Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles Book 2) (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

A
blackened and ancient city loomed over me—a skeleton left out in the elements to age and decay. In the distance rose a monstrous mountain range, crowned by snow. The sourness of old smoke lay heavy on my tongue and stung my eyes. I walked the dead city’s streets, dodging broken stones and bricks, fallen pillars, and shattered glass. A frozen wind tore through the torched and ruined landscape, carrying the shrill cries of ghosts.

One voice rose above the others, mournful and wrecked. I searched for it, stepping over and through piles of rubble and ash. The voice called higher and louder. Like a siren, it screamed and wailed until I could no longer bear it. I crouched, covered my ears, and squeezed shut my eyes.

I stayed like that for an eternity before the sound faded. When I finally pulled my hands away, an echo rang in my ears, but the horrible noise had faded away. The place where I’d stopped was the courtyard of what had probably once been a fine home. A few beams and doorframes remained, teetering on a foundation of besmirched stone. In the yard beside me stood the burned-out remnants of a tree, little more than a twisted, blackened stump.

Compelled to touch the charred remains, I went to the tree and flattened my palm against its cold, dead bark. At the instant of my touch, new shoots sprang from the blackened body. I gasped and pulled my hand away, and the new growth withered. I touched the stump again, and the shoots recovered and grew. The roots beneath me stretched and wriggled in the ground like a child waking from a long sleep.

Branches unfurled, and tiny green buds sprouted on their tips. The buds grew into leaves and sweet white blossoms. I held my hand to the tree and watched it shed its black skin, revealing warm brown bark underneath. The flowers fell off, and in their place formed little green bulbs. The bulbs grew into apples that turned bright yellow before deepening into burnished gold.

Finally, the tree stopped and rested. I took my hand away to test what would happen. The new growth remained, the fruit sparkling in the sunlight. I grasped an apple and plucked it free. The air around me went still. The breeze died. Every leaf on the tree froze in place. The whole world held its breath, waiting for me to take a bite.

I rubbed the apple’s skin over my lips, teased it with my tongue, and sank my teeth into its flesh. Its juices dribbled down my chin, and I knew I was eating the apple from my dream—the sweetest, brightest flavor I had ever tasted. The breeze returned, but with a freshness that hadn’t existed before. I heaved in a deep lungful, and the coldness of it stung and cramped in my chest. I gasped and coughed and fought for air, but it was frozen, and I could not breathe.

Darkness surrounded me. I rubbed my eyes, but none of my visions returned. No tree, no burnt city, no imposing mountains. Nothing. I tried sitting up, but dizziness washed over me.

Haven’t I been in this situation before?

But no stony arms were binding me in place. My own weakness was keeping me immobile. Grim had done me the courtesy of providing a thin blanket to cover my bare flesh, but it left my extremities cold and numb. I envisioned my toes turning black and falling off. The one comfort in that horrible situation hung heavy around my neck: the gold chain, Mjölnir’s lanyard. It had survived the firefight.

“Does Sleeping Beauty finally awake?”

“Grim?” My words came out in a rasp from my dry and frozen throat.

A match struck, and a lantern flared to life. Light bounced off Grim’s face, but the shadows drew harsh lines that turned him into a haggard and haunted creature. He grinned, the lecherous beast, and leaned closer. Heat from the lantern supplied the only relief from the frigid air, and I wanted to hug it, but raising my hand would’ve required strength I didn’t have.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“Somewhere safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“Meddlers.”

“What happened?”

“Surtalogi feeds on fire. It sucked yours away until you were empty.”

“Why is it so cold?”

“Ice.” Grim patted the walls. “A whole cave made from it.”

He wore a fur-lined parka. The hood hid his hair and made his resemblance to his fairer brother more pronounced. It creeped me out, big time.

“I-I’m going to freeze to death,” I said, my teeth chattering.

Grim clicked his tongue and shook his head. “No, you won’t. Not yet.” He passed me a cup of something hot and steaming. “Drink this. The cold should keep you too weak to use your fire, but you’ll be able to generate just enough heat to keep yourself alive.”

“Why? If you kill me now, Skoll will be out of luck, Helen’s plan will… Oh, I see. Helen is the whole point of this. Right? I’m Helen bait.”

Grim nodded. “Surtalogi is one of the few things that can defeat her, and her death is long overdue.”

“What happened to Val?”

“Last I saw, he was broken in two, lying at the bottom of Mineral Lake.”

“Dead?”

“Probably not, but he’ll be useless for a while.”

“Skyla?”

“That new Valkyrie bitch? She’s out of luck. Brave, fierce, but still ultimately no help to you.” Grim shifted and moved away, taking the tiny bit of lantern heat with him. “Drink that syrup and go back to sleep.” He moved farther away. “It’s the only escape that will offer you any comfort.”

“Wait,” I said.

Grim paused. He didn’t turn around, but his stillness indicated he was listening.

“Are you working with Rolf Lockhart?”

“Lockhart?” Grim asked, his back still to me. “Never heard of him.”

