm feeling she felt when they called her All Father was really because she was the child god. She didn’t want to know that the reason she had seen Anthros before and why her Gorjugan said she looked like his brother was because she was the Chosen of Anthros.

  No matter what the ravens might have suspected. No matter what Leona hinted at. Abagail didn’t want the confirmation of what she already suspected.

  But the part of her that needed to know reached forward and clasped hands with the Norn.

  Everything faded to black.

  “There’s a new harbinger, you say?” the dark elf asked.

  Rorick adjusted his perch at the top of the building. His hands were wet and he’d just finally calmed himself from the height so that his legs didn’t shake. It had been Camilla’s idea to climb to the roof and watch the group. Cloaked in night, hiding on a roof, they would be all but invisible to the couple that met at the end of the alley on the top level of Haven.

  Camilla frowned at his movement and turned her attention back to the dark elf and Deborah.

  “There is a new one that is correct. She’s small, might not take much for her to bleed out, but you should get a few scepters open,” Deborah said.

  She means Leona, Rorick thought. They hadn’t truly been able to determine which side of the light/dark spectrum that Deborah fell on. They’d seen her confer with this dark elf several nights in a row, but wanting to open the scepters didn’t precisely make her bad, did it? But she’s talking about Leona! Rorick thought. His hands gripped the top of the roof harder, imagining it was her throat.

  “And why would you want us to do that?” The dark elf asked. She crossed her slender arms over her flat chest. “It would kill darklings.”

  Camilla and Rorick shared a look. Was that the piece of information they were looking for? Rorick hoped Camilla thought so. He wanted to kill Deborah for nothing more than willingly giving up Leona to open the scepters. The reality of what opening the scepters meant was starting to sink into Rorick. Before he’d thought it was a good idea, but now he realized what it truly meant. People would have to die to open them; people who could potentially be good if they beat back the plague.

  There’s no way the plague will take Leona, Rorick thought. If anyone can beat it, she can. But they would kill her regardless.

  Deborah waved a hand before her. “There’s no proof that it will kill humans, just that it will take away the mindless darklings.”

  “That’s what we’re telling people anyway,” the dark elf said.

  Deborah was silent for a time. “And that means?”

  “When will you deliver the girl to me?” the dark elf asked.

  “How does tomorrow night sound?” Deborah asked.

  “Perfect. Meet me here when all is quiet.” The elf didn’t wait for any further pleasantries, she turned and left Deborah alone in the dark alley. Moments later, Deborah followed, but turned right out of the Alley instead of left.

  Rorick and Camilla waited longer than Rorick thought was necessary before she motioned for them to climb down. The house was an A-frame, and the roof went all the way to the ground. Camilla scaled down the roof with the ease of a cat. Rorick lost his footing halfway down and tumbled the rest of the way, landing in a heap in the bushes.

  “Be quiet you ox!” Camilla scolded, pulling him out of the bushes. She barely came up to Rorick’s chest, but she was surprisingly strong. “Thank the All Father this house is vacant.”

  “What did you think of that?” Rorick asked, dusting himself off.

  Camilla frowned and started walking; Rorick fell in step beside her.

  “There’s no true way of knowing if she’s really a darkling, but we are going to kill her anyway,” Camilla said. “She’s giving up harbingers, that’s close enough for me to convict her.”

  “So we find her now and attack?” Rorick asked. “Before she can get Leona?” Rorick glanced around them as if he expected Deborah to pounce out of a dark street at any moment.

  “No, you stay with Leona tomorrow, but don’t let anyone know you’re there. Keep an eye on her. When Deborah tries to take her, attack. I will meet the elf in the alley.”

  Rorick nodded, without another word he split ways with Camilla and headed for the house he shared with Leona. When he was out of sight of his captain, he broke into a jog, not happy until he was thumping up the stairs to the porch and able to see Leona resting inside on the couch. He didn’t even mind seeing Skye asleep in a chair beside her.

  At least he’s keeping her safe, no matter how I feel about him.

  He opened the door quietly and stepped in. He made sure it was locked behind him. He couldn’t really feel any animosity for the light elf now since they were on the same page with the scepters. Skye had been right all along. Of course, Rorick could point out that he was against opening the scepters because of the spilling of blood, where maybe Skye was just against it because of the chance it would destroy all life in the nine worlds.

  Rorick washed up, changed into different clothes since he’d been in the same dark clothing for the last three days of staking out Deborah, and settled in at the end of the couch by Leona’s feet.

  His sleep that night was restless and filled with dreams that he was failing Leona. Even if they killed Deborah and that dark elf, it was obvious that Leona had a target on her back. There weren’t many harbingers coming into Haven lately. Her infection had been the first since Abagail and they had arrived.

  There’s going to be more, Rorick thought.

  A sound at the door pulled him out of a nightmare. His breath caught in his throat and he tried desperately to hear what was happening outside over his hammering heart. Was he hearing things? It was a cold night out, had the porch popped under the intense cold?

