The Fortress of Time

by Stone, Mariah

  She pressed. “You know, New York? United States of America?”

  Sigurd laughed. “Your words are as tangled as Loki’s beard. Where is that? Sounds like it could be in Ireland, although I haven’t heard of it.”

  Donna grunted in exasperation and looked at her elbow— which he was still holding. She struggled to free it. “Will you let go of me! I wouldn’t know where to run!”

  She was so small, but so feisty. “Are you taking me for a fool, goddess?”

  Her mouth opened and closed. He smirked. Inspired by an idea, he glanced at the pile of construction materials lying by the high gate of the great longhouse. There were ropes, and without releasing her, he took a short one.

  Donna gasped. “You are not—”

  Without granting her a response, he drew her to him, letting go of her elbow and wrapping his arms around her, the rope in his hands. Her body was pressed against him and her pupils dilated, soft lips parting. Her sweet scent enveloped him: fresh berries, and wood warmed by the sun, and crisp air high up the mountains, and something else—something out of this world.

  Sigurd tied the rope around her waist, finishing with a sea knot. Her eyes opened wider, she gasped and began to struggle, shoving him away, but he held her in place. Her waist was so narrow, so fragile. The memory of her silky skin under his fingers made him swallow, and a jolt of desire shot through him.

  “Not a step away from me,” his voice rasped.

  He let go of her, and she swayed as if she’d lost balance. “Am I some sort of a slave to you? Release me at once! How dare you!”

  Donna could not look like slave even if she tried. Rather, she resembled the goddess of storms, her cheeks flushed, her eyes shooting lightning bolts. She even seemed to have grown in height.

  But he could not act on his desire now. The fortress had to be built, and he had to know if the goddess could be of any use. Without saying another word, he walked on the dirt path towards the arch, tugging her after him. She dug in her feet like a stubborn goat.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the stone arch where you appeared. Either the arch or you have special powers, and I am going to find out which.”

  Donna stopped struggling. Sigurd glanced back at her. She watched everything with big eyes and an open mouth. She was pale and barely looked where she walked. They were passing by other longhouses, what was there to stare at? Maybe Floki’s masterful carvings on the beams? He had carved his personal design that distinguished Vörnen from other villages. Yes, they were something to admire, but Donna stared at everything as if she expected trolls and giants from Jötunheimr to spill from the doors and from behind the corners of the houses. It was still early, so only a few people had started their morning duties.

  “Is this a movie set?” she asked.

  “A what?”

  “Why are people dressed as if we are in medieval times? Where are power poles? Why are there no windows on the houses? Those ships,” she pointed at the longships down by the beach, behind the unfinished wall of the fortress. “They look pretty historic... There must be some logical explanation. Are you guys some sort of a cult? Or something like the Amish but in Norway?”

  Sigurd frowned. Some of her words made no sense. “Are you attempting to cast a spell, goddess?”

  “Stop with the ‘goddess’ already, please! Let me think. I am a rational person. I was in a courthouse with my clients and Daniel, and then there was that old lady… Wait. You said I just appeared. Under that arch, right? What happened exactly?”

  Courthouse? Clients? It was as if she was from a different world altogether. “Floki, his wife Asa and I were raising a palisade. The stake fell on the wall of the arch, and you appeared.”

  They approached the archway, which stood a few dozen feet away from the last house, hidden behind the grove of trees. The rock that had almost killed Donna still lay on the ground.

  Sigurd pointed at it. “This is right where you appeared yesterday.”

  Donna’s eyes traveled around the arch, her eyes wide. “This is in the middle of nowhere. Even the fjord is far away, so I couldn’t come by sea. There are trees all around, a helicopter would not be able to land. Did they just drop me? But I don’t feel pain anywhere. How could I just appear?”

  A helicopter? Was that a type of dragon the goddess might have been riding? Sigurd looked for any signs of magic that she might be experiencing being next to the arch. The only magic he sensed was his accelerated heartbeat caused by her presence. “Do you feel anything?” he asked.

