Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies Book 2)

by A. K. Morgen

  I found him in the backyard, watching Fuki.

  The little wolf paced around one of the trees, his eyes trained on the branches above his head.

  “What’s he looking for?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself. The sun sat directly overhead, burning brightly, but it did little to warm the air. The wind blew, whistling through bare branches and over the decaying leaves scattered around the yard.

  “A squirrel,” Ronan said. He didn’t turn to look at me as I made my way toward him, placing my feet carefully in the thick cover of leaves on the ground.

  “Oh.” I lifted my head to examine the tree. I couldn’t see a squirrel in the thick branches. Fuki kept circling though, intent clear in his yellow eyes. Poor squirrel.

  “You should go to bed.” Ronan rolled his eyes in my direction.

  As usual, I couldn’t read his expression. “You talked to Dace earlier,” I said. My voice was soft, but an edge of accusation still crept into my words.

  Ronan arched a brow as if to ask me if I had a point.

  “What happened?”

  This time, he turned his head to look at me. There were hollows beneath his eyes, making his exhaustion evident. He narrowed his black eyes on me, focusing intently.

  I shivered under his gaze. I couldn’t help it. I hated when he looked at me so fully. No matter how often he did it, or how much time I spent around him, the way he looked at me still managed to unnerve me. I didn’t understand him, and that bothered me. I squared my shoulders, staring back at him, letting him know he couldn’t intimidate me, even if that wasn’t quite true.

  “Nothing happened,” he said finally.

  “Dad told me Dace threatened you.”

  He barked a short laugh. “Dace always threatens me, Arionna.”

  I couldn’t deny that. “Does it bother you?” I asked instead.

  “Should it?” Ronan gave me a sharp look. “Does it bother you?”

  I stared at him for a minute, his question catching me off guard.

  “That’s what I thought,” he murmured.

  “It does bother me,” I said, irritated at him for assuming he knew how I felt, “but I also know he won’t follow through on his threats.”

  Ronan laughed again, disbelieving. “You don’t know him as well as you think you do then. He’d kill me in a heartbeat, given a reason.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Dace isn’t a murderer.”

  “I never said that.” Ronan’s lips curled up in a mocking smile, his gaze cold and hard. “But he blames me for Dani’s death as much as for you being attacked. He’s not thrilled with me.”

  “I….” I closed my mouth again, not able to deny that either. “Doesn’t mean he’d really kill you,” I said instead, weakly.

  “Oh, he would if he could.” Ronan watched me for a minute and then glanced away. “I wouldn’t blame him.”

  “What?” I gaped.

  “You know how Dani died?” he asked.

  “You said your friends let her die.”

  “I left her.” He locked his gaze on the ground at his feet. “To follow you and Dace. I knew who she was, but I left her alone anyway. I thought she would be safe with the werewolves near. I thought we had time. I was wrong, and she died because of it.” He spoke in the same monotones he always did, shaped the word as perfectly as always, but he couldn’t hide the bitter edge they contained.

  All this time, he carried that around.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I didn’t know what else to say to him.

  He didn’t respond.

  I stared out at Fuki. He’d given up circling the tree and lay beneath it, no longer interested in chasing the squirrel. Now that he was sitting still, he looked sad again, as if all his energy from the past few hours had run out. As if he remembered he was alone now.

  “That’s why you came with me and Chelle,” I guessed, cutting my gaze toward Ronan again.

  He nodded.

  “You aren’t responsible for us, you know.” No matter what Dace said, Ronan wasn’t my keeper. “And you don’t have to worry about Dace killing you. I won’t let him.”

  Ronan looked at me, curious lights in his eyes. “Why not? You don’t even like me.”

  I opened my mouth and then closed it again, unable to lie to him. He wasn’t stupid. “You make me nervous,” I admitted.

  “Why?”

  “You mean aside from the fact you threatened to kill Dace if you had to?” I thought about my answer before giving it to him. He’d been honest with me. I felt like I owed him the same in return. “I think you see more than you let on, feel more than you let on, but you never show it.”

  “And that bothers you?”

  I nodded. “Aside from wanting Sköll and Hati dead, I don’t know where you stand in all of this, and I don’t like that.”

  He stood quietly for a minute, processing what I’d said. “You were always like that,” he said then. “In every memory I have of you, you hated not being able to read me.”

  “I did?”

  “It’s because of who you are. Because of Freki.”

  The smile twisting his lips this time wasn’t mocking or bitter. The amused, almost proud expression caught me off guard. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him smile, really smile before.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Remember when I told you who we are?” He waited until I nodded. “You remembered Odin sending Geri and Freki to the humans to teach them how to live. He sent them because of you. Geri and Dace have always been warriors, but you always had an innate ability to get to the heart of a person. You know when to fight and when to show mercy. You and Freki see things more clearly than Geri and Dace do. You always have, and you’ve always done the right thing. Odin knew humans could benefit from that wisdom as much as from the connection you and Dace share with one another.”

  “Wh-what does that have to do with anything?” I asked a little breathlessly, awed that he remembered so much of a time that still seemed more legend and myth to me than my actual past.

