by Amy B. Nixon
“Monika didn’t tell me many things.”
“A word of advice – you should transfer to a supernatural school. If not for something else, at least do it for Monika. She’ll make a terrible guardian.”
It sounded as though she was saying it out of taking pity on Monika, but I knew the real reason behind her advice.
“Why are you so hell-bent on getting rid of me?”
“I don’t like you.”
“Yeah, you made it crystal clear from the first time I saw you with that loving gaze you shot in my direction! I just don’t get why.”
She decided I wasn’t worthy of an answer and didn’t say anything for the rest of the trip. I remained silent as well, trying to come up with another reason for being endangered by the Valraven, other than the only motive I could think of.
We approached a larger rural area from the ones we’d passed, and I realized we were in Stavanger.
I didn’t have enough time to see much of the city before we swerved into the SPN Retreat’s underground parking. When I got out of the car, I hurried ahead and stepped in front of Aurora, barring her way.
She knit her eyebrows with annoyance. “What?”
“I want you to confirm or rebuff my theory. If I understand correctly, I’m endangered by the Valraven because she’s after me. The only way I’d be useful for getting her into Sessrúmnir is through my necromantic blood and eitr. She took the Veland Eitrhals, which means she’ll probably also want the Dustrikke family heirloom.”
“Yes.” Aurora eased her frown and lowered her voice. “Maybe. I don’t know, but it seems that way. And if it’s the Dustrikke Eitrhals she wants, then she’s also set her sight on the Nordstrøm one.”
“How can you be sure she’s really Vala?”
“I read about Vala many years ago in a book locked in the Warded Sections. I never linked her to an old Danish legend about a supernatural raven which feeds on dead people and transforms into a knight, not until today.”
“And how can you be sure the Valraven from the legend is real?”
“Wake up, idiot! In our world myths are real! Besides, the Nøkken queen said it herself.”
“But what good would the necklaces serve the Valraven? Why not just murder any other Dustrikke and any other Nordstrøm through all these centuries? Why now, why me, why the necklaces?”
“What better way to get into Sessrúmnir than through the essence of Freya’s first creations?”
I twisted the pendant between my fingers. Strange, how something so small held such immense power.
“Where is the Nordstrøm Eitrhals now?”
Aurora crossed her arms over her chest. “Safe.”
“Is that why she’s suddenly set her aim on me? Because the Council took my Eitrhals out of safety, so they could give it to me?”
She didn’t reply. I licked my lips, trying to wrap my mind around everything I had learned today.
“Sooo… the Valraven wants me because I can give her the Dustrikke fragments of the key, but she also needs the Nordstrøm fragments. Amyrians want me for the same reason, but they also need the Veland fragments. Each side has something the other needs, and each side lacks the thing only I can give them.”
“Took you long enough.”
“What I mean is, Amyrians want something the Valraven has. Why don’t they target her the way they’re targeting Sessrúmnir and call it a day? Why haven’t they killed her already? Why go after me before they go after the Veland fragments? It doesn’t make sense for them to be waiting around for me.”
“Do you even hear yourself? The Valraven is a goddess! They can’t just kill her!”
“Then how can they force Ragnarök and kill the other gods and goddesses?”
She remained quiet, staring somewhere above my head, with a pensive crease between her eyes.
For the first time, I had a chance to study her in a good close-up for more than a few seconds. Although the Nordstrøm siblings shared similar facial features, Aurora had fuller lips than her brother; and unlike him, she slightly pouted when she was contemplating on something. FML! She looked like the manifestation of every man’s wet dream even when she was grimacing.
“According to many prophesies, Odin will fall during Ragnarök,” she broke the silence at last, keeping her gaze above my head. “The wolf Fenrir will be released from his prison, and he’ll attack the Asgardians, murdering Odin in the process. If I have to guess, Amyrians won’t try to kill the survivors, since the easiest way would be to free Fenrir and make sure he leaves no survivors.”
