by Amy B. Nixon
“Yes!” I yelled back, trying to find a way out of yet another mess I had created.
Aurora had probably cast another shield around herself, but it didn’t really matter, because every single one of the live, iridescent Nøkk was looking at me. Perfect. Fucking perfect!
“My children will do you no harm, daughter of Nordstrøm, solely because you have brought Dyrfinna back to us. Return to where you came from safely. We cannot let the other one go. Should Amyrians discover the last daughter of Dustrikke is alive, our world will perish.”
So, Amyrians also didn’t know I existed? Wow! My family had done an awesome job hiding me from the supernatural world.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” I shouted, drawing the ghost’s attention away from Aurora. “I asked you a question! Answer me!”
“I have given you answers. Now it is time for you to join us.”
“Join you?”
“Yes. Should Amyrians find you, my kind will cease to exist.”
“Come here!” Aurora screamed over the crashing waves. “I can’t see the live ones!”
“I can’t teleport properly yet!”
“Follow us willingly, and you will be granted the protection of the boundless oceans.”
I turned to Mayvareena. “What did you say?”
She beckoned to me, then gestured to her chest.
“Come willingly, daughter of Dustrikke, for we wish no harm to you. We are peaceful by nature, yet we will take you with us coercively if need be.”
“Did you just fucking tell me to go over there and drown willingly?”
Peaceful by nature, my ass! The bitch was so not getting away with this!
“Marked by Amyria… Marked by Amyria…”
The live Nøkk sang, but their dreamy voices no longer had an enchanting effect on me, not after I had seen the monsters’ true nature.
“Turn that fucking song off, and answer me!”
The chanting got louder. Marked by Amyria. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere. Marked by Amyria. With each vowel, the irritation storming inside me also increased. Marked by Amyria.
“I can’t hold the shields’ deflection magic if I can’t see them!”
“Come with us, daughter of Dustrikke.”
“Marked by Amyria.”
“Follow us before it is too late. It is the modus to deter Ragnarök.”
“Marked by Amyria.”
“I can’t hold them off!”
“Marked by Amyria.”
Aurora wasn’t lying. Mayvareena’s apparition kept floating over the same spot, as did the other ghosts, but the live Nøkk were closing in, still chanting that freakishly unnerving song.
“Get the fuck away from me!”
I snarled at the front row, blasting an air current directly at them. I didn’t even stop to wonder if I could penetrate the shield from the inside, but apparently it worked, because the Nøkk swung back, falling over the ones behind them.
“What’s happening? I can’t see anything!”
I wanted to be blind to the Nøkk as well, because what came next enraged me even further.
The air draft had swept the closest ones back, but the monsters behind them were literally clawing their way through the horde, climbing over their kind, reaching for the shield. Not only did the deflecting magic not work, but with each passing second the air around Aurora’s incorporeal shield shivered, like the dome was closing in.
“Go away!” I outshouted the beating on my eardrums, then hurled a new air blast ahead.
Marked by Amyria. Marked by Amyria. Marked by Amyria.
The arrhythmic pounding sped up. More Nøkk closed in around the dome. Casper refused to give me an answer. Aurora kept shouting. The roaring emotions in my core added to the deafening cacophony. And the song… Oh, that fucking song!
“SHUT UP!” I yelled, and the skies above us rumbled with each of my words.
“Marked by Amyria… Marked by Amyria…”
More Nøkk emerged from the ocean. Aurora’s yelling abused my eardrums. The skies kept roaring with thunders. The snow did nothing to dampen down the noises. My heart bashed against its ribcage with the same infuriated rhythm.
I screamed. My voice got lost among the chanting. The song only increased with each step the creatures took while pushing the shield, squeezing, deforming it, pressing it like it was a translucent balloon that was about to burst any moment.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
I thought I’d performed some crazy stupidity by blasting Aurora earlier. What I did next was beyond the measure of the highest form of insane shit I’d ever seen.
