by Amy B. Nixon
I wanted to roll down the window, stick my head out like an excited Labrador, and take in as much as I could. Aurora had probably turned some safety feature on, because the button wasn’t working.
The Golden Gate Bridge and the waterscapes of San Francisco Bay were picturesque at nighttime with thousands of pretty lights, but this right here was stunning. This was pure, untouched, virgin nature; and I bet the skies were crystal clear at night, never obstructed by a single inch of a megapolis’ light pollution.
“Can you please go slower?” I whispered, pressing my face to the window. “Please, please, pleeease go slower!”
“Hey, Swallow, here’s an idea – shut the fuck up!”
“It’s pronounced Lee-ya-reen, not Swallow.”
“Yeah, and last time I checked, it was pronounced Aurora, not Tourist Guide.”
Determined not to allow her bitchiness to ruin the scenery’s beauty, I kept staring through the window, silently admiring the fjord’s grandeur.
Then it came. That fated moment when she parked the car, told me to get out, and led me on foot directly through the uneven snowdrifts.
We reached a low cliff, notably even, at least in comparison to our hiking trail. She pulled a folded sheet of paper out of that bag, then handed it to me. It held a large lacework of tangled symbols and rune-like markings, drawn in a circular pattern around a pentagram. It resembled a Spirit Trap, but the symbols were reversed and scattered outside the pentagram instead of in it.
“What the hell is this?” I asked, studying the new symbols.
While I’d been examining the paper, she had drawn a huge circle in the snow-covered ground using a branch.
“Norse rune magic for extra precaution. We’ll stay in this circle and the spirit won’t be able to get inside. The runes will bind her to our plane. Go find a piece of wood or something and start drawing.”
I looked around for a makeshift pen, then remembered Brühl’s words. Sucking in a breath of wintry air, I lifted my right hand and pointed to the ground. An incorporeal force started replicating the lacework by blowing away the snow. Carving the runes with my air element, I painted, leaving deep cuts and indents all the way to the natural browns and greys of the rocks beneath us.
“Show-off,” Aurora muttered, dragging her branch inside the circle to form the pentagram.
I bit back my response and moved on to replicating the next rune.
With each new step, the snow under us creaked and screeched. I instantly remembered those scraping sounds the Nøkk’s nails produced when their claws were being dragged over serrated rocks. Fear crept through me, settling in like frostbite, prickly and stinging, not leaving a single inch of my skin at ease.
This was one of the dumbest ideas I had ever gotten in my entire life!
“Can’t we summon something else?” I asked, hoping blondie here could think of another creature to serve the Nøkken queen spirit’s purpose.
Aurora turned, gave me a quick head-to-toe glare, and stretched her face in a leering smile.
“Did I hear that right? Is the great Learyn Dustrikke afraid of evoking a spirit?”
Clenching my jaw, I got back to drawing those symbols. My hatred for Aurora effortlessly mixed with my fear, like they were best fucking buddies. This was not the proper mental state for summonings! I either had to get my shit together really fast, or I had to figure out another way to get some answers.
“Why can’t it be dead unicorns?” I asked woefully. “Or dead… well, anything really? Does it have to be a fucking Nøkken?”
I loathed every single Nøkken.
Those mermaid bitches almost led to my untimely demise. If it were up to me, their dead relative would have stayed fucking dead for all of eternity.
Sadly, as I drew defensive runes on the rocky ground beneath me, I knew there was no way around this. We were about to summon a monstrous spirit from the depths of the Norwegian Sea. Regardless of my lack of desire for meeting with said spirit, it had to be done.
But it didn’t mean I was going down willingly.
“Okay, then how about a dead reindeer? Wanna go to Finland and resurrect one of Rudolph’s cousins?”
“Just do it, Swallow!” Aurora hissed in my direction.
If looks could kill, my glare would have scorched Aurora to her very core and spread the cinders of her essence as far away from the Scandinavian Peninsula as possible. Preferably all the way to another planet, but hey, I wasn’t the greedy type.