A, I was impressed she had managed to come to such groundbreaking end-of-the-world conclusions so quickly. B, I was terrified she could think like a super villain. C, I had read about Fenrir’s horrifying nature, but the way Miss Perfection was handling this entire situation seemed unnaturally calm, which made her even more terrifying.
Suddenly, she reached for her bag, took out the box with the fairy dust and sprinkled my head with more of it.
“Aurora, can Amyrians invade Nordstrøm Island?”
“No. We have wards against all sorts of external invasive forces, while if something happens from the inside, like your Draug, our detectors will immediately go off.”
And on top of that, a quiet voice spoke inside my head, they don’t even know you exist.
“Can the Valraven invade the island? She’s a goddess, after all.”
“I don’t think so, but either way, you should get as far away from Scandinavia as you can. Think beyond America. Better yet, there are supernatural schools on otherworldly planes beyond Midgard; why don’t you go to one of those? That will put a sufficient distance between you and the Valraven. Besides, this way Amyrians won’t know where you are. The way I see it, it’s in your best interest to get the hell out of my sight.”
“Aww, and here I thought we were starting to become besties!” I snapped at her, with blazing rage pouring from every syllable.
At least I had my reasons for hating the bitch, but I still had no clue why she loathed me from day one.
The Descending E In C Minor
I had no idea how Aurora was taking the aftermath of our latest meeting with the Nøkk, or how the alleged truth about the Valraven was affecting her.
My mind kept painting nightmarish sceneries of dead bodies on the battlefield, being ripped open and eaten by ravens. Claws and beaks digging deep into warm flesh, tearing it, searching for the core. Twisting and turning under the covers, I spent the entire night picturing horrifying things.
I knew sleep was necessary for facing the first of my two mandatory tests, but when the break of dawn illuminated my room, I was still fully awake. My mentor had explained – laconically – that every January the Council tested every island resident if they deemed him or her as someone with underdeveloped, dangerous and uncontrollable magic. How many were going to be tested? And how badly was I going to screw up, compared to the rest?
Climbing out of bed, I dragged myself to the bathroom with a heavy stride. I hadn’t slept for two nights in a row, and it showed. On the bright side, it wasn’t like I had someone to doll up for.
Dann, a voice whispered in an almost scolding manner.
After I’d spent a day with his sister, Aurora’s presence subconsciously made me think about His Excellency.
I hadn’t given much thought to what had happened the last time I’d seen him. My common sense deduced he had hit his head during one of those fights so badly, he had lost his fucking mind. And he had probably impaired his vision. Most of all, he had left so quickly, so easily, without caring to at least say goodbye. So, yeah, a head injury and impaired vision explained his actions.
But what about mine? Why had I kissed him back? And why had I liked it?
He evoked a sense of safety. Maybe I subconsciously carried around the memory of that day I saw him fighting off a group of guards. And from the conversations we had had, it seemed like he genuinely cared about everyone residing under his roof.
He
joked both in and out of the lecture hall. I used to think he was laughing at me in a mocking way. He was actually laughing at many of my cynical remarks not because he was ridiculing me, but because he found them funny.
And whenever he spoke, even to clueless novices like me, he didn’t sound patronizing, bored or aggravated. He was calm and reasonable, as a grown-up should be.
I really liked his personality. I also liked him physically. Dann was only twenty-six, and despite being intimidating at times, he was really handsome. Tall, slender, with messy blond hair that sometimes fell in his eyes, giving him a sort of boyish look. At the slightest hint of a smile a set of cute dimples carved in his cheeks. He always wore black. Even though I didn’t like the way his piercing gaze tore through me and tried to invade my thoughts, I liked getting lost in the clear blue skies.
When he had comforted me on the night after my birthday, he had brought me soothing solace. I’d just learned of my last three relatives’ deaths, and he was the only one who was there for me. Naturally, my fucked up overemotional mind hadn’t bothered telling me it was wrong to kiss him back.