  “Everything,” he said, spearing me with a look that twisted through me. “You knew from the moment you met me that you couldn’t trust me. You sensed I could be a danger to you.”

  I’d certainly gotten that sense, but I never expected him to admit it, let alone so bluntly.

  “I considered killing you the night I followed you.”

  “Why?” I mouthed the question, unable to force sound out.

  “I didn’t think you’d be useful to us, and I resented that you didn’t remember any of this.” His lips thinned into a grim line. “I spent my entire life with these memories I didn’t understand. But you… you didn’t have a clue. I would have killed for that peace.”

  “Do you still feel that way?” I whispered the question, butterflies making nervous laps in my stomach. I desperately wished I had even half of the memories Ronan could pull out at will. Even with his gift failing, he still had access to so much more of our pasts than Dace, Geri, and I remembered.

  Ronan eyed me critically for a moment and then shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I envy the normalcy you had growing up, but I don’t envy where it’s left you. I thought forgetting would be easier, but after watching you… I think forgetting is a lot harder than you make it seem.”

  There was a question in his tone, one I couldn’t help but answer. “It is hard.” I looked down at my hands. “There’s this hole inside me, and it never goes away now. I feel like I’m only living with half a body, half a heart.” My vision blurred. “Dace needs me, and the only thing I can do to help him is tear out the other half of my heart and hope for the best.”

  “The night I met you, when I followed you, I knew how terrified you were, but you didn’t break like I thought you would. You accepted Dace without reservation. Even though you didn’t remember any of this, you didn’t hesitate. You were always like that. No matter what else you forgot, you never hesitated with him.” He paused. “You’re wrong, you know. So was I.�
�

  I looked at him.

  “You’re more useful than I expected, and you’ve helped him more than you think you have. He’s accepted his role in all of this because of you.”

  “He also tortures himself because of me,” I whispered.

  “Do you blame him for that?” Ronan shot me another sharp, perceptive look.

  I shook my head silently. I didn’t blame Dace for the way he felt. I merely wished things were different for him. That he didn’t have to fight so hard. That destiny didn’t pull him in two different directions. It wasn’t fair that we’d always done this together, and now we couldn’t because Dace didn’t trust me to be strong enough or trust himself to let me try.

  “He loves you,” Ronan said. “He’s loved you forever, but love doesn’t change who he is. There’s always been that dark spot in him, that potential to lose himself to battle. That’s the line he walks because of who he is. You think you make that harder for him, but you’re wrong. You’re the thing that’s kept him from giving in to that rage thus far. You’ve kept him human.”

  “I don’t feel like it,” I admitted, wrapping my arms a little tighter around myself.

  “Because you’re afraid. You’ve seen what hatred can do to someone. You saw Sköll and Hati, and Fenrir.” At least he believed me about seeing Fenrir. “You don’t want that for Dace.”

  No, I didn’t want that for Dace. There were no words to describe how very much I did not want that for Dace. Oddly enough, I didn’t want that for Ronan either.

  “He’s lucky,” Ronan said. “He has someone to fight for.”

  “So do you,” I whispered, thinking about Dani.

  He looked down at the ground and then back to me. “I have revenge. There’s a difference.”

  “Is there?”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes burning with something I couldn’t name. Whether it was emotion or memory or something else altogether, it made him look harder than ever before, and somehow more brittle. “There’s a difference. Once Sköll and Hati are gone, I don’t care if I survive. The only thing I wanted in this world is gone.”

  Tears pooled in my eyes, tears for him and for Dani and for the chance they never had. Once again, our destiny just wasn’t fair. None of us asked for any of this, Ronan and Dani least of all. “I’m sorry, Ronan. I am so sorry.”

  His lips twisted again, but he didn’t respond.

  We stood side by side for a long moment, staring blankly at Fuki. He slept beneath the tree, his ears twitched in response to some dream.

  I turned toward Ronan again. “I felt her, you know,” I said.

  Ronan looked at me.

  “Freki. The night Sköll and Hati burned down Dace’s house, I was so angry…. I liked how powerful the emotion made me feel, so I kept reaching for more.”

  “And you found her,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “She wasn’t what you expected, was she?”

  “No, she wasn’t.” I expected her to be like Geri. To be as gentle, and as fierce as Dace’s wolf. But Freki was something else altogether. Everyone said women were more frightening. That they were stronger than men. After feeling Freki trying to fight her way free, I could believe that. If she was a blade before, time had sharpened her to a lethal point.

  Ronan gave me an odd, assessing look. “She’s been caged for too long.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Imagine loving someone so powerfully for so long, and then being shut away in the dark with no way to communicate with your lover or fight against your bonds. Eventually, your anger is as great as the love you feel, and not because you learn to love less.”

  “You make room for more emotion,” I said, frowning thoughtfully. Is that what Freki did?

  “Yes,” he said. “Parents don’t love their firstborn less when a new kid comes along; they simply draw on more emotion for the new kid.”

  “Do you think it’s possible to free her?” I asked, watching Ronan’s expression carefully.

