Silent Shield

by S. T. Bende

  It was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 11

  WE SLEPT STRAIGHT THROUGH our morning class. Morgan had knocked on our door before she left, but I mumbled something about food poisoning and she’d promised to bring us her notes. By early afternoon, we’d pulled ourselves together enough to nurse steaming mugs in the Kappa Mu dining room. I was on my second coffee—and already feeling the caffeine-induced jitters—when a mini-skirt-wearing mean girl sauntered down the steps. Lexi cast a disparaging look around the room. When her eyes settled on me, she arched one brow, jutted her hip, and strolled toward our table. Her face sparked with ill-contained triumph, and I took another hit of my beverage to summon both strength and grace.

  Frigga knew, I was going to need it.

  None of us addressed Lexi when she positioned herself in front of our table. Instead, we raised our mugs to our lips and drank.

  Patience, I prayed. Gods give me patience.

  “Well?” Lexi placed one hand on her hip.

  I continued sipping my coffee.

  “Aren’t you going to defend yourselves?” she pressed.

  Janna sighed loudly. “For what, exactly?”

  Lexi’s nostrils flared. “The three of you stayed out all night. That is conduct unbecoming of a sister and an automatic demerit.”

  “What makes you think we stayed out all night?” I asked.

  “I saw you come in, Inga.” Lexi said not-my-name as if it were a dirty word. “That same hot driver that you left with last night dropped you off at sunrise.”

  So she was familiar with Torstein.

  My gaze slid over to Janna. She shrugged. “We stayed out. We accept the demerit. Now please move so I can get another cup of—”

  “Hi there, ladies.” A smiling Meri strolled up to our table. “What are you up to to—oh.” Her gaze moved from Janna to Lexi to me and back. “Not again,” Meri groaned. “Lexi, what’s your problem this time?’

  “Why do you automatically assume I have a problem?” Lexi asked.

  “Because we’ve done this dance way too many times.” Meri crossed her arms.

  Lexi lifted her chin. “For your information, these three stayed out all night. I’ve issued a demerit for their infraction, but I think leadership should take a long look at whether our guests are accurately upholding the values we revere in this sorority.”

  Meri rolled her eyes. “Lexi. You’ve stayed out plenty of times.”

  Lexi’s mouth flapped open. “I have not!”

  “Just because you don’t write yourself up doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t see what you do.” Meri shook her head. “Not that we care—you’re only young once, right? And so long as you’re not hurting anyone, I give zero hoots what you do with your free time.”

  I took a slow drag on my coffee. This was getting good.

  “Well, I do care. And these three are making our house look bad to the rest of the Row. Automatic demerits have been issued.” Lexi looked as if she’d just won a tournament.

  Meri looked at Janna. “Did you guys break curfew?”

  “We did,” Janna admitted. “We accept our punishment.”

  My captain was far too honorable to lie—unless it was a professional necessity, of course.

  “That’s very honest of you.” Meri uncrossed her arms. “And this house has always respected honesty. Which is why we offer a work-off system for minor-infraction demerits. Did Lexi tell you about that?”

  I arched my eyebrows and stared at Lexi. “She did not.”

  “Oh, come on!” Lexi huffed.

  “I’m making my grandmother’s potato lefse for the senior center.” Meri pointed to the kitchen. “I bake for all the big Scandinavian holidays, and since Saint Lucia’s is this weekend, I’m dropping off a batch a few days early. If you want to help me, you can work off your demerit.”

  Brigga put down her mug. “We’d love to.”

  “Thanks, Meri,” Janna said.

  Lexi turned on one heel and stormed angrily away.

  “Seems like that’s settled.” Meri rubbed her hands together. “Shall we?”

  I picked up my mug and crossed to the beverage table for another refill. Then I followed my friends into the kitchen, tied on an apron, and washed my hands.

  “Where are the potatoes?” Brigga asked.

  “Mmm?” Meri pulled a black-footed pan from the cupboard. She unknotted its cord, and plugged it into the wall. Then, she crossed the pantry and pulled out a bag of flour. “Oh, I’m not using potatoes.”

