by S. T. Bende
Mia blanched. “You’re going to teach me how to talk to spirits? Like a human Ouija board? I’m not sure that’s the best idea. Mama doesn’t take that voodoo stuff lightly, and frankly I’m surprised—”
I shook my head. “It’s not voodoo. It’s actually a lot like science. There are clear steps to take, and since you’re predisposed for it, it’ll come naturally to you. Besides, most spirits are good—filled with light and love. And if you come across one that’s not, well, then you’ll call me in, and we’ll deal with it together. But that’s like, years ahead. We’re going to take this slow and do it right.” I smiled. “We’re going to need you with us for the long haul. You in?”
Mia gripped her teacup. “You know I am. It’s just…well, it sounds even crazier than I imagined.”
“Things with us usually are.” Henrik leaned back. “But you’re a tough flicka. You can handle it.”
Mia sucked in a breath and pulled back her shoulders. “When do we start?”
That’s our human. “How about after your spring break? Let’s give ourselves a few days to regroup. And eat more of your delicious cookies. Did you say there was another batch in the kitchen?”
Mia jumped to her feet. “There are seven dozen cookies, four cakes, and two pies. Y’all left us alone for two days, and we had to pass the time somehow.”
“Plus Mia’s parents and brother arrive soon,” Henrik reminded me. “She wanted to make sure they didn’t go hungry.”
Brynn tilted her head. “Your parents and brother must really like dessert.”
“They do,” Mia blushed. “But really, I just needed to keep myself busy. Henrik knew how to help me do that. Thanks,” she told him.
“What are friends for?” He stood up, pulling Brynn along with him. “Come on, ladies. Let’s do some damage in the kitchen.”
“Ooh, are there more of those white chocolate ones?” Brynn skipped into the hallway, with Henrik close behind. As Mia stood, I gave her a gentle smile.
“You’re going to be great at all of this,” I reassured her. “Tyr wouldn’t have let you get involved with us if he didn’t believe he could keep you safe. And I wouldn’t teach you if I didn’t think you’d be a tremendous asset to Asgard. You know that.”
Mia clutched her cup as she followed me into the hall. “I know. But it’s scary.”
“I know it is. And there’s more scary to come. Tyr has some family stuff he’ll want to talk over with you when he gets home. He went through a lot on this mission, but he’ll be okay. He’s tough.” I nodded.
“He sure is.” Mia paused. “What about you? You faced someone who helped kill your parents. Will you be okay?”
I scanned my feelings, but found no residual anger. Only sadness. “I’ll never be okay with their being gone,” I admitted. “But I was blessed to have parents who loved me and Tyr with every fiber of their hearts. I always knew how adored and cherished I was. Runa never knew that. And if she continues on this path, she never will. If anything, I feel bad for her.” I meant it. “I hope she realizes the value she could bring to the realms, if only she could stop trying to destroy them.”
Mia looked at me for a long moment. “You’re something else, Elsa. You don’t hold on to anything, do you?”
I tilted my head. “Only the things worth holding on to. Like friendships. And family.” I squeezed her arm. “And love. Always love.”
“Speaking of, how is our favorite stubborn justice god?”
“He’s good. We’re good. I think we’re good,” I corrected. “He kissed me.”
“He kissed you?” Mia squealed. “Ohmygod, where? When? Why didn’t you lead with that? That’s huge!”
“It was just one kiss—I don’t want to get my hopes too high, but I think…after everything he went through over the past few days…maybe he’s ready to give us a shot.”
“It’s certainly taken him long enough.” Mia grinned. “Now tell me everything!”
My cheeks warmed. “Didn’t you say you had some cookies for me?”
Mia laughed as she walked toward the kitchen. “I’ll get the sordid details out of you sooner or later!”
“I have no doubt you will. After all, we’ll be spending lots of time together in the coming months. I hope you’re ready, Miss Unifier.”
Mia smiled over her shoulder. “Oh, I’m ready. The question is, are you?”
