by Amy Pennza
“The cupboard is original to the tower,” he said, drawing my attention again. “We don’t know much about the structure, but berserker historians are pretty confident guards used it to store food when they had duty. In the old days, everyone wore armor. A full suit could weigh ten stone. No one wanted to climb up and down the stairs to fetch dinner, so they brought meals with them when they arrived for a shift.”
“That’s clever.”
He winked. “If there’s one thing berserkers hold sacred, it’s food.” He took a few more bites of pizza.
I tilted my head. “You said stone. And I hear London in your accent. Is your mother English?”
He lowered his slice. “My father, actually. I get my berserker half from my mother.”
A light bulb went off in my head. “Your name . . . Sigridsson.” How could I have missed that before? Patronymic names were almost a given in Scandinavia. While it wasn’t unheard of for a male to use a matronymic name, it was far less common.
He refilled his glass. “You’ve never heard of Sigi the Bold?”
Shock made my jaw drop. “Your mother is Sigi the Bold? The one who skinned a Roman cohort?”
He pulled a napkin from one of the containers and wiped his mouth, his laugh somewhat self-deprecating. “I wouldn’t go that far. It was probably just a couple of soldiers.”
“She’s a legend. One of the best fighters in the sagas.”
“Gods, don’t ever let her hear you say that. I’d never hear the end of it.”
Disbelief left me speechless. I was sitting with Sigi the Bold’s son. The headmaster’s mother was one of the most heralded berserkers in history—a shieldmaiden who’d fought beside Odin himself. She didn’t just have a page or two in the sagas. She had her own book.
I’d been worried about other trainees thinking I had an unfair advantage because I was Harald’s daughter. His mother might as well be a goddess.
He picked up his pizza and nodded toward the food. “Eat, Elin. Don’t make my portal hopping ways count for nothing.”
Now, I did laugh. “Fine.” I chose a slice of cheese, folded it, and took a bite. Sauce dripped down my chin.
“Ah, I got it.” He leaned forward and swiped at my face with his napkin, his movements gentle. “There.”
Warmth curled through me. I chewed and swallowed quickly, then lowered my gaze so he wouldn’t see how much his touch affected me. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
By some unspoken agreement, we spent the next few minutes devouring enough pizza to feed a pack of trolls. The bread turned out to have a mozzarella cheese filling, which made me let out an involuntary moan. Everything paired perfectly with the wine, and by the end of the meal I’d had three glasses.
The headmaster dipped the last of his crust in the container of sauce and stuck it in his mouth. “That just obliterated my calorie limit for the day,” he said around the bite. He swallowed and rubbed his midsection. “I don’t even feel bad about it.”
I rose to my knees and started stacking the empty containers. “Carbs are always worth it.”
“Makes training a bitch, though. We’ll both be slow today.”
I stopped, napkins in hand, and looked at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “You never told me how the staff gave you trouble.”
Not my fault. We’d reached the top of the steps just as I’d been about to describe the incident with Maja. I gathered several unused napkins and shuffled them into a pile. “Professor McBride . . . is she white or dark?”
“White, I think. But I’m of the opinion that most witches and wizards are willing to switch their allegiances when it suits them.”
“My old nanny would agree with you. She always said witches took their energy where they could find it, even if it meant going dark.” Witch magic was like a battery. It needed a regular charge, and a depleted witch could be easily killed. As a result, witches were notoriously greedy about amassing power—it was part of the reason they were forever cooking up elaborate spells. For some reason known only to the universe, dark magic—the kind that caused pain or suffering—offered a bigger boost than its white counterpart.
He frowned, his gaze intense. “Are you saying Professor McBride went dark today?”
Was I? It was a serious charge. I shook my head. “I can’t be sure of that.” Setting the napkins aside, I folded my hands in my lap and told him everything, from walking into class late to Professor McBride’s reaction after the staff repelled Maja.
“It was like she’d seen a ghost, or maybe a monster,” I told him. “The whole class looked at me like I was a freak. I mean, you saw Olaf.”
The headmaster chuckled. “Olaf always looks like he’s seen a monster.”
I tried to summon a smile, but I must have failed, because the headmaster leaned over and flicked a strand of hair off my shoulder.
“Hey. Don’t worry about what people think. You’re here to learn about your power. All of it. If it looks a little different than a berserker’s rage, what of it?”
The spot he’d flicked on my shoulder tingled, and I had to resist the urge to cover it with my hand. “Do you think it was the staff, though? Maybe it’s more powerful than you think. My mother’s family are dryads, and my uncle always says wooden weapons can be unpredictable. He claims trees are known to hold a grudge. They’re also terrible for gossip. Just try not stamping out a campfire. You’ll get pelted with acorns every time you walk through a forest.”
“Hmm.” The headmaster looked at the staff again. “I guess it could be the staff. Maybe Maja carved her initials in one of its cousins.”
“Or maybe my magic is just uncontrollable.” It was the worst insult for a berserker. When your magic was pure electricity, learning to control it was everything. Berserkers who couldn’t didn’t survive very long. Every once in a while, there was a story of some freak lightning storm that destroyed a whole village or fried a company’s computer systems. Humans would scratch their heads and blame Mother Nature.
