Elsker

by ST Bende

  “I love you too, Ull,” I whispered. This was the greatest day of my entire life.

  ****

  Back in my room, I could barely hold my hand steady to dial the international code through my mobile phone. I kept staring at the sparkling ring on my left hand. But the day would not be complete without this phone call, and I willed myself to dial. When the familiar voice answered, I let out the quietest squeal my excitement would allow. “Ardis, I’m getting married!”

  The scream that met my ear wasn’t nearly so soft, and I had to pull the phone away to protect what was left of my hearing. “Oh my god, oh my god, when? Where? To Ull? See, I told you it would work out! His parents love you!”

  “Well…,” I bit my lip. His parents had slipped my mind. “They haven’t met me yet. But I think they’ll be okay.” Would they? I tried not to think about it. Tonight was for celebrating.

  “Oh my god, Kristia. You’re getting married! So things are going good,” Ardis teased.

  “Things are great! We’re at his country house--”

  “Again? Get on with your bad self, sistah!” I didn’t have the heart to crush her inflated opinion of me, so I didn’t mention our sleeping arrangements. “How did he ask? What does the ring look like? Oh Kristia, I can’t believe this is happening!”

  “I can’t believe it either. I always thought you’d be the first one to get married.”

  “Are you kidding me? There are way too many guys out there for me to pick just one. Yet.” Her giggles filled me with happiness.

  “Oh, Ardis, I miss you!”

  “I miss you too! Now tell me how he proposed!”

  I settled back into the overstuffed pillows, recounting almost every detail of my perfect evening.

  “Is he seriously as hot as you say he is? Or are you exaggerating? C’mon Kristia, he can’t really be that sexy. He’s in England.” I had to laugh at Ardis’ reasoning. She was my best friend in the world. Gosh how I missed her.

  I could not wait to introduce her to Ull.

  ****

  A few days later, I woke up in a cold sweat. My nightmare had been so real, I couldn’t be sure this one wasn’t a vision. I reminded myself that my visions had never been particularly useful, so this must have been a dream. Ull had gotten a phone call and escaped to his study so I wouldn’t hear.

  “Ja,” he’d answered anxiously.

  “Ull, it is happening. The Norns have foreseen Balder’s death. It will happen before the snow melts from the mountains -- it will be this spring.” Olaug’s voice crackled through the mobile phone in Norwegian, but somehow I understood all the words. Ull collapsed onto his leather chair.

  “It cannot be so soon. It cannot happen in Kristia’s lifetime.”

  “I am sorry Ull. Ragnarok is beginning. The giants and dark elves have begun to move together, someone is already organizing the attack. All that is left is for Balder to die -- it will give our enemies the opening they need to start this fight. It will happen within five months.”

  “Ragnarok.” Ull dropped the phone and closed his eyes, silent tears falling as I woke up in a panic.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ragnarok

  I SHOULD HAVE TOLD Ull about my dream the minute I woke up, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  “God morgen,” Ull greeted me in the kitchen. He stood at the stove wearing a thick sweater and wielding a spatula. “Have a seat.” He kissed me softly and gestured to the stool at the island.

  “Pancakes today? Yum.” I was famished.

  “You will need your energy. We are taking a hike.”

  “Where to today?”

  “I want to show you my favorite plants in Bibury. And the willows off the Coln are a good couple of miles from here.” He was so relaxed. It didn’t seem right to kill the mood by telling him we were all going to die within months. I could break the news over lunch.

  Of course, I didn’t manage to do that either. This wasn’t the sort of news that should be shared over food. I could tell him right before tea time. And I wouldn’t think about it until then.

  But three hours later, we sat with steaming mugs and I still hadn’t shared my dream. Coward.

  “I win,” I gloated. I took a sip of tea as I captured Ull’s last checker.

  “Again,” Ull muttered. My betrothed was surprisingly bad at board games. Petty as it was, I was pleased to find one thing I could do better than him.

