Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (4 page)

Odin barely bothered to take a look back as he crossed the threshold.

Once in the hall, he turned, took the second door on his left, then stepped into
his personal private sanctuary and locked the door behind him.

When he st
ood fully naked in the office, before a row of open windows that looked out at what used to be a beautiful garden, a horrible sense of dread began to overwhelm his entire being.

A fire started in his chest.

A creature reared its ugly head.

Odin collapsed into a chair and began to cry.

He kept the door locked until the day eclipsed to dusk.

When men outside began to banter back and forth, speaking on matters completely unrelated to the city or the current happenings around them, Odin dressed from the waist down, attached his swords to his belt, then made his way out the door.

Immediately after he crossed over and into the waiting room, all eyes turned on him.

Nova and Carmen sat at the far side, watching him with uneasy eyes.

“Hey,” Nova said.

“Hey,” Odin replied.

As the men around him turned their eyes back to one another, no longer talking
in tones jovial and sincere, Odin crossed the room and stood directly before Carmen and Nova, unnerved at the way their eyes seemed to trace his body from head to toe and then back again. It seemed, in that moment, that they were examining him for any and every flaw he could possibly have—from the scars on his hip, the definition in his abs to the mysterious lack of hair on his torso. All, at that moment, seemed up for interrogation, for he was not the person he used to be but a monster savage and insincere to the very people he considered to be two of his best friends in his entire world.

In the
moments that followed, Odin tried not to meet their eyes, but to no avail.

No matter how hard he tried, no matter
how desperate or ashamed he felt, he could not help but long for his friends’ love and respect.

“I
’m sorry about earlier,” Odin said, falling to his knees before Carmen, then taking her hand. “I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“It
’s all right,” the Dwarf said, stroking his knuckles and easing her palm around the flesh of his palm.

“You really do need to tell us if something
’s going on,” Nova said, setting a hand atop Odin’s shoulder. “You can’t keep whatever it is you’re feeling bottled up.”

“I know, Nova.”

“So… is there anything you want to tell us?”

“No.”

Yes.

How desperately he wanted to say that he felt as though the world was bearing down ar
ound him—that, slowly, the ground was opening and preparing to swallow him whole; that the sky seemed to take on a density that resembled something of stonework in a grand blacksmith’s forge and that the ground below had grown hard and impenetrable. At any moment, it seemed, he would simply be crushed in two, then allowed to bleed forth and onto the floor around him, crushed by the matters at hand and the grief that came with them. The notion alone forced a shiver throughout his body that he visibly expressed, though he felt as though the smile he offered would cover for any unease that could have been taken from the moment.

How much longer can you take it?
he thought.
How much longer will it be until your entire existence crashes around you?

No. He wouldn
’t let that happen.

He
’d been on the brink of insanity before.

Carmen pushed her arm forward.

Odin looked down.

In her hand she held a biscuit, fresh with what appeared to be honey on top.

“Thank you,” Odin said, settling down on the floor next to the Dwarf.

She reached down and set her hand over his shoulder.

Outside, the rain continued on.

“I can’t believe it,” Nova whispered, pressing his hand to one of the glass panes. “It seems like it’ll never stop.”

“No kidding,” Carmen said.

They both stood with their hands pressed to the windowpanes. The areas around their palms distorted, their breaths fogging the glass, they looked to be children fascinated by what nature could do. Gaia, or so she could be called, had bestowed upon them a great sadness in the days following the Elf’s passing. That alone was enough to twist Odin’s heart into several intricate knots, each of which seemed to tear at his being and push him even further into the ground.

Just like the world is bearing down upon me.

Fingers tight around the armrests, feet pushed as hard as they could be onto the floor, he leaned back in his seat and took a long, deep breath, then expelled it.

The heat in his chest seemed to dissipate.

He sighed.

It came right back again.

When would this horrible feeling end? Would he have to douse himself with water, throw himself into the rain, dive into a pool so dark and deep they said there was no end to it, or would it simply disappear in time, much like some old men said it would?

The key to grief,
some said,
is to let it perspire from your pores.

Perspire he may, the feeling didn
’t seem to be leaving anytime soon.

For three days he
’d suffered in almost unbearable agony, twisting about in his seat and squirming beneath his sheets, and for three days he’d felt as though his world would suddenly and inexplicitly come to an end. His father gone, his friends torn away, his emotions crumbling and his existence falling apart—it would only take one more chisel in the great work of his life for everything to self-destruct.

“Odin,” a voice said.

Blinking, unsure of who had just spoken and whether or not the voice was male or female, he cleared his vision, then sought out his friends at the far side of the room. Carmen and Nova stood looking at him with wide eyes and stiff, unsure frames.

Which one?
he thought.

“I
’m sorry,” he said, tilting his head down, then up again. “What is it?”

“I asked if you were all right,” Nova said.

“No. I’m not.”

“I know  we keep asking and we’ve already said it before, but y
ou know we’re here if you need us,” Carmen said, hopping down from her place on the massive windowsill and crossing the short distance between the two of them. “You want a hug?”

“I guess.”

He kneeled down, wrapped his arms around the Dwarf, then sighed.

How he would make it through this monsoon was beyond him.