People spoke about how tides turned, and they meant it figuratively. But what unraveled before my eyes was quite literal.
A reverse tidal wave belched out of nowhere, sucking in everything in its path. The wave trapped all Nøkk in its current, swept the waters from the shore, literally pulling the ocean away into the distant horizon, and dragged every living being away with it.
All that was left for miles and miles ahead was an empty seabed of sand, rock, pebbles, seashells, and something eerily resembling the pointy bones of dead marine creatures.
Gasping for air, I fell on the rocky shore.
“What did you do?” Aurora shrieked, teleporting right before me.
“I wasn’t… going… to… let them… drag me… to this shit!” I panted, pointing at the pile of rocks and carcasses.
“What if you hurt the live ones?”
A twisted sort of laughter escaped from my lips. “To hell… with the live ones! And to hell with… the dead ones!”
“It is the modus to deter Ragnarök,” Mayvareena’s voice spoke again like a broken record.
Getting back up and catching my breath, I looked directly into her transparent dead eyes.
“Come with us. Amyrians cannot know about your existence.”
“I said get the fuck away from me, bitch!” I snarled, curling my hands into fists so savagely, my nails drew blood.
A surge of thunder spread through me, like lightning bolts branching out to every inch of my limbs. The Nøkken queen, and every other apparition she had drawn out, dispersed into the cold winter air, leaving no traces of floating veils behind.
Now I understood why she was willing to provide us with information. She hadn’t intended on me ever leaving this place with said information. Because it didn’t matter what you shared with the dead, even when – quite ironically – the dead one was supposed to be a necromancer.
Little did she know, she had chosen to mess with the wrong necromancer!
Bitch Number Two grabbed my elbow and materialized us inside her vehicle. She had parked off the main road, but the shores were visible from her secluded parking spot. Everything was empty – no waters, just empty inlets with a seabed that reminded me of an apocalyptic wasteland. I didn’t know exactly how far off the battleground we were, but I couldn’t see any traces of the ocean.
It finally dawned on me that I had created the worst fucking mess in my entire life.
“Tsunami,” I whispered with bated breath.
“What? What is it now? Can’t you shut up for two minutes?”
The glove compartment was open. Aurora was rummaging through its contents, almost leaning over my knees.
“A tsunami,” I repeated. “When the tide returns, it will become a tsunami. How many people live on this shore?”
“I’m taking care of it,” she growled out, pulling a piece of paper and a tiny dagger, which she used to slash her index finger open. “I’ll send an anonymous tip, and a NESE squad will clean up your mess.”
Whatever a NESE squad was – probably a supernatural cleaning organization which prevented humans from finding about magic – I simply had to take her word for it. I was too shaken by what had happened to ask more questions.
“If I were you, I’d start packing. You’ve caused plenty of damage to Nordstrøm Island and the Zolotov Academy, as well as to magical and non-
magical residents of Norway. Go back to your America!”
“You can’t kick me off the island!” I protested just as she sent her blood message.
“If there’s a single humane cell in your body, you’ll leave on your own. You don’t have the slightest idea of the number of lives you’re endangering!”
Seriously? She was the one giving me a lecture on endangering lives? The one who had killed me for fun? The one who put those monstrous Nøkk before her family’s sacred vaults?
“Aurora!” I gasped, suddenly remembering something. “When the Nøkken queen mentioned the Valraven the first time, you didn’t say anything, but when she mentioned it again, you told me to leave.”
“For the love of the goddess! Don’t change the subject!”
“Do you seriously expect of your uncle to let me go? Even if I snuck out and ran off to the other side of the world, he’d find a way to bring his precious Dustrikke back! Or did you forget I’m the last one of my bloodline?”
She glared at me silently, then ignited the car. Apparently, she had indeed forgotten.
We took off in silence.
