Truth's Heart (The Valkyrie's Passion Book 3): A Valkyrie/Shifter Romance (15 page)

“Odin gave you Gungnir,” Tyr answered. “Odin trusted you even as he lay dying. I trust Odin's judgment.”

Chapter Eighteen

Raven

The Bifrost leading from Paradise, Mount Rainer to Asgard was longer than any other I had traveled. I expected a short journey. That did not happen as we walked through the void on the bridge of rainbows. At first, I hoped it was my own perception making the trip seem shorter. After all, there were no landmarks. Then I looked at my watch.

We had walked an hour already.

“How long will this take?” I asked, my body already gripped with nerves.

“We are halfway there,” Tyr answered. “Asgard lies far above Midgard. You may not realize it, but we are climbing the trunk of the massive Yggdrasil. The geometry of this space is merely beyond your three-dimensional perspective.”

“Magnus?” I groaned.

“Don't worry about that,” he answered. “We're in non-euclidean space.”

“Yeah, that makes my head hurt,” I complained. “So we're climbing even though we've been walking in a flat, straight line.”

“Only to our perspective.” Magnus rubbed at his temple. “It makes my head hurt thinking about it, too. You'd need to be a mathematician, I suspect, to truly understand what is happening.”

Every step ratcheted up the tension on my skin. I felt like bursting apart, but my skin, so far, held the pressure in. But how much longer could I take this? I wanted this to end. I wanted to be done being afraid.

I wanted Loki to pay. Then Magnus and I could ride off into the sunset.

I knew it wouldn't be that simple. Life wasn't a story. Magnus and I would have problems. Life would throw us problems all the time, but we would face them together. A partnership. That was love. It wasn't the heart-pounding, ecstasy-inducing joining of two bodies, but a union of two souls that shared and supported each other.

A lasting edifice that would endure the storms that life would hurl at us.

I wanted to tell Magnus all these things. How important he was to me. How much I had grown to rely on him. And how much I knew he needed me. We might die in the next hour. Danger faced us in Asgard. Loki would not go down easily. He would fight to survive. He was cunning. He would have schemes we could hardly imagine.

So why was my mouth frozen? Lead coated my tongue, weighing it down. I glanced at Magnus. I yearned to tell him before it was too late that he lived in my heart. He had forged a special place there. That even if I were to die today, I would die fulfilled because I had met Magnus and loved him these last days. The words ached to come out.

But I just couldn't say them.

The best I could do was take his hand. His rough grip engulfed my hand. He squeezed. I took in a deep breath. The tension tightening my skin relaxed. Not a lot, but enough. Magnus knew that I cared for him. I could feel it in his touch.

I was ready to undo all of Loki's machinations.

“We're here,” Tyr announced. A shimmering curtain appeared ahead.

“Asgard,” I swallowed.

“We shall face it together, little sister,” Brynhilda said as she came up on my left. My older sister's face was a mask of fierce ice. “We shall avenge our sister and our Lord. Loki's villainous blood shall stain our swords.”

I nodded in agreement. I let go of Magnus's hand and summoned my sword. I gripped it. Gungnir infused my blade. Owen was with me. He would help me avenge his death. “Loki never should have fucked with me.”

Magnus laughed, exhilaration howling in his voice. We were ready. We stepped into Asgard.

~   ~   ~

The pure, powerful note of the trumpet resounded through Asgard, shaking the walls of Frigg's hall. The Bifrost had been crossed. The Valkyrie had arrived in Asgard. The crone goddess swallowed. Jormungandr hadn't arrived yet. It still slithered up the Yggdrasil from the roots.

A part of Frigg gibbered in fear.
I have loosed the serpent.
 

Another quake shook her house. It was distant, not from the trumpet announcing intruders upon the realm of the Aesir, but something worse. The Yggdrasil itself shook and Asgard, resting at the very top of the mighty tree's bough, swayed. Her stomach shifted as she caught herself on her chair, steadying her balance.

“They have come to kill you, Mother,” Frigg's beautiful son said. He appeared beside his father. Frigg gazed at the shades of her loved ones. They stood tall and proud, Odin fierce and grizzled with age, Baldur proud and virtuous with youth. They both gripped their swords. “We shall try to protect you, mother, but the dead have only so much power over the living.”

