Page 70 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings
“Monster? Rayna, being a valkyrie is your life. You worked so hard to get to Valhalla, and you threw it all away for what? Me?” I scoffed. “I’m not worth your future.”
“You’re worth my life!” She shoved my shoulders, and I couldn’t keep my footing in the snow. I tumbled backward, my sister’s screams in my ears as I fell. Tears welled in my eyes at the weakness in my bones, the defiance in her voice. My barehands gripped the icy snow, and I stared down into the endless white, the last remaining pillar of my former life in pieces before me.
Hands swept under my underarms, and the next thing I knew, I was standing once more. My hands were freezing, but I didn’t move to warm them. Rayna rested her chin on my shoulder, a shaky sigh leaving her lungs. We stood there for a moment, two sisters on opposite sides of the same war.
Finally, my resoluteness broke, and I turned to meet her gaze. Before I could speak, she said, “Freyja is pleased to have me back, Rune. I don’t feel like I’m taking a step backward, truly. I feel like I’m taking a step forward. Maybe not in my career, but in mylife.You know more than anyone what life in Valhalla can do to a person. I want to find my own happiness, to be content. During my year in Fólkvangr, I was so focused on being promoted to the Valhalla sect, I never looked around and was grateful for what Ididhave. I don’t want that life anymore. What better place to do that than the hall designed for nothing but peace and tranquility?”
“You did this for you? Not just me? You mean it?” I asked, scanning her all too familiar features. Her blonde and white hair was messy, flakes of snow clinging to the braids that swooped up and out of her face. Her dark eyes softened, and in them, I sensed her truth.
“I do,” Rayna said, and that admission had my clenched fists relaxing. “And…I told her I wouldn’t re-join the sect unless she took you too.”
I took a step back, pressure building in my widened eyes. “What? You did? What did she say?”
“A chance to take in Odin’s traitorous favorite, are you kidding me? The goddess can’t wait to swear you in,” Rayna said with a mischievous smirk. “You, of course, still have to take hertest of loyalty and go through the whole attendant ritual again, but after that, we’ll both be hers.”
“Kari will be too,” I said, glancing out at the rainbow hues reflecting over the snow-covered hills. When I next looked at the Bifrost, it hit me—Kari was now strong enough to travelthroughit. No more dangerous treks through the path between worlds. “Hel is trading her in return for something from Freyja.”
“What does she want from Freyja? Wait, no, what does Freyja want with Kari?” Rayna asked, and I met her gaze once more.
“I don’t have the answer to either of those questions,” I admitted, but hope surged in me for the first time since I saw my armor as molten gold upon the rocky floor of the Cave of Whispers. “What I do know is, Fólkvangr has another thing coming.”
After walking back to Hel’s Hall, Rayna and I split up. She went off to the House of Wings to warm up and make use of one of our sister’s baths, and I headed back to our room to see if I could find Kari.
When I entered the room, I heard splashing water, so I called out to her from behind the bathing chamber door. “Kari? It’s me.”
“Come in!” she called out.
Come in?I asked myself, because she was in the bath, wasn’t she?
I stood beyond the door, my hand hovering over the knob until I finally found the courage to twist it. The heavy wooden door creaked, and I spotted a head of berry blonde hair poking out from a pile of sudsy foam. I wasn’t quite sure if I was relievedor disappointed to see she was all covered by the bubbles that clung to her back like fragile armor.
She shifted in the tub until she was facing me, and I had to fight the hardest battle of my life to keep my eyes upon her face. Her cheeks were flushed and rosy from the water’s warmth, and I wished I could strip out of my winter gear and crawl under the suds with her. She rested her head back on the bath’s rim and looked up at me with a glint from the candlelight in her eyes.
“I had the strangest afternoon,” Kari began. One of her feet poked out of the water, reminding me I still had my boots on. As I nodded at her to continue, I stooped down to begin untying my laces. “I was with Haddy, collecting my bounty, when I ran right into Norfrid Bosdotter, and let me tell you, that woman was nasty.”
“You just happened upon one of your ancestors?” I asked, pausing on my second bootlace to focus on her twisted features.
“I thought it was too convenient as well, so I began talking with her more, and it turns out, the little creep was sent by Hel to watch me. She went on a whole rant about being loyal to the Gods and how she loves being Hel’s vessel,” Kari said with distorted lips. Her whole body shivered, as if the water had suddenly grown cold, but I knew better. The look on Kari’s face said it all.
“Nine realms,” I muttered. “We need to get out of the underworld.”
“Why don’t we? Why don’t we leave for Fólkvangr tomorrow?” Kari said, sitting up in the tub, sending a few bubbles rolling over the side as she did. “I’ve collected what I need for the journey, and I’m ready. Sure, I may not know what Freyja will want me to do, but?—”
“You don’t need to convince me, seeress,” I cut in. “We’re not meant for this place, and the longer we both stay, the worse off we’ll be. I worry you’re absorbing too much of Hel’s seidr tooquickly, and we don’t know what will happen if you stay much longer. And for me, well…I’m becoming more mortal by the day.”
“How will that change when we leave?” Kari asked, her voice soft.
I stared at her for a while, my heart aching from her words, though I knew she meant me no harm. There was nothing I could do in the moment to make her words untrue. Even when we left Hel, there was no guarantee I could stop the slow spread of rich brown upon my head.
“Well, I suppose I had the strangest afternoon too,” I said. I slipped out of my boots and left them by the door, then made my way to the tub. Kari swallowed as I ran my fingers over the bubbles, a few of them popping under my touch. I wanted so badly to stick my hands under the surface and trail them over her soft, warm skin, and as I met Kari’s gaze, she looked as if she wanted that too.
“Sit and tell me,” she said, and I didn’t hesitate to do what she asked of me. I stripped out of my furs, placing them next to the tub to use as a cushion against the hard floor. Once I was seated and my back was against the bath, she reached out of the water and placed her bath-warmed fingers over my temples. My eyes closed as I melted under her touch.
“Lean your head back,” she said. I tilted my head, not caring that some of my hair fell into the water. Kari began taking the intricate war braids out, as well as the golden pieces adorning them. I wasn’t sure if she was simply trying to help me wash my hair, or if she was purposely taking out my braids so I didn’t have to suffer that fate. Either way, I felt my heart swell as she began diligently working, taking care of me in a way I hadn’t realized I needed until this very moment.
“I hired a troll to kidnap Rayna, and she?—”
“Wait. Go back,” Kari said, her hands pausing in my hair. “You had Rayna kidnapped?”