  “I thought you said you were making your grandmother’s potato lefse?” I walked to the counter.

  “I am.” Meri grinned. “She makes it with instant potatoes.”

  What the Helheim was an instant potato?

  “We’ve never, uh, done it that way.” Janna shot me a curious look.

  “It’s super easy. I actually mixed half the dough yesterday, so I could cook it today. That way I’m not flipping lefse for hours and hours.” Meri rubbed her arm with a laugh.

  “Sounds good.” Brigga pushed up her sleeves. “Where do we start?”

  Meri pulled several baking dishes from the refrigerator. “These are ready to be cooked. One of you can roll out the balls, one can cook the lefse, and one can help me mix up the new batch. Anybody have a preference?”

  “I’ll roll,” Brigga offered.

  “I’ll cook,” Janna chimed in.

  “Guess I’ll mix.” I moved to stand beside Meri. We’d planned to make her grandmother’s lefse with her a few weeks back, but life—and the mission—had intervened. “I’ve never done it this way—we use flour back home.”

  “Hardangerlefse? I love that version.” Meri passed me a massive bowl and a mixing spoon. “Your arms look stronger than mine. You can mix.”

  “Deal.” I looked around. “Where’s the recipe?”

  Meri tapped her head. “Up here. Ingrid, go ahead and put five cups of water on the stove to boil. Janna and Brigga, I’ll show you how to roll out the dough.”

  I crossed to the big island countertop and reached overhead. After pulling down a copper pot, I moved to the sink and filled it with water. While I fumbled with the stove, Meri demonstrated the proper rolling technique.

  “Use plenty of flour on your mat.” She sprinkled a healthy portion of white dust onto the counter. “And be sure to use some on your rolling pin—it keeps the dough from sticking.”

  “You want them to be thin?” Janna’s brow was furrowed in concentration. I didn’t know much about my captain’s pre-shieldmaiden life, but I guessed that she hadn’t spent much—if any—time baking.

  “Within reason,” Meri said. “We don’t want them to tear when we pick them up.”

  “Right.” Janna got to rolling.

  “Brigga, have you flipped lefse before?” Meri asked.

  “Yes, but not on one of these.” Brigga eyed the black-footed cooking circle.

  “I love this pan. But it does tend to stick, so be sure to spray a light layer of oil every now and then.” Meri picked up a cylinder labeled cooking spray and pressed down on its top. A thin burst of liquid shot at the circle. “I like to wait until bubbles form to flip my lefse, but if you have your own system, use that. I’m sure it’s great.”

  She handed Brigga a long wooden flipping stick, then picked up a box labeled waxed paper.

  “I also ball up some of this and dust the excess flour from the pan—keeps those burn marks at a minimum, and prevents the taste from being compromised.”

  “Thanks, Meri.” Brigga stared. “That’s a good tip.”

  No doubt our disseminator was trying to figure out how to bring the box home for reproduction.

  “Okay, Ingrid.” Meri grabbed another copper pot from the top of the island. “Let’s get mixing.”

  Meri added butter and salt to the boiling water before handing me an enormous box labeled instant mashed potatoes. As I dumped the dried flakes into my bowl, Meri stirred the pot.

  “Do you do thi
s often?” I asked. “Make big lefse batches to donate?”

  “I make dishes for all the big holidays,” Meri said. “The seniors love it. I do waffles for Syttende Mai, lefse for Saint Lucia, kransekake for Midsommers . . .”

  “You must be a really accomplished baker.” Brigga looked over. “Kransekake is hard.”

  “I make it every Christmas with my grandmother.” Meri tapped her wooden spoon on the pot. “We should make that together too—before I leave for winter break.”

  If we were still here at winter break, the world would be in all kinds of trouble.

  “How will you be spending your time off?” Janna asked.

  “I’m going home to Minnesota. Hopefully my plane doesn’t get a snow delay this year.”

  I glanced at Janna. We’d learned the giant metal dragons were planes . . . after we’d referred to them otherwise, then been forced to pretend we’d been joking.