  “I feel that you are hurting me.” She tugged at the rope around her waist.

  Sigurd loosened the knot a little. His fingers melted where they touched her waist. Why did she have such an effect on him? He was burning for her.

  This was no good. He could not give her this power over him.

  He swallowed and pressed. “Any magic? Can you make the stone rise?”

  Donna snorted. “Please.”

  She walked away from him towards the rock, and disappointment stung in his chest because she left his side. She circled the stone, her steps gracious, her gentle curves moving under the clothes. The rope stretched, and he yanked her back slightly. She rewarded him with a furious glance.

  Even though Sigurd had brought her here, he did not like her sniffing around the rocks one bit. What if she disappeared the same way she had appeared? Or worse, what if she took a rock and smashed him later in his sleep? “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know. Any signs of a logical explanation. A gag treated with chloroform. A hidden door. A mirror box.” She froze and glanced up at him. “Wait. You said Asa was with you? Is she old and does she have a golden spindle?”

  “A golden spindle? Asa is not rich enough to have such a treasure. Even I don’t own gold anymore.”

  A jarl needed treasure to keep his warriors’ loyalty. Sigurd had given all of his gold away to retain the last strong warriors when his father had gotten sick, and since then they had not gone on a single raid. The gold was gone, and only silver remained. It was disappearing quickly too as he paid the remaining men. He could only hope they would be able to go on raids next year, once the fortress was built.

  All of these misfortunes because of a woman’s betrayal…

  Sigurd frowned, something Donna had said catching his attention.

  A golden spindle. And an old woman… Could it be… “Where did you see the old woman with the spindle?”

  “In the courthouse in New York. She came to me and said a man needed me, and then she asked me to hold her golden spindle. There were patterns carved on it, they looked like the ones on your columns. She was knitting a scarf with a tree.”

  A tree? Could it be the Yggdrasil, the tree of the world? “The only being who has a golden spindle is one of three Norns.”

  “Three Norns? Who are they?”

  “They spin the threads of people’s fates. And gods’ fates. They define when we are born, when we die, and what happens to us. A scald that visited my hall—back when my father was the jarl—sung a legend in which the three Norns had a golden, a silver, and a bronze spindle.”

  Donna’s eyebrows crawled up. Sigurd glanced at the arch. It had always looked like it was more than just a strange collection of rocks piled up together. It must be. He wished now that they had a priest or a witch in the village, someone who knew seidr, the art of magic and witchcraft. They’d know about the arch.

  But even Sigurd, who was not a witcher, could feel something powerful beyond words in those rocks. So it was no surprise that someone like Donna would appear here. When they completed the fortress and regained their strength as a jarldom, it would be the perfect place for a sacred grove. The gods would love the arch.

  The Norn surely did if she’d sent Donna here.

  Donna shook her head and turned around, walking towards the arch. The rope stretched, and he felt like a troll that caught a struggling fish. He yanked her back. He did not want her to touch th
e sacred stones. The arch could be the portal through which she came.

  “Do not go near it.”

  Donna clasped her hands in exasperation but then glanced at him suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “I don’t believe this nonsense. I am a New York lawyer, for God’s sake. There is no such thing as Norns and there’s no such thing as magic.”

  But as she was saying this, her words trailed off. Sigurd crossed his arms over his chest. She did not believe in magic? Lies. He grabbed her by the elbow and spun her around to face him.

  Her face was a mask of fury, her breasts pressed against him sending heat through his muscles like the strongest mead.

  She was so close, he inhaled the sweet scent of her breath. The urge to kiss her made his head spin.

  “I don’t give a Loki’s turd what you believe. You are here because the most powerful being in all worlds wants you here. With me. Now. Stop acting like a confused simpleton and do something about the fortress!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I can’t!”

