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

by S. A. Ashdown

  He stared at the bare wall in front of him and dismissed Ricarda with a wave of his hand. She averted her eyes as she slipped out of the door. I got the impression that her boyfriend, Faflon, didn’t know of her visit.

  ‘Belle is compromised,’ I said, in no mood to preamble. ‘The Praetoriani took her wife. If she votes with the prosecution…’

  Michele raised his head, opening his mouth. His fangs, hidden a moment ago, were longer than Malachi’s; they unfurled from the roof of his mouth and then retracted back into his gums. The biology of it creeped me out, but as Michele’s laugh burst from his chest, I felt afraid.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded. ‘Why are you laughing?’

  He doubled over, clutching his stomach. Jörð, his snarl was feral, his eyes reddened with fresh blood. ‘The miserable, worthless cretins!’ he roared. ‘They truly believe it will get as far as a vote!’

  The hair stood to attention at the back of my neck. ‘Michele, tell me straight, what have you got planned?’

  He thought that was funnier than ever. ‘Michele!’

  ‘Child, oh child! What do you think is on its way to meet us tomorrow? Praetor Cullen didn’t delay the trial, awaiting a delivery of unicorns! This is war, Theo. Everyone knows it. What we do in court, it’s posturing, it’s enemy pitted against enemy, screaming insults, waiting for reinforcements so the bloodletting can begin. Do you understand, child? If you have any sense, boy, ready your weapons. Tomorrow, destiny will crash into Hellingstead.’

  He quieted, then charged at me, fangs snapping back out, hands curled into claws. ‘Now, warlock, get the fuck out of my room!’

  I projected away, up to the attic, just as those nails scratched at my face. ‘I could kill him so easily,’ I whispered to the empty room, ‘I could kill them all if I wished it.’

  The truth, yes, the truth was that I had been lying to myself, as much as Father or Uncle Nik ever had – I chose a spell to deal with Penny, despite the fact she’d murdered people, because I didn’t want to kill her.

  I liked her. She acted as she saw fit. She didn’t bother drawing lines, boxing herself in with ethics or codes.

  She chose her targets, took aim, and fired. Let the beetles scuttle out of the way, or be speared on her arrow-tip. What would it be like, to go through life without fearing what others thought? Liberating. Hadn’t that been the plan all along, since I’d joined the coven? We had sworn to protect each other, to unite our aims.

  ‘I want to raise the Hordes,’ I admitted to the air. ‘I want to destroy Akhen.’

  I like the coven. Jörð, even though I hate the bastard, I enjoy poking fun at Malachi.

  I want to use my power. Truly use it.

  The Gatekeeper bubbled excitedly inside. It was my duty to destroy the Midgard Serpent, and Akhen was the physical manifestation of that world-devouring snake. Yes, I did want to kill him in a style that would make my ancestor Einarr the Eviscerator proud. I guess there was something of the vengeful, heathen Viking residing in my Clemensen bones. By forgiving Menelaus’s role in Mum’s death, I’d been cheated of a fight.

  Akhen was responsible for the deaths of so many. So what if I had to side with a few villains to achieve justice for the victims caught in the Praefecti’s games?

  He wanted the Syphon.

  Maybe I should just give it to him.

  Then slice him through from within.

  And click, the fear and hesitation I’d carried with me since becoming the Gatekeeper, dropped away. I heard the clang of that amour crash against the floor and disintegrate into dust.

  ‘We’ve hidden for so long,’ I said, directly to the Gatekeeper this time, directly to my ancestors, ‘and where has it gotten us? The Serpent is a slither away. Let’s cut off his head.’

  The gallop started in my mind again, like when I’d climbed the walnut tree, and this time I didn’t resist. So many voices, pounding hooves inside my skull.

  Where had I put the sword – the one that had formed when I had confronted Father in the library, when he’d confessed that Menelaus had killed my mother? I spotted it glinting in the corner, and I called to it, a voice mingled with scores of men, all of those who’d carried this burden.

  ‘Come, Ormdreper – Serpent-Slayer – come and seek the vengeance for which you were forged.’

  The sword melted into mist and reappeared in my hand. The hilt shone, gold and silver, the handle’s head crafted like Mjölnir. Thor’s hammer, I thought, feeling the man’s voice rumble in my head. ‘Járner Jörð Líf,’ I said – the Clemensen motto. Iron is life to Earth.

