by S. T. Bende
“You need to go back to sleep,” I advised.
“Not while you’re still out there. Thank Odin your bruises look better.” Forse squinted. “Does your head still hurt?”
“It’s fine.” I reached up to touch the skin behind my ear. It was a little sensitive, and dried blood matted my hair, but my energy ball had knitted the wound back together nicely.
“You holding up okay otherwise?” Forse tucked his free arm behind his head.
“I guess.”
“What does that mean? Talk to me, hjärtat.”
My teeth worried my bottom lip. Forse needed to focus on healing, and capturing Runa before she made good on her promise to kill him. Everything else was superfluous.
“Elsa,” Forse warned. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll never bring you Coke in a bottle again. You’ll be forced to drink that inferior canned variety, into perpetuity.”
“No need to get mean.” I couldn’t help but smile. “I’m worried about how far Runa’s going to take this fight. We’re a strong team, but she captured me, she almost killed you…things aren’t going well at all. It was my job to keep the peace on this mission, and I failed. My inability to master unifying could very well be the weakness that gets us all killed.”
“What are you talking about? We were all responsible for bringing Runa in. And I promised I’d keep you safe on this mission. If anyone’s a failure here, it’s me.
“You couldn’t have known she’d ingest some superhero pill,” I argued. “And you may have had one off moment in Svartalfheim, but I’ve had tons.” I quickly recounted my attempt to turn Runa into a kinder, gentler sociopath. “We both see how that ended,” I finished, pointing at my head. “This is my first actual mission, and I’ve been abducted, beat up, and sent my charge off in a rage to kill you. Nobody could accuse me of doing a decent job this round. What if it’s like this every time? What if I never figure this out? Asgard needs a real Unifier, not some lousy interim. If I can’t master this skill, then I can’t teach Mia how to do it. And if neither of us get it together, the realm’s going to be susceptible to attack all the time. Then the light realms will fall. And it’s going to be all my fault.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re new at this. And you haven’t had anybody to train you. We need to figure out how your mom did it.” Forse looked at the sky for a moment. “Mmm.” He typed something into his arm and waited. A moment later, he swiped his finger across the screen. “That’s what I was hoping for.”
“What?” I leaned forward.
“Freya finished scanning your mom’s old journals. I’ve got them in my inbox. Let me send them to you.” Forse typed again. When he finished, my arm hummed lightly. I’ve got mail.
“I see them.” I swiped the flashing image on my skin, and my mom’s journal appeared, splitting the screen with Forse’s face. “We are so blind, Forse. We should have looked at these weeks ago, when we first found them. There’s definitely something we can use in here.”
“Agreed. If you read them from your end, and I read from mine, I’m sure we’ll find a tool that helps us figure this out.” Forse’s finger moved across the screen as he scrolled through the document.
“I need you to focus on healing,” I told Forse softly. “I’ve got this, please rest until you feel better.”
“I will,” Forse promised. “In a minute.”
“Forse—”
“You have my word.” Forse met my gaze and I sighed.
“Five minutes. Then you rest,” I confirmed.
“It’s a deal.” Forse winked at me, then turned his attention to the text.
I leaned back against the cold stone wall as I stared at my mom’s familiar handwriting. The chill dancing along my spine barely bothered me. At this point, I was pretty much numb.
One minute passed before Forse spoke again. “Here’s something interesting.”
“What?” I looked over from my reading, meeting Forse’s gaze in the screen.
“Your mom mentions spirits.” Forse rubbed his jaw. “When you worked on Runa—before you sent her off in a homicidal rage—”
“Hey,” I protested.
“I’m kidding. But when you worked on Runa, did you push your energy at her like you do during a healing?”
“Ja.” Where was he going with this?
“What if unifying isn’t about energy?” Forse asked.
“Don’t be silly; everything’s about energy.”
“Hear me out.” Forse closed his eyes, like he was deep in thought. “What if unifying is about connecting with someone on another level. A spiritual level.”