And those unexplainable hallucinations were surely a factor for my craziness. They happened only around him, and they were always about him. My brain had probably decided to build a bond upon them.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with His Excellency.
Whether he was still away or had returned from wherever he had run off to, when I entered the Council’s room, Johanna Larsen was the only present Council member. She sat next to Patricia Svensson, but the other seven chairs were empty. A writing desk was placed across the two women, with a pen and some blank sheets of paper.
“Please take a seat, Miss Dustrikke,” Monika’s mom said, nodding at the chair behind the desk. “And please remember to refrain yourself from summoning things you should not be summoning.”
Demonic entities? Like that would ever happen!
“I’ll do my best to not disappoint you.”
“We expect nothing less.”
I took my seat and narrowed my eyes to the paper. Grabbing the pen, I told myself this was easy. I had drawn a Spirit Trap so many times. What was more, I had drawn its reversed version along with some additional runes, which I hadn’t studied before, during my latest rendezvous with the Nøkk. I could do this.
The summoning itself also wasn’t going to be an issue. Not only had I managed to summon two dead necromancers in the very same day, but I had also successfully summoned the apparition of Queen Bitch Mayvareena. As far as the spirit post-mortem stage of necromancy went, I could ace it in my sleep.
“You won’t be needing the pen and paper, Miss Dustrikke.”
“The fuck?!” I snapped at Mrs. Larsen’s statement.
“Please mind your language.” She kept her voice and face totally expressionless. It wasn’t the first or second time I had cursed in front of a Council member. She was probably getting used to it. “I would like you to summon a spirit of your choice without a Spirit Trap. Choose whomever you want, as long as you don’t evoke Mylingar, Gjenferd, Vardøger, Wights, demonic entities and vindictive spirits of the sort.”
“You just excluded my entire list of spirit resources,” I nagged sarcastically, though I had no idea what Vardøger meant. “But how am I supposed to do it, when spirits can enter the castle only through a Spirit Trap?”
“We’ve temporarily lifted some of our wards. You’ll be able to summon it inside this room.”
“Fine. I choose… Edor Dustrikke.”
“Very well, you may proceed.”
Closing my eyes and sucking in a deep breath, I placed my hands in my lap and tried to concentrate. A familiar pull rose in my body. I opened my eyes. Edor’s translucent apparition was staring at me.
“Uh, hey,” I said with a wry smile.
My distant cousin glanced around, then vanished into thin air.
“Sorry about that,” I apologized on his behalf. “Last time I summoned him, he wasn’t very happy with me. Apparently, he noticed he wasn’t trapped, and decided to make a break for it.”
The two women exchanged looks before fixing their attention back on me. Monika’s mom spoke again.
“I would like you to summon the spirit of someone who hasn’t left our plane.”
Furrowing my eyebrows, I wondered if I had misheard her. “But that means a restless spirit.”
“Precisely.”
“I was joking earlier! I don’t know anyone who fits the description.”
“How about your Draug’s spirit?”
“Pfft! Marcus Dahl banished it, like almost three months ago.”
“We know. You can draw it out of the spirit plane.”
“No way! I’m not summoning that!”
“May I suggest another option?” Patricia Svensson spoke for the first time since I had entered. “The library holds extensive archives and chronicles on Dustrikkes with names and portraits. There’s more than one Dustrikke who died a violent death. Their spirit may not be in our plane, but she should be able to summon them.”
“What?” I squealed in horror.
“Yes, Miss Dustrikke,” Johanna Larsen nodded, “I believe it would be easier for you to evoke a Myling from your own bloodline.”
“Uh-uh!” I squealed again. “Mylingar are restless spirits of dead kids! That’s creepy!”
“The goddess gifted you with these powers.” Monika’s mother was trying to be helpful, but she wasn’t. “Proceed.”
“What if it hurts someone inside this room?”