  Donna had never felt like this in her life. Disbelief in the only logical—yet impossible—explanation tore her mind apart like a high fever. Sigurd’s mountain of a body and his furious face intimidated her despite her attempts to feel strong and confident. His hard muscles pressed against her made her heart race and her skin buzz with sweet anticipation. He was so close she could kiss him. But damned if she would ever allow that to happen again.

  She needed to find the way back.

  His eyes went ice-cold. “You can’t?”

  She swallowed. “I am not a goddess.” She could not believe what she was about to say out loud. “I am a regular woman. From the future.”

  As she heard her own words, she snorted right in his face. He blinked, and a giggle escaped her, brought on by his astonishment, the silliness of snorting in a huge Viking’s face, and the ridiculousness of what was going on in her head. Then a full shower of laughter poured out of her. Hysteria. Her belly tensed, ached and shook.

  She must have gone insane.

  Sigurd let go of her and wiped his face with his palm, his eyebrows knit together. Donna doubled up, trying to breathe deeply to calm herself down, but little giggles burst out of her.

  “Are you done?”

  Donna breathed out the remains of hysteria and nodded. “Sorry for that.” She circled with her index finger around his face.

  He grunted.

  “Why are you not freaking out, Sigurd? It sounds insane. It’s the craziest thing I have ever said in my life.”

  She felt the weight of Sigurd’s eyes on her. “A woman from the future.” His gaze traveled up and down her body, and despite herself, heat pulsed through her, making her skin tingle. “How do you know?”

  She almost choked from the ridiculousness of his question. “The axes, wooden houses without electricity, the way you are dressed, the ships, the technology—she pointed at the stake lying on the ground—It’s all so medieval. Plus, the fact that I magically started to speak and understand Norwegian—or whatever the equivalent was back then.” She frowned. “Is…now.”

  Ha. She was arguing for the opposite side.

  “Do you use shoes as weapons in the future?”

  She chuckled, “No, they are just for walking. Beauty. The world is a more peaceful place a thousand or so years from now. Well, relatively. Most people don’t need weapons. My mom and I—”

  Oh no. Her mom. She must be sick with worry. Who would help Donna’s four clients? Her mom could not juggle her own cases and Donna’s case, which was the biggest their little firm had ever had.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Oh, I believe you. Norns can do that. That must be Skuld,” he said, and Donna understood that Skuld was a name that meant “What Shall Be.”

  “She is the one who rules destiny across time. What I can’t understand is, why you?”

  Donna’s eyebrows rose. The fact that he believed her without questioning shocked her, and she eyed him, looking for a sign that he was joking. A modern man would doubt her words. But he was no modern man. That was another nail in the coffin of her hope.

  “I don’t know! She made a mistake. I have no clue what I can do to help you. But I need to get back, Sigurd!”

  “You can’t.”

  The words hit her like rocks. “What?”

  Sigurd’s brows snapped together. “There’s no way back when a Norn wants you here.”

  Donna’s chest tensed. No way back… Even though she was in the open, she felt as if she was in a shoebox. She often felt close to a panic attack in small spaces, elevators or the subway. She’d had that feeling ever since she was four years old.

  Donna had woken up in the middle of the night to screams and the bangs of furniture hitting the walls. Her mother argued with her then-boyfriend, Joseph, a litigator in the same prestigious law firm. Donna’s heart raced, she ran towards the door to go to her mom, but the door would not open. The apartment was old-fashioned, and the doors had locks on the outside. Without her mother’s knowledge, the man liked to lock Donna’s door so she wouldn’t bother them when he spent the night. She had spent the remains of that night curled in a ball, with her hands pressed against her ears and her eyes shut so she wouldn’t see the walls of her tiny Manhattan bedroom close in on her.

  Several years later, Donna found out that was the night he’d told her mother he had gotten her promotion to junior partner.

  Being trapped here felt just like that night for Donna. Her hands shook, and her chest started to hurt. No. She could not have a panic attack. Not now.

