Norns of Fate: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Descendants of Thor Trilogy Book Two)

by S. A. Ashdown

  Lorenzo had his back turned to them, staring out toward the sea. ‘Toby, I also have a question.’

  He turned, curling his fingers around the grip of his bow. ‘I don’t understand much of what you said,’ Lorenzo said. ‘I’m new to all this. But forces of nature, that’s something I’m interested in.’ He stepped forward. ‘Did this Consul, did he mention the name Raphael?’

  ‘Raphael,’ Toby whispered. ‘That’s who they wanted us to track.’ He rose to his feet. ‘The Boy who Dwells in Trees. The Anchor’s Friend. They have a name for him in Egyptian too. No trap can hold him. No camera can capture his image. He travels in the wind. He’s a fucking fairy tale!’ Toby kicked at the fire, sending wood sizzling across the ground. Menelaus shuffled backwards. ‘They took Jenny because we didn’t want to hunt a fucking fairy tale!’

  A flock of gulls landed by the stream outside of the tunnel. Lorenzo drew in an exaggerated breath. ‘Looks like this fairy tale has just come true,’ he said.

  The trio watched as a shadow swept into the entrance of the tunnel. Toby grabbed a log, jumping into a defensive stance. Lorenzo covered his mouth as his fangs shot out.

  A light grew from the centre of the shadow – chest, shoulders, arms, legs. Eyes of amethyst in a milky face, lips like rose petals. A mangy fox trotted in behind and guarded Raphael’s side. He picked a caterpillar off his ear and laid it on the soil. ‘I know they seek me,’ he said. Lorenzo shuddered at the sound of his fluid voice, gentle as the stream outside. A shudder of excitement – Menelaus could almost taste it on his tongue, an aftereffect of taking the vampire’s blood. ‘Many times, we have danced around the sun. They never quite catch me.’

  Lorenzo touched Raphael’s shoulder. ‘I think they might be close,’ he said. ‘We need to talk.’ He glanced at Menelaus and Toby. ‘Alone.’

  Raphael slid his arm through Lorenzo’s. ‘Yes, I think that would be best.’

  ‘Be careful, Menelaus,’ said Lorenzo, ‘Theo says your life is in danger.’ He hesitated. ‘Don’t go near any trenches without backup.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning,’ Menelaus replied, but he couldn’t believe that Raphael was permitting the vampire to touch him – anyone to touch him. The boy shrank away from physical contact, with people anyway. The pair backed out of the tunnel as Lorenzo’s warning sank in.

  ‘Wait!’ Toby ran after them but Menelaus intercepted him.

  ‘There’s no point, Tobias. Those two are far beyond our powers.’

  ‘But if I took him to the Praefecti, maybe they’d let Jenny go.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ A bubble of anger burst in his chest. ‘You’re not touching that kid. Even if you could capture him, Lorenzo would tear out your throat. So would I.’ Where had that protectiveness come from? Raphael was older than he could count, probably. And invulnerable. He felt so sure of Lorenzo’s feelings on the matter too – so little blood and he intuited so much about his ex-student. ‘Raphael was there for me once – I can’t let you hurt him. We’ll find Jenny another way. Besides, if she’ll still alive, it’s probably because they’re using her as bait. They’ll be waiting for you.’

  Toby pushed his hand off his arm and glowered. ‘What good are you to me, Laus? You have no powers at all.’

  ‘I’ll get them back.’ How? He swallowed back the queasiness as the plan formed in his mind. ‘I know a powerful warlock. If anyone can return my invisibility, it will be him. I just hope he doesn’t skewer me on his sword first.’

  Toby folded his arms. ‘Tell me that’s not a euphemism.’

  ‘Shut up. It’s a plan, one that could benefit the warlock, as well.’ He glanced around the tunnel. ‘I need a way to contact you.’

  ‘I’ll have to move again soon. The wards I have are weak. I have to replace them every few days. The fact you found me means they’re already ebbing.’ Toby slumped his shoulders, despondent. ‘And I’m out of money.’

  Menelaus nodded at the backpack. ‘How do you feel about appealing to Espen Clemensen’s sense of charity?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘His wards are second to none. And permanent.’

  Toby hissed but went over to pack his things. ‘He hates us, you know that? He might kill us both.’

  ‘He won’t risk that. Not when his son is on trial.’

  ‘When did that happen?’

