Dead Embers (21 page)

We landed in the transfer room, throwing greetings at a pair
of goggle-eyed Warriors donning their weapons for their next scouting mission.
The two
einherjar's
responses were stilted, almost hesitant, and I
shared Mika's worried scowl. Word had certainly gotten around fast. And from
the look of it, we were in deep doody.

We hurried to Odin's hall, and I crossed my fingers behind
me as I entered the monstrous room. At the back of the hall, I could make out
the human form of Odin, seated quietly with one raven on his shoulder. The
black bird bent his head as if listening to my footfalls, then turned to stare
straight at me with those beady, glossy black eyes.

In a blink, he was whispering into Odin's ear. I should have
known what would happen next. I shouldn't have been surprised.

Odin rose to his feet, and slowly the form of the
grey-haired old man shimmered and expanded; colors swirled, solid and liquid
and dusty, rising higher and higher into the air until they all solidified into
the God Odin, the mighty All-Father.

His golden armor gleamed, the glare poking me in the eye. I
tilted my head and looked up. Way up. In that moment I recalled the first time
I'd ever seen the All-Father in his godly form. The day he'd given me my wings.
Being the first Valkyrie ever to be born, rather than made, I was something of
an anomaly. Even the granting of my wings had been more of a formality, since
they would've appeared at some point in my life anyway. But despite my ability
to flout the rules of the Norse gods, Odin hadn't cast me out. He'd taken me
in, given me a home and a life and the truth of my soul.

And right now he was furious with me.

"Valkyrie Brynhildr!" he roared. Well, to be
honest, he only spoke my name, but his huge form and my huge guilt amplified
the sound in my head, and I quivered with the requisite amount of fear in my
veins. "Do you know what you have done?"

"I'm sorry, my lord." I bowed my head, not daring
to look at his face any longer. The disappointed, mottled red of his anger was
too much to bear. I actually felt guilty, when I'd done nothing wrong.

"Your apology is far from sufficient. Fenrir and the
teams have been searching all of Midgard and Asgard for you. What you have done
is tantamount to desertion."

I risked a glance at Mika beside me. She'd been right.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause trouble." I
dared to look up. And my heart gave a little leap at the hint of softening in
the eye of the All-Father. But the time for apologies was over. I had to tell
them the rest. "Something terrible has happened, and I had no choice but
to gather as much vital information as I could before I came to you."

A shuffling behind us announced a new arrival.

Odin turned his attention somewhere over my shoulder.
"Ah, Fenrir. We have your two missing warriors here, safe and sound."
I didn't dare turn to face him.

Fen walked around us to Odin's side and turned to face us.
When he met my gaze, the blood in my veins iced over at the depth of anger and
disappointment in his lupine eyes. His emotion must have been hard to control
if he hadn't noticed that partial transformation.

He crossed his arms, his muscles bulked and threatening.
"Explain yourselves."

My heart thudded insistently against my ribs, but when I
spoke my voice was clear and strong; I hadn't done anything wrong. Not really.
"While we were in Vermont, I received a visit from the Nidhogg."

Odin and Fen shared a concerned glance. Well, at least that
got their attention. I gave them a rundown of everything that had happened,
from the black goop on the Warrior in Vermont to Steinn's arrival and our
travels to Muspell to poor Siri in her inexplicable coma, to the moment we left
with Lady Tyra's instructions to find the cure. But I kept two pieces of
information to myself: the dragon eye and the cold fact that the dragon
matriarch had put my life on the line. Fen's face remained stony throughout my
monologue.

When I fell silent, drained after everything I'd been
through and overwhelmed by everything I still had to do, the All-Father sat
back and sighed. "Lady Tyra is no fool. And if you say the child's
symptoms are remarkably similar to Aidan's, then perhaps we do have a case of
poisoning to consider." Odin leaned an elbow on the ornately carved hand
rest of his throne, the expression in his single grey eye warmer, as if
placated by my explanation. I hoped he would forgive me.

The All-Father looked toward the entrance of the hall, and I
turned to watch my friend Sigrun enter. She paused as she drew abreast of me,
her eyes flitting back and forth between my face and Odin's and Fen's. She must
have made some decision in those fleeting moments. Her jaw hardened and she
smiled at me, leaning in for a great big squishing hug. I grinned, blinking
away heated tears of gratitude. Sigrun had definitely been worried about me.

