The Chosen of Anthros Page 8

  “It’s just a focus,” one of the twins said. Leona wasn’t sure if it was Huginn or Muninn. She pointed at the ball. On her wrist numerous silver chains and bracelets adorned with charms jangled with the movement. “The crystal ball doesn’t show you anything. Your mind does all the work. The crystal ball is just a place for you to focus your attention; a place to quiet your mind so you can hear the inner voice.”

  “You’ve seen a spirit,” the other said, taking a seat. “What is her name?”

  Leona shifted uncomfortably. With a tinkling of bracelets, the other sister motioned to a chair. Leona settled herself into it. Only when Leona had sat did the other sister take her place as well.

  “Skuld,” Leona said, her voice cracked. She cleared her throat and said the name again.

  “Then you can see the future,” the one already sitting said. “That’s good. I’m Huginn, and this is Muninn. We are often called thought and memory because I can see the present, while Muninn can see the past.”

  “I can’t see the future,” Leona disagreed. “Skuld tells me the future.”

  “You don’t actually think it’s the Norn talking to you, do you?” Huginn asked.

  Leona frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Skuld is the Norn of the future,” Muninn told her with a slight smile. “There are three Norn, also called fates. Urd is the Norn of the past and she sees in great detail the fate of a person. Verdandi is the Norn of the present, she sees all things as they are happening with great clarity. Skuld is the Norn of the future. She sees all possible futures as they could be, but she doesn’t actually see what future is coming to pass. That’s the realm of Verdandi.”

  Leona’s head was spinning. “Alright, so I wasn’t really talking to a spirit?”

  “Not precisely,” Huginn said. “It was a thought form that your subconscious came to you through and spoke the future.”

  “But if there are several possible futures—” Leona started.

  “A future for every decision made and action taken,” Muninn nodded.

  “Then how was I actually able to see anything of the future?” Leona wondered.

  “There may be several possible futures,” Huginn said. “But you see those that are most probable. Obviously the closer it gets to that future fate coming about, the more certain the prediction will be. Those that are way off in the future have too many variables in play before they could be possible.”

  “So my doll wasn’t really talking to me. The spirit I was seeing was really just my own mind?” Leona asked. “Why?”

  “It’s easy to think of the sight as being just a figment of your imagination. Often it presents itself as random thoughts,” Muninn told her. “It would be too easy to dismiss it. Our visions have a way of making us more aware of them by coming to us through an outside catalyst.”

  “Alright, I think I understand,” Leona said.

  “Then explain it,” Huginn said.

  “Right. This crystal ball, for example, isn’t really showing anything, but my mind will project the future into it for me to see because I will trust more what I see through the ball than what I would see in my mind?”

  “Very good, and why is that?” Muninn encouraged.

  “Because it would be easier for me to think the visions in my mind were just daydreams or fantasies.”

  “Exactly,” Huginn said. “With some time and practice you won’t need a focus, you will know how a vision feels different than a stray thought.”

  “But you’re special,” Muninn said, scooting forward in her chair. “We haven’t had a seer here in some time that could foretell the future.”

  “Seers are truly rare to come to us,” Huginn said. “You can’t burn a house down with the sight. Since it’s a passive ability, most people don’t even realize they have it, let alone seek out training for it.”

  “It’s really just the three of us now,” Muninn said. She looked down at her hands as if the thought made her very sad.

  “Several other harbingers have some kind of mental ability to one extent or another, but they don’t often work with it long enough to make it stronger. Their more active powers are the ones they focus on. The sight doesn’t really help you destroy darklings, does it?” Huginn asked.

  Leona wasn’t too sure. If it hadn’t been for her visions one of the first nights in the Fey Forest, she wouldn’t have been able to kill the warrior darkling and save her sister. In fact, her vision had helped her a lot by making her prepared to do what she needed to do to keep her group safe. She didn’t argue though, she could see what they meant. The active abilities couldn’t be used as a weapon, so they weren’t often honed.

  “The harbingers aren’t as prevalent as we used to be,” Muninn said. “If there were more of us like in times past, we could focus more on our mental powers. As it stands, everyone with an active power is needed so we don’t get overrun with darklings.”

  “Yes, the darkling tide is rising,” Huginn agreed. “And our numbers are dwindling. For whatever reason, the darkness is gaining a stronger foothold than the light. Something has turned in the darkling’s favor.”

  “Fortune shines on the darkness,” Muninn nodded. “It’s unfortunate for us.”

  “But that’s not why we brought you here,” Huginn said.

  Leona dried her palms on her brown trousers and sat forward. She laced her fingers together and waited for instructions.

  “There was normally a feeling for you when Skuld came to you, wasn’t there?” Muninn asked Leona.

  She nodded.

  “I want you to look into the ball, and feel that sensation again. Now that you know it wasn’t an actual being, you should be able to call that feeling to you. This is your sight.”

  Leona stared into the depths of the crystal ball. Rainbow light shimmered inside, reflected back at her from the flames of the candles sitting around the room. She let the light ease her mind and called to the power, willed the sensation to fill her.

  Nothing happened.