“You will need to delay them until Jormungandr arrives,” Odin growled. “Treacherous Tyr has betrayed you. He has sided with our murderer. Justice has been denied us.”

“I will see justice delivered,” rasped Frigg as she drew her bent body to its full height. She opened herself up to the seidr, the magic of nature and womanhood. She had discovered it and shared it to the world. Her hand gripped on her wand of yew.

Frigg ignored the infirmities of age as she strode across her hall. She stepped out into the radiance of Asgard's sun. The skies burned with azure and Sol shone with yellow warmth. Another tremor swayed Asgard. She clutched the door frame.

“What is happening, Mother?” Hother asked. Tears still stained his cheek. His blind eyes had not stopped crying.

Weak, useless son.

“I thought I told you to avenge your brother and stop lurking on my porch,” Frigg snapped as she strode past Hother.

Frigg marched to meet the criminals that trespassed on Asgard. She swept past Nanna, who still cried before Baldur's pyre, and entered the grassy square at the heart of Asgard. Her yew wand crackled with energy as nature answered her call.

Her eyes fixed ahead as she waited to avenge her son and husband, their shades flanking her.

~   ~   ~

Magnus

The brilliance of Asgard's sky almost overwhelmed me. The blue hue was so much deeper and richer than any sky I had seen on Midgard. Green plants grew, their leaves vibrant and alive. The sun shone with a yellow warmth. Flowers dotted the ground covering, each hue of red, orange, purple, blue, violet, pink, and white seemed more astonishing than the last.

“It's like I've never seen colors before,” gasped Raven. “Everything's so bright. So alive. It makes the prettiest flower I've seen back home muted, dull.”

I nodded, then I gazed at Raven. Her black hair almost shimmered. The silver of her armor gleamed with a blinding radiance. Her blue eyes were sapphires, wide with excitement. He wanted to drown in those pools. And her lips burned with a brilliant vermilion.

The beauty of the night marched into daylight,

illuminating what darkness hid.

Tall and strong, proud and fierce,

the beauty marches beneath the sun's delight.

The words popped into my mind. The beginning of a poem. I wished I had pen and paper to commit it to memory. It would fade in the excitement of battle. Despite the beauty of Asgard, violence would soon mar its purity.

The ground shook. Raven gasped and seized my wrists. The entire world seemed to shake and sway. It was more than an earthquake. Even the sun above seemed to move with us. My stomach twisted as I fought to keep my balance.

“What was that?” Brynhilda gasped as she held onto Sayyid's stout arms, her blue eyes wide.

“I do not know,” Tyr said. He swallowed. “It was as if the entire Yggdrasil shook.”

“What could do that?” Raven asked, her face paling. “The tree is bigger than Midgard, and that's huge.”

“This portends to nothing good,” Try answered. “Come, we shall find our answers in the square.”

We walked. I strode at Raven's side, my eyes moving. I gripped Heimdall's ax in my left hand. The wolf howled, begging me to don his cloak. I held off. I wanted my faculties under control for as long as possible.

Something happened in Asgard. Something we had not expected. Loki was ready for us. Berserker rage would not serve me yet.

We past the outlying buildings, great halls occupied by graceful, ivory-skinned people, taller than humans. Pointy ears rose above hair of gold, straw, and azure. The light elves of Norse mythology. Their dark cousins dwelled in the lowest realms. They watched us but said no word and Tyr ignored them as he guided us to the larger buildings in the distance, the great halls of the gods.

One of those would be famed Valhalla, the hall of Odin.

The path led us around one of those great halls, the roof reaching high over head. It seemed simply constructed out of hewn logs, but there was such skill in care in the shaping of the logs so they naturally fit together. The style was ancient, pagan, Norse. Mammoth and daunting. I felt like a bug as I walked past it.

We trod in the realm of gods and sought to meddle in their affairs. I swallowed and knocked back the fear.

I walked with Raven. She was a powerful woman. I was a strong man. With Brynhilda, Tyr, and Sayyid's help, we would undo Loki's machinations. We may be bugs treading in the realm of the gods, but we would have one powerful sting.

The wolf howled inside of me, thirsting for Loki's blood.

We rounded the corner of the hall and stepped onto the square. More large buildings circled it, the homes of the gods. A woman cried before a pile of ash, her clothing torn and her face smeared gray as she grieved. Before her, an old woman stood flanked by a beautiful, young man and Odin.