Berserkers knew better. The Rage Lords would quietly dispatch someone from the guild to take care of the problem.
“I don’t think that’s the case,” the headmaster said. He stood and extended his hand. “Come on. Let’s see if the staff is holding a grudge.”
“Here?” My voice came out strangled as I let him haul me to my feet, my wine buzz evaporating at the prospect of doing any kind of training on top of the tower.
He looked around. “Why not?”
“I can’t train up here. There are gaps, very large gaps, in the battlements.”
He released me and started walking backwards, his arms spread from his sides. “Then you’ll have to watch your balance. Trust me, it’s excellent for sparring practice.”
Okay, he was officially crazy. I followed him. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re an immortal. If you fall, you can just regenerate your broken spine.”
“I’m not immortal.” His voice was matter-of-fact.
I stopped. “But you have to be. You’re the headmaster of Bjørneskalle.”
Still backing up, he neared the battlements. Just before he reached them, he turned and scooped up the staff. Then he came and stood just a half step away—close enough for me to see the rueful smile in his eyes when he said, “I’m not immortal.”
Confusion swamped me. The headmaster of Bjørneskalle was always immortal—a berserker with a thousand kills and then some. I searched for a logical explanation. “You don’t have enough kills?”
He shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t matter how many kills I have. I could fell an army, and it would make no difference.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m cursed.” He let out a humorless laugh. “Courtesy of my father. He has a way of getting his point across.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “What do you mean? Your own father cursed you?”
“That’s right.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He was angry about me choosing a berserker’s life. His last words were, ‘If you insist on spending your days sucking Odin’s dick, you don’t deserve immortality.’”
Ouch. “And I thought Harald was bad,” I murmured.
“My father has a pretty warped view of berserkers. He, um, kidnapped my mother. Theirs wasn’t a happy union, and my father isn’t a pleasant guy.”
My heart squeezed, and I had to press my hand against my thigh to keep from laying my palm against his cheek. At least my parents had been in love—even if just for a short time. “I’m so sorry. Is there any way you can undo the curse?”
“Nope. I spent a few years searching for someone who could. To no avail, I might add.”
“That must have been exhausting.”
He leaned on the staff, one hand draped over the top. More rueful amusement filled his blue eyes. “Yeah, well, exhaustion is something I had to get used to. He took my immortality, but he also made it so I have to accept every quest that’s offered to me.”
I swallowed. “Every quest?”
“Every quest.”
“You can’t refuse?”
“The curse won’t even let me say the words. If someone asks, I have to say yes.”
Horror was like acid in my gut. There were plenty of Mythicals with enough power to take on a fellow immortal, but only berserkers were invincible in battle. Assuming they could get close enough to their target and channel their rage into a weapon, they were nearly unstoppable. That made them highly sought after hit men—especially to Mythicals who didn’t want to risk their own necks trying to take down an enemy.
But there was a reason for the word “noble” in “noble guild of assassins.” Berserkers only killed those deemed deserving of death by the Rage Lords. And every berserker reserved the right to decline a quest. They didn’t even need a reason. Berregaard Manor saw a regular number of visitors who petitioned Harald to carry out a kill. Most left disappointed.
A memory sparked in my mind. “The blood on your arm yesterday. Was that from a quest?”
He nodded. “And a right shit one. I had to track a spriggan through a Welsh bog. The damn thing was collapsing roofs on villagers’ houses. It bit me when I grabbed it.”
That explained the blood and his disheveled appearance. “Do you need a tetanus shot? Can you catch anything from it?”
“Well, I haven’t turned into a short, grubby goblin yet, so I assume I’m okay.”
No, he was far from short and grubby—and he certainly wasn’t a goblin. Before I realized what I was doing, I reached up and touched his face. The beard was soft against my palm, and the skin underneath it warm. “I’m so sorry. About your father . . . about this curse.”
He covered my hand with his, then pressed it more closely against his cheek. “Don’t be sorry. Immortality is never a given, not even for so-called immortals. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that life is too short to be sorrowful.”
His attitude took my breath away. For a moment, time seemed to stop. With nothing but sky overhead, and the jagged gray battlements surrounding us, it was as if we were the only two people in the world. He held my gaze, his eyes the color of the bluebells that carpeted the forest floor every spring in England.
They were eyes to get lost in.
I was lost in them.
A sharp caw split the air. I jumped away from the headmaster.
He spun around, the staff at the ready. Then his shoulders relaxed.
“Just a raven,” he said, pointing.
It sat on the battlements near the food cupboard, its head cocked sideways as it pinned us with a beady blue stare. It let out a deep-throated croak and did a little hop.
“Are their eyes supposed to be blue?” I asked, still gazing at the bird.
The headmaster’s voice was amused. “Ordinarily. But the ravens at Bjørneskalle are different.”
Something Harald told me leaped from my memory. I looked at the headmaster. “Do they really tell you when a student dies?”
