Forged in Blood and Lightning: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Descendants of Thor Trilogy: Book One)

by S. A. Ashdown

  In reality, her intestines were like jelly. I’m a warlock, Ava. Yes, yes, that was right, wasn’t it?

  Ava paused, balancing the parchment-leaf on willowy fingers. ‘What are Pneuma?’

  ‘Humans who can manipulate magic.’ His face was so close, his breath scalded her cheek.

  ‘Magic?’ she asked. It was hard to say that seriously.

  ‘In its simplest form, magic is pure energy; a creative force that can attract like gravity and repulse like magnetism. Some people are natural conduits for magic. Others can sense its existence but can only interact with it passively. Like clairvoyants – like you, Ava – these sensitives are pushed by its tide. They are moved by magic but cannot move it themselves.’

  She loved the way he talked about her gift as if it was normal. ‘What about everyone else?’

  ‘We call them sapiens,’ Theo said. He lingered in the conversation, animated and keen to share his life with her. ‘My mum came to you,’ he whispered. The raw emotion of his expression disarmed her. She leaned her head onto his shoulder. ‘Because she knew you.’

  ‘But, Theo. How?’

  He sighed, slipping his hand into hers. This closeness, it was so strange, unexpected, and yet comfortable. ‘Your album,’ he said. ‘I bought it after hearing you sing in the Red Hawk. I was there on open mic night.’

  Ava blushed. He held her gaze. ‘Ghost boy,’ she said, and as she said it a small shudder rippled down him. His arm caressed her waist.

  ‘Sing it to me now, please.’ Desperation. Pain. It hurt to see that.

  ‘What are you saying, Theo?’ Her voice scratched, eyes glossy.

  ‘I think you know. Please, just sing it to me.’

  She turned into his partial embrace, letting her lungs fill her chest. She sang:

  She rocks the cradle,

  Oh, boy blond and blue.

  You drowned in the swell at her final farewell,

  Her boy, young and true.

  Now the rock’s her cradle,

  Oh, mother red, boy that fell behind.

  I open my heart for your death knell,

  And you respond in kind.

  His mouth silenced her, and he pulled her wetted face up, so ready to steal her love, so ready to consume her. She wanted him too. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, drawing breath, ‘no one can hear us. I’ve spelled the room. No intrusions.’

  She couldn’t help but laugh and silence him this time.

  The kiss soured; in a shimmer of popping and fizzing, a tall man with a pointed ear appeared in the middle of the room. Ava yelped.

  ‘Elvish uncles are another matter,’ Theo growled, clutching her tightly. ‘Nikolaj.’

  Did he just say ‘Elvish’? Nikolaj… where had she heard that name?

  Nikolaj hopped back, startled by Ava. His blossom-honey skin burned with recognition, with disbelief. Her name moulded on his tongue but he stopped the sound escaping from his throat. She could read his expression as if it were her own thought.

  So, apparently, could Theo. He jumped to his feet. ‘All this time you let me forget her!’

  ‘Theo,’ Nikolaj said, ‘you can’t be here.’

  Theo crossed his arms. She felt cold without him by her side. ‘Funny, I was gonna say the same thing about you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re on trial, Nevø, and you think it wise to socialise with varmint?’

  ‘On trial?’ Ava said. ‘What does he mean?’

  ‘They’re no worse than you or Father,’ Theo said, shrugging. ‘At least they’re straight about what they want from me.’

  What was going on? ‘Theo, who is he?’

  They squared off like cowboys in an old western duelling at dawn, Ava the maiden wedged between them. ‘He calls himself my uncle.’

  ‘This isn’t the time for a battle of wills. You’re being watched, Theo. You’re all being watched.’

  ‘And who’s watching us? Oh, let me guess. Menelaus Knight?’

  ‘Menelaus? What’s he got to do with this?’ Ava tugged on Theo’s shirt, demanding his attention.

  ‘Ask him,’ Theo said, jabbing his finger a fraction of an inch from Nikolaj’s flaring nostrils. ‘You know what? I will go home with you, Onkel. I will.’ Nikolaj stiffened at the sight of Theo’s twisted smile. So did Ava. ‘Yes. Let’s go home and have a good chat with Father. About Ava. About Menelaus. How has your pointy ear not flattened under the weight of lies and secrets?’ His anger frightened her.