“Loki,” I growled. “Both of them.”

“Yes,” Raven agreed. “He's pretending to be Baldur and Odin. And the old woman must be Frigg.”

A mad cackle came from the crone goddess.

Chapter Nineteen

Raven

“There is my husband's murder,” crackled the crone. She brandished something in her hand, a sculpted piece of gray wood, and pointed it right at me. Wind swirled around me, howling with fury. “There is the cruel woman that tricked my idiot son into killing his beautiful brother. And who do I see with this villainous Valkyrie, but those who swore to bring me justice.

“But how can there be justice when Tyr himself abandons it? You have all played me false. I can see it in your eyes. Tyr, you yearn to usurp my husband's place as the chief god. That is why you have sided with the bitch. And Brynhilda? What whorish lies did your younger sister promise you to seduce you into abandoning your oath and killing Lynette?

“You are all traitors.”

Lightning crackled around Frigg.

“I did not kill Odin,” I objected.

“You are saying Muninn saw wrong?” demanded Frigg. “That you didn't thrust your sword into my husband's chest and kill your lord and master?”

“It was Loki that killed him,” I insisted. “I was merely his weapon. He tricked me just like he tricked your son Hother into killing Baldur.”

“She lies, wife,” Loki-Odin snarled, pointing his sword at me. The screams of the damned burst from his blade. It was all an illusion. Truth's Heart pulsed on my finger. It detected both of Loki's lies.

“It was her that gave my brother the javelin that killed me, Mother,” Loki-Baldur insisted, his voice almost musical. “She robbed the world of my beauty. That was why she was there that night. You yourself questioned it.”

“See, the shades of your victim give proof to my accusations,” Frigg cackled. “You stole them from the world and me. You killed them. And you plot to kill me. That's why you are here. You think to add me to your list of victims. But I am not defenseless.”

The world shook and swayed as the Yggdrasil trembled.

“What have you unleashed, Frigg?” demanded Tyr. “What madness have these two false shades fed you? Are you so senile not to see the truth of who they really are? Loki stands on either side of you. What counsel have they given you?”

“He lies, Mother,” Loki-Baldur protested. “I am your son. You can have me back. Kill the Valkyrie and we shall live again.”

“Can't you see the lies?” demanded Tyr. “Their very murderer wears the cloak of their images to deceive you and usurp the justice that should be delivered on their villainous heads. Open your eyes, Frigg. You have always had the keenest sight of the gods. Gaze on those shades and realized the truth.”

A gibbering screech escaped Frigg. “You want to take them from me again. You all do. You want to take my beautiful son away. You all hated him. You were all jealous. And you did it. You plotted with that whore Valkyrie, and now you are here for me. You cannot have my life, Tyr. I name you False Justice. If you won't deliver it, I shall.”

“Watch out,” Magnus shouted and pushed me.

I stumbled away as a lightning bolt fell out of a cloudless sky and struck Magnus. He howled in pain as his body smoked. The force of the lightning threw him back. He crashed to the ground, convulsing from the attack.

“She's unleashed her seidr,” Brynhilda shouted. “She'll turn the elements on us.”

I pushed myself to my feet as both Lokis rushed forward. Loki-Odin went towards Tyr, their swords clashing in a mighty scream of dying men while Loki-Baldur's sword burst with light when it struck Brynhilda's.

The air tingled around me. I rolled to the side as another bolt of lightning streaked out of the sky and struck the grass where I had lain, leaving a blasted, smoking hole behind. I gained my feet as wind whipped around me and struck my body with the force of a hurricane and threw me back.

The world tumbled around me.

“That's it, Mother,” Loki-Baldur shouted. “Avenge my death. Kill the Valkyrie.”

I crashed into the ground with a metallic clatter.

~   ~   ~

The blind god's head rose. A man's voice shouted over the crack of lightning and the howl of the wind. Hother's heart beat faster as he listened, his breath held. He knew that voice. He wiped at his cheeks wet with his grief and stood.

“Brother?” he asked in fearful awe.

Baldur's honeyed timber could not be faked. Hother's keen ears would know the difference. Hope bloomed in the blind god's heart. He stumbled away from his mother's porch, following the sound of Baldur. Fresh tears ran down Hother's cheeks.