  ‘I’ll tell you on the way.’

  END OF PART ONE

  Interlude: Raphael

  A Cage to Hold the Wind

  He calls me the wind, but it’s his hand that feels cold on my skin, his metallic breath that tickles my cheeks like the sea breeze.

  He’s been killing again.

  We meander away from the tunnel. I can ascertain our position on the coastline by the movement of the sun. The stars aren’t so far away; I can sense them emerging. Lorenzo slots his sunglasses into place and we pause in the shade of a deep-rooted fir tree. The resident birds immediately come to greet me and peck at the vampire’s fingers. The Dark Elf has no business touching me.

  I regret it when he pulls away, softly cursing under his breath – a murderer watching his language, both funny and desperately sad. ‘You haven’t stopped killing,’ I say, ‘so don’t ask for my blood.’

  He stares back. ‘I haven’t killed in ages,’ he says, but his features are narrow, pained. Does he realise his own lies?

  The honesty in his light eyes gouges at my chest. While the butterflies inside abate, I stroke the robin on my wrist, still standing guard of Lorenzo’s fingers. My fox licks my ankle. ‘Death clings to you.’

  He replies with the devil’s words: ‘Life is cyclical. I’m the end of that cycle. Leaves fall and feed the worms.’

  I stroke the frond of the fir tree. ‘I prefer the evergreens.’ For some reason, I glance at him and blush bright as a rose, I imagine. ‘What did you want then?’

  Leaning against the tree, he curls his arm around the bark. I gaze at him, yearning to merge with that tree. ‘Can you tell me, Raphael, are the gods real? Or are we screaming into the abyss?’

  The question surprises me. Then I recall children asking if air is real, or gravity, or so many other things, just because they can’t see it. ‘The Nine Realms are like the branches of a tree. Like those branches, they sway according to the strength of the wind and the length of the tree’s roots. The sun and the rain affect their growth. The quality of the soil – all outside forces – affect the Nine Realms.’ I sigh. Lorenzo smiles but I don’t know why. ‘The gods and goddesses are the faces drawn on these forces by the clumsy minds of men.’

  ‘And do these forces know the future?’

  ‘Imagine a spinning top. The wheel is Time and you are the stick in the middle. You will see Time as a movement from the past to the present to the future, while the one who twists the stick in his fingers will see the whole wheel and its pattern clearly.’

  Lorenzo picks up a rock. ‘Does that mean it’s set in stone?’ He smiles. ‘Destiny, that is?’

  ‘It’s an imperfect analogy. I believe modern physics considers Time to be a set of fluctuating possibilities based on probability. From a cosmic standpoint, multiple scenarios live and perish at once.’

  The Dark Elf laughs at me. My robin flaps his wings hysterically but doesn’t attack. ‘So what, you’re a quantum physicist in your spare time?’

  ‘I often visit libraries.’ At night, when no one else is there.

  His laugh falters. ‘Theo and Ava met Frigg.’

  Mother Frigg.

  I feel my true age. I’d only been a fledgling when I was last pressed to her bosom. ‘How is she?’ It was stupid to say that. He won’t understand.

  ‘What? Scary, according to Theo. She possessed Ava’s mum.’ He scratches the bark with his nails. I grimace. ‘She showed them a vision of the future. Part of that… I will protect you, I swear. Don’t be scared.’

  A squirrel runs up my leg. ‘Scared?’

  ‘Frigg warned that you will be captured and tortured. And yo
u heard Toby talking about Akhen, didn’t you?’ A vein throbs in his temple. Is he angry at me? Jagged red spikes flood his aura.

  ‘Nothing can hold me.’

  ‘Yet. Nothing can hold you yet.’

  I feel myself disintegrating into the air, ready to break away into the sky. Lorenzo reaches out and pulls me close to him, wedging me against his body and the tree. ‘Don’t leave,’ he says, and his nose presses into my hair. The fox wriggles through our legs. I hate being confined.

  I don’t want to move. I can hear his heartbeat, and it beats in time with mine. The sea pulses in the background, somewhere close but distant in my ears. I hear murmuring, I think, and the hairs bristling up my arm under the coolness of his fingers. Wait for the attempt, I think, the moment those fangs dive down from my ear to my neck – I will pull away then.

  Something soft touches my collarbone. And retreats. Then my jaw, and the ridge of my eyebrows. I put my hands on his face and push him away slightly. He stares down at me, human, unsure as if he were on the crest of manhood.

