Dolor and Shadow (32 page)

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The terrain widened the farther north Kallan and Rune traveled. It stretched on all day, without change to the vast clusters of cotton grass that mingled with patches of tundra willow glowing crimson like a sea of fire. Treeless hills rolled over valleys and stretched into wide plains that rose into cold, gray mountains, cradling them on either side while vast clouds covered what little skies peeked beyond the towering peaks.

The river was a sight in itself. Torrential rapids flowed into calm waters as it twisted through the land, winding around the mountain’s base. Its supply of fish was abundant. There seemed to be no end to the lakes and streams that met the water’s path. They stopped only to replenish their water supply, spear fresh salmon from the river, or pluck a grouse from the sky during takeoff.

The rains continued well into the evening, long after the afternoon sun settled behind the mountains. In darkness, Kallan and Rune walked, saying nothing as they made their way across the endless tundra. Kallan threw a frequent glance to
Blod Tonn
tucked at the waist of Rune’s trousers and spent much of her time brooding on how to take it back, while Rune threw her an occasional glance blanketed in vague expressions she couldn’t read.

The rains ended long before they rested, and it was with heavy eyes, weighted with exhaustion, that Rune finally stopped.

“What are you doing?” Kallan asked with the reins still clutched in her hand.

“It’s not safe to go any further tonight,” Rune said. “We’ll set up camp here and head out tomorrow before the rising sun.” Rune was already busy untying a run of salmon from Astrid’s saddle.

“We can’t stop,” Kallan said. “We have to keep going.”

“The roads are too dangerous to risk travel at night.”

Too exhausted to argue further, Rune turned his back and disappeared into the forest before Kallan could object. “I’m going for wood.”

Kallan listened to his footsteps die away, leaving her alone with Astrid. Desperate to catch a glimpse of light, she scanned the forest for a bit of light then turned her eyes to the sky. The cloud cover was still too thick to see what moon was out. Disgruntled, she released her Seidr light with a wave of her hand and set to work removing Astrid’s saddle and furs.

Wearily, she dumped the last of the furs onto the saddle and patted Astrid’s forehead. He nudged her pouch, but before Kallan could move to withdraw an apple, a branch popped and she fired a haphazard shot in the general direction of the disruption.

Leaves sizzled and wood splintered beneath the trail of Seidr. A young tree, charred in half by Kallan’s flame, creaked as it fell behind Rune, who stood, hand raised, his palm still smoking from where he drew the Seidr into him. A pile of broken twigs, branches, and small logs lay scattered at his feet.

“It’s me,” he said beside a tall shrub that sizzled black and orange with smoldering flames.

“I know,” she said and returned to Astrid, leaving Rune to recollect the branches and twigs from the ground.  Over her shoulder, she stole a glance and watched the swiftness of his hands as he gathered the timber, engrossed in his work.

She recalled the arch of his back as his body took in her Seidr. Her eyes followed the curve of his back and she bit her bottom lip.

“How do you do it?” she asked.

“Do what?” he asked, not bothering to raise his eyes.

“Catch it.”

Rune stood, his arms loaded down with the fixings to build a fire. His eyes bore into her with a conviction that made her want to look away. Instead, she matched his stare and waited while he approached her.

“I don’t know,” he said and proceeded to a small clearing where he dumped the branches on the ground. He broke the wet sticks and loudly shuffled the little bit of dried wood through damp dead leaves and pine needles.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said.

Kallan scoffed.

Stones clicked over and over, tweaking Kallan’s nerves with each
click, click, click
. She dropped herself before Rune’s pile of brush.

Click, click.

Kallan pulled the overcoat around her and Rune struck the stones.

Another
click
and Kallan fired an angry blast into the woodpile, sending Rune falling back from the sudden explosion as he dropped his rocks.

Partially singed, Rune sat up cursing. The wood already hissed from the day’s deluge and burned hot as Rune settled himself back down, void of objection.

Rune took up a stick and poked at the fire. “Where’d you learn your tricks?” he said.

“Where’d you learn yours?” she asked.

Rune looked up from the flames as the corner of Kallan’s mouth twitched and she leaned forward.

“Would you mind if I…?” Kallan said, splaying a palm on the wet ground as Rune straightened his back.

Golden threads of Seidr flowed from her fingertips and snaked their way over the earth to Rune. Her Seidr threaded his, following his lines and plunging deeper into this core where the heart of his Seidr gave him life. There, the darkness began and the lines of Seidr ended. There, Kallan could go no further.

She stretched her limits, pushed her Seidr against the Shadow. But frustration overcame her curiosity and she withdrew quite suddenly, allowing his body to fall limp and leaving him gasping for breath on all fours.

Rune gasped. Kallan could hear his heart racing. “I want to stand,” Rune said between breaths. “I want to arm myself and fight.”