Intuition pinged from the recesses of my brain. Forse was on to something. “Go on.”
“Sometimes you call your energy your spirit. And you’ve said before that you can tell whether someone has a light or dark spirit.” Forse opened his eyes. “But have you ever communicated with another spirit?”
“Like, talked directly to someone’s spirit?” I paused. “No. I never have.”
“Do you think it’s possible?” Forse asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ve never tried.”
“Want to try with me?”
My breath caught. Did I? That could get really personal. “I don’t know. What if I…do something wrong?”
Forse shrugged. “Then you do something wrong. It’s just me. I won’t tell anyone.”
That was true. Forse never divulged my confidences.
“You are pretty trustworthy,” I agreed. “My parents never found out about the time you snuck me home three hours after curfew.”
“You were a sophomore. They would have shipped me straight to Helheim if they knew I took you to a junior party. Especially one with that much mead.”
I rolled my eyes. “Letting me have one drink wouldn’t have killed you.”
“Maybe not. But your brother would have. Don’t forget, he was there too.”
“Isn’t he always?” I grumbled.
“Mmm. And speaking of your brother, I also never told him about the time you asked me to teach you how to kiss.” Forse raised one eyebrow and heat flooded my face.
“Oh my gods! You can’t bring that up, ever. I was, like, twelve.”
“You were six hundred and eighteen,” Forse corrected. “Plenty old enough to know what you were doing.”
“That’s twelve in mortal years,” I hissed. “And there’s a statute of limitations on bringing up embarrassing memories. That one passed.”
“Let me check my law books.” Forse pretended to scan through the communicator. “Huh, would you look at that? It says I have your whole entire existence to bring up any and all kissing memories. Sorry, hjärtat.”
“You’re terrible,” I muttered.
“Am I? Or am I an exceptional secret keeper, one you owe big time for never telling the headmaster those sick notes you gave him to get out of combat class were fake—since you actually spent fifth period reading in the woods behind school.”
“I’m sort of wishing I’d read less and combat-ed more right now.” I gestured around my cell.
“It wouldn’t have made a difference. You had a solid grasp of the self-defense maneuvers I taught you before we Bifrosted in here. And you did everything right when Runa grabbed you. That crystal she consumed had properties nobody expected. None of us could have fought her off.”
“Thanks.” Forse’s words loosened the feeling of failure that had dogged me since my capture. “Will you teach me more when we get home? Maybe some offensive stuff, too? It’d be super fabulous if this could never happen again.”
“You want me to pin you to the wall and watch you squirm? Why Elsa Fredriksen, what would your brother say?” Forse drew his brows up in mock surprise.
“My brother can just deal. Besides, he owes you one. I do too. For bringing Tyr home when he went on that rampage after our parents died. I thought we’d lost him—that he’d finally given in to the darkness he’s always been so afraid of.” My stoma
ch felt hollow as the memory passed through me.
“It was no big deal. He was easy enough to turn around.”
“What did you say to him?” I raised an eyebrow.
Forse shifted, repositioning his arm beneath his head. “I told him he was an idiot for leaving you alone when you needed him the most. And that if he didn’t get his sorry butt back to Asgard and look after you, I’d have him put on my list and brought into custody until he got control of himself.”
“You threatened to put the God of War in jail?” I laughed. “That’s not a nice thing to do to your friend.”
“You were hurting, Elsa. Your brother needed to god up and be there for you.” Clear green eyes met mine through the screen. They were impassively cool, as they always were, but beneath the façade Forse maintained for the worlds rested a warmth only a few got to see.
Right now, that warmth was lighting a spark somewhere just south of my navel. If I hadn’t been stuck in his psycho ex-girlfriend’s tower, I’d have asked him for another kissing lesson right then and there.
“Thanks for always looking out for me,” I whispered.
Forse shrugged. “I’d do anything to ensure your happiness. You know that.”