I didn’t have to scan my feelings to know that I was ready to embrace my new role as Asgard’s Unifier, Mia’s teacher, and Forse’s…well, whatever we were to each other, I was ready for that, too. I was more than ready to take on whatever the Fates had in store for me. And I couldn’t wait to get started.
I joined Brynn at the counter as Mia and Henrik each held up a plate. With a joyful grin, I picked up a cookie and toasted our little group.
“To family. Even our impossibly unconventional, insanely weird, wholeheartedly devoted mash-up of one.”
Mia, Brynn and Henrik held up their cookies. We tapped them together, and they echoed my toast.
“To family.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“ELSA! YOU’RE HERE!” A raven-haired fairy waved joyfully from the top of Alfheim’s tallest waterfall. She spread her wings and leapt from her perch, leaving a trail of golden dust in her wake as she descended. Lithe feet touched down in the grass beside the pond, and Lornara raced to my side in more of a glide than a run.
It was a universal truth that fairies got all the grace.
“Lornara!” I wrapped my arms around my friend, careful not to bump her wings. “How are you?”
“I’m well, but how are you?” Lornara held me at arm’s length. She scrutinized me from head to toe, her mouth turning down as she took in the crimson scab on my forearm. “I heard about what happened in Svartalfheim. Do you need me to heal that arm for you?”
“It’s mending itself, albeit slowly, takk. But I do need your help with something.”
“Anything.” Lornara tossed her long, black curls over her shoulder, and pointed to a bench beside the water. “Shall we sit?”
“Please.” I followed Lornara to the edge of the water. With each step, her fitted dress swished against the tops of her knees in an undulating movement. Even her clothing moved like a classically trained dancer.
“What brings you to Alfheim? Besides my fabulous company, of course.” Lornara lowered herself onto the bench. I followed suit, crossing my ankles as I sat.
“I need to run something by you—one new-ish High Healer to another.”
Lornara smiled. “I’m glad we took on our roles at around the same time—it would have been mortifying to have to learn all of this on my own.”
“It’s a lot easier testing out new remedies on you than on one of the Aesir,” I agreed. “You wouldn’t have gotten half as mad as Forse did when I accidentally made him think he was a cat.”
Lornara giggled. “Have you been practicing your Unifying on Forse too? That god has the patience of a meadow elf, I swear.”
“That’s why I’m here.” I stared at the waterfall. “Has Alfheim selected its new Unifier yet?” When the light elves had lost their Unifier, they hadn’t appointed an interim like we had. For a seemingly Zen-like realm, Alfheim had a surprisingly intense selection process…and a lot of paranoid peacekeeping elves.
“Not yet.” Lornara dropped her voice. “And between us, I don’t know how much longer we can hold out. We’ve been detecting irregular surges of dark energy at one of our portals. And the weather’s been really strange here all winter—some of the elders think it’s one of the Ragnarok markers.”
I knitted my fingers together. “Brynn and I are thinking the same thing. Midgard is having a bizarre winter, too—or at least, the quadrant I’m in is; I think the European quadrant is still holding up all right. But us…we’re due for our third snowstorm in Arcata this month. Third! Arcata is at sea level. In California.”
Lornara shook her head. “Two light realms without official Unifier Keys—no wonder
the dark energy is closing in.”
“We have to stop it. I know I don’t have the authority to do this, and I’m in no way trying to step on Alfheim’s political toes, so we should probably keep this between us, but we’ve got to go rogue or we’re never going to survive this. As Asgard’s interim, I’m enlisting you to act as Alfheim’s until the rightful Keys step up—or in Alfheim’s case, gets elected.”
Lornara paled. “I don’t know if I can hold down both jobs. If Ragnarok really is near, that would mean simultaneously shouldering two full-time, life or death positions.”
“Please, Lornara. You have to help me. The attacks on Asgard, the hits surrounding Tyr, the dark surges at your portals, now the winters…it’s too much. We can’t let the darkness win.”
