The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  She licked a paw at him, and rubbed her whiskers with it. What did you want to ask me?

  “With Sigrun and Adam getting married, it’s sort of been on my mind. I’m due to hunt in Britannia for Saraid again, soon . . . .”

  Yes? What does one have to do with the other?

  “Maybe this would be easier with you in human form. I feel an absolute idiot asking this of a cat who’s grooming herself at me.”

  Lassair shifted back. She’d taken care, previously, to wear clothing not entirely dissimilar from Sigrun’s normal attire—a bodice, a shirt, and jeans, or at least, their semblance. This time, she was back in her favorite diaphanous, sari-like garment of golden silk. “You’re trying to kill me,” Trennus told her, with no conviction at all in his voice.

  Of course not. You just fed me. Her tone was content. What was your question?

  “How would you feel about being introduced to my family while we’re in Britannia anyway?”

  She went very still. I . . . don’t know. I don’t mind Stormborn and Steelsoul Godslayer and Emberstone knowing my Name. But not your whole family, I think.

  “Oh, gods. I . . . hadn’t even thought that far ahead. I just meant . . .” Trennus winced. “I meant, introduced to them as the woman I . . . well, love. Share my life with.”

  Share a soul with.

  “They probably don’t need to know that part. They won’t understand.”

  Are you really sure they’ll understand about a spirit, at all? There are any number of very bad stories about spirits who steal away men’s souls, mostly having to do with sex. Suddenly, of her own accord, she resumed her firebird form. A sure sign she wanted to have this conversation without his mind being clouded. She wanted to be fair to him . . . and that amused and touched Trennus in equal measures.

  “There are any number of bad stories about summoners who bind demons and spirits as slaves for the sex, too,” he pointed out. “I’m not likely to look any better to them.”

  Then perhaps it’s just better if they don’t know.

  “I don’t really want to hide you forever, dear one. I’m not ashamed. Just . . . it’s not entirely everyone’s business, any more than it’s anyone’s business that Livorus finally found himself a pleasant and discreet mistress, or that Kanmi and Bastet plainly aren’t getting along.”

  They haven’t slept together in a year. Lassair’s tone was matter-of-fact.

  “All right, I didn’t need to know that. How in the gods’ names did you know?” Trennus shook his head rapidly.

  He is angry and frustrated, and I just know.

  Trennus shook his head again. That was definitely more intimate information than he had ever wanted to know about Kanmi. “Anyway, all of that is . . . well, part of the reason I keep asking you to take your favored form when we go over to Sigrun and Adam’s apartment.”

  I know. I haven’t yet. She hesitated. It took them long enough to stop looking at me as if I meant to eat you to ash and cinders after they realized that we were soul-bound, you and I. Stormborn suspects, though.

  “She does? Why am I not surprised?”

  She is wise. And older than she appears. I do not call her sister without intention or understanding of who and what she is. Lassair’s tone was gentle. I will meet your family, if you wish it, Trennus. But we had best choose another name for me, by which I will be known to them.

  “Hmm . . . Asha, perhaps? I think it means hope in Sanskrit.”

  Asha will do nicely. The firebird cocked her head at him.

  “We should probably talk about the other issue, too,” Tren told her, grimacing, and sat down at the kitchen table. He didn’t really want to address this, but if they didn’t hash it out now, he’d just be in for this conversation again later. Probably in Britannia. “We’re bound to each other.”

  Yes, but there is neither master nor servant between us. We know each other’s Names. You have given me much of yourself. You could not even compel me now, if you wished to do so. I give to you freely, of my own accord, and do not make of you a slave or a pet, any more than you do me. The firebird sounded nettled. Humans overcomplicate things that are very simple.

  “Yes, but that’s because there’s not as much room for nuance in the language. They’ll hear ‘bound spirit’ and think slave. Which you’re not.” Trennus looked at her, and met those cabochon eyes. “I think I should unbind you.”