I glanced at Fen and Odin. Could it be that much of the
anger that they'd directed at me was a result of how much they cared for me?
Mika's mention of desertion had prepared me for a solid reprimanding, if not
punishment, but I'd forgotten that my relationship with Odin and especially
with Fen went way beyond the simple teacher and god parameters.

Odin gestured to Sigrun, a frown plastered across his face.
She released me and went to the dais.

"Valkyrie Sigrun, when you arranged the Mead for
Brynhildr and Aidan, did you handle the Mead yourself?"

Talk about a leading question! Did he suspect Sigrun?

She shook her head. "No, my lord. I asked my personal
Huldra to order the Mead from the kitchens."

Odin rose from his throne and paced a few steps on the dais.
"So your Huldra and the kitchen servants would have had access to the
Mead?"

She nodded, a frown darkening her face as she looked from
Fen to Odin. "What is wrong?"

"The Mead which you gave to Bryn was poisoned,"
said Odin.

"Oh my!" The color drained from Sigrun's face, her
skin unnaturally pale against her dark hair. It had taken a while for the truth
to penetrate Sigrun's shock. "Poisoned?"

"Yes, child. We will need to speak to your
Huldra."

But Sigrun was shaking her head, the movement stiff and
denying. "She has been gone for a while now. Ever since Brody
disappeared." Sigrun frowned. "I never questioned what happened to
her. I presumed she had decided to move on. And I have a new Huldra now."

Sigrun looked straight at me, and I knew what she was
thinking.

Her Huldra must have tipped Astrid off when Sigrun and I had
snuck into Valhalla to see Aidan, Joshua, Aimee and Brody after their arrival.
I'd been so desperate to see my friends that Sigrun had found a way to get us
in and out safely. In the end, Astrid had seen us and fed her information to
Freya.

"What about the kitchen Huldra?" asked Fen.

Odin called his servant to his side, and she scurried away
to find the kitchen Huldra. While we waited, I drew closer to Sigrun and
whispered the whole story to her. As she listened, tears filled her eyes at the
poor dragon-girl's predicament.

The pair of Huldra arrived, and the kitchen maid moved
toward the dais. She looked familiar, and I swallowed a gasp as I recognized
her as Lifa, the fox Huldra who'd helped me sneak in to see Aidan. I found it
hard to believe that she would've been the one to poison him after going
through all the trouble to help me see him in the first place.

Lifa moved to the dais, a shiver rippling through her body
as she looked up at the god. "Huldra Lifa, we have questions to ask of
you," Odin's voice rumbled softly.

"Very well, my lord, I shall do my best to answer
them." She gave a quick curtsy, the bright orange of her tail sweeping the
marble tiles behind her.

"Please can you tell us about the day the Valkyrie
Sigrun requested Mead for the Valkyrie Brynhildr and the Warrior Aidan?"
Odin's voice boomed around the hall.

The Huldra stared at the floor, and my stomach dropped. I
hoped her reluctance to meet Odin's eyes just meant she was being obeisant. I
really didn't want her to be guilty. "I do recall my sister making that
request of me," she said. "I prepared the Mead in little leather
pouches and gave them to my sister to give to Valkyrie Sigrun."

"Was the Mead unattended at any time?"

"No." She shook her head. "I dispensed the
Mead and then passed it directly to my sister."

Odin, Sigrun, Fen and I shared worried glances.

"Where is your sister now, Huldra Lifa?"

Lifa shrugged. "I do not know. We hardly see each
other, and I have not seen her at all in the last few weeks." As she
looked around at the gathered warriors and gods, eyes flicking nervously from
face to face, I registered for the first time that Thor had put in an
appearance. He stood quietly off the side of the dais. I wouldn’t have thought
that Thor could be a melt-into-a-crowd kinda guy, and yet there he was, observing
the proceedings in silence.

Lifa's eyes narrowed, her expression now edged with anger
instead of confusion. "What is happening? Is something wrong?"

Sigrun touched the Huldra's arm, a gentle smile on her face.
"The Mead was poisoned, Lifa, and we are trying to find out who would do
such a thing and why."