With that, he disappeared into the darkness. I tried getting to my feet, but my legs refused to cooperate, and the shivering took over so that I could barely move at all. After sucking down the contents of the cup—sweet, warm, and thick—I reached into my wellspring of fire and found a sorry dribble of energy. I brought it to the surface, and the faintest light glowed from my skin, like foxfire generated by the honey fungus on dying trees.

Mani had taught me those kinds of things when we went camping as kids. He was such a Boy Scout. I closed my eyes and revisited the camping trip with Mani when he’d first showed me the foxfire, little mushroom bundles growing on decaying trees. From a distance, their glow looked like the eyes of enchanted creatures watching us from the forest shadows. I wanted to pick them and take them home. Mani wouldn’t let me.

“They won’t glow if you pick them,” he said. “They’ll die, and their lights will go out.”

I snagged an apple from a low-hanging branch and ate it as I toured the remains of the house. Ash, charcoal, and a pile of heavy rocks littered the floor and surrounding yard, but little else remained. No knickknacks or personal items, no crockery or furnishings. When I finished my apple, I tossed the core out the window frame and thought no more of it. But when I returned to the yard minutes later, a ring of fine, green grass had sprung up around the apple core.
Hmm?

Curiosity piqued, I crouched over the apple core and poked it, pushing it beyond the perimeter of the grass circle. The grass remained, not drying and curling into brown straw or disappearing as magically as it had appeared. Although I doubted my idea’s effectiveness, I collected the apple core, picked out the seeds, pawed a hole at the center of the grass patch, and buried the seeds.

Nothing happened. I held my hand against the mound. Still nothing. I sighed, sank down on the ground, and waited for whatever would come next.

“The wolf, Hati, he’s dead?” Grim asked. “You killed him?”

I nodded. Talking depleted my energy, and I needed every drop to stave off the cold. Grim had woken me to feed me another cup of syrupy energy goop and had started his inquisition, testing my knowledge of Helen and Thorin. That cave, all darkness and numbing cold, sucked away all concept of time and place. Had I been there for hours, or days? It felt like years.

“B-burned him to ash,” I said through chattering teeth.

“And what of Skoll?”

“B-burned, too.” I summarized our fight with Skoll in the desert but avoided mentioning Thorin’s use of the hammer.

“But he survived.”

I nodded.

“You haven’t seen either of them, Helen or Skoll, since?”

I shook my head. “Came straight to the Aerie.”

“Looking for the sword?”

Nod.

“Where is my brother?”

Shrug.

“Why did he leave you unprotected?”

“V-Val—” I started.

Grim barked a sharp laugh. “He’s sunk so far into humanity he’s forgotten himself. He’s no threat to me, and he’s a poor guardian for a daughter of Sol.”

“Solina.”

“What?”

“My n-name is Solina.”

Grim laughed again. “Soon, your name will be forgotten. It doesn’t matter to me. When did you last see my brother?”

Shrug. “Went to help Baldur find Nina.”

Grim snorted. “Baldur the Allfather, lovesick halfwit. But you don’t know where they went?”

Head shake.

“I’ve sent Helen word about my capture of you. As soon as I’m sure she’s taken the bait, I will end this suffering. It shouldn’t last much longer.”

I didn’t have the energy to cry. I shrugged and closed my eyes.

The apple seeds had sprouted. Two little green shoots reached toward the sky. I brushed my fingers over the tender green stalks, hoping to encourage their growth. My touch had no influence, though—not as it had on the mother tree—but that didn’t matter. Those two little signs of life in this long-dead place eased my heartache and emptiness. I ate as many apples from the mother tree as I could stuff in my stomach, and I buried seeds all about the burned-out building.

For what felt like hours, I planted, moving out from the house in concentric circles. I couldn’t rebuild the city, but I could build an orchard. By the time I had planted the seeds from all the apples I could eat, I had created a perimeter around the house, two rows deep. The sun was setting as I buried the last seed. My stomach groaned from overeating, and dried juice coated my fingers and wrists in a sticky film.

I returned to the yard outside my burnt house and eased down against the base of the mother tree. The grass beneath it had grown into a thick green carpet. In fact, anywhere I had planted a seed already showed signs of life. Little green patches dotted the yard, and only a few burned, dry places remained. Soon those would be gone, too.

I leaned back against the tree and stretched. I turned my face up to the sky and greeted the rising moon. “Hello, Mani. Long time, no see.”

The floor shuddered, and the cavern groaned and squealed. Ice splinters broke free and rained over me. The cave had come to life. During my last round of oblivion—I wouldn’t quite call it sleep—my fire had gone out. Normally, my heat melted the ice enough to keep me lying in a shallow, lukewarm puddle, but it had since frozen hard.

I sought my internal power source and found a small, burning ember. Not enough for a full flame, but much more than I’d expected, enough to combat the cold.
But how…?

The apples.

The apples were the figment of a dream. Imagination. Hopeful thinking.

Is that all they are?

I didn’t know how they could be anything else. But the proof lay in the fire. Not the pitiful trickle borne of Grimm’s strange energy drink—the force inside me was stronger than that, but it wasn’t enough.

Not yet. But soon.