Dite winked at her seductively and Nerthus chuckled and laid a hand on her as she shook her head. “You did not hesitate to defend not only yourself but our group when under attack. And when the call for retreat and nonlethal force was sounded, you lowered your weapons and put yourself in front of our Elves.”
She shook her head. “Do not think I did not see the injuries you sustained to protect us, strangers... nor the fact that the wounds healed as I watched... Aphrodite, the Selfless!”
Thousands of Elf voices roared out in an enthusiastic rumble, “Aphrodite, the Selfless!” The cheering had me grinning ear to ear because my girl was blushing profusely, and that Queen had no shame as she winked at her and kissed her cheek. I should... I should calm down. When had I become so jealous of the people flirting with Dite? I had it bad, didn't I?
I clapped with the others and Nerthus stepped up to Samantha. She just stood there looking at her in wonder as the crowd quieted as if holding its breath in anticipation. She spoke softly to Sam, “And then there is you. I admit I have been fascinated with all my Jania has told me of the Three Embers of Asgard. Touted to be the most powerful of all people in the United Races of the planets in the stars.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “And the most gentle, as you three are sworn to do no violence. I did not see why those with such power, would not use it against an enemy even the gods fear. I was going to expose you as well when you were forced to defend yourself as we walked the night in Sund.”
The Queen started chuckling to herself as she looked out over the crowd. “Imagine my surprise, that while the rest of our group engaged our attackers, you wandered off to find their leader.”
She smirked and asked the crowd, “And for what?” She answered her own question as she looked at Sammie. “To attempt to communicate, to use words and kindness to determine why the war raged each night at the farms and pastures around our City Tree.”
She spun back to the crowd, blurting, “And communicate she did. Proving me wrong. Without force nor violence, this youngling discovered the sad truth that both sides will forever shoulder with shame. And she helped to forge a temporary peace until we can have official talks with the Dökkálfar.”
She turned back to smile at Sam who was standing tall. Nerthus accepted the last silver vine from her pages who skittered off the platform. “It is with great honor that I welcome you as one of our own... Samantha, Silver Tongue!”
We yelled out with the crowd, our voices being swallowed by the sheer number of Elves as they roared, “Samantha, Silver Tongue!” The Elves was going crazy, the cheering and whistling was so loud I had to cover my ears.
The All Mother looked overly pleased with herself as she motioned to the steps as the three new Elvish citizens made their way down to be greeted by their fellow citizens. It took them a minute to reach us as everyone pressed close, trying to lay hands on them as they moved.
Once the Three Embers, Kara and Inatra engulfed each other in a mass hug. And Intark just beamed at me with what Kate would call a shit eating grin, the crowd silenced again and our group looked up to the stage-like platform where the All Mother was calling for attention again.
We all looked on as she looked down at us. “Elfkind looks out for its own, and as Aphrodite of Olympus is one of our own now, I would like to announce that being the Elfmane thing to do for those she calls her own, just as we call her ours... that if Olympus needs to seek sanctuary and shelter from the enemy of the stars, Alfheimr will welcome them.”
That caused ripples of speculation, surprise, and agreement to circulate around us.
As much as I appreciated her willingness to break their isolationist culture to allow our citadel to reside on Alfheim and us to stay as refugees, I feared it was all for naught. Unless Thea and Arina could get the capacitors charged two minutes earlier in a week's time, then they would flee to safety with a jump pack and allow the citadel to self destruct.
Then Queen Nerthus of the Ljósálfar crossed her arms in amusement, a mirror of Intark's shit-eating grin on her face as she waited for her people to settle. When they realized she wasn't done, they quieted and looked up at her as she almost skipped around in glee while she paced the stage with nervous energy and called out. “There is one last piece of business to bring up.” She looked around by us and I noted Jani wasn't anywhere to be seen. Shouldn't she be in that huge hug scrum with her girl?
The Queen chuckled out, “No you don't, Jania Sure Step, you don't get away that easily. Up here please.” That's when I saw Jania actually gracefully running across the heads and shoulders of the gathered Elves toward the edge of the crowd. With a “Gleep!” she disappeared for a moment before reappearing as hands held her up and passed her on, moving her to the platform above their heads. She had a terrified look on her face as she was yelling out, “Traitors! To the one!”
The way the Queen was laughing, I couldn't help but smile and wonder what fresh hell was going on now. By the time our Elvish friend was placed on the platform in front of her mother, she had a resigned and beaten look on her face.
She growled at her mom and took a knee. She just stayed there in supplication as Nerthus addressed the crowd. “Before you hear it through the Allrbus rumor mill from Elves with loose lips, I wish to share with you, my loyal subjects, something which occurred yesterday.”
Ree stood and walked up to the queen with something in her hands, covered with a silklike cloth. The look of pride on Ree's weathered face showed the love she had for Jani. The queen pulled the cloth away, revealing a silver crown like her's just smaller and more delicate and the crowd let out a collective gasp.
