Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (15 page)

“That’s
Star Trek
, you nitwit. Boy
scouts do
this.
” I held up three fingers and Henrik mirrored
the gesture, the serious expression never leaving his face.

“Right then. Scout’s honor.” He held the
pose, then broke into a grin. “Love that about you, Brynnie. I
learn something new every day.” He reached out to cuff my shoulder,
pushing my
perfekt
control toward its breaking point.

Hyro studied her fingernails. “So, what do
you need from me? Forse’s message said you needed info on the girl
I saw this morning. What else?”

“Honestly, anything you can tell us about,
well, anything would help.” I tucked my dagger into my boot and
motioned for Henrik to sheathe his sword. “We don’t know who took
Freya, where they took her, or what they’re planning to do with
her. If you’ve seen any unusual activity around here, anything at
all, it could help point us to our next destination.”

Hyro twirled a lock of her crimson hair.
“Anything, huh?”

“Anything,” Henrik confirmed.

“Okay. I might have a few things for you. But
first, did you bring what Forse promised?” Hyro looked from Henrik
to me.

“Uh, we brought the rubies, yeah.” Henrik
rubbed the back of his neck again.

Hyro wrapped a strand of hair around her
pinky. “So? Where are they?”

“They’re, um… they’re back at the castle.”
The words tumbled out of my mouth. “We accidentally dropped in
closer than we meant to, and the guards got real aggressive and
charged at us, and before we knew what was happening we… we…”

“We threw the rubies at them and ran.” Henrik
shrugged. “In hindsight, it wasn’t our brightest idea. We’re
usually a lot smarter.”

Hyro’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You threw
Asgardian rubies at the palace
guards
? Seriously?”

My hands landed firmly on my hips. “Like I
said, they were chasing us.
Chasing
us. Since when did they
get so fast, anyway? I swear when I was here before, they moved at,
like, a quarter of that speed.”

“Freaky, right? Things are totally different
here since the volcano erupted,” Hyro said.

“The volcano?” Henrik wrinkled his brow.
“That thing’s been dormant for centuries.”

“Exactly.” Hyro’s glare softened. Now she
looked wistful, almost sad. “There were reports of a dark magic
trace around the base, so a handful of the guards went to check it
out. Rumor is, by the time they reached the mountain the magic was
so thick they could barely see two feet in front of them. I guess
they pushed forward, because their communication devices were
working up until right before the explosion, and at least one of
them described what he saw. Thick black smoke circled the bottom of
the volcano, much denser than anything we’d seen in that area
before. It looked a lot like this, actually.” As if to demonstrate,
Hyro made her lips into an
O
and let out a breath. A dense
mist swirled from her mouth, heavy as the morning fog on a cold
day, and blacker than the remains of the elderwoods just outside
the cave.

“Have you been doing that long?” I shifted my
weight as a fresh wave of pain coursed through my injured leg.
Why isn’t it healing faster?

“Since the explosion.” Hyro looked
uncomfortable. “It just started after the dust settled.”

Henrik stepped so he stood slightly in front
of me. I appreciated the chivalry, but I didn’t need
protecting.

“Stand down, Hotshot. I was just telling you
how bad it was at the volcano.” Hyro studied the scraggly ends of
her hair.

I nodded at Henrik. “So then what
happened?”

She shrugged. “Nobody knows. One second they
were talking about black smoke, and the heavy dark magic readings
they picked up on their readers; the next, the volcano exploded and
they were gone.”

“You mean you lost communication with them?”
Henrik prompted.

“Nope. Gone. The explosion must have buried
them.” Hyro leaned back against the cave wall. She rested her head
on the stone and stared up at the ceiling. “A second team went out
to the site once the lava had cooled, but by the time they got
there, there wasn’t a trace of team one. No footprints, no bones,
not even any weapons. Maybe the lava melted them down, or maybe
they were just too buried to track. And when the second team came
back, they were like super soldiers. They ran at four times their
top training speed. They saw a good ten meters farther than they
tested on their last optical exams. Their fire breathing had twice
the power mine has now, and at least three times the heat. It was
insane. When Surtr caught wind of what had happened to team two, he
sent every member of his guard out to the site, hoping they’d
return all hopped up on the juice, too. Now every member of the
royal guard can run, fire breathe, and fight with the strength of…
well…” Hyro met my eyes, “an Asgardian.”