  ‘Did you like that?’ he asks.

  What should I say? ‘I don’t want to be tortured. I can’t tell my secrets.’

  ‘I will kill—’ He clears his throat. ‘I won’t let anyone hurt you.’

  My hands somehow end up on his chest. ‘Thank you, but you can’t protect me. If you speak the truth, a captor who can cage the wind, can only be stopped by Theo Clemensen.’

  Lorenzo winces. ‘Why do you follow him? Why did you hide in Hellingstead Hall? Do you like him?’

  I shrink into the tree. ‘Why are you angry?’ The heat coming from his thoughts scalds my skin. ‘Theo is special. He needs me, or the earth does; it’s the same thing.’ Whatever I say makes his expression darken against the early evening sky. Bunches of cumulus clouds call to me like eager playmates. I want to dance with them in the setting sun.

  ‘Raphael,’ he says, softening. ‘Do you know what sex is?’

  My cheeks redden. ‘I am familiar with the mating rituals of animals.’

  Lorenzo chuckles. I cross my arms. ‘What about courtship? Love?’

  ‘I have read about oxytocin, the bonding hormone, and its role in raising young. I know about endorphins. I—’ That softness brushes my mouth. It is the only part of Lorenzo that is warm. I move my head away, but he catches my chin and pulls it back.

  ‘Now you know about kissing,’ he breathes. I do. It seems I do know. I think about the fox at our feet. How do they kiss?

  Lorenzo stills as I lick his cheek. ‘That was bristly.’ I giggle.

  I am lonely, I think. The thought bubble pops and migrates into Lorenzo’s aura. He wraps his arms around me as if he heard it. ‘This is a cuddle,’ he says.

  I want to cry but I’m not sure why. Sadness seems very far away, lost in the sea. I am standing on the shore of bliss. ‘I know.’ My own arms slip out from his chest and grip his back. I feel the muscles through his shirt. I know he can’t protect me, but at the moment I want him to try. ‘This doesn’t mean you can have my blood.’

  My shoulders tighten, ready for him to attack or retreat. Cuddles are nice but I wait for the trick. Lorenzo squeezes and lifts me up onto my toes. ‘I’m so happy because I can’t hurt you, Raphael. One day, I will taste you. If you permit it. Once I’ve earned it.’

  ‘Are we courting now?’ I can’t believe it. The words are senseless. I have a sacred mission, I must always be ready to haul the anchor, I must… The clouds dance without me, playfully, in Lorenzo’s eyes.

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Is it as nice as cuddling?’

  ‘In my experience,’ Lorenzo says, ‘it can be sublime.’

  ‘You’re not still in love with Jean-Ashley?’

  The deep hues of heartbreak flash in his aura, passing like a sudden storm. He gazes down at me, and his aura becomes the blue clarity of the sky. ‘Enough to keep her safe. She deserves a normal life, a man who won’t hurt her, children one day.’

  ‘And that barmaid?’ I’d watched him stalk her. I’d recognised the lustful taint of their auras as they had mingled together. Her life, as he stole her blood, leaching into his energy field. What would my blood do to him?

  ‘She’s a big girl; she’ll move on and probably marry some musician one day.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, though I can practically hear the fury of Mother Frigg. I don’t exist for courtship and cuddles and soft lips. But that loneliness is a cold and shallow stream in my inner cave, and it’s the only element I cannot brace against. I brush the angry robin off my shoulder, telling it in our secret song to leave Lorenzo alone. ‘Can we do that kissing again? Perhaps I like it.’

  Nothing can hurt me, despite Lorenzo’s warning. No thing can trap me. But I am weak, and I am shaking as his lips crush mine. So weak, and so strong.

  II

  Blood Brother

  Ava | Espen | Lorenzo | Theo | Menelaus

  19

  Army

  Espen Clemensen cracked his knuckles. Seventy-two hours since Uncle Nikolaj left. One hundred and sixty-eight hours, give or take, since Theo tore through the house like a whirlwind and obliterated his childhood room, scattering his belongings through the air to the Old Vicarage. He was alone now.

  He had risen as usual, dressed, came to the study. The fireplace was thick with ash. He lit the fire every morning for no reason and stared out of the huge mullion windows until it burned out. Stack, light, burn, repeat. Like washing hair…and when was the last time he’d done that?