The All Mother looked about to explode with glee and pride as she placed it on Jania's head, a single silver leaf hanging down to the bridge of her nose on a delicate silver thread, making her look more beautiful than I have ever seen her. “Rise.”
Jani stood, rubbing her arms self consciously as Nerthus called out, “I give you Crowned Princess, Jania Sure Step of Allbrus!” Then as the cheering started she yelled out, “Let the celebration begin!”
Epilogue
The next week we spent in Alfheim, waiting on the daily communications from Olympus on the progress of the jump drive charging and the advance of the Titan vessel. No matter what they did, Arina and Thea could not change the laws of interdimensional energy transfer. And I was so proud to call both of them my friends as they refused to leave until the last moment in case they could succeed. Or if the Titan vessel didn't attack the moment they arrived on orbit.
We stayed to witness the peace talks between the Light and Dark Elves of Alfheim. Loki had devised a cloak that could protect Koar in the light of the Alfheimish sun. She said that as they built a tolerance to the sunlight, that one day their people could again walk in the light with the Ljósálfar, because, “Life adapts.”
The people of Allrbus crowd the streets each day, just to get a look at the Dökkálfar, amazed at how Elflike he was as he made his way to speak with the Queen. I came to find that Koar was sly and had an interesting sense of humor. He was finding it hard to ignore a lifetime of belief that the Fire Sky Gods existed and provided for his people. But once he was shown how the Ljósálfar planted and tended the gardens under the sun that would blind him, he was convinced.
We were all gathered in the Green Palace, breaking bread with Jania and her consort, Samantha, Silver Tongue, as we nervously awaited word from Arina and Thea as the deadline approached. I kept chastising my Verr for displaying a countdown in my peripheral vision then chastising them for taking it away. They felt amused at the new game with me. Silly Verr.
I was trying one of the sweet rolls that Inatra said Arina would drool over, while she herself was sampling all the meats on the trays when the Three Embers all suddenly stood. Essa was nodding as we all stood to look at them. “Yes, Auntie Arina. Just a moment.”
The girls were all in motion heading to the center of the room as Brunhilde tapped her coms on her wrist
console. A moment later she was saying, “Yes grandfather, it is mother, she is piggybacking her signal on the quantum entanglement frequency of our Verr to eliminate the feedback resonance from earlier communications.”
She flicked her wrist console onto the floor and clapped her hands together and flung them apart and Odin's workshop bloomed in the space with both Loki and Geiravor beside him, looking tense, as if they had been waiting as the countdown wound to its end just as we were.
The Queen of Asgard smiled and held a hand out. “My babies!”
The Embers blushed together and said in unison, “Well met, Grandmother.” As Essa moved her hands and fingers through the air as if she were programming something, then with a swish of her hand, the temporary Bifrost gateway in Olympus sharpened into view, with both Arina and Thea working the controls manually on the massive beam of what looked like constrained lightning as it poured through the gateway into the device the two had constructed to shunt energy into the jump core. Neither had slept in eight days as they were needed to continually modify the containment routines since the portable equipment Arina had with her could not keep up. Her nanites keeping her refreshed. I wasn't sure if Titans actually needed to sleep... they did, but did they need to?
The countdown dropped below four minutes in my peripheral. Just as Arina looked over at us and said, “Hang on, let us stop the energy transfer now. There is not enough time to complete it so to be safe we need to sever the connection.”
My heart sank. I know it was irrational of me to expect miracles from Arina and Thea, it is just that I've never known the Little One to fail in anything she attempted. But we know we shouldn't expect the impossible.
But as the massive crackling beam of power ceased, and the sound level dropped from the transmission, Thea turned from her console and said, “Arina has come up with an idea to make the jump without a full reservoir. Quite clever this one. Her ingenuity rivals that of my sisters. She says that the Wildcards had shown her once how to re-kindle one of their cold fusion drives by conducting a massive energy dump into the chamber. She says they called it a jump start.”
Jump start?
Odin was nodding but asked, “Where can she get that kind of power in such a short time? The energy we were transferring through the Bifrost was the maximum without destabilizing the event horizon in the gateway and causing a cascade failure.”
He gasped when he thought he had figured it out and said, “But that would mean one of you would have to stay behind to dump the portable jump pack's power core to initiate the fold.”
Thea cocked her head thoughtfully. “We had not thought of that. But that course of action would be better if used in conjunction with a remote detonation and we have less than sixty seconds until we are in firing range of the Star Killer's weapons, and they are not answering hails. If any organic matter is there at a core dump, it would be vaporized and whoever stayed behind would be sacrificed.”
I blurted out, “Just set the Citadel self destruct and get to Asgard while you can ladies!”
Arina said, “I was actually thinking on attuning the temporary scale shield dome to shunt the power from the Titan main weapon into the jump drive core when it strikes. There would be bleed through since the resonance would be modified, but I think it would be negligible.”