  He could barely breathe. Breathing was too loud and he had this ridiculous idea that breathing might be heard by whoever, or whatever, was outside the door. He cast his gaze to Skye, and then to Leona. If something had sounded outside they hadn’t heard it. Leona’s chest rose and fell in peaceful sleep. Skye slumped in the chair like a statue at rest. There was no indication at all that he was even breathing.

  After several minutes with no other sound, Rorick’s heart eased and he found himself drifting back into another nightmare. In the morning when he woke, Leona was sitting up staring at him, a huge smile on her face. Skye was in the kitchen and from the sounds of it he was making something to eat.

  Leona wrapped her arms around Rorick and snuggled into his shoulder.

  “Any news on Abbie yet?” Rorick asked her, rubbing her back.

  Leona shook her head no.

  The house was almost too empty without her. Not that he’d been around much when Abagail had been there, and not that they were really on the greatest of terms, but it seemed that even the house missed her presence.

  “Where’ve you been?” Leona asked him, finally pulling away. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Skye asked.

  Leona stuck out her tongue at him.

  “Secret missiony stuff,” Rorick told her. “We have a lead.”

  “What is it?” Skye asked.

  Rorick looked over at the light elf and tried to tell him through
his expression that he would tell him later. Skye frowned. Rorick had no idea if he conveyed the message or maybe had made a face that light elves found offensive.

  Rorick ate so fast he couldn’t precisely tell by taste what the elf had made. It seemed like eggs, but there were a lot of other ingredients in the dish that he didn’t recognize. When they were done Rorick helped Skye clean up. The elf had been silent the entire time, and Rorick wasn’t sure if it was because of how he felt toward the human, or if there was something else.

  “Well, the ravens want to meet with me today,” Leona said. “So that means I should get myself around and ready for that.”

  Rorick frowned, but didn’t want to let on to her that something was going on, that she might be in danger. He watched the bathroom door close behind her before he turned to Skye.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  “Is that so?” Skye asked, not looking at him.

  So it’s because he doesn’t like me, Rorick thought.

  “You were right about the scepters. We can’t let them be opened.”

  “What made you realize that?” Skye asked, dipping the plate in the rinse water and then placing it in the drainer.

  “Because Deborah has Leona as a target.”

  That stopped Skye in mid scrub. He turned his eyes to Rorick, dried his hands, and leaned against the counter. “Oh?”

  “Camilla and I have been watching her and this dark elf talk the last few nights. It’s become clear that they want to kidnap Leona and take her to be blooded so they can open scepters with her dying blood.”

  Skye frowned.

  “And it wasn’t until just now that I stopped to think what it really meant, opening the scepters. I thought they were just going to take harbingers that were turning bad, but I don’t think Leona’s even capable of that.”

  “Me either,” Skye said. He sighed. “That was their plan, to take harbingers that were turning dark. Seems they are getting desperate since there aren’t many harbingers coming this way lately.”

  “Exactly. So I’m on board, and I need your help,” Rorick said.

  “You don’t need to ask, I don’t plan on leaving Leona anytime soon,” Skye told him. “At least on this we agree.”

  “Good, if I hang around too much she will get suspicious. I need to watch her from afar,” Rorick told him. “And you need to go with her today to the Ravens.”

  Skye nodded. “And you need to go to Rowan. Tell her what you’ve found. Let her make this decision for you.”

  Rorick took a deep breath. He’d never killed a person before. He had no worries killing someone who was a darkling, but there was no telling if Deborah was a darkling, or just desperate to stop the darkling tide.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I will go to Rowan.”

  With all of his might, the All Father thrust the spear into the air. It left his hand, arching high over the Ever After; the bloody tip creating a stream of red light through the blackness of the Void. He watched as it reached its apex, and then began its descent to the orange glowing space in the distance: Muspelheim.

  When the God Slayer had fallen, when there was a warm, white flash in that orange blur, the All Father turned away from Muspelheim, and toward the rainbow road of Eget Row. His feet carried him down the crystalline stairway from the Ever After and to the cobbled path through the cosmos. When his bare feet struck the cobbles, they glowed in a myriad of rainbow light. Soft music accompanied his footsteps.

  Behind him he could hear the laughter and merriment going on in the Hall of the Gods. He was no longer part of that happiness. He was exiled. In time they would know that Boran was dead. In time Hafaress and Vilda would know that he’d left. Maybe they would go looking for him, or maybe they wouldn’t.

  The All Father reached the door at the end of a lane of the rainbow bridge. On the other side waited nine months of life building to the point of birth. He’d been through it so many times that it was routine for him. But he’d never been through it because he had no other choice. Now that he could never return to the Ever After, what would this life be for him?

  My last? He wondered. It was likely. What he’d done with creating Boran might have been corrected with the death of the God of Peace, but it also could have spiraled them closer to the point he was trying to avoid.

  The twilight of the gods. Ragnarok.