  She let her gaze roam over the inhuman proportions of Nikolaj’s body, dancing over his Elvish ear. Her appraisal transferred back to Theo. ‘You really are a warlock,’ she whispered.

  ‘You told her?’

  ‘Funnily enough, she already knew. How about that? Of course, that’s before we both miraculously developed a very specific case of amnesia. Tell me, was that Menelaus’ doing too, so he could steal her for himself?’

  ‘Theo—’

  ‘Theo,’ Ava said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not with Menelaus.’

  ‘Jörð, if I wasn’t feeling so lost and betrayed I would sing hallelujah to Odin from the crest of Yggdrasil!’ He hugged her, but she went rigid in his arms. His prior confidence dissipated. Why couldn’t she look him in the eye? ‘Ava,’ he said, releasing her, ‘Menelaus killed my mother.’

  Her vision went black for just a moment. ‘What? What did you say?’

  ‘Tell her, Onkel. That’s why you and Father were so afraid of his name.’

  Theo waited, expectant. ‘Deny it, Nik,’ he whispered, a tear slipping down his cheek. ‘Tell me I’m wrong. You promised to tether me, remember? To stop me wandering into the nightmare that’s releasing nothing but monstrous truths into my life!’

  ‘It’s not my place to speak of what happened,’ Nikolaj said, and that deep gleam in his irises, ebbed and filled instead with tears. ‘Ask your father.’

  Ava reached for Theo, but he flew past her out the bedroom door, his expression overtaken by an altogether different kind of passion.

  43

  Weeding My Heart

  I planned to leave Ava in a nest of vampires and witches, only one of whom I could begin to trust as I couldn’t take her home with me. If I was to finally pierce Father’s steel armour, force the secrets from his heart, I could give him no leverage, no way to distract me. I would have to go at him, slashing and nipping like a demented bat, until he bled answers. She couldn’t be there. I won’t let her see me like that.

  The pact I formed with Penny and Malachi horrified Uncle Nikolaj. The coven circled him in awe, so different to their small bodies and raven features. ‘Theo, no! You cannot make that bargain!’

  ‘Leave off, Onkel. Unless you want me to turn you into a nice juicy rat for Strix to hunt?’ Nik was a master at escaping dead ends and traps but after eyeing the owl ready to maul him he stepped back and said nothing.

  I hated the way he watched me as I made the deal. ‘I hardly recognise you, Nevø,’ he said, following as I walked out of the sitting room, assured that Ava would be safe, numbed by the sacrifice I’d made for it. I wondered, was this what the Black Widow had foreseen – planned – for me all along? At the time, I had no way to understand her true desire.

  Our ankles knocked together, but I felt marooned from him. So many years I had lived with this half-man, half-Elf, so much of his life unexplored in the countless hours of conversation and storytelling.

  ‘I never really knew you anyway, Onkel.’ And, with so many varmint eyes upon us, we evaporated into the night, breaking apart like a galaxy of glittering stars.

  Where else would I find my father but in his study in the corner of the library, cut off from the rest of Hellingstead Hall? You can’t escape, Father. Not from this. We rounded on him, knuckles white as he gripped the desk, his cobalt blue eyes locked in a silent battle with some inner voice. He used his monstrous mahogany desk as a buttress against his problems. It couldn’t stop me.

  I slammed my fists down on the varnished wood, bone ma
de metal by magic, and cracked the perfect veneer. At least that got his attention.

  ‘You’re displeased with me, Theodore?’

  ‘I was tortured.’

  ‘And? Did I wield the knife?’

  Uncle Nikolaj placed a steadying hand on Father’s wiry shoulder. ‘I’d listen to your son, Espen.’

  ‘I don’t need you to fight my battles,’ I said, ‘I’ve relied on you for far too long. I didn’t need either of you when it came to it. Even bound to a chair, drugged, and tortured, I escaped. I saved my own skin.’ Father flinched at the unintentional pun, but I leaned over his desk and ploughed on. ‘The funny thing is I’m glad it happened. I’m glad I broke the rules and saved Anna. If I hadn’t, I’d never have learned Mum’s secret in the Forest of Dreams. She came to me, and I saw her condition when she died.’