  The gardens felt as claustrophobic as the library. Sun, wind, birdsong. Isobel’s ghostly laugh taunting him through the trees. He aired the temple on the heath, dusted the statues of Odin, Thor, and Freyr, mopped the marbled floor. The summer solstice was approaching. There was no one to sacrifice with. Nothing to celebrate.

  Pawns are still in play, Espen.

  It’s so quiet.

  Espen paused, mop in hand, on the spot where he and Isobel had poured the sacred waters of Alfheim – collected by Nik – over Theo’s head, calling for the ancestor’s blessing.

  Evening sunlight pulsed through the stained glass, colouring the damp marble in ordered hues. Twenty-one years…gone. Those early days of sleepless nights, chaotic routines and swelling pride, they had a reality and vividness that shrank the present, like crackly plastic scrunched into a ball and tossed aside. The ribbons and scissors of sentiment ordered those old memories, snipped away the stray threads of arguments, Elspeth’s rude interruptions, the dark secrets.

  I did my best, Isobel. I’ve tried to protect our son. The mop clattered to the floor, marble squeaking under his feet as he approached the alcove where her ashes were housed on a golden pedestal. His eyes flew up to the oil painting hanging above, his wife astride an Arabian horse, the sky crimson with her hair as it streamed behind her. They had ridden often together. He vowed silently to take Hrimfaxi and Skinfaxi for a hard ride soon. They could all do with the exercise.

  To think the council were arguing about where to build new housing – a letter had come yesterday inviting locals to view their most recent plans – while he stood alone in a temple, set in twenty acres, a grand house of empty bedrooms, all to himself. Yet Hellingstead Hall was the only place Theodore could retreat to, where years of blood wards and Gatekeeper magic could protect him from the Praetoriani. Nikolaj had left to pursue the last chance they had to keep an eye on his son.

  It doesn’t matter if I die. I won’t let them take Theodore, my love; I will kill them all if I have to. He turned away and strode to the armoury, concealed behind the north wall. Ancient weapons from across the Nine Realms lined the walls, some hidden under the floor, unknown even to Theo. All I need is an army.

  20

  Welcome to the Family

  ‘Stay in the car,’ Menelaus said, trying to sound confident. ‘Espen won’t roll out the welcome mat. It could get nasty. If anything goes wrong, drive as far and fast as you can.’

  ‘Wait, Laus,’ Toby said, g
rabbing Menelaus’s arm. ‘I’m sorry about earlier. In the cave. I would’ve killed you.’

  ‘I suppose I’m talking to Mr Hyde now? Don’t mention it, I’d rather forget.’ He opened the driver side door and half climbed out. ‘Keep Jekyll stashed nearby, just in case.’

  I must be insane. Someone check me into the lunatic asylum. He peered into the bruised sky, vaguely hoping that aliens would beam him up before he got the chance to press the buzzer.

  No such luck.

  The gates opened before anyone answered the intercom.

  The air crackled and popped as Espen appeared in the middle of the driveway, long, curled blades in each hand. Manic excitement radiated from every nuance of his stance. ‘Perfect timing, Mr Knight. I have a revelation for you. Then you are going to finally repay your debt to the Clemensens.’

  Menelaus glanced over his shoulder. ‘As we’re exchanging gifts,’ he said, gesturing to the passenger seat, ‘let me introduce Tobias Laurel. I think you have a lot in common, particularly a hatred for my employers.’ He waited for Espen’s confusion to become apparent but the ageing warlock stared, unflinching. ‘He needs the protection only you can give. Akhen is after him.’

  Espen remained unfazed. ‘Bring the car inside and park it in the first garage. Never forget, Professor, that you aren’t forgiven. Stay an arm’s length away from me at all times. Don’t smile at me. Don’t touch anything inside my home. Clear?’

  Menelaus eyed those blades. ‘Crystal,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the car.’

  Tobias fell like a vulture on the loaf of stale bread Espen had left on the picnic bench in the kitchen. Menelaus adverted his eyes, noting the dirty pile of pans in the large country sink. ‘Sorry,’ said Tobias, between gulps, ‘I’ve hardly eaten for weeks.’

  Espen edged over to the fridge, his attention fixed on them, and brought out a milk bottle. As soon as he plonked it on the table, Tobias gulped it down, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘Thanks.’