Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles Book 2) (31 page)

“Not yet,” he whispered. “Too soon.”

I gritted my teeth.
He’s right. We’ve still got the element of surprise on our side. Use it when it’s going to make the biggest impact.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve battled Hela’s legions,” Thorin said.

Rolf laughed. “You haven’t encountered her new and improved version, though. Twice the speed, twice the strength. Twice the fun.”

He shouted another word, and the golems moved in. Thorin reached overhead, and the skies responded, a netting of electricity crackling across the heavens before falling apart into individual lances of light, heat, and energy. The hair on my arms and neck rose. A hum filled my ears, drowning out everything else. As the barrage of lightning bolts screamed toward the stone army, Baldur threw an arm around me. My ears popped, and a swirling blackness filled my vision.

My senses returned moments later, revealing that Baldur and I were standing in a grove of trees. No thunder, no lightning, no golems. No Thorin and Rolf, either. I whirled on Baldur and shoved a hand against his chest. “What the hell did you do?”

Baldur leaned forward, and his eyebrows drew together. He turned on his godly mojo and shook his finger at me. “You wouldn’t have survived that attack, Solina. It might have knocked me out of commission for a while, too. Thorin held nothing back—he had no reason to. That’s why he didn’t want you there in the first place. He can’t fight at full capacity if he has to worry that the by-blow could kill you.”

“So you just left him?”

“No. I’m going back. You’re staying here. Give me the hammer and the cuffs.”

I glared at Baldur and opened my mouth to refuse, but he didn’t give me the chance. He locked his arms around me. I struggled while he raided my pockets and pilfered Thorin’s bracelets. If I really had wanted to stop him, I could have burned him, but deep down, Baldur and I both wanted the same thing: to give Thorin his weapons. A small voice urged me to let Baldur have his way. He stood a better chance of returning Mjölnir to Thorin than I did. Baldur grabbed the chain around my neck, and Mjölnir’s lanyard broke free. I let out a scream of protest, but it did little good. Baldur was gone, and so was Thor’s hammer.

“You’re crazy if you think I’m just going to stand here and wring my hands and wait for you to come back and get me!”

But Baldur couldn’t hear me anymore. The problem was, Baldur
was
crazy, at least a little bit. Maybe he really did think I would stand there. I moved out from the trees into a nearby clearing and spun around, searching the sky.

In the distance, a copse of black clouds disrupted the blue morning sky. Lightning crackled through their billowing darkness like glowing filaments in the world’s biggest plasma globe. The display was beautiful and amazing, and Thorin was its maker and master. How could my trivial fire compare against something like that?
What a monumental ego I have, thinking he needed my help.
But the same moment that thought concluded, the lightning dispersed, crackling away like an ellipsis at the end of an unfinished sentence. The clouds faded, shedding their weight and magnitude until they resembled a flock of fluffy, harmless lambs. Maybe the fight had ended. Or maybe something had happened to Thorin.

Screw standing here and waiting
. I couldn’t judge distances. How far would I have to go to get back? A mile? Two? It didn’t matter. I made up my mind to go, and I went, putting my heart and lung health to the ultimate cardiovascular test. I wasn’t a runner, but adrenaline can do amazing things for the human body. It gives mothers the strength to raise cars off their trapped children. It gives soldiers the ability to hold out until backup arrives. It made my feet fly, gave them wings.

Mercury, eat your heart out
.

Chapter Thirty-four

P
erhaps Baldur hadn’t stranded me as far away as it first seemed. Or maybe I really had flown—a little of my shooting-star power had blossomed, giving me the extra lift and speed I needed. The trip passed without awareness, like making it home from work without remembering anything about the drive and asking:
How did I get here?

When I reached the battlefield, Thorin was still in the middle of the fight, swinging Mjölnir in a blur. Rubble piles littered the field around him—lifeless remains of golem bodies making their own burial cairns wherever they fell. A handful of stone men remained, keeping Thorin occupied as Rolf danced in and out with the sword, apparently recovered from its inert state.

Warlord indeed
. I had lost track of time, and it seemed as though Thorin had fought for hours while maintaining an aggressive and relentless pace. How much longer would he last? Thorin’s sweater showed singe marks, signs of Surtalogi’s close encounters. A nasty wound over Thorin’s chest peeked through a rip in the dark wool. Another slash had rent a hole in his side, over his ribs, but he fought as though the injuries didn’t bother him. While I hated being the helpless heroine who stood on the sidelines while the hero did all the grunt work, I also understood the danger of being Thorin’s stumbling block. I edged in closer, looking for an opportunity to help without getting in his way.