“They’ve been known to deliver messages, yes. Supposedly, they also make regular reports to Odin.”
Great. My progress report was probably glowing.
The raven made another loud croak, spread its wings, and wheeled away from the tower.
The headmaster turned toward me and held out the staff. “I guess that’s our cue to start training. Don’t use any magic or rage with this thing. For now, I just want to assess your basic fighting skills.”
I took the staff. As it touched my hand, it seemed to jump toward me—almost like a magnet.
The headmaster gave it a thoughtful look. “Interesting.”
I was too worried about the prospect of sparring on top of the tower to give the staff’s strange behavior much thought. “You’re sure you won’t consider doing this somewhere else? Like on the ground?”
“You’ll be fine.” He grinned. “Wait right here, I have a surprise.” He hurried back to the cupboard, his excitement almost palpable.
I called after him. “Like I have anywhere else to go.” But a reluctant smile tugged at my mouth. How could it not? The biggest, burliest man I’d ever met had just treated me to New York style pizza. But it wasn’t just that. It was his easygoing nature. His comfort with laughter. I’d spent so long among berserkers, I’d forgotten how unnatural it felt to suppress things like joy and silliness.
He returned carrying a small black device in his hand. As he stood before me, I realized it was a remote. A lock of blond hair fell to his jaw as he squinted at the buttons.
My hand itched to brush it back. I tightened my grip on the staff instead.
Out of nowhere, a familiar guitar riff blasted through the air. A few beats later, Robert Plant’s distinctive, rhythmic scream followed, accompanied by the first thumping strains of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”
I looked at the headmaster. “Really?”
He raised his eyebrows, all innocence. “What?”
“This is a little on the nose, don’t you think?”
He stuffed the remote in his back pocket. “Lighten up, Elin.” He rolled his shoulders and swung his arms like a boxer warming up. “You’re a berserker. You’ve got to get into the spirit of things.”
Seriously? The person who was supposed to be the most formidable berserker in the world thought I needed to lighten up?
“You do,” he said, bouncing from foot to foot.
A horrifying thought streaked through my head. I kept forgetting he was Fae. “Wait. Can you read—”
“Minds? Nah. You’re just bad at concealing your emotions.”
I felt my eyebrows pull together.
He pointed. “Anger. Good. Use that.” He danced back, gesturing for me to come at him. Robert Plant’s voice echoed off the stone.
We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow
The hammer of the gods . . .
The headmaster bounced on the balls of his feet. “I haven’t got all day!”
I lifted the staff. He’d said sparring only—no magic or rage. That made things simpler.
Didn’t it?
Overhead, a cluster of gray clouds parted. Sunlight pierced the gloom, highlighting the lighter streaks in his hair and making his blue eyes sparkle. With something like mischief in his gaze, he extended a hand and crooked a finger at me.
“Scared?”
How soft your fields so green
Can whisper tales of gore
Of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlords . . .
The lyrics drummed through my head and heated my blood. A cool breeze caught at my hair, tossing white-blond strands around my face.
Was I afraid? “Hardly,” I muttered, then sank into a crouch.
Satisfaction—and something like anticipation—flashed in the headmaster’s eyes. “Bring it, shi
eldmaiden.”
As it had before, the staff vibrated under my hands. I spun it in a slow circle and advanced forward, my steps light on the stones.
The headmaster bent his knees and brought his hands up.
In a burst of speed, I darted forward, aiming for his shoulder.
He grabbed the staff, yanked me onto my toes, then shoved me backwards.
My boots skidded against the stones. I stumbled back a few steps before regaining my balance. I glanced over my shoulder. The edge of the tower was a safe distance away.
“Sloppy,” he said. “Windmilling the staff might look good in action movies, but it requires too much concentration.” He crooked his finger. “Again.”
I took a deep breath . . . then went at him, staff aimed high. At the last second, I slashed it down toward his thigh.
He jumped, clearing it. While I was off balance, he grabbed my shoulder and whirled me around and against his back, one meaty arm like a band across the top of my chest.
The breath left my lungs.
He spoke into my hair. “Better. But stop going for big strikes. With someone my size, you need to focus on lots of little jabs.”
His words in my ear raised goosebumps on my skin. The staff heated under my hand. I pulled my elbow forward, then jerked it back and into his ribs.
He grunted, loosening his hold.
I slipped under his arm and spun away. Facing him, I sank back into a crouch.
“Nice.” Admiration shone from his eyes. He clutched at his ribs a second, then shook his arms out to his sides. “Again.”
Music still blaring, we circled each other. I kept the staff angled in front of my body, my knees slightly bent.
He made a couple grabs at me.
I danced back.
He laughed and kept circling, his movements light and graceful.
The music switched to the Black Eyed Peas’ “Pump It.” More sunlight poked through the clouds, big shafts of it spilling across the stones.
We kept circling. Sweat trickled down my back and dampened my temples. The wind caught at his hair, tugging strands from his ponytail. He shoved them back.
I rushed him. In a blur of movement, I flipped the staff, poked his arm, and quickly sprinted back.