“I know,” I murmured. “And I want to do the same for you.”
“You already do.” Forse repositioned himself so he lay on his side. His coloring still hadn’t returned to normal, and I knew our five minutes were nearing their end, but since I didn’t know when I’d get the chance to talk with him like this again, I pressed forward with the question I’d been waiting decades to ask.
“Forse?” I ventured.
“Mmm?”
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth for a beat. When I released it, my words tumbled out. “Why did you date Runa? She was so awful to everyone—why did you choose to be with her back then?”
Forse closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were clouded with remorse. “I know it’s hard to believe, but she was different with me. Maybe it’s because of who I was fated to become, or the code I was bound to uphold as Justice, even when we were still in high school. But the Runa I knew in private was very different from the Runa she showed to the rest of the worlds. She was softer, more vulnerable. There was this sweetness to her that’s unfathomable now. It was obvious someone had hurt her very badly, and that she lashed out from fear. Back then, I didn’t believe she was the girl she presented to the rest of Asgard; I thought her coldness was just a mask to cover the vulnerability. Someone did a number on her Else, though I never was able to get her to open up enough to tell me who—or what—had hurt her. And I honestly believed I could help her—or at the very least, be a non-damaging presence in her life.” Forse shook his head. “Talk about a gross misjudgment of character.”
For the millionth time, my heart tugged at Forse’s actions. He was just so very kind. And I so very much adored him for it.
“I don’t think you misjudged her back then, Forse. Runa changed, but when you were together, I believe she still had a chance at choosing a good life. Maybe she still does.” I sighed. “You’re a good guy, Forse Styrke. I didn’t understand your previous assessment of Runa, but I know you saw more good in her than the rest of us did when you were together. And I respect you for wanting to be there for someone who needed a healthy dose of light.”
“Yeah, well, look where it got us.” Forse nodded at his arm. “Let’s take an hour and comb through your mom’s journals—see if your mom explains how the whole unifying thing works; if it has anything to do with spirit communication or not. Do you want to stay on the coms and read together?”
“Yes. But your five minutes are up and you promised me you’d rest. Another few hours of sleep will do you a lot more good than reading old diaries with me.”
“I promised I’d rest, but there’s no way I’m waiting a few hours to come and find you.” Forse didn’t blink.
“Okay, let your body regenerate for an hour and call me again when you wake up.”
“I feel fine,” Forse protested.
“Your energy says otherwise. And I’m sorry, but I’m not letting you go back in the field without being fully charged.”
“I’m not a battery,” Forse groaned. “But I know you see things I can’t, so fine. You have thirty minutes. If Henrik’s guesstimate on the locator’s performance time was right, that’s the earliest it might be able to pick up a trace on you. The minute it does, we can move out.”
I smiled. “Then I’ll expect you here in thirty-five.”
“It’s a date.” Forse’s eyes crinkled. “And Elsa?”
“Hmm?”
“I miss my hjärtat.”
With that he signed off, leaving me with a warm feeling in my chest. Runa’s blast might well have been the best thing that could have happened to Forse…and to me.
It had opened up Forse’s heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WHILE I WAITED FOR Forse to come for me, I positioned my back against the cell door and turned on my communicator. Runa wouldn’t be able to see me through the window at this angle, and if the door opened I could just turn off my screen. My arm hummed, and I opened the document to the first journal I came across. It was dated before I was born.
June 3. Today I accompanied Ragnar to Jotunheim. Things have gotten so dark there. Their king lost all sense of compassion when his would-be daughter-in-law disappeared. Although I empathize with his heartbreak for his son, I cannot comprehend his path. Instead of reaching out to the girl, who clearly wants nothing to do with the giants’ reign of cruelty, he put a hit on her. Ragnar believes the girl returned home to Vanaheim, but I doubt she would expose her loved ones to the tyrant’s wrath. Most likely she sought protection among the dwarves. Their alliance with the dragons all but ensures peace in their realm, and their dislike of the frost giants would make them sympathetic to the girl’s plight. I will continue my own search for Lifa, but I will do so with extreme caution. The king’s rage is terrible.