Baldur and I had lost physical contact, and I couldn’t see him anymore because of our invisibility runes. He could have been standing a foot away, and I wouldn’t have known. I grumbled curses at him while keeping my attention focused on Thorin. That probably explained why I didn’t see Rolf’s next trick until it was almost too late.

Only five or six golems remained, and one parted from the group, heading for Thorin. Thorin turned his back to me as he prepared to swing his hammer. A few yards separated us, but the space provided sufficient room for another golem to rise from his underground grave.

They’re like cockroaches. They just keep coming.

Thorin demolished the stone creature in front of him, but that distraction held him long enough for the new creature to grab his ankle and throw him off balance. The air behind Thorin shimmered. Rolf appeared at Thorin’s side, sword already swinging through the course of its strike. Surtalogi’s fire spewed a rain of plasma sufficient to drown Thorin—instant incineration. Thorin never saw Rolf’s attack, but I did, and I called on my flames in response. With no time to think, question, or doubt, I threw myself into the fray and raised my flames to maximum burn, shielding both Thorin and myself.

Rolf had seen the sword take my powers when I fought against Grim and probably knew if he kept Surtalogi focused on me long enough, the sword would drain me dry and render me useless.

The sword can have my fire. Just let me last long enough for Thorin to rally his counter attack
. “I can’t hold him off forever,” I said. “Whatever you’re going to do, you better do it fast.”

Thorin’s dark eyes reflected my flames, and he looked like a demon freshly released from Hell. “Sunshine? I told you not to come.”

“You knew I wouldn’t listen. Be grateful. I just saved your ass. Again.”

Thorin roared something indeterminate, but he didn’t stay to argue. He blipped out of sight, and a moment later, Surtalogi’s flames disappeared. Rolf was splayed on the ground. Thorin kneeled over him, his hand wrapped round Rolf’s throat, squeezing off his air supply. Thorin held Mjölnir poised overhead, only feet away from ensuring Rolf’s death.

The remaining golems fell, one by one, as if crushed by an invisible hand—an invisible hand that no doubt belonged to Baldur.

As I retracted my flames, Rolf’s gaze settled on me, and he wheezed a silent laugh. “Knew you’d show up,” he croaked.

“You can see me?”

My ears popped, and Baldur appeared, visible, at my side. “That invisibility rune couldn’t stand up against your fire
and
Surtalogi’s flames,” he said. “Not unless I made it a permanent part of your essence, and we didn’t have time for that. Thought it’d be better to go with something temporary. I should have warned you.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore.” I kept my gaze on Rolf. “It’s over now. Rolf is defeated.”

Another soundless laugh rocked Rolf’s shoulders.

“What’s so funny?” Thorin asked.

Rolf made a choking noise. Thorin released his grip enough to allow Rolf to speak, but he kept Mjölnir raised in a conspicuous threat. “See how she looks at you, God of Thunder. How she’d risk herself for you? If only she knew your true character. And the Allfather, so quick to give his support to the unworthy. It’s a shame.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You want to know who I really am?” Rolf’s gaze shifted to Thorin. “I told you that you would have to earn it. And, oh, how you have.”

“Go on then,” I said. “Cut the dramatics and tell us.”

“Are you sure, Solina?” Rolf looked back at me. “Once said, it can never be taken back. It’s like opening Pandora’s Box. You can’t close it again, but you’ll wish you could.”

“Say it,” Thorin snarled. “But if you won’t, I’ll kill you and live with the disappointment of not knowing. I’ve gotten good at living with disappointment.”

Rolf grinned again. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” And with that, the face of the man whom I’d known as Rolf Lockhart melted away to reveal another, one even more familiar.

Everything ground to a halt, my breathing, my heartbeat—the entire world stopped spinning and fell off its axis. I couldn’t have said a thing if the fate of every life on earth depended on it. Not that I needed to say anything.

Baldur said it for us all. “Val? Is it really you?”

Chapter Thirty-five

“V
al?” I said. His familiar blue gaze turned on me and cleared me of any doubt. Bile crawled up my throat. I coughed, trying to choke it back down. “How could you? How could it
be
you? Grim broke you in half.”

Val twisted his lips into a wry smile. “There’s more to me than meets the eye. Obviously.”

“It’s been you all along, hasn’t it?” Thorin said. “I suspected, but I didn’t want to. You are my cousin. How could you betray us?”

Val erupted with a cold, cruel laugh. It turned into a cough. He hacked, turned his head, and spat. His cold eyes turned back to Thorin, and he said, “I killed your cousin the day of the final battle in Asgard and took his place.”