  He didn’t so much as bat a lash, and I knew he’d considered the same thing at some point. “Two months ago, I would have said no, you can’t reverse what’s happening to all of us, but now?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  I nodded, satisfied with his answer. He didn’t know the rules governing our lives any more than Dace or I did. And if I could reach Freki once, maybe I could do it again. I probably couldn’t bring her all the way to the surface, but with any luck, I could chip away at the barrier between us. I could loosen her bonds, even if I couldn’t strip her of them entirely.

  “I wouldn’t try it though,” Ronan cautioned.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s spent years in her cage. Years working up the same fury Dace and Geri now fight. Do you really want someone with that much power calling the shots for you?”

  His question pulled my nightmare vision of Dace to the surface of my mind. If that’s what waited for him if he gave in… what waited for me if I found a way to free Freki? I’d felt her anger and hatred before, when I first met Ronan, and again when I found out about Sköll and Hati. It scared me then to feel that inside of me, to know I was capable of murder. If her anger was that bad before she woke, how much worse would it be now? Was what I felt the other day the depth of it, or was there more of that rage locked away inside of her?

  Did I really want to find out?

  I considered the question for a moment.

  If freeing her helped us win, did it really matter how much worse her rage might be?

  It didn’t, and Ronan and I both knew it.

  “I might not have a choice,” I said.

  Ronan nodded as if he’d expected that answer all along. “Where will you start?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. I didn’t have a clue where to start trying to pull her to the surface. I wanted to free her, not be consumed by her. Was it possible to walk that line?

  “Are you sure?” Ronan asked again. “Really sure you want to take that path?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Do you think I should?”

  “I’m not Dace,” he said. “It’s not my place to decide for you.”

  If Freki was really as fearsome as Ronan suspected, Dace would never let me try to free her. He wouldn’t let me accept the risk it posed to me, or to her. But he wasn’t here now…. My heart throbbed painfully at the reminder.

  “Can you take me to see my mom?”

  “Yeah,” Ronan said, shooting me an odd look at the quick subject change. He started to say something else.

  “Don’t, please.” I cut him off, unable to have this conversation now. I couldn’t even think about Dace without feeling like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to talk about him, let alone to Ronan.

  Ronan hesitated for a moment, and then, thankfully, let it go.

  ittle tufts of new grass stuck up from the mound of dirt covering Mom’s grave like flowers poking their heads bravely through the disturbed dirt in search of sunlight. The mound was smaller than I remembered, time and wind having worn it down over the last few months. Soon enough, it would be flat again. When that happened, the sad date on her headstone would be the only evidence of how close her death remained for those who knew and loved her.

  Flowers still sat in groups around the headstone, some fresh and clean, others caked with dried mud. An overwhelming sense of gratitude washed through me at the sight of the newest flowers. Even if I hadn’t been here, someone else had. Her friends, neighbors, or coworkers… I didn’t know who looked after her for me, but someone did.

  Ronan parked the car in the narrow lane closest to her grave and shut the engine off. “I’ll stay here.”

  “Thanks,” I said, grateful he didn’t make me ask for privacy. I wanted―no, I needed―to do this alone.

  I climbed from the car and made my way toward her plot, placing my feet carefully to avoid stepping on any of the graves standing between me and her. I stopped at the foot of her resting place a
nd stared. Seeing her name engraved on the headstone was hard. I never really expected it to be easy anyway, though.

  I lowered myself carefully to my knees. Moisture seeped from the cold ground, wetting my jeans.

  “Hi, Mom,” I whispered, tracing my fingers over her name. The marble felt cool beneath my fingertips, the etching rougher than I imagined. “I miss you.” Twin tears slipped down my cheeks. “I miss you so much.” I took a deep breath, dashing my tears away. “But I’m okay, and so is Dad.” I smiled a little, my bottom lip trembling. Even after my parents divorced, they remained such good friends. Mom would want to know Dad was doing okay, too.

  “I met someone. His name is Dace Matthews, and Dad really likes him. So do I.” I tried to laugh at my understatement, but tears choked me. “That’s not true. I’m in love with him. He’s….” How did I put to words everything Dace meant to me? “He means everything to me,” I said, the best way I could find to explain how important he was. “He’s everything to a lot of people right now.”

  I had no clue how to explain the apocalypse, Sköll and Hati, and everything else going on in my life either. I couldn’t imagine telling my mom those things even if she sat across from me, not because I didn’t think she could handle them, but because I didn’t want her to be afraid. But more than anything else, I wanted to talk to her.

  “There’s so much going on, Mom. I feel like the whole world has changed, and I don’t know what to do. How do I help Dace find his way? How do I find my way?” I asked her.

  She gave me so much in my life… .Normalcy, love, and patience. Growing up hadn’t been hard because she was always there for me to lean on or talk to when I needed guidance or advice. I missed that so much since she died, tricking myself into believing everything about her was long gone. But out here, sitting at the foot of her grave, I felt like I heard her again. Like if I closed my eyes and sat quietly, she’d tell me what to do.

  You’re stronger than you think you are, Ari. Trust yourself.

  She told me the same thing so often over the years, and she’d always been right.

  Dad was the same way. He didn’t tell me how to deal with my new world or how I should proceed. When it counted, he let me make my own decisions, and he was there to dry my tears and encourage me when I needed him.