“Fine!” I gritted my teeth and took a deep, slow breath, turning my face towards the water surface. “And stop using that stupid nickname!”
I could have uttered the word please if I wasn’t speaking to Aurora. But let’s face it, the only female creature in all Nine Realms that was worse than a Nøkken was this blonde bimbo. Taking another breath, I pushed Aurora’s presence out of my head and made my way towards the serrated edge where the water touched the stumpy cliffs.
It seemed as if the sea could feel the ensnaring bind of necromancy coming off us. All of its waves had calmed down shortly after we started drawing the symbols. Now it stood unnaturally tranquil and otherworldly, completely still with bated breath, foreboding the horrors that were yet to come.
“Would you quit goofing around with the ocean and focus on your evocation?”
I frowned. “Huh?”
“Stop making the waters as still as death!”
The ironic comparison left aside, her words didn’t make any sense. How could I influence such a huge body of water? My water element hadn’t broken out. I would have sensed it. When it happened with fire and air, the entire experience was extremely painful. I would have remembered if another elemental force had broken out.
But this was yet another thing I had to worry about later.
“Mayvareena, wise and just Nøkken queen, I summon you,” I repeated the words Aurora had instructed me to say for summoning a Nøkken who had supposedly died in the nineteenth century.
The pull from behind my navel came at once. My bitchy companion took a step towards the edge, kneeling down, and held the jar with arms outstretched forward. I realized in absolute horror that her fingers were outside our pentagram’s bounds.
“Wise and just Mayvareena, we’ve come to bring Dyrfinna back to you,” Aurora almost sang.
“For the sake of one good action, a hundred evil ones shall not be forgotten.”
The voice appeared out of thin air, carried over the waters. The reflective and tranquil surface didn’t budge an inch when a translucent woman, made of ashy outlines and highlights, emerged from the ocean. I had never seen someone or something emerge like that from a water basin – like they were cutting through the sea.
Her clothes, much like the rest of her body, were completely see-through. She came to us in her beautiful iridescent form. Her tail was hidden under a long dress. Ethereal veils draped her hands and skirts. The ghost and her veils floated freely in the air in graceful, flowy motions, which for some weird reason reminded me of lazy swimming.
I attempted something between a bow and a curtsy, then decided to cut the shit and leave the worshipping to Aurora. She opened her jar, spoke a conjuration in a foreign language, and poured the lathery contents into the ocean.
“Please accept our humble peace offering,” she said in an almost chanting manner, still kneeling on the shore.
“Albeit not rectifying the abuse your family has inflicted, the offering has been accepted.”
“Mayvareena,” I spoke before those two decided to keep exchanging civilities. “We’ve also come to ask you some questions, since you might be the only one who knows the truth. Can you tell us who Amyria is?”
Little Miss Every Man’s Wet Dream shot me such a menacing glare, I wasn’t sure which was scarier – the Nøkken queen’s real form, or Aurora.
“Would you be so kind to explain why the Nøkk tried to kill us?” I opted for a different question.
The apparition grew silent, floating eerily above the s
urface, while the veils of her translucent clothes swirled around her, rippled by the breezy winds. I waited, but her lips remained just as lifeless as her corporeal form had been for centuries. Ooh, I was so fucking done with being nice and formal!
“Speak the fuck up, Casper!” I snarled in her direction. “I’m not leaving until I get specific answers!”
Aurora turned her back to the Nøkken, and marched towards me.
“Please excuse her language,” she quickly apologized on my behalf after coming to a halt a few feet away from me. “She meant to say we can’t leave because you are the only one who’s versed in the truth we’re seeking.”
“Answers I can give,” Mayvareena spoke evenly, “in spite of these manners.”
Manners be damned! I was in no mood for foreplay. I hadn’t agreed to spend all day with my wannabe arch enemy for a lesson in manners. My problem with authority was something even the Council couldn’t eradicate. Casper simply didn’t stand a chance.