“If you are not Vali Odinson, who the hell else would you be?”

“I
am
Vali, but I am no son of Odin.”

Thorin hesitated, the gears turning in his head. “Loki,” he said. “Loki had a son.”

“Loki had many sons,” Val said. “Most did not survive.”

My brain plugged back in and whirred to life, making connections, drawing conclusions. Loki was the trickster god of schemes, pranks, and deceptions—it explained Val’s immense aptitude for deceit. It also meant he had some very problematic family relations.

“Helen is your aunt?” I asked. “Are you here to do her bidding, or was it your plan all along?”

Val’s face sharpened into a look of hatred so severe I felt it in my bones. “I don’t give a damn about Helen’s ridiculous schemes. This has nothing to do with her.”

“Then what is it? What do you want?”

“Revenge.”

I blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”

“Why not? It’s a language you speak so well. Someone takes your other half away from you, mercilessly murdering an innocent brother, and you’ll do anything to make them pay. That’s something you appreciate, right?”

My brow furrowed as I contemplated his words, and a recent memory bubbled up from the darker depths of my brain. “That was your brother I saw in your memory? The one the wolf was killing? But it wasn’t Hodr because you’re not Vali, son of Odin.”

Val moved his head in a slight nod. “Now, Solina,” he rasped. “Ask me who the wolf was.”

Val’s words were the current in an exposed wire that made my whole body buzz, muscles lock up, teeth grind together.
Don’t want to ask. Think I already know, but wish I didn’t. Wish I may, wish I might…
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head.

“Rolf.” A Nordic contraction meaning “notorious wolf.”

“No,” I repeated.

Time stopped while I processed. Then it all fell into place. I
had
read that legend. I
did
know that history. The rest of the story, the missing piece, was the ending to the tale Grim had told me in his office about the purpose behind Val’s existence. If Vali had been the head on one side of the coin representing Odin’s vengeance, then Loki was tails. As punishment for the trick Loki had played on Hodr—the blind god who had unknowingly killed Baldur because Loki set him up to do it—the Aesir bound and tortured Loki, burning him with acidic snake venom that dripped on him for eons. But that wasn’t the worst part. Not by far.

“The Aesir turned me into that wolf,” Val said. “Odin and his kin forced me to change into a rabid, mindless beast. They set me on my brother. His name was Narfi, and he was my twin. Just like Mani was your twin. I ripped Narfi’s guts out, Solina. I had no idea what I was doing until it was over. The Aesir used my brother’s entrails to bind my father so they could torture him.”

Val hacked again and spat out another gob of saliva. “I woke to find my brother dead, his blood on my tongue, his flesh between my teeth.”

I gasped and put my hand over my mouth. My stomach heaved—so did my heart. I turned aside and retched. Overdramatic? Not after the visions I had seen. Not after I had lost a beloved twin brother to a nearly identical modus operandi. The gods’ ancient game of revenge never ended. Back and forth swung the finger of blame, taking out innocent lives, ruining families, and devastating guiltless individuals, all to satisfy some enormous primordial arrogance.

I wiped my mouth, burning and bitter with stomach acid, and glared at Thorin, but he refused to look at me. “Is it true?” I asked.

Thorin raised his chin and lowered it, a slight nod but undeniable affirmation. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.

“You know what it’s like to lose your twin, Solina,” Val said. “But do you know what it’s like, living with the knowledge that
you
were the one who killed him? I’ve wanted revenge for a very long time. And now I have it.”

“And how is that?” Thorin asked. “You are at
my
mercy. I should have killed you already. I’ll finish this and put you out of your misery.” Thorin rose up, but I grabbed his hand and moved into his line of sight, capturing his gaze.

“No,” I said. “Tell us, Val. Tell us how this is your revenge.”

Val’s eyes glittered as he stared at Thorin. His mouth curled up, not quite into a smile— it was too hard for that. “She knows who you really are, now, God of Thunder. She knows what you’re capable of. We all do. My revenge is to see you care for someone other than yourself for the first time in eons and know that I was the one who took that away from you, and all I had to do was tell her the truth. Tell her who you really are and what you are capable of.”

Val’s gaze shifted to me. “Not so godly now, is he, Solina? He’s as tainted as the rest of us.”

“Val, you tried to kill me in San Diego,” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. “I scared you into running back to Thorin. Everything that’s happened, has happened just as I planned.”

“How is that possible?”

“Stupid, simple Val, right? Not so mighty as Thorin, not so pure as Baldur. How was I even considered a god? But I told you, Solina. I
know
everything. I
remember
everything.” Val’s attention turned to the sky.