  I do not think you have the power to do so. Lassair cocked her head to the side, and fanned out her wings and tail, as if inviting him to admire her magnificence. If you unbind me, even if I permitted you to do so, you would be giving up what you have given me. I would be loosed, with eighty percent of your soul . . . or I would have to return it to you. Her tone was sad. And I do not think I have ever felt more real than with your spirit indwelling. I would miss it. Terribly. And I do not know how much of Tlaloc’s power I have . . . truly assimilated.

  “I free you,” Trennus whispered, making a little tossing gesture. “Keep it. It was freely given.”

  And I do not free you, Flamesower. Her tone was firm as she resumed her human form. You are mine. Humans who do not comprehend what is between us have a very limited understanding, and are not worth your time. We serve each other, because we make each other happy. We give to one another. I see words in your mind. Demeaned? Should I not be the one to tell you if I feel lessened by holding your soul within me? I do not. I feel . . . empowered. She slipped through the table and suddenly sat on his lap, straddling him and Trennus looked up as she started to kiss along his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and hoped, distantly, that there wasn’t a price-tag on this kind of happiness, but if there were? He was fairly sure he was ready to pay it.

  ___________________

  Caesarius 31-32, 1956 AC

  The Roman calendar had been regularized, centuries ago, to having three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, and an additional day inserted every four years. Caesarion the God-Born had looked at the incredible disarray that the old calendar had been in, shaken his head, and consulted with natural philosophers until it was fixed. As such, every month in the year but three had thirty days in it. Iulius, being named for Julius Caesar, had thirty-two. So did Caesarius, re-named for Caesarion by his son from Sextilis, previously the sixth month in the calendar. December, previously the tenth month, retained that somewhat illogical name, given that it was now the twelfth month in the calendar . . . but was given thirty-one days each year, and it received a thirty-second every four years, which was treated as an extension of the new year’s holidays. Overall, it made for a fairly logical calendar with few questions in it, but it did make the longest and hottest days of summer seem to drag a bit every year.

  The weather in Burgundoi, however, on the last days of Caesarius was a mild sixty-seven degrees, thanks to the sea breezes wafting in from the Pacifica Ocean. Adam had been surprised at how many of his former colleagues in the JDF had responded to what had been a slightly short-notice wedding announcement. He’d started off as an optio, effectively a second-in-command under a lower-ranked centurion, and had resigned from the Judean levy forces as a ranked centurion, but not as a first-file centurion. He’d commanded up to forty men near the end, but the only way up in the JDF would have been to take on command of larger and larger units. Truthfully, now that he was in the Praetorians, and working on Livorus’ staff, he probably did coordinate with eighty people a day, but there just seemed to be less paperwork, somehow. And what politics there was in this job, was largely Livorus’ concern, and not Adam’s.

  But as a result of that former life in the JDF, Adam knew a newly-appointed primus pilus centurion—his old commander, in fact, Tamir ben Simcha. He also numbered among his acquaintance a handful of other people who’d been on the Wall with him, who’d scraped graffiti right into the rocks, just like hundreds of others before them. Tal ben Tovia and Oved ben Niv had both flown all the way from Judea for the ceremony. “Mostly out of curiosity,” Tamir admitted, dryly. “You’ve been
in and out of Judea a few times and on the news a few more times than that. Was beginning to think you’d forgotten those of us still stuck on the Wall.”

  “Oh, never that,” Adam replied, accepting the wrist-clasp in the airport’s hustle and bustle. Ben Simcha hadn’t changed, other than to add more salt and pepper to his short hair—he’d always affected a short, Roman-style cut, mostly to conceal the fact that he was balding. Ben Simcha had been the commander who’d reviewed him after the djinn attack, and who’d ordered him to fire on the approaching truck filled with ‘deserters.’ And he’d also been the one who’d told the tribune that it had been his order, and that he stood by the order. Adam trusted the man, implicitly.

  Tal was a farmer’s son, and Oved was a diplomat’s. Tal was lanky and taciturn, but had an uncanny eye for terrain and where there were hiding places. Oved spoke three dialects of Persian fluently, and had a bright smile that put people at their ease. They’d been good teammates, and good friends . . . and had looked just as curious as Tamir, as Adam met them at the gate to their flight area. “I’ve never even been out of Judea before,” Tal admitted. “Ten feet into Persia doesn’t count, right?” He did all but stick his head out the window of their motorcar as they drove across the city. “It’s so green here. I don’t even know where to look first. It’s like my eyes have been starved of this color all my life. There’s too much of it.”