  I swung the blade round, red vapour hissing from the blade’s unnatural heat. Had I Anchored myself? No – yet my eyes shimmered opal, so bright, when I caught my reflection in the mirror. I ignored it, getting lost in the rhythm of strokes and imaginary parries, and let a thousand arms lend the weight of their experience as we whirled together across the attic floor.

  We were born to slay.

  Peace cannot reign until there has been war.

  Thera has flooded, the empire crumbled, our temples razed.

  I held her cradled in my arms. Ægir gave her back to me, broken. Theodore is orphaned – her death has killed me too.

  That last voice – Father’s. I stopped, resting the sword against my shoulder. The memories of the Gatekeeper’s, they lived on inside me. What else did they know? Surely they could help me defeat the Serpent?

  I lowered to my knees, fingers stroking the sword as I laid it on the floor. It seemed to change design, depending on the voice that spoke in my head. How many of my ancestors had been warriors, raiding, ruling, sailing the world?

  Had any of them met Akhen before?

  The answer was yes.

  They had sailed to Egypt.

  Ah, Frigg had warned my family before, thousands of years ago, of the trials to come. They had sought Akhenaten, but he had already vanished, drowned in the Serpent’s belly. They didn’t wait for the Nile to spit him back out.

  Oh no. They couldn’t risk the prophecy coming true.

  We found his Queen, they echoed, and we killed her.

  Night fell across Hellingstead, and I left the attic, sword strapped under my cloak. From now on, Ormdreper was staying with me. The sword reflected my dual heritage, the dual purpose of my life. It had come to me when I had needed truth. I had found it. Now it was time to kill the beast.

  St. Michael’s crawled with the coven. At last I braved the crypts, read the inscriptions on the crumbling tombs. The names, so old, and yet…

  ‘Liege,’ said Ricarda, materialising from the shadows. ‘You won’t speak of what you saw?’

  ‘What did I see?’

  She started to speak, then checked herself, and frowned. ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘Where’s Penny?’

  ‘Busy. The book we needed, it arrived an hour ago.’

  It’s posturing, it’s enemy pitted against enemy, screaming insults, waiting for reinforcements, so the bloodletting can begin. ‘My trial has allowed her to buy time, hasn’t it?’ I said, and Ricarda reared back, trapped by the tomb behind her. That venom, it lurked so close to the surface.

  ‘I’m not angry,’ I said, feeling the weight of the sword against my thigh. ‘I should’ve been informed.’

  ‘Yes, Liege. She’s in the north crypt.’ I followed where she pointed, down the torch-lit passage, and found Penny squatting inside a mass of patterns, drawn in chalk. Her hair, sleek this morning, was now carelessly pinned to her head.

  She was cradling the vellum-bound book, and clutched it to her chest when she heard my footsteps. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, squatted on her heels.

  ‘You never mentioned this book,’ I said, joining her in the strange swirls and diagrams covering the floor. ‘Where does it come from?’

  She met my eyes. Darkness. ‘From the Iron Wood.’

  ‘Excuse me? From Iarnvid, the home of the first witches? The Hag—’

  ‘This is her Libros Carminum.’r />
  I shuddered.

  Her girlish grin offset her agitated rocking. She waved the book about. ‘Why are you so afraid of it, Theo? We’re her offspring. She is our Eve, our Embla.’

  ‘She was also mad.’

  ‘How do you know? Did you actually ever meet her?’

  ‘As far as I understand it, the Hag and the Black Widow—’

  ‘Are mother and daughter,’ she said, ‘that doesn’t make them the same.’

  I didn’t want to dwell on that. ‘Fine,’ I said, gesturing for it. Penny placed it with care into my custody.

  A high-pitched scream tore through my head.

  I dropped it.

  I scurried back, sickness building, expecting Penny to shout. Surely dropping the book was sacrilege to her?

  ‘I knew it,’ she whispered, and the thick sphinx-like makeup made her wide eyes two sable pools. ‘I felt it, Theo, as soon as we bonded our magic.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, sweat dripping down my neck.