  He took a deep breath and opened the door. The All Father didn’t spare a glance behind him before stepping through and into this woman’s womb.

  A bright light blinded Abagail. She was aware of being warm and safe in a dark place. Maybe a cave? But now there was pain, there was fear, and there was a bright light. Rough hands grabbed her, pulled her, and slapped her.

  She was crying and then she was nursing. The breast was familiar to her, this was her mother. If only she could look up into the face of the woman she’d seen before she woke up in Muspelheim.

  The lady had been familiar to her, but why? Did she know her, or was it simply because this was her mother that she felt familiar? Whatever the case, Abagail couldn’t turn her head. She couldn’t look up. She was trapped in a memory, and couldn’t control her actions.

  There was laughter, and there were tears. She grew at a startling rate in the memory, though she could feel the passing of the days, of the weeks, of the years. She stood in the corner of her bedroom, swaying to the tune her father played on the piano, her mother, barefoot, pregnant, and laughing swayed to the song Olik plucked out on the keys.

  Abagail laughed too. Still she couldn’t recognize the woman, though her face was very familiar. Her mother tossed her head back, raised her hands high, and the power of the moon seemed to surround her.

  There was a swell of emotion in her chest. Her mother was so elegant, so beautiful, and so powerful.

  And then Leona came. When her sister came, something in Abagail recognized something in Leona. There was a name almost on the tip of Abagail’s tongue and when Olik and her mother named her sister Leona, all Abagail could say was, “that’s not her name.”

  Hands were shaking her awake, pulling her from bed before she could completely come to herself. She latched her arms around her father’s neck, and he carried her, half asleep down the hallway.

  “It’s no longer safe for you here,” he whispered in her ear. “We have to leave.”

  “Where’s mother?” Abagail asked.

  “She will come with us in time,” he told her. She believed him, even though she shouldn’t have. Olik’s voice quivered with emotion. Leona was clasped in his other arm, and against his back was strapped a large hammer.

  He hurried into a room at the end of the hall and sat her on the floor. He put his hand over her face, whispered words into her ear, and she grew sleepy again.

  “Don’t sleep yet,” he told her.

  He turned to a blackened mirror in the corner. A knife made a quick slice in his palm. Again he spoke words that Abagail didn’t understand. The surface of the mirror roiled and bubbled. Runes around the outside of the mirror glowed and come to life, dancing in the air above the frame of the mirror where they lived.

  Olik grabbed Abagail, clasped her to his waist again, and stepped with her through the mirror. As the veil of power slipped over her, sliding over her body and cleansing her, it also took from her the memories of her mother and the life she’d lived on Agaranth.

  “Here my name is Dolan,” he whispered to his daughters. “And you’re mother has left us behind. Here we will be safe. Welcome to our new home, daughters.”

  Abagail’s eyes fluttered open. Bellvin slipped her grip from Abagail’s hand and let it come to rest back in the water. She drifted from the shore, not too far away, but out of reach.

  “Now you see?” the mermaid asked.

  Tears stood in Abagail’s eyes. She couldn’t speak around the lump in her throat. She tried to clear her throat to dislodge the emotion from where it perched. All she could do was nod.

  “And you understand who you are?
” Surt asked.

  Again she nodded. She understood, but she didn’t like it.

  “When the All Father banished himself, he went into a human host,” Bellvin said. “It happens every time he wanders, he chooses to live a human life from beginning to whenever it ends.”

  “Is he . . . am I always so unaware that I’m the All Father?” Abagail asked. She couldn’t even stand the sound of it. Was she crazy? Was that what this was? Some kind of dream? This couldn’t be real. A couple months ago she hadn’t even believed in any of this: worlds outside of O, creatures that belonged to myth, wyrd being used for something other than terrorizing people.

  I can wake up anytime now, she told herself, hoping if she realized it was a dream she would wake from it. It always seemed to work in the past.

  It didn’t work this time.

  This wasn’t a dream.

  Surt sighed a great sigh like a gale over a summer field. The lake rippled, waves crashing against the verdant shore. Bellvin didn’t move.

  “No, he isn’t always unaware, but sometimes he chooses to be. I assume this time he wanted to forget everything about the Ever After and Eget Row. But that’s impossible for the All Father. He’s started something he can’t just walk away from.”

  “And now I have to fix it,” Abagail said.

  “There’s no fixing this,” Bellvin told her. “All you can do is see it through to the end. Unfortunately, the All Father brought this on himself, and because of that there’s no way he can escape it. You’re wrapped up in it as surely as he is.”

  Abagail looked away from the mermaid so Bellvin couldn’t see the tears spilling over the rim of her eyes. She focused on the shifting hay beside her. It looked normal, it looked good. It looked as if nothing was out of place. Her eyes trailed up to the blackened stone of the ravine the lake lay in.

  Above the portal glowed opalescent and promising escape from this nightmare.

  Muspelheim, she thought. It all came crashing back to her.

  “So I’m not even Abagail?” she asked.