  Skuld, Leona called in her mind. I need you to help me.

  She waited for the power to come. Leona waited for the feeling of the being to enter her mind and whisper to her. It had been so long since she’d felt Skuld that Leona truly thought the spirit had left her. What the raven twins said made sense. If she wasn’t truly seeing a spirit, and it was just a product of her ability, then once she lost the doll, she wouldn’t have heard from Skuld again.

  Now she needed to speak to the entity, and she wasn’t coming.

  “You’re trying too hard,” Huginn told her. “You’re trying to force it.”

  “But you said to call to it,” Leona said.

  “Try just letting yourself feel the sensation. Stare into the ball and let the feeling come to you.”

  “Right,” Muninn said. “It’s easier for you to call upon it once you’re more trained, but for now try letting it come to you. It might not come right away, but it will come to you.”

  Leona sat back in her chair and trained her eyes into the depths of the crystal ball. She once more let her mind ride the waves of colors inside. The colors shifted and stirred as the flames of the candles flickered. Her eyes softened, the strain washing away from them, and the images of the colors blurred into one tapestry inside the orb.

  Mist was rising up inside of her mind. As if the ball were a mirror into her inner eye, mist began to fill it as well. The colors within the crystal began to fade, and a milky light bloomed in their place. Leona could feel the shift in her mind, like she was stepping into a fogbank with no idea what waited inside, or what might lay beyond.

  It was a dark, cloudless night. The stars winked above Leona, and she could almost feel the shiver in the air from the icy breeze that bent the trees back and forth. The moon was gone, possibly dark, possibly gone for another reason. The night certainly had a foreboding feeling like a strange, malignant power infused the air.

  Leona stood on the second level of Haven, and she could feel the darkn
ess. She could feel eyes in the darkness watching her. There was a shift of shadows, and suddenly she was looking down at Haven from several yards above the complex.

  Darkness slithered through the dimly lit houses. Like a snake made of mist and shadows, the dark energy poured through the streets. In its wake there was a huge cloud that Leona knew was about to consume her, even if she couldn’t precisely see it. The cloud was more of a thought at the edge of her mind than it was anything she could see visibly.

  “Darkness is coming. It’s already here, and it brings a darker time on its heels,” Leona whispered.

  She was pulled back down into the vision. This time she stood in the center of New Landanten. There was no sign of life, no fire in the braziers that lined the streets, no lights in any of the windows. But there was a figure standing down the road opposite herself.

  The figure neared her, though it didn’t move. It was as if the figure was drawn to her, possibly even floated over the ground toward Leona.

  When the darkness parted a frosty woman stood before her. Where her skin had once been clear and pure, it was now webbed with frost and ice. Where her eyes had once been filled with life and clarity, now they were opaque and frozen. Her hair was silver, and parted around wooden branches that rose out of her head like horns. Ice clung to the dead branches.

  “Daniken!” Leona gasped.

  “Hello little bird,” Daniken said to her. Her blue lips parted into a smile. “Or should I say Hafaress.”

  In the vision Leona stumbled back, the words hitting her like a physical blow.

  “You didn’t know?” Daniken asked. “That’s strange. You didn’t actually think you could lift the hammer for no reason at all, did you?”

  Leona shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “And your father being called Olik. You didn’t think he was a different Olik did you? Who names their child after the trickster god everyone in the Ever After hates?”

  Leona stepped back again, but Daniken followed her.

  “We have a score to settle, if I remember right. You gave me this.” She pointed to a deep gash in her throat, now frozen over like a crystalline cavern. “And you took something from me. My scepter.”

  Leona stood her ground.

  “We will meet again. We will meet again, and you will pay for what you’ve done to me. For what you allowed to take over my body.”

  Leona came to herself like a force slamming into her body. She twisted out of the chair, knocking it to the floor. Her feet carried her across the room, and she pressed her back to the wooden wall. She gasped for breath, her eyes rooted on the crystal orb. After several tense moments, she tried working her mouth, tried to talk, but no sound came out.

  “We saw,” Huginn told her.

  “There’s already a dark presence here,” Muninn said.

  “Do you think it’s the one who came with Rowan? Fortarian?” Huginn asked her sister.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” Muninn shook her head. “It seems the most likely possibility.”

  “What did she mean?” Huginn asked. “What did Daniken mean when she called you Hafaress?”

  Leona couldn’t answer. She stared at her hands, palms splayed open before her as if they might hold the secret to what Daniken meant. A silver scar ran the length of her right palm. That was where Fortarian had cut her, allowing her blood to wash over the hammer and bind it to her. Could it be that the blood that ran through her veins was godling blood? Could it be that she was descended from the gods?

  Olik, she thought. Everyone keeps calling father that.

  She shook her head again, more to clear her mind than to dismiss the raven’s question.

  “Well, at any rate, we’ve seen something profound here. We need to tell the others,” Muninn said.

  “The others who?” Leona asked, coming out of her reverie enough to register that this information she’d seen was going to leave the yurt.

  “The council,” Muninn said, studying Leona.

  “You can’t,” she said. “You can’t tell anyone else. You don’t know who might be in league with this darkness.”