  A low buzzing broke his focus, and he eyed the ringing mobile. I was immobilized by sudden terror. “I apologize, darling.,” he kissed my clammy forehead. “I will only be a minute.” And he darted into the study speaking hurriedly in Norwegian. It was hot when he did that, but for once I was too horrified to notice. “Ja?” I heard him say. Oh, no, no, no. Crimeney, no. I was too late to warn him.

  I crept towards the study, not wanting him to know I was eavesdropping. I heard him collapse into the leather chair. “It cannot be so soon,” he whispered. “It cannot happen in Kristia’s lifetime.” I clapped both hands over my mouth. Ull was silent for a long time, and when he finally spoke his voice was filled with dread. “Ragnarok.”

  I walked to the kitchen, adrenaline pulsing. Why hadn’t I said something sooner? I should have warned him this call was coming. And what was happening to my normally hapless visions? Where were the toenail painting and the laundry folding? That scene played out exactly the way it had in my dream. Oh my God, Ragnarok was coming. And my visions were giving me a front row seat.

  I waited for Ull to come out of his study, but he stayed put. I puttered around the kitchen, appreciating that Olaug left the fridge and pantry well stocked in her absence. Guilt made me hungry. I took out the pitcher of waffle batter and was looking for Ull’s favorite jam in the pantry when I heard him collapse on the couch. I eyed him warily. He’d asked me to tell him about my visions, and I’d been too chicken. Would he want to know that I knew? Or should I let him tell me in his own time?

  “Who was that?” My voice was so high he should have seen right through me.

  “Uh, it was Gunnar.” His eyes darted back and forth, thick worry lines between his brows giving him away. “He wanted to say Happy Christmas.”

  “Is that all?”

  Ull balled his fists and tried to look calm. “That’s all.” He was trying so hard to protect me. I couldn’t let him suffer anything else on his own.

  “Ull, I know. I know it was Olaug and that Balder’s going to die. I know Ragnarok is coming.” I wiped my palms on my pants.

  “Were you eavesdropping? Wait, even if you were, how would you know that? Olaug used Norwegian. Do you speak Norwegian now too?”

  I grimaced. “No more than yesterday. I just… ugh, I’m a huge coward. I’m sorry, I should have told you this morning. But you were so happy, and we were having such a nice time, I didn’t want to bring you down. I’ll be more honest about what I see, I swear I will. I just couldn’t upset you. I’m so sorry--”

  “Kristia, slow down. What are you talking about?”

  “I had a dream last night. Or a vision, I guess. It’s hard to tell what’s what anymore. Olaug called, she told you Ragnarok was starting. Real soon.” With all I’d learned in the past few months, I should have known that it would come true in my lifetime -- the stories Mormor told me, the nightmares I’d had ever since. The battle that would end our worlds. Oh my God, this was really happening. I rubbed at my temples.

  Ull shook his head. “I tried never to speak of Ragnarok -- I did not want you to worry.”

  “Not worry? Ull, we met in Mythology Class. Professor Carnicke talked about Ragnarok the first day of school. You told me you had a dark future. And you told me you’re a god. Between what I already knew and what I picked up from a quick Google search, I know all about Ragnarok.” I crossed to the couch and knelt beside him. “It’s the digital age -- not Viking times.”

  “I apologize Kristia. I only wanted to protect you.”

  “You’re going to have to start trusting me
sometime.”

  “I know.,” Ull rubbed his forehead.

  “And Ull.,” I lifted his chin until he met my eyes. “You don’t have to die. You know that, right?” Granted, the Internet was more than clear on what was going to happen to most of the gods and the earth come Ragnarok, but Inga swore that was all hearsay -- fabrications by Asgardians to protect insecure humans. I was choosing to believe Inga. “You don’t have to let some silly prophecy run your life. You can do that for yourself.”

  “Even gods cannot escape the fates.,” Ull shook his head sadly. “In theory the future can change. But the Norns have prophesied our fall at Ragnarok for as long as I have been alive. Nothing has ever altered it. And I doubt anything can.”