  Father and Nikolaj traded blank stares, searching each other for a realisation that didn’t come. So they don’t know that mum was pregnant. ‘I see you’re both ignorant of the facts.’ I straightened up and crossed my arms, satisfied. I’m glad I know, no matter how much it hurts.

  ‘If there’s something – anything – you can share about your mother’s death, Theodore, do it now.’ Father’s cloak caught on the chair behind him as he jumped to his feet, giving him the air of a scorpion, tail raised and about to strike.

  I laughed, my melancholy seeping into the sound. ‘Your demands are bullshit. Tell you what, I’ll share everything. Once you explain why it took a thorough dip in the Eternal Spring to remember exactly who this girl is.’ I imagined Raphael cleaning in the cottage, those cardboard boxes gathering dust in the corner, full of photos. Was he there as I summoned them out of their neat packets, watching as the box-lid flew open?

  The photographs appeared, raining down from the rafters, each rectangle a dagger to my heart. Father stayed silent as the memories accused him from the surface of his desk. He picked one up to examine. I felt like a police officer handing over a missing persons photograph, and I measured his body language accordingly. He shrugged. ‘I can’t explain it.’

  I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t watch him lie again. With utter hopelessness, I turned away and paced over towards the tightly closed, velvet curtains. ‘Espen, give it up. He was with her at the Old Vicarage.’

  ‘What was she doing there?’ He was asking Nikolaj, but I answered.

  ‘Fate, Father.’ I sighed, pulling back the curtain. It was Ava’s haunting smile I saw in the window’s reflection. ‘I’ll give you this last chance to save our relationship – what’s left of it. If you lie to me again, I’ll leave and never come back. No matter how much you beg or bribe. Your magic is no match for mine. I’ll go, and take my discovery in the forest with me.’

  His silence slew me. How could he even debate this? ‘Fine,’ he said, tersely. ‘You’re so sure of yourself all of a sudden, Sønn. Let me remind you that for eleven years you suffered nothing more serious than a paper cut. For eleven years, no one else died. The Praetoriani left us alone as much as we could hope for, and no vampires roamed Hellingstead.’

  My teeth ground together but I kept my jaw clamped shut, tempting as it was to point out that it took my mother’s death and years of abject loneliness to achieve that.

  ‘Look at me, Theodore.’

  I spun round, catching him off-guard. He was stroking the mark on his hand, forlornly. ‘I’m sorry I hit you.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ I warned.

  ‘As you wish. Where did you find the photos?’

  ‘I have my sources too.’

  You’re enjoying this too much, that voice said, be careful.

  No, I’ve earned this. And he’s earned a dose of his own medicine.

  ‘You were telling me how I lived in a prison called “home” since Mum died.’

  Father ignored the barb. ‘She died. Her Guardian walked right on to our property. No one detected his presence. No one knew, and then she was dead.’ His cheeks flushed as he held his breath, stemming the flow of tears. ‘Ava’s mother, Lolita. To a degree, she understood we used magic, but she couldn’t understand how her friend had died. None of us could, not really.’

  ‘Lolita and Mum were friends?’

  ‘Yes. They met in an antenatal class. Lolita’s boyfriend had left her, and Isobel felt sorry for her. When you were born, she missed her family in Scotland, and Lolita was alone with Ava. Lolita began to visit frequently – daily.’ He gestured to the photographs. ‘You two grew up together. A non-eventful ten years lulled me into a false sense of security. Sensitivity ran in Lolita’s family, and she accepted the world of Pneuma. Your mother trusted her, and so I allowed it. But I was wrong.’

  I dreaded the completion of his tale, wishing I could freeze it mid-flow. Did he let the Praetoriani erase my memories? ‘After the funeral, I sealed off Hellingstead Hall. Theodore, you were so young and in so much pain. I could no longer guarantee our safety, let alone Lolita’s and Ava’s. The Guardians knew about them.’

  ‘What did you do, Father?’

  ‘The only thing I could to protect everyone involved and save you further suffering. I could either let you remember Ava and lose her to the Praetoriani, or erase her from your life, and us from theirs, so they could live free of scrutiny.’