I expected the tidal wave to come back and crash over the deserted fjord’s shores, as well as over the road on which we were currently driving. But the tsunami never came. After we passed the bridge, I understood why. The waters were slowly filling the seabed, gently and gracefully, as if the land was a bathtub being fed by a running faucet. That NESE squad was fast!
“Look, I know you’re angry, but I really am sorry for everything that happened since I came to Norway. I’m sorry I hurt a guy with my Draug, I’m sorry your friend died, and I’m sorry the Council had to deal with my shit on numerous occasions. I’m also sorry for the troubles I’ve caused to these poor people living nearby.”
“Your I’m-sorrys don’t fix anything!”
Her words reminded me of something I had told Monika a while back. Despite my resentment for Aurora, I really was sorry for all the messes I had created in her world. Not because of her feelings, but because of everyone else’s.
“Why do you hate me so much?” I asked another one of the many questions which had been bothering me for months.
“Look at yourself! Who wouldn’t hate you?”
As always, she hit right in the core of my insecurities.
“Listen, bitch! I’ve tried to be civilized and I’ve tried to behave around you. I’ve saved your fucking ass twice, while all I want to do when I think of you is stick my stiletto in your eyeball! The least you can do is tell me what you know about the Valraven, since I’ll be apparently dying in order to be used as an instrument to cause the end of the world!”
She groaned, still staring at the road. Unlike before, we were moving at a moderate speed on the way back.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. You know how the name of Freya’s mother is scrubbed from all records?” My expression was probably eloquent enough, because she snarled. “Oh, for the love of the Vanir! Of course you don’t know!”
I didn’t reply, holding back a swear word.
“Freya’s family tree is basically erased from history, apart from her father Njord, her brother Freyr, her husband Od, and their two daughters, Gersemi and Hnoss. There are speculations that Freya’s mother was a Vanir goddess, named Nertha, who was Njord’s sister and had an incestuous relationship with him. She remained in Vanaheim when Njord, Freya and Freyr moved to Asgard. An old legend claims Njord and his sister had another child together – a female firstborn Vanir, named Vala.”
I nodded, even though I had no idea where she was going with this.
“According to the legend, Vala was envious of her younger siblings and the way they thrived in their supposed captivity in Asgard.”
“The Vanir are prisoners in Asgard?”
“No, idiot, they are free to roam Asgard and have more power than they held in Vanaheim! They went willingly as a token of the truce that was called after the Vanir-Aesir wars. Seriously, we have one of the most extensive libraries in this realm! It’s the largest one in the entire Northern Hemisphere! Don’t you ever read?”
“I do! But I didn’t study Norse mythology in the human world. What else does the legend say?”
“Vala thought by being Njord’s firstborn, she should’ve been the one to thrive in the realm of the mighty Aesir by serving as one of Odin’s most trusted allies instead of Freya. Her envy and desire to walk into Asgard threatened to spark a new war between the gods. So, Freya asked her mother to banish Vala from Vanaheim and send her to one of the few realms Freya saw as beautiful and flourishing – Midgard.”
I instinctively looked through the windows, taking in our surroundings. The fjord’s inlets were restored to all of their former glory, and I understood why Freya saw our world as beautiful.
“Midgard weakened Vala’s powers,” Aurora continued, “and she wandered around for millennia in the form of a raven.”
Glancing at Aurora, I finally made the connection between Vala and the Valraven. “Okay, I get why Ariel Senior and her kin were afraid to talk about the Valraven, since she’s a freaking goddess. But I still don’t understand what all of this has to do with me.”
“You know who Minora Veland is, at the very least, right? Minora and her family settled in Denmark in the eleventh century. During King Harald Hardrada’s rule of Norway, he invaded numerous foreign lands and claimed the Danish and English thrones. While humans were at war, the supernatural world fought their own wars, some of which were bound with the human ones. Minora died at the beginning of the eleventh century, just before King Harald’s time. What was left of the Veland line died in a single battle in Demark during Harald’s invasions on the Danes.”
