My mother’s fingers twitched and I didn’t hesitate. I summoned my spear and tossed it. My aim had always been good, but landing the blow so that I broke her death-grip on her weapon without hurting her took skill—and a bit of luck.
The weapon clattered to the floor and every Immortal just stood there, stunned.
I moved fast before they could recover from their shock. I embraced the deeper part of me that fueled my Immortality and my connection to Ragnarök. Time and space warped, sending me catapulting towards the spear lying on the ground. I snatched it up and pointed it at my mother. “Stand aside.”
“Daughter. You don’t know how to use my weapon,” Freya said. As stronger as her words sounded, her voice strained until taut.
I hovered my finger over one of the buttons. I didn’t know how to use it. I could just smash away at it and I had no doubt terrible things would happen. “Just get out of my way and you can have it back.”
She didn’t move, but her eyes glowed with embers as she watched me. “I have survived Ragnarök before only because I’d prepared for the day when it would return. Those souls are how we survive, Daughter. You cannot have them.”
I growled. She wasn’t looking at the bigger picture. “For once in your life, will you listen to me? After everything I’ve been through, I learned what it meant to deal with the darkness inside of me. I’ve overcome Ragnarök every single day I’ve been alive.”
Freya flinched. “I tried to protect you from it.” Her gaze fell on Tyler. “That’s why I allowed the Heimdall anywhere near you.”
My eyes narrowed. “Do you even understand why he stabilized me?”
She rose an eyebrow. “He holds the same darkness of Ragnarök inside of him.” She glanced at Odin and gave him a slight nod of appreciation. “It is my husband who knows how to filter out the shadows.”
Odin agreed with a stomp of his foot. “I discovered the power of sunlight early in my years of Immortality. It subdues Ragnarök and any echoes it might leave behind.”
“No,” I said, the word a final thud against my ears. Both my parents straightened at the challenge. “You’ve only learned how to suppress it. I have learned how to fight it.” Tyler had helped me because he awakened friendship and hope in me. When I’d come of age and was threatened to be dragged under by the ugliness of reaping souls, it was Will’s love that grounded me.
Ragnarök only knew loss. It sank into the weight of space and time created by humanity’s suffering and pain. Love gone wrong could easily make that pain a hundredfold deeper… but it was also love that gave hope. There was another side to Ragnarök. I saw it every time I looked into the eyes of someone who loved me. I saw it in Will. I saw it in Tyler. I even saw its glimmer in the backs of my mother’s eyes as she watched me with her breath caught in her throat. The universe was too balanced for there to only be doom and gloom.
There was love. There was Yggdrasil.
I was going to get there. If heartbreak was how I fell, then love was how I soared. Love was how I’d get to Yggdrasil and end Ragnarök’s course of destruction.
“We do this my way,” I said and lifted my chin. I brandished the spear at my mother. “You’ve run from Ragnarök for too long. It’s time that the cycle is ended.”
Freya hesitated, then looked to Odin for guidance.
My father lowered his weapon and frowned. “We’ve tried it our way,” he said after a long moment of silence. “Perhaps we should humble ourselves and give our child a chance to do what we never could.”
Freya’s brows drew together as if she were pained by his response. “But what if she fails?” Her voice broke on the last word. A Valkyrie’s failure against Ragnarök meant the end of the universe itself. “There will be nothing left.”
Odin shook his head and his weapon vanished in a flash of light. He took Freya’s chin in a gentle pinch as he leaned in. “You know that’s not true. We’ve watched Ragnarök destroy the universe over and over again. We hide like cowards until it has devoured every last atom. We rebuild what’s left and start anew.” For the first time, the glimmer of sunlight in his eyes dimmed. “I’m tired of starting over.”
Freya didn’t look convinced, but she allowed him to pull her out of the way so that the crystal door to the Einherjar’s core was free. I edged around them and pressed against its sharp edges, but it wouldn’t open for me. I looked at Tyler and he understood my unspoken need. He rested a hand against the wall, and I paid attention to what he didn’t this time. He drew on the suffering of darkness inside himself, and that’s what the Einherjar reacted to.