  The dark side of the moon. It’s where we keep our deepest fears, able only to watch the shadows blurring at the boundary between darkness and light. The Praetoriani hadn’t done this. They hadn’t stripped my past, my soulmate from me. No, of course they hadn’t. Father would never let a Guardian near his son. Other than Excubiae, only a Clemensen had that kind of power, the power to weed out so much of a person’s life without damaging them. No, without damaging them physically.

  ‘I loved her,’ I said, choking on the words. Raphael had said it. I don’t agree with what they did, Gatekeeper. Love is not a flame that should be snuffed out. ‘You could’ve found another way. A way where I wasn’t alone.’

  ‘You had me and your uncle.’

  ‘It wasn’t enough.’

  I strode to the desk, and slowly, pointedly, gathered the photographs. When I looked up, Nikolaj had a hold of Father, leading him into the book stacks to calm his muttering. My father didn’t sob or shriek, he muttered – or yelled. Nikolaj whispered to him.

  ‘Don’t think I’m through with you yet,’ I said, half-proud and half-shocked at the hard edge to my voice. When did you become so callous? ‘Mum’s Guardian, it was Menelaus, wasn’t it?’

  Silence.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ Fresh wounds opened and burned. I swallowed down the sickness that stirred in my belly, like claws rifling through my innards. ‘He killed her.’

  And finally, the confession. ‘The Praetoriani swarmed him like bees, Theodore, like bees protecting their queen. We called for his head, but they punished him internally. He was only sixteen.’

  ‘And a murderer.’

  Nikolaj spoke. ‘He claimed it was an accident.’

  ‘You’re defending him?’

  ‘Of course he isn’t,’ Father snapped, appearing back into view. ‘We couldn’t get to him without risking you, Theo. The Praefecti are already suspicious of Clemensen power. How many dots do they need to connect before they work out who – what – we are?’

  ‘What I am, you mean.’

  Father nodded. ‘His adoptive father protected him.’

  ‘Julian Knight? The Overseer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I paused, awash with thoughts, the connections taunting me. I directed the fiery serpent in my solar plexus into the fog of incomprehension, and a flash of lightning boomed in the sky in response. ‘Jörð, you are both fools. What makes you think the Praefecti don’t already know exactly who we are? What are the chances that random kidnappers torture me in a basement, searching for the amulet, the same night I’m released from Assessment? Julian was there, right in the fucking corner when the magistrate asked me about it.’

  Father roared as he bolted acros
s the rug, gripping my cloak in his fists. ‘They asked you about the amulet? Why didn’t you tell me this?’

  ‘I was a little busy dying.’ I threw him from me with a growl.

  ‘What did you give away, Theodore? Who did they send to steal it?’

  ‘Nothing! No one! Not everything is my fuck-up.’ I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing how my tongue had slipped during Assessment. Did Julian, who’d given me advice, who’s driver had knuckles raw as my torturer’s, order my kidnap? He was the only name slap bang in the middle of this Venn diagram. ‘Besides, I know who has the amulet.’

  Uncle Nikolaj joined my father’s side, two blazing, blond torches aglow with my apparent treachery. After what they withheld from me, their hypocrisy astounded me. ‘It’s in safe hands,’ I said. I trust Raphael more than I trust you two.

  ‘Tell us!’ Nikolaj pulsed green, his Elvish power infusing his eyes with the luminosity of an emerald burning in the sun’s core. How could you? His eyes burned even deeper. How could you hide it from us?

  ‘It’s not your concern anymore. It’s Gatekeeper business.’

  ‘Tell us,’ repeated Father, ‘or you’ll pray for another slap.’

  I didn’t even flinch. I’d struck him as surely as he had struck me. And it felt good. ‘Fancy a duel, Father? Then go make your prayers to Ullr, and he may take your side. However, I’ll have to name Nik my champion as I’ll be otherwise engaged avenging my mother’s death.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, boy!’ Father lunged for me, but I was in the air, levitating out of his grasp. How easy it was to channel the Gatekeeper when I was so ice cold. If Julian already knew about me, then why not skewer him and his so-called son on the point of my sword? Half of my life lost in a singularity of grief, for what? To live as a wraith, a ghost in my own life. Now I was a ghost of vengeance, determined to haunt the hell out of Menelaus. For my mother. For Ava. For the boy in my vision. As surely as Thor slew the giants that threatened his hearth and home, I would take my revenge on the man who invaded mine, and hacked the happiness from my world.