“Thank you!” I nagged sarcastically. “Why did your kind try to kill us?”
“They did not. Sons and daughters of the Great Oceans are not murderers. We live for peace and beauty, arts and knowledge. We strive when the world around us strives.”
Peace and beauty, my ass! I hadn’t come all this way to have an ancient water spirit’s actual spirit dick around with me.
“Be respectful!” Aurora hissed. Had she guessed my thoughts?
“One of your kind tried to pull me under the water, dug her claws into my leg and poisoned me, then an entire horde of Nøkk tore a girl to death. I call that attempted murder accompanied by successful murder.”
The apparition pointed at me, setting the veils wrapped around her arm afloat.
“Your family was marked by Amyria. You are marked by Amyria. My children only wished to take you with them before Amyrians do.”
“Who is Amyria?” I asked the million-dollar question once again, hoping I’d get a clear answer before I had to ask it for the millionth time.
“It is a place, not a who, far beyond our own. A realm filled with otherworldly creatures, different from ones you know. Magic benders in pursuit of power, revenge and vanity.”
So, contrary to what I had thought since November, Amyria wasn’t a power or a being, but a realm.
“What do these Amyrians have to do with me?”
The translucent hand flew in the air gracefully, fixing an index finger on Aurora. “Her family’s greed bears responsibility for their actions.”
I squinted at Aurora, who was still standing a few feet away from me. She immediately furrowed in my direction before I got the chance to ask.
“Yeah, my family has done some shit in the past. So, what? Whose hasn’t?”
“What the fuck did your family do?”
She shrugged. “Many things. I don’t know which one can link to Amyria.”
I turned to the other Queen Bitch, who seemed to know more than Aurora. And her brother. And Monika’s mother. And maybe even Hallvard. But it didn’t matter whether Hallvard knew the truth or not anymore, and whether he was lying about it.
“Amyrians lust after a new world, one to be created in their image,” the apparition said without me having to ask.
If I hadn’t been so aggravated lately and so overemotional in general, I would have noted her sudden and unnatural willingness to respond.
“I thought Amyrians were after Asgard.”
“When Ragnarök commences and Asgard falls, the multiverse will not come to an end. It is foretold sons of Odin shall see the light after the forces of evil are overthrown, and they will be greeted by Freya of the Vanir, who shall not partake in the battle. Every soul under her protection shall survive the end of a world to watch the gods as they rebuild a new one from the ashes.”
“And Amyrians want that world to be created in their image,” I repeated her words. “But what does that have to do with me?”
“When we die for good,” Aurora whispered, “our souls are meant to enter Sessrúmnir. We would survive Ragnarök alongside Freya, because we would be in her plains. If Amyrians want to rule over the new world, they would have to kill every Ragnarök survivor, including us.”
“I wasn’t asking you, but thanks.” I bared my teeth at Aurora, then fixed my attention back on the Nøkken. “Why are they after my family when there are so many other necromancers to choose from?”
“How stupid can you be?” Aurora hissed, replying once again on behalf of the Nøkken. “Freya’s blood and our souls’ eitr serve as our key to the gates of Sessrúmnir; that’s why we can enter it. You’re a pureblood Dustrikke, so do the math!”
“Then why aren’t you marked by Amyria too, genius?” I snapped back. “Aren’t you a pureblood witch like me?”
“Of course I am, idiot!”
The Nøkken queen interrupted our banter.
“Her family has provided Amyrians with a Nordstrøm’s essence, for it was a Nordstrøm necromancer who Wandered into their realm in pursuit of power and gave away the secret path to Sessrúmnir.”
Aurora gasped. “How do you know this?”
“I am born out of Njord’s magnanimity.”
Njord? Where had I read that name? Njord… Njord was the father of Freya, and one of the few Vanir deities residing in Asgard. Njord was the Norse god of the sea. Oh, fuck! So, that Nøkken nonsense wasn’t nonsense at all. Everything the spirit believed in was true, because she had a more reliable source than Hallvard – an actual god. And why would a god lie to his creation?