My stomach churned and nausea threatened to overcome me. This was how I knew that the Einherjar had perverted the basis of Yggdrasil. A true resting place for souls wouldn’t be capable of recognizing suffering, but the core rumbled at the hint of it as shadows spiraled around Tyler’s fingers. Suffering was all it ever knew.
The door hissed open and I followed Tyler inside with new resolve.
I was going to do exactly what Ragnarök did every time it demolished the universe, except this time, I wouldn’t leave only suffering behind. I’d take it all away until only raw, innocent humanity was left.
Trust
Once inside Einherjar’s core, souls whipped in panic at the sight of Freya’s spear still in my grip. I leaned it against the wall, trusting that my mother wouldn’t come rushing in after it. I suspected that if she really hadn’t wanted me to enter Einherjar’s core, she would have stopped me—spear or not.
Will followed us inside and the door hissed closed, leaving me with a sense of entrapment. The power and suffering in this place weighed the space-time web harsher than anything I’d ever felt. Now that I knew what to look for, I sensed the mass that could call Ragnarök through worlds. It was no wonder Muspelheim had been its first target. The Einherjar held all the souls that Valkyries had reaped… but it was Muspelheim that held the grave of a thousand dead Valkyries that had devoured those very souls at their birth and lived with the guilt and suffering of their duty every day.
I shifted closer to the winding roots that formed the base of the long tree that soared through the center of the ship. Blue spirits glittered around it and sang their low lament, settling down now that I’d released my weapon.
Will’s fingers wound around mine as Tyler pressed a hand against one of the roots that arched high above his head. He scratched at the bark, revealing oily grime that flaked away to reveal the wires buried underneath. The ship itself fed off of these souls and I shivered.
“Shine bright,” I said through the pain that clenched around my chest.
Will blinked at me. “What?”
I held his grip tighter. “Burn hot with the power of Odin. Take away their pain.”
I’d seen Tyler do it over and over again. He seared away the darkness with the power of sunlight. It wasn’t love, but it burned hot like love and kept the icy chill at bay. I could do that for these souls… and maybe it’d be enough to set them free.
Tyler came to my side in an instant, his eyes the crystal worry of one of the Valiant who only wanted to protect. “Are you sure?”
I nodded and stiffened my lower lip to prevent the tears that threatened to spill over my cheeks. “I need to do this. Don’t worry. I will survive.”
Tyler offered his hand. “You’d better.”
With my left grip on Will, I gave my free hand to Tyler and drew him to my side.
I’d never felt more loved and protected than I did right then with both Valiant warriors opening their hearts and their love to me. They were two halves of my heart and I was just a husk without them.
I closed my eyes and nodded. “I’m ready.”
They hesitated, but then the heat came. It grew in low, rolling waves like thunder of a storm. Then it seared against me, running up my fingertips to my elbows until the fiery fingers threatened to disintegrate me from the inside.
I opened my heart to the pain and the souls gave a high-pitched trill in recognition as they p
enetrated my chest and curled up in the open space of my soul where the echoes of Ragnarök lived.
I was the conduit. I was the weight in the space-time web that would draw them in…
and it was my Valiant who would set them free.
The scent of sunlight and embers embraced me… and then I died.
Yggdrasil
Death. But only a temporary death. This was the glimpse of Yggdrasil I needed to capture a weapon against Ragnarök and its never-ending hunger.
I opened my eyes, but regretted it the moment I did. The impact of purity and love soared into the heavens in the form of a great, golden tree that exuded not sunlight, but pure and unadulterated love and joy. It gleamed with radiance and souls free of suffering and pain danced through its leaves, sharing all they’d learned in their journey to earth.
Crystal blooms budded under its leaves, reminding me of Odin’s gifts. He’d harnessed sunlight, but that crystal is what I saw in a Valiant’s eyes. Perhaps my mother wasn’t the only Immortal who hid behind her title of god of war. There was a heart in there somewhere, even if it was one encased by steel.