“Did something happen to them at the volcano?
Did they run into anyone? Did someone turn them into what they are
now?” I asked.

“Not that we know of. Each team was in
communication with the base officer the entire time. Nobody
mentioned seeing any strangers.”

“What about the dark magic? Did any of the
teams ever identify the source?” Henrik pressed.

Hyro toed the ground with her boot. “Nope.
The official report said it was coming from a residence in the town
at the foot of the volcano—that the owners had opened a portal to
Helheim, and the energy of the
ikkedød
—Hel’s freaky dead
guards—set off the volcano. And maybe there was a portal, and maybe
the
ikkedød
did have something to do with the explosion. But
I know the owners of the house didn’t have anything to do with
opening any portals.”

“How do you know that, Hyro?” I asked
gently.

When Hyro finally looked up, tears brimmed in
her eyes. “Because my parents owned that house. And they’d never
invite Hel—or her minions—into our home. They were good
giants.”

I ignored the irony of the words. With the
possible exception of the crying teenager in front of me, there was
no such thing as a good fire giant. None that I’d met, anyway.

“You said they
were
good.” Henrik wore
the uncomfortable look all guys wear around crying females. “Did
something happen?”

“Yeah.” Hyro wiped her nose on the back of
her hand. “The entire village was buried under the lava. My parents
are dead. I would be too, if I hadn’t been out hiking that
day.”

“Oh, Hyro. I’m so sorry.” I stepped forward
and pulled her into my arms. For a minute, I ignored the fact that
Hyro was a stranger, a fire giant, and in all likelihood, an enemy
to Asgard. Right then she was just a girl who’d lost people she
loved more than anything in all the realms.

I could certainly relate to that.

“It’s okay.” Hyro squirmed her way out of my
embrace and offered a small smile. “It was a few months ago. It
hurts less every day.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I murmured
words I’d spoken a thousand times before. After a beat, I looked up
at Henrik in alarm. “This happened a few months ago? Did you hear
anything about it?”

He shook his head with a frown. “No. That’s
really strange. We should have picked up on an atmospheric shift
like that. If Ull didn’t see a change in the winter weather
patterns, then Tyr should have noticed the increase in soldier
strength. Or Freya should have felt the heartbreak of everyone who
lost their loved ones. Or…”

“Great Odin.” I tugged at my ponytail. “So
many levels of our security should have picked up on this. How did
we miss it?”

“Surtr went to a lot of trouble to cover it
up,” Hyro offered. “There were no messages sent; he censored all
the outgoing communications to make sure nobody let it out. And I
don’t know how your weather and heartbreak trackers work, but the
rumor was he had one of our wizards cloak the entire region. Don’t
feel too bad about not seeing it—he didn’t want you to.”

“Guess that explains it,” Henrik murmured, at
the same time as I hissed at him, “Fire giants have
wizards
?”

Förbaskat.

“Hyro, you look way too young to be living on
your own. Who’s taking care of you?” I asked.

“I am.” Hyro gave a sad smile, and my heart
tugged. She shook her head. “Don’t worry about me—I miss my
parents, yeah. But the censors thought I was home that day. They
tallied me in the lost count. I’m off the grid now, so I get to do
whatever I want.”

“Including helping Asgardians?” Henrik raised
one eyebrow. “Why would you do that? And don’t say it’s for the
rubies. We both know you could have asked a lot more of Forse, and
he’d have sent it. We really will pay you back, I swear.”

“I know you will. I can tell you’re good
guys.” Hyro stared at her toes. “Surtr blamed my family for what
happened. Somebody caused that explosion—maybe even opened a portal
to Helheim. But it sure wasn’t my parents.”

“Then who did?” I mused.

“No idea.” Hyro shrugged. “Do you want to
hear about your friend?”

Henrik and I exchanged a glance. We could
come back to the volcano talk later, when we were alone. Right now,
Freya was our top priority.