“Should it make such an attempt, you will banish it.”
“You’re putting your faith in my banishing skills? Are you insane?”
I had banished Edor and Doran from a Spirit Trap before, then the Nøkk, but both times I had no idea what I was doing. Svensson hadn’t taught me about banishing yet, because I hadn’t succeeded in summoning a ghost during our scheduled exercises.
“I don’t know how to banish a spirit,” I lied.
“You’re a Class Five caster, Miss Dustrikke. Moreover, you are wearing the Eitrhals we have ordered you to wear at all times. Should this task be challenging on a magical level, which I’m sure it won’t, you wouldn’t risk becoming a Livløs.”
“What if it doesn’t want to be summoned?”
“No spirit ever does,” Svensson concluded evenly.
“What?! But that woman you evoked, she said–”
“We all resort to little white lies,” Svensson interrupted me.
I remembered how I’d wished ghosts had social and biological needs, so Doran and Edor would feel tortured by being trapped in my pentagram for a few days. Little did I know, I had indeed tortured them just by summoning them in our plane.
“I’m not doing it,” I whispered after a while.
“Excuse me?”
“I said I’m not doing it.”
“Do you wish to fail, Miss Dustrikke? Refusal to make an attempt is looked upon as failure. Having in mind you’re a Class Five necromancer, failing on an evocation test would mean you’d be endangering yourself and others around you. Thus, I’m afraid, we’d have to keep you on this island until you learn how to control your powers.”
Tell me something I don’t know!
“Mylingar have been tortured enough in their life. Then they’ve been tortured in their death. And their spirits live a tortured afterlife. I’m not going to summon a child who’s been through hell and still lives in it, just because you want to test my summoning and banishing evocation skills. If you want a show, go get fucking theater tickets!”
“This is your last chance, Miss Dustrikke.”
I had already banished a handful of nasty Nøkk along with their queen, but neither of them had behaved like a raging monster. Could I really banish such an infuriated spirit from my first attempt? Even if I summoned a Myling, despite it being inhumane, I wasn’t sure what would follow. I didn’t want to know what would follow.
And I sure as hell didn’t want to
inflict more agony on anyone – even if it was on the spirit of the brattiest kid out there!
“Nope,” I declared, and bolted for the door.
Whether it was stupid or not, I didn’t see my rejection as a loss.
The Dining Hall was louder than usual. I ate quickly to escape the others’ emotional cacophony and excitement over the new year. Only problem was, a familiar light brown head popped out of thin air into the empty seat across me, almost making me spit the coffee I was sipping in between bites. Maksim Larsen.
“How did you do on your first test?”
He asked it in a casual way, as if we were having conversations on a daily basis.
I hadn’t spoken to him since learning of Monika’s betrayal. Moreover, I suspected he had known about her deceptions, which meant he had also been part of the lie from the beginning.
“If your sister sent you to butter me up, remind her to go take a nice long sauna in Muspelheim.”
“She doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Did your mother tell you to check up on me?” It made sense. Aurora had probably told her uncle everything from yesterday’s trip, and Hallvard had decided to get me a fancy bodyguard again. “Let me guess. Monika fucked up and Ragnar is already taken, so now the Council is willing to spare one of the future tryouts for Dann’s team. Tell them I’m flattered that they see me as someone who needs a Larsen guardian more than a Nordstrøm needs him, and I’m declining the offer.”
His eyes widened while his forehead wrinkled in a suspicious grimace. Instead of answering me, he looked around the room, as if to make sure we wouldn’t be heard. In a room full of people!
“Who told you I was joining Dann’s team?” he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper. “It was supposed to be secret.”
“Why are you here, Maksim?”
His face eased. A slight hint of his friendly boyish smile surfaced, poking at my irritant receptors.
“No one sent me; I just saw you sitting here and thought I’d come over. I wanted to check how you were doing.”
“I’m amazeballs.”
“Do you still need help with evocation? We can–”