  “She’s right.” Huginn frowned. “Anyone here could be a darkling.”

  “Now that’s preposterous,” Muninn said. “We are harbingers of light.”

  “And as I recall harbingers of darkness don’t look any different than you,” Leona said. “How do you know who you can trust?”

  “We can trust the council,” Muninn nodded, sure of herself.

  “I don’t know if you can,” Leona countered.

  “Did you see something more than what we did?” Huginn asked, leaning forward. Her hunter eyes pierced into Leona.

  “No, but there was a feeling,” Leona said. “Couldn’t you feel it also?”

  Muninn shook her head. “It’s surprising we were even able to see what you were seeing in the ball.”

  “There was a feeling that something was coming for us. It wasn’t just one darkness, but an entire army of darkness.”

  “We need to find its source,” Muninn said.

  “It’s Daniken.” Leona was sure of herself.

  “There has to be someone within Haven who is in league with her. Someone in charge of the darkness.”

  “Fortarian,” Leona said. “He was once the home of Gorjugan. It will be him.”

  “Are you sure?” Muninn asked.

  Leona nodded.

  “Then you have homework.” Huginn stood. “You are to go to him and see if you can feel from him what you felt in the vision.”

  Muninn frowned at her sister. She didn’t seem to agree with the chore laid out on Leona, but she didn’t argue. “We will tell Ephram you will be late. This is more important.”

  “Don’t say anything about where I’ve gone,” Leona cautioned. “I will go to him as soon as I am done with Fortarian.”

  Leona kept casting glances behind her, as if she were being followed. She rubbed her wet hands against her trousers for the umpteenth time. What could she have meant? She wondered. I can’t be Hafaress. That’s impossible. Some people don’t even believe that he’s real.

  But what do you think? A voice asked her. Do you think he’s real?

  She hadn’t really thought about it. Gods were gods. She just assumed people made up the names and the powers to designate some force that ran through Eget Row. She hadn’t actually thought of them as real beings until she’d had the dream of Hafaress going to see Surt in Muspelheim.

  The truth was Leona didn’t really know what she thought. She just knew that she couldn’t be Hafaress. The vision must have been a lie. It was wrong. She was new to this kind of thing, so maybe not all of what she had seen was real.

  Maybe Daniken said that to throw me off. She’s trying to get to me, and what better way to kill me than to throw me into doubt so she can strike?

  But there were so many things that didn’t add up. So many things that had happened that didn’t make any sense at all. Like the hammer. Why had it seemed to choose her? Why was she the only one who could lift it?

  Why does everyone keep calling father Olik?

  She didn’t want to think about it, and she didn’t have to think about it much longer because she was nearing the barracks.

  The guard at the door nodded to her. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for where they keep the prisoners?” she wondered, squinting up at him through the dazzling sunlight.

  “The stockades,” he said, pointing to a brick building close beside the barracks. It was small and windowless. “But what would you want with prisoners?” he wondered with a frown.

  “I’ve been charged with questioning the darkling,” she told him.

  He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably, as if trying to settle the brown leather armor better into place. “Who charged a girl with that task?”

  “The ravens told me if you have any questions they should be directed to them,” Leona told him, lifting her chin defiantly.

  A strange look fel
l over his face. Was it fear? He nodded. “Very well. I will lead you.”

  Leona fell in step behind the tall man. He led her through the door of the stockades and into a small chamber with torches lining the walls. Behind a table sat another guard, lost in a book. He looked up when they entered, frowned at Leona, but snodded at her guide.

  “Bertrand!” the guard said. “What do we have here?”

  “She’s to question the prisoner,” Bertrand said.

  The proclamation wiped all traces of cheer from the man behind the table. “But she’s—”

  “Ordered by Huginn and Muninn,” Bertrand told him. “I don’t like it either James, but…”

  “I understand,” James nodded his shaggy red head. He itched his beard and shook his head. “Alright, this way miss.” He took a set of keys from a peg under the desk and opened another door directly behind him. This door was wooden with bars running the length of it. Leona followed the leather-clad prison guard through this door and into a long hall of barred cells.

  Bertrand didn’t follow.

  “He’s in the last one on the left,” James told her, motioning vaguely. “Knock when you’re ready to come out.”

  Leona nodded and made her way down the stone hall. James lingered for a while, his face creased with concern in the light of multiple torches and lanterns hanging from the walls. Finally he left, closing the heavy door behind him.

  Though there were torches on the walls, once the door was closed, Leona felt as though she might as well be in a bear’s den with no light. She peered into the murky depths of each cell she passed, wondering if there were other prisoners inside. If there were, they were hidden by the deep shadows in the back of their cell.

  She made sure to stick to the center of the hall, so if anyone rushed the cell door, they wouldn’t be able to reach her. Just being in that place, alone, without protection, made Leona’s skin crawl. The sooner she was done, the better. She couldn’t wait to be out in the light of day, and away from here.

  Leona found Fortarian where James told her she would. The last cell on the left.

  “Company,” he croaked when she stopped outside his cell. “How delightful.” He didn’t sound delighted.