  He looked so hopeless. I sat next to my morose idol on the couch, wishing more than anything that there was something I could do. “Ull,” I laid my head on his shoulder,. “yYou do have some control here. You can fight. You don’t have to resign yourself to this awful future just because some Norns said so. I don’t understand how can you just accept their word as law.”

  “You wouldn’t.,” his eyes filled with a hundred lifetimes of sorrow. “Because it is so different for mortals. But for us, their predictions become truths. I wish it were otherwise.”

  He really believed all this prophecy stuff. “Oh Ull.” There was nothing else to say. Ull rested his head on mine.

  “I thought we had more time. I thought we could live out our human lives, grow old, pass on, long before any of this came to be.” He was despondent. “I cannot protect you after all. I am so sorry, Kristia.” Oh, crumbs on a cracker. Ull was crying. His silent tears fell onto my cheek, and I pressed my hand to the chest of the deity whose greatest fear was coming true. I couldn’t let him face this. There was one thing I could do. Ull would not lose one more person he loved.

  “Listen, I know something else too. I know you aren’t going to become a human. Not for me.” His body was crumpled in defeat. Shaking my head, I voiced my decision. The decision I’d made weeks ago, that same night Inga had told me it was an option. “Listen to me. I want to be like you. I want to be Goddess of Winter. I want to fight for your family -- and for you.”

  Ull’s sharp breath was equaled in severity only by the anger in his eyes. I shouldn’t have known about this option. “Absolutely not. Ragnarok is not a joke, Kristia, and it is coming. I will not let you die for me.”

  “I won’t die.” I wasn’t being stubborn; I really believed my words. “None of us will. Ull, I know I can do this. If I’m with you, then Ragnarok will end without the loss of a single Asgardian life.”

  Ull’s patronizing look made it clear he was unconvinced. “Kristia, darling. You do not know what you are talking about. The Three Sisters have predicted our fall at Ragnarok since the beginning of time. Very little escapes their visions.”

  “Maybe. But they never saw me coming. Elsker never got to tell them about me, remember? So maybe their prophecy would have changed if they’d known what I can do.”

  “I do not follow.”

  “You said yourself, my visions are a gift. That I’d qualify to be a Norn if I’d been born like you. So if I can see things, predict what your enemies are going to do… and if they don’t even know I exist because of this prophecy…” He still wasn’t following. “Ull. Use me! Make me a goddess and let me use my visions to help. I’ll be like an undercover agent. Your enemies won’t be expecting me since no human has ever become a god. Nobody but Jens and Odin even knew it was an option.” The fury in Ull’s eyes blazed as he realized it was Inga who had told me too much about his world.

  The choices he’d never wanted me to have lay in front of him, and he had no control over my decision. The path to joining his realm was clear. And immediate. Under Odin’s test to become a god, only Balder could judge my worthiness,; and he would have to do that before someone killed him. Surely Ull knew all of this, and he was beyond angry that I did too.

  “You do not know what you are saying. Kristia, if you become a goddess then at Ragnarok, our fates are entwined. You will meet the same end that I will, whatever it may be.” I couldn’t comprehend the lifetime of sorrow that this prophecy had caused him. No wonder, in his eons of existence, he’d never gotten married. He believed it would be a death sentence for his bride.

  “Maybe. But I know a few things you don’t.”

  “Oh really? What exactly do you know?” I could tell Ull wasn’t taking me very seriously. My thinly stretched nerves threatened to snap.

  “Listen, I know you’re going to keep Asgard safe, okay? That you’ll imprison whoever is controlling these giants and elves and whatever else is trying to kill us. That you’re going to use magic to trap the perp in some silvery bubble so he can’t hurt us again.” I’d seen as much last week. At the time I thought it was another dream, but recent events made it clear I had to start taking my dreams a lot more seriously.

  “How could you possibly know about the Asgardian prison cell? Or about my magic?”