Kara hissed out, “Are you insane? Taking a hit without properly attuned shields is suicide, Little One. You and Thea get out of there now.”
Arina looked my way and said, “No... I will not leave Artemis without her home. I will not leave the Olympians without a home.”
I started, “Arina, you don't...”
But she turned to Thea. “There's no need for both of us to be here in case it fails. Get through the Bifrost so I can shut it down so they don't get any blowback.”
Thea lumbered over to her and said, “I will not leave you here to attempt this on your own, You'll need me to monitor the transfer while you maintain the shields.”
Arina stepped up to her and said as the countdown in my vision started flashing red with fifteen seconds remaining, and data started streaming in showing the approaching vessel was charging its main canon. She hugged Thea and said, “I thought you might say that.” Then she jumped backward, clearing thirty yards as I saw it. Their emergency jump pack was now hanging off of Thea's belt.
The Titan's eyes widened just as space folded around her. Then in a whump of displaced air, Thea was standing at the far end of the room with us, the walls steaming and smoking. Then she was calling to the hologram, “Arina, you can't alone!”
We all stared in horror at the screen as a five-second countdown appeared on the display as she said, “Well here goes nothing.” She crossed her fingers then hit the control to disconnect the Bifrost.
The girls looked at the empty space in horror with us, where Arina's hologram had been a moment before. Then I felt the communication between them and we all ran as a group out the door to the veranda balcony which looked out over the ridge and toward the front gates.
A few moments later the whole planet felt as though it were shaking, and we were all hit with vertigo as we felt the edges of a massive amount of space being folded so close by. Smaller trees shook to their core and tumbled then in an explosion of displaced air, hurricane force winds barreled through the trees, shaking loose leaves free and we all anchored ourselves with our lattices and leaned into it when we were hit by debris in a chaos of dirt and dust.
Then it was over and we dropped our arms. And towering over the gates in the distance, beside the Bifrost Terminal was half a mountain, the other half flickered back and forth into existence until the photonic hologram projectors died.
And there, in the middle of it was the Citadel of Olympus, a third of it destroyed or burning under a patchwork of shimmering and shorting shields, showing how many had failed. An explosion was heard and one of the buildings near the perimeter collapsed into a fireball.
Arina the Whispering Breeze had done it, she had saved our home. But at what cost? The shield right above the courtyard with temporary Bifrost gateway was gone and we couldn't see the courtyard itself at this angle, but my heart seized in my chest knowing that nothing could have survived a hit from the main cannon of a Star Killer...
I tried to say her name, but my throat was raw, and I turned when the Three Embers ran from the balcony, Brunie screaming in anguish, “Mother!” As Inatra dropped to her knees in shock, whispering, “Arina?”
The End
---------------------------------------------
Novels by Erik Schubach
---------------------------------------------
Books in the Techromancy Scrolls series...
Adept
Soras
Masquerade
Westlands
Avalon
New Cali (2019)
Books in the Urban Fairytales series...
Red Hood: The Hunt
Snow: The White Crow
Ella: Cinders and Ash
Rose: Briar's Thorn
Let Down Your Hair
Hair of Gold: Just Right
The Hood of Locksley
Beauty In the Beast
No Place Like Home
Shadow Of The Hook
Books in the New Sentinels series...
Djinn: Cursed
Raven Maid: Out of the Darkness
Fate: No Strings Attached
Open Seas: Just Add Water
Ghost-ish: Lazarus
Anubis: Death's Mistress
Sentinels: Reckoning (2020)
Books in the Drakon series...
Awakening
Dragonfall
Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...
Return of the Asgard
Bloodlines
Folkvangr
Seventy Two Hours
Titans
Books in the Tales From Olympus series...
Gods Reunited
Alfheim
Odyssey (2020)
Books in the Bridge series...
Trolls
Traitor
Unbroken
Books in the Fracture series...
Divergence
----------------------------------------------
Novellas by Erik Schubach
----------------------------------------------
The Hollow
Novellas in the Paranormals series...
Fleas
This Sucks
Jinx (2019)
Novellas in the Fixit Adventures...
Fixit
Glitch
Vashon
Descent
Sedition (2019)
Novellas in the Emily Monroe Is Not The Chosen One series...
Night Shift
Unchosen
Rechosen (2019)
-----------------------------------------------------
Short Stories by Erik Schubach
(These short stories span many different genres)
-----------------------------------------------------
A Little Favor
Lost in the Woods
MUB
Mirror Mirror On The Wall
Oops!
Rift Jumpers: Faster Than Light
Scythe
Snack Run
Something Pretty
Summer Break (2019)
---------------------------------------------------------
Romance Novels by Erik Schubach
---------------------------------------------------------
Books in the Music of the Soul universe...
(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)
Alfheim Page 16