  “I need to go back, Sigurd. People rely on me there. Four women and their children could lose everything—and most likely land on the streets.”

  His jaw muscles flexed. He pointed at the ditch. “If we don’t build the fortress, the whole village could die. And you are here to prevent that, even though you are just a woman. Maybe if you are from the future, you are different. So, forgive me if I am not in a hurry to help you get back.”

  Donna gasped. “Just a woman? Are you serious? And, excuse me, how am I here to prevent the village from dying?”

  “I am building a fortress around the village. I need to finish before the end of summer, and the fortress does not rise fast enough. What can you do? Are you a builder?”

  Donna glanced at the stake. “No.”

  “Can you craft?”

  “No.”

  “Can you at least fight?”

  “I took a class on self-defense with a badass woman with a burned face. And I go to Krav Maga twice a week.”

  “Does Krav Maga involve swords and axes?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s not going to help in a battle. How will you help?”

  Donna looked around at the ditch, the fallen stake, and the arch. Desperation made her feet heavy and her hands weak. “I don’t know! Ask your Norn.”

  “What is it that you do, exactly, in your time?”

  Did the Vikings even have the concept of a lawyer? “I protect the rights of women who were treated badly. By men, by their employers, by the government.”

  “This sounds ridiculous. If someone wrongs a woman, it’s the duty of her husband, her father, or her brothers, to avenge her. Not the task of another woman. Besides, no mortal female can be trusted with such an important thing as the law. What can you know about it?”

  Anger simmered in her, and Donna took a deep breath to calm down. These were barbarian times, she reminded herself. “I will have you know that in a bit over a thousand years, women will have as many rights as men. Officially, anyway. Unofficially, they are often treated like they are in your times.”

  Sigurd leaned towards her, and she held her breath. His hands untied the knot of the rope around her waist, sending waves of electricity through her skin.

  “You are useless for the fortress. Just keep out of the way. Since you came through the arch, it must be the door
way. You might be able to go back through it. The arch will be rebuilt because it’s an important part of the defenses, not because of you. And then, whether you go or stay does not interest me. But do not dare touch anything. Keep yourself busy with womanly work: help with cooking and cleaning. Don’t talk to anyone. Go back to the longhouse. If you are hungry, you may eat. If you need to relieve yourself, you may go to the outhouse.”

  Donna gasped for breath from all the insults. Womanly work… Keep out of the way… Like she was some sort of a slave!

  Sigurd walked off in the direction of the village, leaving her alone. “Be in my bedchamber by nightfall. I am not finished with you there yet,” he threw back over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Donna stood for a moment, her mouth opening without a sound, shock and anger boiling in her stomach like water in a kettle, but there was also something else, something she forbade herself to feel. Her deep muscles throbbed as the image of Sigurd’s naked body over hers flooded her imagination.

  No. No! She could not act on these feelings. Yes, she was attracted to him, but Sigurd and she did not have any future whatsoever. He was exactly the type she had decided to stay clear of since Daniel. And—most importantly—she did not belong here and needed to go back. She, a New York lawyer, with a Viking! She scoffed, but the thought did not sound as ludicrous as she wanted it to.

  Stop thinking about him and start acting!

  Even though Donna knew it would probably be futile, she walked towards the arch and lay her hands on it. The rocks were cold and rough, lifeless. She even squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that she’d open them in New York.

  But nothing happened.

  Darn it. She was really stuck here.

  She looked around, and her chest tightened as if clenched in a vise, as the trees began closing in on her like those walls of her Manhattan bedroom. Donna ran to the village.

  The settlement was wide awake by now, people busy with their morning work, faces stern. Men walked towards the sides of the village, probably to continue building the fortress. Women hurried cows, sheep, and goats out in the pastures with “hey” and “tsk tsk tsk.” Children helped by carrying hay, vegetables, and buckets of water. Chickens cackled, and geese honked. The smell of fresh manure mingled with the sweet air, but it was not disturbing. It was strangely comforting.