  “My family always comes over for a huge Christmas Eve celebration,” Meri said as she poured the contents of the pot into my bowl. “My cousins and I spend the entire day baking with Grandma, and then we try not to eat it all before the actual feast. If we’re lucky, a few of the dishes survive.”

  My spoon made slow work through the dried potato, butter and water mixture. “It sounds like a fun tradition

  “It is.” Meri added milk to my bowl. “Plus, we take plenty of sledding breaks. There’s never a lack of snow back home, and we always have a snowman-building contest after the big sled races. Girl cousins versus boy cousins. The girls usually win.”

  “As they should,” Janna said seriously. “We do similar winter solstice competitions back home. Ours are ski races, but the boys haven’t won a match in five years, so maybe we should offer them a sledding option.”

  I bit back my smile. Janna had told me the shieldmaidens’ record was impressive, but I hadn’t realized we’d held our streak for quite so long. I’d definitely be brushing up on my cross-country when we got back to Valkyris. I didn’t want to bring shame to my squadron.

  Let’s just focus on having a Valkyris to get back to.

  Sigh.

  “Sledding is great.” Meri put the milk back in the refrigerator. “Even my grandma gets in on it. She’s eighty going on eighteen. Her motto is, ‘Always say yes to adventure.’”

  “She sounds wonderful,” Brigga said.

  “She is. We talk every week, and we send funny e-mails back and forth. She’s the only person in the world I’ll watch one of those dumb cat videos for. But they just crack her up!” Meri laughed. “I guess they kind of crack me up, too.”

  I had no idea what a cat video was. Thankfully, Meri kept talking.

  “She came to America all by herself—her family owned a business in Norway, but she wanted to see the world before she settled down, so she got a job as a stewardess. She fell in love with an air traffic controller she met at the Minneapolis airport, they got married, and here we all are.”

  My forearm burned as I continued turning my spoon.

  “That must have been scary for her,” Brigga said. “Moving somewhere all alone.”

  “I’m sure it was at first,” Meri said. “But as time went on, she built a family for herself. She had my grandpa, and she was very involved in their church. Some of the ladies there were immigrants, too, and they formed a pretty tight group. They looked after each other’s kids, and celebrated the holidays together, and went camping in the summers. Grandma always says her found family is every bit as important to her as the one she was born into.”

  A smile tugged at my lips. I could certainly relate to that. My squadron, my friends in Valkyris, Axel—they’d grown to occupy more space in my heart than I’d ever thought possible. I hadn’t always had the most secure life, but now I had a place and a purpose worth fighting for. Family, no matter how you came to it, was everything. And I would do everything in my power to protect the one I’d come to be a part of. Because family was worth any risk. Love was worth any risk.

  Wasn’t it?

  “Well done, Ingrid.” Meri interrupted my thoughts. “I’d say that dough is mixed enough. Now we mold them into little balls and place them in covered baking dishes. We’ll leave these to chill overnight. I can roll them out tomorrow.”

  “How big do you want them to be?” I took a fistful of dough in one hand, and shaped it into a sphere. “Does this work?”

  “That’s perfect,” Meri said. “You’ve done this before?”

  “A few times,” I said. The recipe may have changed, but it was nice to know some traditions had lasted through the centuries.

  The chime of the doorbell made me look up.

  “I’ll get that.” Meri dusted her hands on her apron. “You two doing okay over there?”

  “We’re nearly finished,” Brigga confirmed. Beside her was an enormous stack of neatly folded lefse.

  “Wonderful! I can run that batch over to the center this afternoon. Thanks for the help.” Meri slipped out of the kitchen. I finished rolling out my dough, then placed it in the refrigerator. As I closed the door, Meri called out. “Ingrid! Your boyfriend’s here!”

  I quickly washed my hands, and dried them on my apron. Since boys weren’t allowed beyond the dining room steps, I hurried out of the kitchen to meet my visitor.

  “Hei,” I said as I stepped into the entryway. “Long time no see.”

  “Nice apron.” Axel’s gaze roamed up and down my body. “I’ve never seen you in that look before.”