“I want to go back to Ornala,” Nova said.

The three of them sat around the table in the office Odin had taken to calling home. Candles lit, wicks flickering in the faint draft ebbing from beneath the doorframe, Odin watched his friend with calm, unsure eyes and tried to make out just what it was that lingered beneath the surface. He obviously longed for his family, for the company of his wife and the guidance of his father-in-law, but did that mean that he wanted to leave now, in spite of everything that was currently transpiring?

I don
’t know,
he thought,
and I’m not so sure I want to know.

“We can
’t do it in the rain,” Odin said, placing his hands on the table. “You know how dangerous it is to travel in this kind of weather.”

“Trust me, Odin—I nearly died the first time I met you in this kind of shit.”

“I say we wait,” Carmen said.

“You
’ll be coming back with us?” Odin asked, seeking her eyes out at the far end of the table.

“Well… yeah. Not much I can do right now.”

“You don’t want to go home?” Nova frowned.

“It
’s not that I don’t want to,” the Dwarf said. “It’s just that I currently have no way of getting back there. It’s not like I can go back with the Dwarves or anything. That would be a trip unto itself.”

“I guess.”

“I plan on returning by boat when I can,” Carmen shrugged, hopping up onto the table and taking her seat atop of it, legs crossed and heels of her boots in the air. “Right now though, it doesn’t seem like I have any other option other than to stay with you. I mean, yeah—I could always brave it and go alone, but I’m scared of horses, too small to ride one by myself, and only one person. I can’t hunt on my own because I don’t know how to shoot. And besides—I hate to say it, but even though I’m a great fighter, I can’t take a pack of bandits on my own.”

“I understand.” Odin nodded and turned his attention to the Bohrenian man. “Nova,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I… I don
’t think I can leave—at least, not now.”

“We
’ll have to move on sometime, buddy.”

Did he really just say that?
Odin thought.

Could Nova have really just delivered the finality of it all—that now, no more than just a few brief days after his death, it was time to stop mourning Miko and push forward in their lives?

“I don’t understand,” Odin said, easing his hands around the side of the table and locking his fingers around the square of the frame.

“We can
’t mourn him forever.”

“You don
’t understand, Nova.”

“I understand completely, buddy. I lost my father when I was your age.”

“But you… you at least had time to know him.”

“Did I, Odin, or was I just too oblivious to realize that the pe
ople we love can’t live forever?”

He was an Elf,
he thought.
If that damn bastard wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have—

Tears snaked
down his face and dripped onto his trousers.

“I know how hard this must be for you,” Nova said, “because let me tell you, it
’s hard on me too, because that man was like a brother to me, but sometimes we just have to keep moving and push the past aside.”

“This isn
’t my past, Nova. This was my future.”

“I
’m sorry, Odin, but I have a family to get back to.”

“What do I have?” Odin asked, standing. “What do you think
I
have, Nova?”

“You have Ectris. He
’s been more of a father to you than Miko ever was.”

“Miko was
my friend.”

“Maybe you should go back home,” Nova said. He, too, stood and pressed his arms flat against his side
s, sliding his thumbs into his pockets and drumming his fingers along his hips. “At least there you can recover and mourn in peace.”

“I don
’t want to go back home.”

“Then what do you want to do, Odin?”

“I honestly don’t know. I just want to sit here, figure things out, then move on with my life.”

“You don
’t seem to be doing a whole lot of moving if you ask me.”

Odin said nothing.
Instead, he turned, made his way to the door, then stopped.

When he cast a glance over his shoulder and caught Nova
’s gaze within his own, he saw nothing but two amber pools of remorse, agony and pain.

He couldn
’t bear to look any longer.

He made his way out the door without another word.

Outside—in the cold
, dampened air—Odin made his way down the streets with the world on his mind and his heart in places other than lightened states. Head down, hands limp at his sides, he crossed the distance between city hall and the town sphere only to find himself in a place that reminded him of things long past and no longer existent.

This is where I saw you,
he thought,
when I thought all of us were doomed to die.

His skirt around his waist, his cape about his shoulders, a cut shallow on his face and his hair tied back into a braid—he
’d been a true warrior, in life, and though in death he existed in a state of nothing more than ash, no one could take away the fact that he had once been a creature who could have very easily ruled the world had he not been torn away from the life he so rightfully deserved.

“You lived a long time,” Odin
whispered, crossing his arms over his chest and seating himself at the edge of the spouting fountain. “At least, I hope you did.”

Miko had once said that he
’d lived to see the dawn of Ornala—that, in centuries past, he had seen the walls rise, the framework applied, the stone set and the castle assembled. A thousand years that had been, but before that, what? He’d once said he could not remember how many years had passed since the dawn of his life, since his flight from Ohmalyon, but it couldn’t possibly be that long, could it?

A thousand years is a long time to live.

Ten men could not have lived the lives that Miko had—could not, in any way, have compared their existence to a creature so great and powerful he could make weather by will, change into landscapes or destroy faces of structures that had rose from the forces of nature, unbreakable to the human hand or even his hammer. That alone, though grand and miraculous, did little to comfort Odin in his time of need, but it did enough to secure within him the fact that the Elf had lived a long, if somewhat-distressed but happy life.