  ‘They say the spells therein were inspired by tipping poison into the well at Yggdrasil’s feet. The sickness, you see, brought black days across the Nine Realms. Madness – yes, the Hag was mad, but she was also a genius. It’s lore, Liege, that only the Syphon, who carries the Lífkelda’s pure essence, can still sense the residual poison in this book.’

  ‘A myth.’

  Penny crawled over to where I sat, my legs curled up. Her breasts, spilling over the low slash of her top, were flushed with excitement. I didn’t move as her arms wrapped around my neck, as her full lips caught my earlobe. ‘I have craved you all along,’ she sighed, her breath a citrus tang. ‘We were meant to join forces; we were meant to be together…’

  Jörð, it felt good, her tongue darting up my neck. In the moonlight, coming from a ground-level window, the candlelight, yes, the softness of her cheek.

  Her lips, so close to mine again.

  No.

  I pushed her chin away with the flat of my hand. ‘No, you’re wrong, Penny. I’m not the Syphon.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘I am not!’

  ‘It’s okay, my Viking, I won’t tell a soul.’

  Her aura. When I had Anchored, somehow, while bonding with the sword, they should’ve become visible to me again. ‘You don’t have a soul,’ I said, leaping up. I swept Ormdreper over the empty space around her head. ‘Where’s your aura? Where’s Ricarda’s aura? Who the Hel are you?’

  ‘It’s part of the deal,’ she said.

  ‘What deal? What aren’t you telling me?’ Passion surged – it didn’t matter where it came from or that it wasn’t from my own heart, because the questions themselves were – and I held the sword point to her throat, while she knelt before me.

  ‘We must perform the spell, Liege,’ she said, gripping the blade, without so much as a wince. ‘Or be taken to the Underworld. We have invested our souls for this cause. It must be done.’ She shoved the blade away and I let her, pulling her up and gripping her hair. She tilted her head up, mouth glistening wet, inviting.

  I closed my eyes.

  Not now. Not now.

  ‘You speak of this fallacy to anyone else, anyone else, and I’ll send you all to the Underworld myself. Comprendi?’

  ‘Liege,’ she hissed, ‘if we go there, so do you. Listen. Can’t you hear the click, click of the Black Widow’s needles? She has you, Syphon.’ She pushed her palm against my chest. ‘But fear not, I vow silence, until the moment you betray us. Will you betray us, Liege?’

  Those eyes. Those sweeping black eyebrows, the Italian passion that infused her accent. I ran my finger along her jaw. ‘I will have that kiss before I do.’

  She rose to her toes.

  ‘But not tonight. When the work is done.’

  I still sizzled from the heat of her touch when I reassembled in the tower. Raphael’s aura was in full bloom, a great pillar of light that could backdrop a chorus of angels. ‘I’m going to destroy him,’ I announced, as the landvættir stood up from his perch. ‘I am going to expunge Akhen from the Nine Realms, once and for all.’

  ‘Do not fight him, Gatekeeper, the Midgard Serpent will kill you.’

  ‘So it’s prophesied,’ I said, ‘but Thor killed the Serpent first, if the legends of Ragnarök hold true.’

  Raphael glanced at my sword. ‘And by killing him – and yourself in the process – Yggdrasil will perish.’

  ‘No, that’s where all of you are wrong.’ I pointed to my head, as if Raphael could see every fragment of soul that inhabited it. ‘Everyone fears Ragnarök, but the solution is simple. I must stop cowering away behind wards. I must slay the Serpent before Ragnarök begins. I am the antidote to his venom.’

  Raphael brushed the hilt of the sword, his pout deep. The sprite wasn’t happy. ‘Once upon a time I would’ve said you have lost your mind, Gatekeeper.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now I am not so sure. Perhaps the only way to avoid fate is to undercut it. Tell me, Gatekeeper, is your blade sharp enough? Hacking at the beast will only enrage it. You must sever his life-force away. One blow, Clemensen. The Nine Realms depend on your strength.’

  It sunk in, a weight of responsibility that I’d been shying away from. Raphael was right; I had one chance. ‘Where’s Lorenzo?’

  ‘He went to meet you, with Fenrir, remember? I assumed you met up with him after you left.’

  I frowned. ‘He’s still not back? I was with Ava. I called him but he didn’t answer.’

  We both exchanged a look. Not again. Please. Malachi promised. I was about to hunt Malachi down and stake him when Lorenzo fell through the roof, landing with a smile. ‘Oh, hey, Theo. Err, I lost Fenrir.’