“I don’t know how to be a Unifier. But then I didn’t know how to be High Healer when we got appointed, either.” Lornara frowned, probably thinking of the untimely deaths of our healing predecessors. They were killed during a peacekeeping mission-turned-ambush in Jotunheim.
“Exactly. We figured that out together—we can crack this, too. I’m starting to get a handle on it—it turns out unifying’s nothing like healing. The last time we brainstormed, we thought we should try removing energy blocks.” I shifted my attention from the cascading water to the wide gold eyes of the fairy beside me. “But it turns out the key to unifying is to speak directly to spirits.”
“Of course,” Lornara said. “Why didn’t we think of that before?”
“Why didn’t I read my mom’s journals before is the real question. Forse pointed me to them, and the answer was in there all along. I brought one with me.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the bound notebook. “I’ve been poring over this one, and I think reading it will help you, too. It’s the first one where Mom mentions talking to spirits.” I sighed. Why couldn’t Keys train their successors from birth, instead of when they came of age? Or at least write everything down in a step-by-step manual? It would have made all of this so much easier.
“I’ll read it cover to cover, and treat it with all the love it deserves.” Lornara gently removed my mom’s journal from my hands, freeing me from my thoughts.
“So you’ll be Alfheim’s undercover interim? And we’ll figure this out together?”
Lornara nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“Takk.” I let out a heavy breath. “I’ll feel a lot better knowing I’m not alone. It’s you and me. And Mia.”
“Your brother’s mortal girlfriend?” Lornara’s curls fell over her shoulder as she tilted her head.
“Yes.” I ran my hands along the smooth grain of the wooden bench. “Mia will be Asgard’s true Unifier. The Norns only need me to be her stand-in until I get her trained. But I hope the three of us can stave Ragnarok off for a little longer.”
“Goddess willing.” Lornara studied the sky, where a thick layer of clouds gathered. “I’m not ready for the end of days just yet.”
“You’re telling me. I’ve never been on a real date; I’m hardly ready to die.”
As if on cue, my new phone rang—the one I’d picked up in Arcata the day after my return from Svartalfheim. I freed the device from my bag, and my face broke into a grin at the name on the screen. “Forse Styrke,” I said, as I tucked the phone to my ear. “Does this mean you’re finally back from Asgard? We thought it was going to take a day—what’s it been, a week?” Actually, it had been two days, twenty-one hours, and fourteen minutes since Forse had left my side. But I wasn’t counting.
“Not just yet.” Forse’s deep voice carried across the realms, sending a flutter through my heart. “Odin’s council is interrogating Runa pretty thoroughly, and I’m sitting in.”
“Make sure they understand that there’s some good left in her—but that she’s extremely volatile, and might not recognize that part of herself for a long time.” I studied the clouds. They’d shifted from off-white to menacing grey.
Tell him you miss him, Lornara mouthed. My cheeks warmed as I waved a hand at her.
“Hopefully they’ll finish up sometime tonight. If so, I’ll have Runa booked by tomorrow morning, and be back at your place mid-afternoon. I’ve got big plans for you.” Forse’s smile came through in his voice.
“Oh, do you?” I flirted. “Big plans like dress warm because it’s cold inside the movie theatre, or big plans like pack a bag because we’re heading to the southern hemisphere to get away from this irrational winter?”
At Forse’s long pause, my heart skidded to a stop. Stupid, Elsa. He kissed you one time. You don’t even know if he’s ready for a relationship. Don’t scare him off!
“Just…big plans,” Forse answered cryptically.
“Oh.” I filled my second energy center with soothing light, and dialed my enthusiasm down a notch. “That’s fine.” No, it’s not.
“I’ve got to get back to the council room, but I am really looking forward to seeing you.”
“Me too,” I said with a forced calm.
“Oh, and Elsa?”
“Mmm?”
“I love you. Just thought you should know that.” Forse lobbed my words from Svartalfheim back at me, and my heart warmed with joy. The brightness filled my entire body, so every one of my energy centers glowed with happiness.
“I love you, too,” I murmured. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you,” Forse signed off, leaving me grinning like an adolescent school girl.