Following his gaze, I looked up in time to see two massive black birds crash down on us from above—talons scratching, wings beating, beaks stabbing. I ducked and covered my head. Baldur cried out. Thorin yelled something, and thunder rumbled again in the distance. When I looked back up, Val had disappeared along with his birds. A pair of black feathers rested on the grass where Val had lain, and they reflected the sun in iridescent purples and greens, like the sheen on an oil puddle.

“The sword!” I said, as my brain chugged back to life. I jumped up and spun around, searching for it. Thorin stood up beside me, also scanning the ground.

Baldur stepped up and waved his hand in a calming gesture. “I secured it while Val was speechifying. It’s safe.”

I turned and surveyed the field—the quiet, mundane, rural field. It was empty, other than the strange rock piles.
Let the landowner try to figure that one out.
Who am I kidding? Val probably
is
the landowner
.
He probably had this trap set for ages.
“You were clearheaded enough to think about the sword while Val was making the biggest confession of betrayal of the millennium?” I asked.

Baldur shrugged. “I survived living with Hela. Nothing much shocks me anymore.”

“What the hell were those birds about? Val is suddenly Alfred Hitchcock?”

Baldur looked at Thorin, who returned his stare. They both nodded.

“Hugin and Munin,” Baldur said. “Odin’s ravens.”

“Hugin and Muni—” I stopped midsentence when my lazy synapses made the connection.
How stupid can I be?
“Hugh Rabe and Joe Muniz. Val’s roommates are Odin’s ravens? What the hell?”

“What the hell, indeed,” Baldur said. “It made some sense when we still knew Val to be the last surviving son of Odin’s direct lineage. But he had convinced us the ravens’ omniscient ways were lost after Ragnarok, and he was keeping them out of kindness and loyalty.”

“Why didn’t
you
inherit them?” I asked.

“I was in Hela’s realm when Odin died,” Baldur said. “I was in no state to take possession of his birds.”

“So Val got them?”

“Vali, Son of Odin, got them. I’m not sure how Vali, Son of Loki, managed to take over their control. But he is the son of the Trickster. If he inherited half of Loki’s skill, then many things are possible.”

“So,” I said, “somehow, he took control of the ravens when he killed Odin’s son.”

“Yes, it would seem so.” Baldur furrowed his brow. He scratched his chin in a thoughtful gesture. “But I don’t know how.”

“It’s not a question we have to answer right now,” Thorin said. “We need to get moving before more trouble shows up.”

I nodded but refused to meet Thorin’s gaze, although his stare burned a hole in my forehead.

“I need to get back to New Breidablik,” Baldur said. “I need to check on a couple of things. How about I meet you back at the rental cabin in an hour?”

“No—” I started, but Baldur blipped away without hearing the rest of my protest.
No, don’t leave me alone with Thorin
.

A breeze danced past and caught my hair. I tucked the loose strands behind my ear, inhaled a deep breath, and turned to face Thorin. He held himself stiff. His jaw was hard from clenching his teeth together, but his eyes… I looked away, unable to bear the infinity in their depths—an eternity of everything he felt. It was too much.

“How are we going to get there?” I asked, my voice dry, my tone deadened. “One of your discreet rental cars is going to come pick you up? Out here, in the middle of nowhere?”

Thorin shook his head and stepped closer to me. “No, Sunshine.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped and turned away, surprised by my own bitterness. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from.”

“I do,” Thorin said. “And I understand it.”

Good thing one of us does.
Everything inside me had gone numb, and I dreaded what would happen when it all thawed out.
“Please,” I said and raised a hand. “No sympathy from you. Not right now. Can we just… Can we just go?”

Thorin cleared his throat and caught my gaze. “It requires physical contact. Are you okay with that?”

“I thought only Baldur could take on a passenger.”

“I can carry you when I have Mjölnir.”

Val had said the ancient weapons amped up their power. Maybe that was the only thing he hadn’t lied about.

I motioned to Thorin’s injuries, to the oozing burn mark on his chest and ribs. “Are you sure you’ve got it in you?”

Thorin’s nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed. A growl rumbled in his throat.

“Fine.” I lifted my arms in a way that looked like I was asking for a hug. “God forbid we do anything to bruise your ego.”

Thorin stepped closer, took my hips between his hands, and said, “Hold on tight. It’s a hell of a ride.”

I wrapped my arms around his neck and said, “Then it’s a good thing this ain’t my first rodeo.”

Snap crackle pop
. We were gone.