A yearning lifted my spirit up, threatening to tear me from my body so that I could join the souls dancing through Yggdrasil’s branches. How I wanted to. This felt like home. This was a place where I’d never know pain.
Two strong hands held mine on the mortal place where space and time threaded together in an overlapping tapestry.
Will.
Tyler.
I couldn’t leave them to Ragnarök and the jaws of its dark fate.
I forced my eyes to roam lower among the branches that glittered with blooms until I got to the low-hanging fruit of souls full of the golden weight of Yggdrasil’s sap. A minuscule breeze sang through the limbs, sending the crystal leaves clinking against one another in a beautiful symphony.
The largest of the golden fruits broke free… and dropped.
I dove for it. If that fruit made it into the space-time web, it would become a soul with a mind and a life and a conscience. It’d have a purpose… but I had greater plans in mind.
I snatched the fruit up and the tree groaned as if it’d just noticed the disturbance. The low mist at the base covered the thin layer of soil that separated this realm from that of my own.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered and my voice disappeared into the weightlessness of an afterlife I’d never get to see again.
The warmth of Yggdrasil retreated, leaving me with an icy chill that settled over my bones and made my teeth chatter so hard I was sure I was going to dislocate my jaw.
“Tyler,” I cried, the name coming to me unbidden as familiar pain wrapped spiked claws around my body. This is what it felt like when I was ripped from the promise of love and hope, only to find myself immersed in darkness.
Time and space vibrated around me like a weeping thing trapped in sobs. Needles pricked against my skin as my limbs fell asleep against the cold that struggled to reach inside until it grazed my soul. My stomach dropped and my hands shot out looking for something to grab onto as the sensation of falling made me panic.
Tyler’s strong arms wrapped around me and I curled into his chest and his warmth, the helpless sensation immediately easing under the undeniable promise of his strength. I pressed my entire body as close to his as I could as I greedily drew in his heat. Memories unlocked with a soft snap as another box opened, filling me with all the times Tyler had done this for me before. He stroked my hair and shushed me as he pulled the darkness out of me… and into himself.
I cringed when I realized this was why my mother had allowed him anywhere near me. Something had to give when I tampered with space and time. I’d learned the price of opening my heart to it and attracting the weight of sorrow that existed in the echoes of Ragnarök. That price was Tyler’s suffering, as well as my own.
Torment clawed at me and I found the strength to try and pull away, but Tyler’s arms were solid iron and wrapped around me like prison bars. “You’re not going anywhere,” he chided in a hushed whisper. “You pushed yourself too far.”
I knew he was right. The other times I’d used my gifts to this extent had been accidental—but my trip to Yggdrasil was beyond anything I’d ever attempted before.
That’s when I remembered the hum of heat I still clutched in my hands at my chest.
I wriggled in Tyler’s grasp and looked down as I forced my frozen fingers to open.
A golden fruit with the purest light of life emanating from its core gleamed back at me.
“What is that?” Will breathed.
I’d almost forgotten that Will was still with us, and that we were in Einherjar’s core with a tumult of souls still whipping around us… but there was less of them. I craned my neck up to peer at the small gathering of blue dots that twinkled like stars. I hadn’t managed to save all of the souls, but at least I’d helped some of them escape this place.
When I looked back at Tyler… he would not meet my gaze.
Degradation
Freya wouldn’t face us for the rest of the evening. Even though there was no sun to guide our days, and only a perpetual darkness that clouded my homeworld of Muspelheim, the ship continued its cycle of natural lights that lined the walls. It dimmed into the soft hue of evening and my stomach growled for dinner.
Even though my body was starving after expending so much energy, nausea prevented me from even contemplating eating food.
I’d settled for a warm bowl of soup which a Valkyrie had placed in front of me. We’d come to the mess hall which was small in comparison to a ship of this size. A handful of tables boasted the few Valkyries who still had their mortal form, having returned from reaping their souls. Their skin was pale and their lustrous hair turned scraggly as it hung about their chest in clumps.
“What’s wrong with them?” Will asked.