While we were in Jotunheim, Ragnar negotiated a treaty with the ruler’s youngest son. The prince was reluctant to enter into an agreement with Asgard, but I located a weakness in his emotional center—a pebble-sized hole near his heart, awaiting the return of his runaway bride. When I spoke to his spirit, I saw it was only partially dark—not yet fully tarnished. And so we were able to come to a meeting of the souls. For now.
I read the last few lines twice as Mom’s words sunk in. Forse had been right. Unifying was about connecting with another being on a spiritual level. I mentally kicked myself again for not reading Mom’s journals earlier. Of course my mother’s journals would be about more than falling in love with my dad. If I’d stopped to think it through, I would have realized her grown-up journals would have more depth than my teenage ones. But I’d been so wrapped up in my grief and fear, I’d failed to see the lifeline she left behind. All those tears over not having anyone to teach me…and the textbooks had been in a box labeled “Stuff From Mom’s Closet” all along. Sigh. It was such a universal truth. So often the answers were right in front of us—we just had to get outside our own heads to see them.
I scanned through the communicator, reading entries that confirmed Forse’s theory again and again. I lost myself in my mother’s words, her familiar scrawl embracing me in comfort as I imagined her reading her journals aloud. When I finished that file, I clicked it closed and opened another, reading until I came to a page that stopped my heart cold. No. Way. I read it again, my pulse accelerating as I realized how connected my mother had been to my fate. If only she’d done what she set out to do, maybe none of this would be happening…
December 12. Lifa’s daughter arrived at my home today. I haven’t seen her since her mother’s death—Runa has rebuffed my offers to do a healing since Lifa’s passing, and continues to deny my requests to perform a cleansing. Sadly, this refusal precludes me from giving her a permanent Asgardian placement, and she remains in the custody of her temporary guardian. Seeing her today c
ame as a shock—the girl has her mother’s eyes. It was the first thing I noticed when she came over with Forse Styrke to help me bake for St. Lucia’s. From what I gather, they are together. I should be happy that Lifa’s daughter found such an upstanding young man—Forse certainly will not repeat Runa’s father’s crimes—but I cannot help but feel unsettled. Forse has always been so close with my children, I feel as if he is a part of our family. His soul is filled with light, despite the heavy path he must walk as God of Justice. He deserves a partner who emanates an equal brightness…and truth be told, I have always seen him ending up with my Elsa.
Me too, Mom!
Runa can sense something between them. She watches my Elsa with unsettling calculation. She looks angry, or maybe jealous.
When I reached out to her spirit today, her energy was cold. She has a good dose of her father’s darkness, but tempers it with what little she inherited of her mother’s light. Her spirit is torn—it has not completely given itself to her father, but I sense his energy pulling on her. No doubt he will pull out every stop to bring her into his fight. I will do what I can to keep her on the path her mother wanted for her, but Runa keeps her spirit locked so tight inside her heart, I am not sure if I will be able to reach it.
And I am afraid of what will happen to her…and to us…if I fail.
My arm dropped into my lap as I finished reading. Of course my mother knew Runa. Forse, Tyr, and Henrik were pretty much joined at the hip all through forever, and once Forse started dating Runa she invited herself along everywhere he went. Thanks to my parents’ open-door policy, the boys—and Runa—were at our house a lot. But I hadn’t known Mom knew Runa’s mom. Until today, I hadn’t even known Runa had a mom. If Mom’s journal was correct, Runa had been lying to us from day one. It sounded like Lifa had passed away before Mom wrote that journal entry. But if Runa’s father was still trying to pull her into his darkness, whatever that meant, then he was still alive when Runa showed up…and might even still be alive now.