  Adam had chuckled over that, and just raised his eyebrows when they fired questions at him in the vehicle. Had he already had an ufruf, the blessing on the groom conducted at a synagogue a week before the actual wedding? Adam had, with a certain amount of discomfort, allowed his parents to arrange that, since they’d flown up to Rome a week before the actual wedding to do these sorts of things for him. Neither he nor Sigrun had wanted to take an entire week off before the ceremony to handle wedding details in Burgundoi. Even the traditional week of not seeing one another before the wedding? They’d laughed it off. They lived together and worked together. Traditional separation would be impossible, even if they’d wanted to go through with it.

  But in little things, they tried to accommodate his mother’s scruples. For instance, both Gothic and Judean rites required a betrothal ceremony to be conducted ahead of the wedding itself, though the Gothic ceremony consisted solely of taking one another’s hands in the presence of witnesses, and promising to marry each other. They’d done that at the Roman synagogue, with Sigrun looking a little apprehensively around her, clearly trying not to let even a single rune-mark show. The wedding was supposed to be about them, and about joy, and it had all somehow gotten messy and complicated, with Abigayil insisting that he needed to do as many things as possible that would preserve his Judean identity. On the grounds that “When you look back on this in twenty or fifty years, you won’t have given up who you are, and won’t regret it.”

  Adam wondered, yet again, if his mother even knew who he was.

  Out loud in the car, he only replied, “Yes, my parents arranged for it in Rome. And before you ask, yes, there’s a mikvah here in Burgundoi.” A mikvah was a ritual bath for purification, with the water drawn from non-stagnant sources. Rainwater was acceptable, so long as it was gravity-fed from the roof, for example. A lake or a stream, yes. Water from a tap, in spite of Roman hygiene practices? No.

  Trennus had gotten a rather amused look on his face when Adam had explained this. “The wild water of a place, not tamed, then?”

  “You’re going to tell me that this is fairly common in magic?”

  “Well . . . yes?” Trennus had hunched his shoulders, looking sheepish. “There are even legends that an evil spirit can’t cross running water.” Trennus had considered that. “I wouldn’t want to bet my life on that, though. But large quantities of salt water, I’d risk.”

  Adam had looked at his best friend for a moment, not smiling. One of the things he genuinely liked about Tren, and Kanmi, too, was the fact that they said what was on their mind. Tren would step gently, but he’d still say it. He waited for a moment, and then let Tren off the hook. “I’m actually aware. I’ve been to India. I’ve seen people bathing in the Ganges to purify their souls.” Adam had shrugged, and the conversation had mostly ended there, with Tren’s look of relief at knowing he hadn’t offended Adam.

  Tamir admitted, “I’m surprised they have a synagogue here.”

  “It’s a fairly cosmopolitan city. I think there’s at least one temple for every faith here.”

  That being said, it was clearly a Gothic city, as evinced as he drove them past the towering skyscrapers with the gargoyles rampaging up and down their sides. Adam had finally given in and asked Trennus if any of the statues had bound spirits attached to them. Trennus had nodded, wide-eyed, and told him, All of them.

  “You have a shoshbin lined up?” Oven asked now, staring up at the gargoyles on the closest building. The shoshbin was the best man, who took care of any wedding expenses on the day of, looked after the rings, made sure the groom didn’t arrive hung-over, and generally was a servant for the day. Adam could have asked any of these three, but he hadn’t seen any of them in five years.

  “Yes. Good friend of mine. Trennus Matrugena. Try not to stare when you meet him. He’s a Pict, and they’re . . . colorful. Also, he’s a summoner, but definitely one of the good guys.” Adam had pulled in at the hotel at that point, ignoring the wide-eyed looks he was getting, all around.