“Things going well with Forse?” Lornara teased.
“Something like that.” I tucked my phone back into my bag and set it on the ground. “But it’s early days, and I don’t want to get my hopes too high.”
Lornara raised an eyebrow. “Something tells me high hopes are just what the healer ordered. You two have been dancing around a relationship for way too long.”
“We’ll see.” I kept my tone light.
“You know I’m a High Healer, too. I can literally see right through you.”
I burst into nervous laughter. “Okay, fine. I’m so excited. And so scared. I don’t want to mess this up.”
“You won’t.” Lornara shook her head. “It’s you and Forse. Justice and Inner Peace. How much more well suited could two Asgardians be?”
“Well when you put it like that, it does sound pretty perfekt.” I grinned back at my friend.
“Let’s go back to my house and have some lunch.” Lornara glanced at the sky. “You’d better Bifrost out of here before that storm hits. You don’t want to be stuck in Alfheim and miss your hot date.”
I stood up and tucked my bag over my shoulder. “The Bifrost works in all weather.”
“Okay. Then don’t you want to hurry home to pull all of your clothes out of your closet and stare at them for hours before settling on your ideal first date outfit?” Lornara asked.
“You got me there.” I linked my arm through hers as she stood, and followed her along the bank of the pond, back to her house. The wind picked up as we moved, bringing a cold chill through Alfheim. I shivered. “Let me know when you finish reading Mom’s journal so we can meet up and strategize. I have a feeling things are going to get colder before they get better.”
“Probably,” Lornara agreed. “But they will get better. Our seers don’t believe the Ragnarok prophesy is set in stone. They think there’s someone out there—someone who hasn’t revealed herself to us yet—who may be able to stop it. And they believe there’s a second female who will be the force behind maintaining peace through the realms for centuries afterwards—maybe longer.”
“Herself? Female? So two girls could save all the realms from the age-old foretelling of darkness, and keep the peace indefinitely?” I paused. “I’m going to run with that.”
“Me, too.” Lornara nodded. “Now, let’s eat. No need to worry about the end of the world at the moment.”
“Deal.” I followed my friend across the grass. She was right—I didn’t want to think about the end of the world today. Because my world would officially begin tomorrow afte
rnoon—the minute Forse came home from Asgard.
Oh, gods, I hope I don’t screw this up.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, A rainbow-colored beam shot down in the woods. I raced around my cabin, gathering food, drinks, and my favorite picnic blanket, and set everything up in the redwood-guarded meadow behind my house. The imminent snowfall had held off, and though a light dusting covered the grove, the sky looked like it would give us at least an hour outside. I pulled my thick sweater tighter around me while I waited in the woods. It felt like an eternity between the time the Bifrost retracted and I heard Forse’s voice, but at long last a familiar figure emerged from the redwoods.
“There you are, hjärtat.” Forse walked through the trees that separated my home from my brother’s. He looked so different from the last time I saw him—he no longer wore the blood-caked, black T-shirt and cargo pants. Now he wore a crisp button-down and jeans that hugged his thighs just enough to showcase the impressive muscles beneath. The fierce Asgardian warrior had been usurped by the intellectual God of Justice. I wasn’t sure which Forse was hotter.
“Hei hei.” I rose from my picnic, smoothing out the front of my ankle-length dress as I stood. I gestured to the sandwiches, bottled Cokes, and array of desserts on the blanket. “I saw the Bifrost, and I thought you might be hungry. But if I forgot anything, I can go back inside and—”
Forse swept to my side and tucked an arm around my waist, hiking me against his chest with a strength that stole my breath. My pulse spiked as he brought his lips to mine, claiming me in one singular, indisputable moment. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pushed my fingers through his hair, relishing the feel of his waves caressing my skin. I pulled him even closer, not wanting an inch of space to separate us. Forse shifted his weight, bringing his foot forward so his leg rested between mine. The sensation of being pressed against him in such an intimate way left me lightheaded, and as my knees buckled, Forse tightened his grip around me.