  “Hey.” I swatted him. “I can cook.”

  “I never said you couldn’t.” He paused. “Though you’ve never done it for me, so . . .”

  My fist landed squarely in his bicep.

  Meri chuckled. “I’ll leave you two alone. Good to see you, Axel.”

  “You too.” Axel rubbed his arm. Once Meri was gone, the smile dropped from his face. “We need to get out of here.”

  My muscles tensed. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing bad,” he assured me. “It’s good, actually.”

  “Well?” My stomach churned.

  “Torstein’s outside with the car.”

  “Oh, gods.” I groaned. “What now?”

  “He got a read on Sverrir last night. During that moment right before”—he lowered his voice—“we found Bodil.”

  “How is she doing?” I asked quietly.

  “Torstein says she’s comfortable . . . but he doesn’t think she has long. She hasn’t been up to talking much, but she has managed to brief him on her history with the dark mage.”

  “I know she wants us to reach him. I just don’t think he’s redeemable.”

  Axel frowned. “Neither do I.”

  “So, what happened last night? How did Torstein get a read on him?”

  “Sverrir’s defenses dropped enough for Torstein to pick up on his thoughts, or . . . whatever it is that he does.” Axel shook his head. “Anyway, he saw that Sverrir is still looking for the balboa. He hasn’t found it yet.”

  Oh, thank gods. “That’s great.”

  “That’s more than great,” Axel said. “It means we have a chance to locate and destroy it before he can collect it. And if we do that—”

  “Then he can’t do the spell, and he can’t destroy Valkyris.” I wrung my hands together. It was too much to hope for.

  “We have to act fast. How soon can you get out of here?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. “We’re just finishing up baking lefse.”

  Axel didn’t bat an eye. “Bring some of that with you.”

  “It’s for the senior citizens.”

  “Oh. Well . . .” His lips turned down. He looked like somebody had just taken away his prized dragon.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I amended. “Give us fifteen minutes to clean up and change.”

  “I’ll meet you in the car. I’ll be the one holding the broadsword.”

  He leaned down to brush my forehead with his lips. Then he turned for the door and let himself ou
t. With each step, the muscles of his backside flexed beneath his fitted pants. Not that I was staring at Axel’s butt. I was a girl on a mission—focused, determined . . .

  And not the slightest bit distracted.

  Snort.

  Chapter 12

  FOR ONCE, TRAFFIC WAS light. We made it out of Los Angeles in record time, and followed the freeway signs to San Diego. A light rain broke out as we drove, leaving the roads slick and our fellow drivers extra cautious. Apparently, weather was a liability in the sunny, coastal region.

  Good thing they don’t live in Norway.

  Torstein slowed as he pulled into a crowded lot. We passed a sign reading “Welcome to Balboa Park,” then pulled into a space at the back of the parking area. There were fewer cars here . . . though still more than I’d expected for a weekday afternoon.

  “Don’t these people have jobs?” Axel muttered.

  “Most of them seem to be children.” Brigga pointed out of her window. “Well, children and their guardians. This must be a popular family place.”

  “Of course it is.” Raynor stared out the window. “So, what’s our play?”

  “We don’t exactly have one. When I was here before, I didn’t pick up on anything. We’re shooting in the dark.” Torstein stepped out of the car. The rest of us followed.

  I stretched my arms overhead, tilting my face to the sky so the rain misted my cheeks. It was hardly a downpour—nothing like what we were used to back home. But the dim sky and heavy clouds must have been off-putting to our fellow visitors. A steady stream of parents and children made their way across the lot. They climbed into their cars and fled the not-a-storm.

  “Well, that helps,” I said.

  “Mmm.” Axel studied the area. “This place is huge. What’s the layout?”

  “I grabbed a map the last time I was here.” Torstein reached into the car. He pulled a piece of parchment from the box between the front seats. He opened it up, and we all gathered around. “The zoo occupies the largest piece of land. Off of that are the theatres—one’s old-fashioned, the other more modern. There are several museums—those are here, here, and here.” He pointed. “The archery range is over there.”