I rolled my eyes with a sigh. Dann made History fun and exciting. His sister made History sound like… History.
“And then what?”
“If you take the time to educate yourself, you’ll see that many songs, poems and tales have been written about said battle. The skies darkened, as hundreds of ravens flew in, and the grounds were soaked with crimson rivers. Ravens have always been known for their affinity for shiny objects and for feasting on dead flesh, but the few Danes who survived the battle couldn’t have known those ravens weren’t a flock of ordinary birds.”
Aurora didn’t take her eyes off the road and the car still moved at a moderate speed, but there was a visible strain in her hands. She was gripping the wheel way too tightly, like she was a newbie driver who had started taking driving classes yesterday. She felt uneasy, and I didn’t need Sentinel powers to guess it.
“It was Vala in her raven form, leading an unkindness of ravens with her, wasn’t it?” I asked quietly.
“I suppose so,” she replied with a flat tone, “because that’s the only explanation for what followed next.”
“What followed next?”
“Denmark won, despite the casualties. Here’s where the Danish legend of the Valraven myth originates from – when the Danes tried to chase the ravens away to gather and burn the deceased, the birds transformed into human men; all of them dressed, armed and riding as knights. All, but one raven. It remained soaring in the sky as the knights cut down everyone who tried to stand between the raven and its feast. That’s the Danish legend of the Valraven – a supernatural raven who can transform into a knight after it eats the heart of those who have fallen into battle.”
If someone had told me the story a few months ago, I probably would have shivered down to my very core.
But picturing the bloody battle now, I didn’t get any nausea, anxiety or any of the other necrophobia-like symptoms I used to experience. In some twisted, perverted way I had Aurora to thank for my progress. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have faced death up close and personal. Twice. And while I didn’t actually see myself dying when Aurora took my life away, I did get a front-row experience with her friend’s death.
“Okay, so, the Valraven is actually Freya’s vengeful older sister Vala, who was banished to Midgard. She has some freak
y shapeshifting powers and wants to invade Asgard. Let’s circle back to the Amyrians. They don’t have the Veland fragment of the key. Is that why Mayvareena asked me if I was familiar with the nature of the Valraven? Because the Valraven has it?”
Aurora locked eyes with me for the first time since she started telling the story.
Apparently, the ability to slap on an impenetrable expressionless mask was a trait which ran in her family, because she made the same stony face I’d seen her brother use.
“I’m not a Wanderer, Aurora, I can’t Wander into your sleep or subconsciousness later and try to guess what you’re thinking!”
She sighed and fixed her eyes back on the road.
“Minora Veland ascended to Valhalla with her sisters Aia and Linnea, while their families remained here until it was their time to depart. But the Veland family members, who died during the battle, didn’t ascend to Valhalla or any place in Asgard. Their souls were lost to Freya and Odin. Necromancers weren’t able to bring any of them back to life, let alone summon their spirits. Whatever bits the ravens left of their bodies, were laid to rest in the crypt beneath the European Magistrate’s Citadel, out of respect for the aid they provided while fighting against corrupt wizards and other supernatural beings. That Eitrhals you’re wearing is one of the only three ever created – one for each of the first three families. The eitr locked in them is the eitr extracted from Minora, Aia and Linnea’s souls. The Veland Eitrhals was never recovered from the battleground, even though it was worn at all times by a Veland family member, including on that battlefield.”
I took out my Eitrhals, holding the pendant between my fingers.
In certain moments, when I didn’t want to carry the weight of people’s expectations, the pendant felt heavier. Now, I felt like if I let it hang freely on its chain, I’d suffocate under the weight pressing over my chest.
“This isn’t just pure eitr,” I whispered, trying to swallow the lump nestled in my throat. “It’s eitr from the soul of my ancestor.”
“How can you be so clueless? Didn’t Monika tell you whose eitr you’re carrying on your neck?”