There are forces in Midgard and beyond it, and for them we, necromancers, and our eitr, are just pawns in a larger game. Monika had told me that when she’d come clean about her lies. Carlynderians, Amyrians… What else was out there?
“If they’re after my bloodline and they already have a Nordstrøm’s essence, they must also be after a Veland’s essence,” I concluded out loud. The Nøkken nodded. “There haven’t been any Velands for centuries. Why are Amyrians chasing me, when they know they can’t use a descendant of the deceased bloodline?”
“Are you familiar with the nature of the Valraven, daughter of Dustrikke?”
What the hell was a Valraven? And why did every answer lead to more questions and the search for more answers? With a frustrated groan, I closed eyes in an attempt to sort out my priorities. Ask the old questions. Get their unsatisfying answers leading to new questions. Then ask the new questions.
“Was my aunt Adaline Dustrikke also marked by Amyrians? Did they kill her?”
“Yes. Nevertheless, they did not gain the key they sought in her. Amyria shall invade Asgard and precipitate the world into Ragnarök only after it possesses the key to Sessrúmnir.”
“But how can I give them whatever it is they want with my blood and my eitr, if my aunt’s couldn’t?”
“Every once in a while, a weakling is born into this world, a child bearing less eitr in their soul, possessing little to no magic, often inept at controlling it.”
“What, like an Ailing? Are you saying my aunt was an Ailing?”
The apparition swayed her head to the side. “If that is what you call weaklings among your kind.”
Whoa! Each new day brought a new revelation, and each revelation was crazier than the last one. Still, the last thing I expected to hear was that my own aunt – one of the strongest and most resilient people I had ever met – was a magical weakling.
“Do you know if I ran off to Norway because I’m also being hunted by Amyrians? Or is it because of something else?”
“The last daughter of Dustrikke flees from many perils; they know not the bounds of Midgard.”
“Is this why my aunt put me under Nordstrøm Island’s protection? Because of the otherworldly threats on my life?”
“Many are the perils from without, yet more are held within the island of Nordstrøm.”
“What? I don’t… You just said they didn’t know the bounds of Midgard, which means they come from somewhere outside of our realm,
right? Can you drop the riddles and be more specific? And what do you mean by within the island?”
“Specifics I cannot give, for the Valraven’s ways are obscured from the ocean’s sight.”
Was she for fucking real? Again with this Valraven thing? Just as I suspected Aurora would show off with her know-it-all megalomania again, she stepped forward, coming between me and the spirit.
“We’re leaving! Now!”
“Move, bitch!” I yelled, pushing her aside without bothering to keep my emotions in check.
Which was a huge, huge mistake.
My annoyance, frustration and burning thirst for more answers were so severe, that when I pushed Aurora away, I didn’t just hit her with a physical blow. I accidentally hit her with a magical burst. Not that she didn’t deserve to be hit, but I never meant to send her flying across the fjord’s inlet.
I watched my air element sweep her away and fly her out of all protections and defenses we had carved into the snow. It carried her over the edge, then over the waters, until she fell on her elbow on another cliff – one that was perched atop the ocean in the far distance, nestled at least a hundred yards away from me.
Shit on shit, on double fucking shit!
She slowly stood up, glancing around and taking in the full severity of my actions. The waters between us rose and rippled, disturbed by the appearance of dozens and dozens of real, corporeal and fully alive Nøkk. And she couldn’t see even a single one of them.
Triple fucking shit!
“Aurora!” I screamed. “The water is filled with live Nøkk!”
Before I could even finish my sentence, a hazy mist spread above the surface, making my vision murky. Apparitions. Numerous apparitions, just like the one of the Nøkken queen, were now hiding Aurora from my sight.
I ran to the side, close to the pentagram’s outlines, and the air around me trembled, as if being stirred by an invisible hand.
“Are all of them outside the shield?” Aurora’s yell rang in my ears. Right then and there I was glad she wasn’t the bleach blonde bimbo she appeared to be.