"What?" Lifa backed away, shrugging off Sigrun's
hand, her face grey and rock hard. "You dare accuse me of tainting the
Mead?" She screamed the words. Her lips twisted and curled in contempt,
and her face colored with fury. The beauty that had drawn my eyes to her face
just minutes ago now dissolved as we watched.

"My sister and I have given our loyal service to the
All-Father, and this is the way we are thanked? With accusations of
poisoning?" She glared from face to face, her features now so hideous, her
skin grey and speckled with moss. Her forehead appeared ridged, almost wooden.
She spun away from Odin, her rage palpable. And although the shocking act of
turning her back on the All-Father without leave was bad enough, it compared
little what she did next.

As she stormed away, she ripped off her clothes, flinging
them to the marble floor. The very act of her revealing her nude body to us all
should've shocked me, but I was too distracted by the sounds of tearing fabric
as they echoed within the hall. The brimming fury our questions had called
forth struck a chord of fear within me.

And then I gasped.

The sight of her as she neared the doorway ripped the breath
from my lungs. Her tail I had expected. But now I stared in horrified
fascination at the Huldra's back, skin hard and thick and brown like the bark
of a tree, indenting her body as if she were really a tree masquerading as a
girl.

At the threshold, she spun on her heel and glared back at
us, her anger at its zenith, where control no longer existed. She screamed
again, throwing her anger at us. I ached to cover my ears against the shrieking
of her voice, but her eyes held me spellbound.

Huge, black and demonic eyes.

Lifa's shrieks echoed around the hall, each note clanging in
my eardrums, until they faded into a tense and worried silence. Warriors, Ulfr
and Valkyries alike shared uncomfortable glances before turning their eyes back
to the All-Father, who was yet to react to the blatant disrespect.

From what I knew, Huldra were a law unto themselves; they
owed nobody their allegiance, served Odin of their own free will and therefore
had the right to up and leave whenever they wished. Still, I waited in the dead
silence with the rest of the room, dreading Odin's fury. Finally Odin broke the
strained hush. "I believe this may be the handiwork of your brother
Loki." He strode to Thor, who still stood beside the dais, as shocked as
the rest of us.

Thor nodded. "It is a pity he managed to escape his
prison here. But it seems that he has many who are on his side."

"He certainly had plenty of our people on his side to
poison the Mead, to abduct
einherjar
Brody and free himself." Odin
shook his head. "We will need to be very, very careful. There are traitors
among us, and they will be found in the least likely places."

"Father, has Mimir been able to perform a foretelling?
Or, perhaps, Mother?"

Mimir and his visions had always made me curious. And yet I
had no desire to meet or converse with a bodyless head, no matter how eager I
was to know my future. I suppressed a shudder.

Odin shook his head, the light glinting of his golden
helmet. "Mimir grows weak. Too weak. And your mother has had too few
visions of late. It is a strange and worrying thing."

I frowned as I digested that piece of news. Mimir was
renowned for his predictions and for their accuracy. He was the reason Odin had
known about me, the reason he'd sent Sigrun to bring me to Asgard just seconds
before Aidan's father's thugs would've shot me to death.

If Mimir could no longer make his predictions, then Odin was
losing his upper hand. The power to see at least a little of the future had
always given the All-Father the ability to make the wisest choices.

And what of Frigga? How was it possible that she'd lost her
ability to sense things? And how would she help to divide the Warriors of
Valhalla fairly between Odin's and Freya's armies?

I shivered. The cold winds of change blew around us, ominous
and foreboding.

Thor met my eyes for the briefest of seconds before replying
to Odin. "Father, I believe I should waste no more time."

He leaned toward Odin, and they conferred in a strange and
inexplicable silence, broken only by a painful ringing in my ears, like a
thousand miniature alarm clocks in concert. I winced, as it dawned on me that
the gods had more mystery in their ways than I’d given them credit for.

Then Odin sat back and turned his single eye to me.
"Valkyrie Brynhildr, Thor will speak with you alone. You may consider his
words my own." Odin paused, his attention drawn to a commotion at the
hall's entrance, and I glanced behind me at the small contingent of Warriors
and Ulfr who entered the hall and headed for the dais. "I have other
pressing matters to attend to." The All-Father spared me a concerned,
sort-of-fatherly gaze, then waved a hand off to the side of the hall.