  “Wait, you can actually do magic?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “Fine. I saw it in another vision. I didn’t tell you because I thought it was a dream. Happy?”

  “Not even a little. This is getting too dangerous for you. If our enemies find out everything you know about us… and them...” Ull shook his head. “Kristia, I do not want you to change for me. I cannot allow you to tie your fate to mine.”

  “Oh, please. Like my fate could ever not be tied to yours. If you are going to… fall,” I choked on the word, “then I want to be with you. You are my life and nothing -- epic battle, death, homicidal giants -- nothing could keep me away from you. I love you,” I finished, hoping he understood how true my words were.

  “And you would choose…” His eyes studied the floor.

  “I would choose to die an Asgardian by your side rather than change a single thing about you. I love you exactly as you are, and I always will.”

  “Kristia, I cannot allow this.”

  “I’m sorry, Ull., Iit’s not your choice to make. I’ll go to Odin by myself -- you know I will. Inga will take me. And you know he’ll let me into Asgard if it means keeping you in his army.” Ull’s eyes burned. He was furious, whether at Inga or me I wasn’t sure.

  “You would go behind my back?” His voice was so cold I almost checked the windows for frost.

  “If it’s the only way to save you, then yes.” I defied him.

  “How could you do this to me?”

  “I’m not doing anything to you. I’m doing this for you.”

  “I do not want this.”

  “Tough. It’s happening. You made this decision the day you asked to borrow my notes.” We stared eye to eye, glaring at each other. I was not going to back down.

  Ull’s shoulders dropped. “Why are you doing this, Kristia? Why do you insist on doing the exact opposite of everything I ask of you?”

  My mouth twitched. “Nobody’s ever told you no before, have they?”

  “Not in this realm.”

  “Well get used to it.”

  Ull gave me a shaky look. “Kristia, are you certain? Do you have to do this?”

  “Absolutely.” I declared without hesitation.

  “I do not agree with this.”

  “I do not agree with letting you march off to your death. Guess we’re even.” We stared at each other. Ull was the first to blink.

  “Then we have work to do.” He stood in resignation, pulling me gently to him and kissing the top of my head softly. “I do not agree with this,” he said again.

  “Do you want me to marry you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then get used to making decisions that work for both of us -- not just you.”

  “This decision does not work for me.”

  “Fine, then get used to doing things that make your wife happy.”

  He looked frustrated, but I knew I had gotten my way. He led me to the table and sat me on his kne
e. Opening his laptop, he began the call he had spent his lifetime hoping he’d never have to make. “God ettermiddag, Olaug,” he said despondently to her image on the screen. “Kristia wants in. Will you arrange for a meeting with Odin and Balder?”

  “Veldig bra! Ja. I would be honored.” Olaug knew what this meant. “Kristia, I do hope Odin gives his consent. You would make a fine goddess.,” she signed off. I sat for a moment as I processed what I might become.

  I smiled bravely. “Do you think he’ll say yes?”

  “I should say absolutely not. He has never allowed it before -- it goes against everything he stands for. But with my luck,” Ull said wryly, “it is not out of the question.”

  “Good. Ull, you have to trust me. Everything is going to work out.” Ull looked unsteady as he faced a reality he’d feared for an eternity. I cupped his perfect face between my hands. Without thinking, I leaned in and kissed him soundly. He started to pull back, but I held his jaw between my palms, forcing our lips to keep contact. He gave in, wrapping both arms tightly around my waist and crushing my torso to his. I lost myself as his arms held me firmly in place and his lips reminded me of how much was at stake. I released my hold on his face and tangled my fingers in his hair, feeling the strands wrap around my engagement ring. His lips were so warm. His breathing grew heavy and he was the first to pull away.

  “Kristia, what are you doing to me?” He groaned. “You cannot kiss me like that to get your way.”

  “I just did.” I smiled lazily. “Now listen. I want to be a god. I can do this. I am going to be just fine. Really.”