Kallan tensed, preparing herself for battle, but Rune remained kneeling on all fours while he caught his breath.

“What is it?” he asked, still visibly shaken from the surge of adrenaline.

Kallan shook her head and sank back into the large, leather coat.

“I don’t know,” she said, pulling in a long, deep breath and, despite sharing a fire with her enemy—despite the war, her hate, and her company—she slipped into the stories planted there by Gudrun ages ago. Anything to escape the fresh memories of the Dvergar caves.

“The earth grows wild in Midgard,” Kallan said. Her eyes shone with love for the lore. “We received the Seidr as a gift from Freyja. A gift she infused in us all. The Seidr is in you. The Seidr that nurtures Alfheim grows with our use of it, wielding it, honing it, allowing it to flourish. The air drips with it. Carried on the wind as Alfheim breathes, it moves. It lives.”

Kallan listened and remembered the streams of gold that passed through the walls of the caves. She shivered despite the warm night air.

“The Seidr is also here in Midgard,” she continued, “buried beneath the soil and forgotten by Man, dormant and ready, waiting to be released from its prison.”

Rune remained seemingly enraptured, as if he hung on every word she muttered and it lulled him into repose.

“Ages ago, I trekked these lands. The earth was different then,” she said. “There are those who found the Seidr and harbored its growth. During those years, they tamed it. That was when the sons of Man still wielded its power, granting them the long life that now comes naturally to the Alfar.”

“What happened?” Rune asked. “How did the race of Men forget?”

Kallan smiled.

“Gudrun spoke of a king whose hand stretched across the lands. He uttered spells and the sun turned grass to dust. There, the snows no longer fell. For nearly six hundred years, his followers destroyed all who opposed him. Like a plague, they annihilated any who dared defy the Desert King.”

Kallan tucked her legs to her chest, resting her chin into the crook of her knees. She stared into the fire, beyond the flames, and remembered.

“The followers of the Desert King declared that he alone was the high king and sought to destroy all who opposed that claim. The Seidkona’s very existence proved Freyja lived, that there were others who had, and the Seidkona were hunted.”

Kallan gazed at Rune across the fire. Orange shadows spilled over Rune’s face making him appear more threatening than usual as he sat enraptured.

“This is not the Midgard I knew so long ago when the Dokkalfar journeyed from Svartálfaheim.”

“Why did your people leave?” Rune asked.

“I’m sure in all this time, the Ljosalfar have composed some explanation.” She added a bitter grin.

Rune shrugged.

“Biased speculation,” he said. “Random stories buried now in legends twisted with so many versions it’s hard to see which parts are truth anymore.”

Kallan rested her chin back to her knees as she tugged at the overcoat, pulling it down against a breeze. She flicked back a lock of her hair that had dried into ringlets and spilled to the ground.

“Why did the Dokkalfar come to Alfheim?” he asked again.

Kallan shifted her gaze back to Rune, studying him.

“We warred with another, who had been our kinsmen,” she said, “and a schism divided us: the Svartálfar. That is what Aaric said.”

“So your father sought to revisit an insatiable bloodlust,” Rune surmised aloud, but before the last word left his mouth, Kallan was on him, pulling her dagger from his waist and pressing the tip to his throat.

“Do not speak of what you don’t know,” she hissed. “Heartbroken, my father forfeited that war, abandoning that realm to his foe.”

Sweat beaded on Rune’s brow and he gulped down the knot that grazed the tip of her blade.

“But not all the Svartálfar saw things his way, did they?” Rune said.

Kallan lowered the dagger and sank back on her knees.

“Half stayed behind,” she said.

“What became of them?”

Kallan shrugged.

Wonder suspended in the air as Kallan took the time to pull the overcoat back around her shoulders. He waited until she had snuggled back into its fur before asking.

“What would make a king abandon half his people and his kingdom?” Rune asked.

Kallan stared into the flames. A bright red log broke in two and fell, releasing a spray of red embers that floated into the air between them.

Kallan peered up from the flames.

“The death of my mother at the hand of an old friend: the Dvergar king, Motsognir.”

CHAPTER 44

“Aaric!”

Daggon slammed the doors of the war room open and strode toward the high marshal, who was hunched over a vellum scroll between the grand hearth filled with flame and a table strewn in maps. Aaric lifted his eyes. He had tied his hair back, revealing the ancient runes etched at the base of his neck. Like the runes trailing up his fingers, wrists, and arms, these continued to his shoulders and down his back beneath his tunic.

“What is the meaning of this?” Daggon said.

He hastened across the floor, passing through strips of moonlight that spanned the stone from the high windows. His sword, sheathed at his side, swayed in time with the chinks from chainmail stretched across his chest as he marched.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Aaric said, straightening his back.