Tyler had gone with Odin and Freya to “discuss matters,” whatever that meant. I’d refused to part with my magical fruit and it rested on the inside of my jacket, out of sight, but it continued to hum its otherworldly song against the wall of my chest. The other Valkyries seemed to sense its healing power and glanced at me, nervously looking away when I caught their gaze.
“They’re shedding their mortal bodies.” I said and swirled my spoon in the contents of my soup that’d long gone cold.
A Valkyrie assigned with making sure I finished at least a few bites by Freya herself walked to us and frowned. Her wings draped over her shoulders in slow, drifting waves. “You’re not eating,” she observed.
I glowered at her. My stomach couldn’t possibly process food. “It’s cold,” I complained.
Her shoulders relaxed. “Oh, is that all?” She reached over Will as if she’d forgotten he was there and he leaned to keep from getting an elbow in his face. Embers fluttered to life at her fingertips and then a flame appeared. She gripped the bowl, sending the contents frothing with heat before she released it. “There,” she said, satisfied with her handiwork. “Now make sure you eat up. Freya is not in a good mood.”
“When is she ever,” I growled.
The Valkyrie smirked. “Hang in there, Val. We’re all just trying to get through this one step at a time.” She bowed, then her wings fluttered before she left.
“What was that about?” Will asked as he leaned closer. “Do you know her?”
I tried to watch the Valkyrie as she sauntered away, her gait majestic and graceful as was native to the race except when it came to me. Her wings, black as midnight, shimmered and looked beautiful even against the ship’s harsh lights. “No,” I finally admitted. My memories of the Einherjar were fragmented at best. I’d been trying so hard to reclaim my life on Earth that I’d let so many things about my Immortal life slip away. She was just one of many Valkyries to me now. Their perfection and poise blended together until they were nothing but a pristine race that represented my torment and my imprisonment to an old way of life.
Then my gaze went back to the Valkyries still struggling t
o eat. The one who’d helped me found a few more with cold soup and set their bowls warming with her touch. They smiled their thanks, but their eyes were tired and their shoulders hunched as if already feeling the weight of their wings.
“You said they’re shedding their mortal bodies,” Will said, lowering his voice so that only I could hear him. He eyed my bowl of soup, seeming to concentrate on it far harder than he needed to. “Does that mean you’re going to lose your body too?”
I startled and dropped my spoon. It clattered to the table and Will picked it up, wiping it off with my napkin before offering it back to me. I stared at the twisted metal that reflected my human face. Every Valkyrie was linked to her soul, and when Will died, the detonation should have begun. I’d been clinging to my mortal body with such ferocity that I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t supposed to have it at all.
He lowered the spoon back to the table and wrapped his fingers around mine. I hadn’t realized that I’d started shaking. I met his gaze, suddenly feeling frantic as fear gripped my heart. I couldn’t save the world, I couldn’t save him, and what if I couldn’t even save myself?
“Val,” he whispered, bringing me back to the present just as he always did, “you’re doing it again.”
“What?” I asked and my voice shook.
He grinned and his thumb stroked over my knuckles. “You’re spiraling and trying to hold the universe on your shoulders. You’re really good at that.”
He drew me in and I allowed myself to curl into the curve of his chest where I fit perfectly. He stroked my hair and we watched the other Valkyries go about the mess hall until the lights eventually dimmed and we were the only ones left.
“Do you think it’s because of the rune on your hand?” he asked.
I hadn’t realized that he’d been stroking the black mark that continued to grow. I knew what it was now. It was the same darkness that ran in the Heimdall line and the same power that had made my parents Immortal—and spawned Ragnarök. “Is it a bad thing to hold onto my mortality?” I asked. Even though I felt my mortality acutely in this body—the hunger, the fatigue—I didn’t want to let it go. Resting against Will’s chest reminded me why I’d fallen in love with him. It was this very moment. Sitting together, being together, even when the world around us was falling apart and death loomed around the corner. This was part of what it meant to be mortal and it made the moment even more precious. I peered up at Will, unable to resist the urge to run a finger across the perfect arch of his cheek. “Is it wrong to hope you can get yours back?”
Valkyrie Uprising Page 4