I took a deep breath and nodded at Hyro,
knowing her next words could mean the difference between peace and
chaos across the cosmos. “Tell us what you know.”

HYRO HELD HER HAND
up to her face.
Her chipped purple fingernails looked dirty in the light. In that
moment, I resolved to send her two dozen rubies. Three dozen,
maybe. It had to be a living nightmare to exist off the grid in a
realm filled with fire breathing giants.

“’Kay.” She glanced up. “This morning I saw
dragons flying over the grove.”

“Dragons in Muspelheim?” Henrik’s back
stiffened.

“Weird, right? I haven’t seen them here since
I was little, so I got curious. I lost the first ones, but another
group came in behind them, then another. There were enough that I
was able to follow their trail all the way to the volcano.”

“Did they see you?” I asked. Fire giants and
dragons were allies, I guessed because of the whole fire element
thing. But I didn’t know how far that friendship went. Or what it
would cost Hyro if she ratted them out.

“Nope. My traveling cloak matches the soot in
that area. Their eyes are bad enough they’d think I was just part
of the dirt from that distance.”

Fair enough.

“So what did they do once they got to the
volcano?” I winced as my leg throbbed anew.
Heal,
already.

“They circled it for a good five minutes, and
then I got this really creepy feeling up and down my back, and I
started to feel sick.” Hyro rubbed her abdomen, as if she was
reliving it.

“Dark magic,” Henrik muttered to me. I
nodded. Whenever I was exposed, I felt the exact same way.

“What happened next?” I prodded.

“There was this flash of light, and this
purple haze formed around the top of the volcano. I contacted Forse
as soon as I could, and told him a portal had opened.”

Henrik nodded. “What happened after the haze
formed?”

“Well, it got thicker, and I saw four dark
things herding one smaller thing toward the volcano’s base. It was
hard to see through all the smoke, but all five of them were
definitely wearing all black, and the smallest one had a black bag
drawn over her head. I figured it was a girl because she had long
reddish-blond hair sticking out from under the bag, and she was
walking way too gracefully to be a guy. No offense.” Hyro glanced
at Henrik.

“None taken,” he replied through gritted
teeth. I knew he wasn’t upset about Hyro’s comment; he was upset
because he knew as well as I did that we’d been
this close
to Freya, and she’d gotten away from us. Again.

“They took her through the portal, didn’t
they?” I asked.

Hyro tilted her head. “It looked like it. The
dragons circled, then five of them swooped down and picked up the
girl and each of the four dark things, flew them to the top of the
volcano and dropped in with them, going right through that purple
mist. The rest of the dragons followed, and they all just
disappeared. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. Like,
ever.”

“You’re
sure
that’s what happened?”
Henrik pressed.

Hyro nodded. “Does it make any sense to
you?”

Henrik and I exchanged a glance. Dragons?
What did they have to do with our friend’s abduction? And who were
the four dark things? Were they the shadows we’d seen take Freya
from Midgard, or were they something totally different?

“Not at the moment it doesn’t. But we don’t
have the whole picture. Forse and Tyr might have come up with more
intel by the time we get back to base. Maybe they can make sense of
all this,” I answered.

Hyro shifted her weight and stared at her
nails. She let her hair fall in front of her face, acting as a
shield. In the flickering light she looked unbelievably vulnerable.
And while I appreciated the information she shared with us, Surtr
would have her incarcerated… or incinerated… if he ever found out
she was helping Asgardians. Whatever instinct had possessed her to
agree to act as Forse’s spy could very well get her killed.

“Hyro, are you okay here? By yourself, I
mean? Do you have any friends, or other family looking out for
you?”

Hyro shook her head. “It’s just me. Like I
said, they counted me in the death toll after the explosion. I was
supposed to graduate in a few months—now I don’t have to enroll in
Surtr’s army like the rest of my class.” She gave a tight smile.
“Trust me, it’s better this way. The mortality rate for first-year
female recruits is… well, let’s just say there’s a reason you don’t
see a lot of lady fire giants.”

Henrik gave a nod, and I bit my bottom lip.
“We can’t bring you back with us, since we’re going to a safe
house. But when we finish this mission, will you let us relocate
you? You could start over somewhere, maybe… um…”