  His former colleagues gaped at Trennus as the Britannian strode across the lobby and offered a wrist-clasp. Adam had gotten used to the height, the braids, the tattoos, the glasses, the kilt, and . . . yes . . . the phoenix on his shoulder. Damned few Britannians of any tribe got assigned to the Wall, not every Britannian was a Pict, and . . . not every Pict was Tren. So it was indeed a shock for his old friends. “Nice to meet you,” Tren told them. “We’ll have to exchange embarrassing stories about Adam later. All right, you’ll have to tell me some. He’s too well-behaved around all of us for me to have any.”

  “We might have to invent a few,” Tamir said, gruffly, and then looked at Adam. “So, do we get to meet the bride, as well?”

  Adam grinned. He’d already spotted Sigrun across the lobby, giving him space and time. Also, he’d long since realized that she was inherently oddly shy. Growing up completely isolated from other human beings, other than her father and her pedagogue, and then being trained in the Odinhall with bear-warriors, no other females around, and then being dropped directly into the legions . . . had left marks. She had enormous empathy, and understood people, but her ability to deal with them was extremely limited. Adam, on the other hand, had grown up in a large and very vocal family. He had few inhibitions in groups, and made friends readily.

  As such, he beckoned her over now, and introduced her . . . and was pleased by how she lit up a little when the others all accepted her wrist-clasp with brother-and-equal grips. “You’re the last guests to arrive, other than my family,” Sigrun told the men. “They’ll all be getting in late tonight.” Her tone turned a little grim.

  “That doesn’t sound promising,” Tamir told her.

  “I would rather wrestle with one of Trennus’ spirits than deal with my family.” Sigrun managed a smile to make it sound less bad. “It’s a morning ceremony, everyone. And while Adam has decided to fast today, apparently everyone else is free to eat. So there’s a table reserved over in the restaurant for everyone in the party.”

  “I’ll be there,” Adam said. “It’s just that I’ll be drinking water and wishing I weren’t.”

  Sigrun chuckled and stepped away to deal with something at the front desk. As she did, Tamir put a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “All right. Truth now, son. Exactly which demon did you sign away your soul to, to get her?”

  Trennus coughed into his hand. Adam’s eyes flicked towards his friend, and he choked down his own laugh. “None. I swear.” He raised his right hand.

  Livorus was staying at a separate hotel, guarded by different lictors for the occasion, and thus, co
uldn’t make it to the dinner. But at this little gathering, in a private room in the restaurant, Ehecatl was there, with his wife, Coszcatl, who was truly lovely in a thoroughly Nahautl way. She bubbled over with enthusiasm at meeting the other lictors at last, and actually gave Sigrun a hug, which made the valkyrie blink. “Our eldest couldn’t make it,” Ehecatl told the others, shrugging. “Mazatl just finished his first two years at a calmecac. He’s received his Jaguar tattoos. But these are my younger two children.” He introduced a twelve-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl, both wide-eyed at their surroundings, and a little shy.

  “Carrying on the family tradition, I take it?” Kanmi asked, bringing his sons the to table.

  Ehecatl grinned, clearly fiercely proud of Mazatl. “Perhaps he, too, will be recruited by the Praetorians someday.”

  “Not soon, I hope,” Coszcatl said, her tone fervent. “I was used to worrying about you. I could put it to the back of my mind. But worrying about Mazatl . . . .”

  “Ah, so you care more about our first-born than about me.” Ehecatl’s elaborate sigh of chagrin fooled no one, especially not his wife, who just laughed at him.

  “No, no. It’s just that it’s too soon. He was wearing swaddling not two years ago, I swear.”

  Their amicable teasing was in stark contrast to Bastet’s complete absence. Kanmi had brought his sons, as promised. The two boys had met his co-workers in Judea, of course, but that had been months ago, and Bodi had complained about bad dreams about a monster trying to get into the house more than once since then. Kanmi had dealt with that by making his son a little wooden sword and telling him to keep it under his pillow. “Most monsters in Rome are very small monsters. It’s rowan wood. Very magical,” he’d told his son, straight-faced. “If a monster gets in the room? Call for me or your pedagogue or your mother, and whack the monster with the sword. Should take care of that. But be careful it’s not one of the house-spirits. They won’t like that.”