“My men tell me you called them back!” Daggon’s face was as red as his hair, save for his scars, stretching across the side of his face like the white branches of a birch tree. “My men, my war-men, who I personally trained, command, and sent out for Kallan!”

“That’s right,” Aaric said as calm as ever as Daggon planted his fists on the top of the table and leaned in.

The captain’s copper eyes flashed with murder.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

There was a cold calm in Aaric’s demeanor as he studied Daggon whose tunic, cloak, and trousers looked travel worn. Filth from the road covered him from his wild, red hair to his muddy boots.

“I’m bringing them in,” Aaric answered.

“Kallan is still out there!” Daggon extended a finger to the door behind him.

“We can’t afford the troops,” Aaric said.

“But those are
my
men!” Daggon pounded his fist on the table.

With a sigh, Aaric rechecked his composure and surrendered the last of his attention to the seething captain. As he circled around the table, the firelight caught the strange runic markings on his wrists.

“Lorlenalin is vulnerable,” Aaric said, doing his best to look interested. “The more men we have dispersed in search, the less we have here on hand in Lorlenalin’s defense.” Aaric stopped at the table’s end, leaving at least three arm lengths between him and Daggon.

Daggon’s hard stare darkened.

“Gunir hasn’t moved since the king and Kallan vanished,” Daggon said. “You know this. The Dark One sits, preening himself on the throne, and you’re worried of an attack? Gunir knows we are without queen. They know we are vulnerable. If they were going to make a move, they would have done so by now, a fortnight ago.”

“Lorlenalin has lost its fountainhead,” Aaric said. “I am left with few resources to keep this city running. If Gunir does decide to move, Lorlenalin will fall.”

Daggon’s wide chest heaved with each breath. “You would turn your back to Kallan?”

“I do not have the luxury to grieve,” Aaric said. “I have a responsibility. While your place is on the battlefield fighting alongside our queen, my work is here among the scribes. And as much as I want to ride out and find her, as much as it pains me to say it, I must stay here and order what only is best for Kallan’s city and her people and not for Kallan herself. Regardless of how much I hate it, I must do this.”

“Need I remind you that I am captain,” Daggon spoke through his teeth. “I oversee decisions made in regards to Kallan’s war-men—”

“And it will do you well to remember that I am high marshal!” Aaric’s voice boomed to the high-vaulted ceiling. “I oversee decisions made in regards to Kallan’s court. My duty, first and foremost, is to draw up the inventory and account for all the men, Kallan’s war-men. And, in times of crisis, am I not free to reassign them where I feel they are needed the most?”

The fire crackled as Daggon appeared to search for a rebuttal to gain the upper hand.

“Are we not in a time of crisis, Captain?” Aaric asked.

“We are.” Daggon seemingly shoved the words from his mouth.

“I did not override your war-men, your position, or your orders,” Aaric said. “As high marshal, I reassigned.”

“Kallan needs us.”

“Her people need us,” Aaric said. “Her people come first.”

Daggon tightened his already whitened fists.

“The people you seek to protect adored Kallan long before she ascended the throne. Wherever she goes, they will loyally, eagerly follow and they have a right to go.” Daggon exhaled. “We all do.”

Aaric narrowed his eyes. “You sound like someone who already has lives lined up.”

“Ten thousand citizens wait for Kallan’s return,” Daggon said. “Many of whom would be willing to ride out for her at the word.”

Aaric shook his head, exhaling his frustration. It was with a calm voice that he spoke again.

“As high marshal, I have no choice but to act on the best interests of the people. Nor will I waste what few resources we have hunting for one girl.”

“Queen,” Daggon corrected.

A flash of anger passed through Aaric’s eyes before settling again.

“I will go after her myself,” Daggon said and marched from the table.

“Daggon.”

“That’s Kira’s daughter out there!” Daggon spun about on his heel.

Aaric’s blood drained as memories of Kira smiling, Kira laughing, and Kira dying flashed and faded, leaving him pale. He forced down a gulp that seemed to stir up his blood again.

“It will do you well to remember, Captain, that your duty, first and foremost, is to protect the people of Lorlenalin. Not one girl,” Aaric said, forcing the words through a stiff bottom jaw.

Both wills unbending, both decisions made, a suspended silence hung between them.

“My queen is in need of my services,” Daggon said, dismissing himself. His boots clomped with every stride toward the door while Aaric forced his head clear. He couldn’t risk a rogue captain leading Fand to Kallan and battled the urge to raise his hand in arms.

“If you leave this city, I will have no choice but to record that you abandoned your post.” Aaric’s voice filled the room up to the crossbeams as Daggon stood, not moving. “I will have no choice but to find you insubordinate and charge you thus,” Aaric said.

The fire popped.

“Traitor,” Aaric said, leaving the word to sit in the air between them.

Without a word, Daggon passed through each strip of moonlight splayed upon the stone floor. He didn’t bother closing the doors behind him.