  ‘How?’

  Lorenzo shrugged, and flopped his arm around Raphael’s narrow shoulders. ‘Felt bad about staying behind while you were in court. Guards wouldn’t let us through the gate but Fenrir got inside somehow. I don’t know, Theo…there’s something weird about that dog.’

  That pissed me off a bit, but Lorenzo was right about the dog. ‘Fenrir will come back when he’s hungry. Anyway, we got back hours ago. Menelaus was looking for you?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I told him I’d call you but I forgot. Had to check into work and cancel my shift tomorrow, just in case we’re not out of court.’

  I sighed. ‘Menelaus is okay?’

  ‘Yeah. He went home – said he had a sore throat or something.’

  ‘You’re sure? What about Isis?’

  ‘What about her?’ He frowned, puzzled.

  ‘Menelaus didn’t tell you?’

  Lorenzo shook his head. ‘No, he didn’t tell me and yes,’ he said, throwing up his hands, ‘I checked in on him on the way back. Have I passed, or are you here to impale me?’

  I grinned, swishing the sword through the air. ‘Tempting, but no.’ Raphael was staring down the sword, but the strain of holding his limbs rigid was obvious. ‘I need to borrow some of Raphael’s friends.’

  Why didn’t Menelaus ask Lorenzo to find Isis? I watched Lorenzo stroll around the bell tower, peering up at the birds he’d sent all a-flutter at his arrival. New love had rendered his features soft, a delicate whistle mimicking Raphael’s on his lips.

  I’d never seen him look so happy.

  43

  Courting Destruction

  ‘Please be upstanding.’

  Coldness had settled upon me. I’d hardly slept, busy with Raphael until the early hours. Fenrir was somewhere within the Praetoriani grounds, but the elkhound resisted even Raphael’s call. The landvættir had cocked his head and laughed, shooting me a nervous glance. ‘He’s fine,’ he said, then giggled some more.

  I couldn’t get a straight answer out of that sprite.

  Praetor Cullen settled at his desk, his face puffy and red, as if he hadn’t slept well either. In fact, everyone was sombre, and Belle – Belle was a thundercloud in the jury’s centre, the men and women surrounding her like heralds of wrath.

  The court returned to
sitting, and Cullen droned on, summarising yesterday’s events. Today, his bias didn’t even jolt that familiar rage. Michele coughed and shuffled his papers, the only one who dared to break the silence on the benches. How had this happened, I wondered – how did I allow myself to become a pawn for the De Laurentis vampires? The prosecution wanted a legal way to detain me so no one could argue with what they did.

  A silent war can’t have a resistance.

  Michele. Michele wouldn’t let that happen.

  Neither would I. It was bigger than me. The Nine Realms depended on what happened today.

  I leant towards Michele. ‘Where’s Menelaus? Shouldn’t he be here?’

  ‘Lorenzo said he was going to be late,’ he whispered.

  ‘Why? He didn’t say anything to me.’

  Michele didn’t have time to reply; Ella Strand leapt to her feet, makeup immaculate, a wicked smile cast over the court. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, this day will be remembered for generations as the day a burgeoning evil was stopped in its tracks.’

  A few gasps. Her tone was vicious, and her confidence terrifying. ‘But first, let us discuss the Clemensen family as a whole. They’re an odd bunch. Inexplicable powers, many stolen from other Pneuma by their Viking ancestors. Forced breeding. Our historians have delved into their past and found it deeply disturbing. Why do the Clemensens go to such lengths to strong-arm their access to magic – to an unnatural amount?’

  Michele pounded his fist on the desk. ‘Objection, Your Honour! My client is hardly the only one with ancestors who practised arranged marriages or engaged in warfare. It’s irrelevant.’

  ‘It’s relevant, believe me,’ Ella hissed. ‘Anyone noticed the unusual weather we’ve had recently? It’s a common occurrence where the Clemensens are concerned.’ She described accounts of unexplained weather patterns, all linked to past Gatekeepers, although, of course, she didn’t use that term. The avalanche Father had caused, the forest fire Uncle Nikolaj had apparently started by accident, the storms of late. ‘All events begun on the twenty-first birthdays of the Clemensen men, stretching back generations.