Page 14 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings (Love X Magic #3)

CHAPTER NINE

OCEAN BLUE

Kari

I sank into the bed as soon as Rune left to grab me a scroll, sampling the foods she’d given me.

I let my head fall back to the pillow and reveled in the sheer comfort my body experienced despite the oozing hole in my shoulder.

In Stormheim, we didn’t have raised beds topped with thick blankets and stuffed with pristine white feathers.

I sank into the mattress, wondering how I would ever return to Midgard now that I’d experienced such luxury.

Tove was curled up next to me, purring aggressively. I could feel just how much he missed having a corporeal body and having me beside him in a way he couldn’t just see, but feel too.

The door flew open, and Rune poured into the bedchamber with a scowl that could’ve shattered glass. She closed the door and locked it behind her, running her other hand down her paling face.

“What’s wrong?” I sat up in bed, feeling her angst roll through the room like a thick fog. It would choke me if I didn’t help her manage it soon.

“We need to leave,” Rune said, her voice hard as stone. She pushed herself away from the door and strode to the armoire, murmuring something about Rayna and how she was going to do some rather unpleasant things to Rune for this—whatever “this” was.

“Leave? To go where?” I pushed the tray of food away and scooched to the end of the bed, as if moving closer to the valkyrie would tell me what was going on inside that mind of hers.

She didn’t speak for a moment while she threw her wardrobe doors open, rummaging through her belongings. Tove meowed angrily in Rune’s direction, knowing she was the reason I’d stopped giving him attentive scratches.

She sighed and paused, her hand resting on a shiny shoulder plate.

“We’re going to have to put a hold on that little conversation with Odin, seeress.

Turns out, he may not be as receptive to your pleas as I initially thought.

It’s best we leave Valhalla before he discovers your presence here in his hall. ”

“Why the sudden change?” I asked, eying her to see if I could sense any lies in her words.

No lies. But it definitely wasn’t her whole truth. She was holding something back.

“Remember what I said about not being able to tell you everything?”

“Yes, but what if I don’t accept that?”

Rune shook her head as she pulled her armor out of the wardrobe.

Piece by piece, she began securing it over her red leathers, tightening straps and adjusting her breastplate.

The brilliant golden armor was unmarred, all but for a line gouged through the chest piece.

I watched as she paused to run a thoughtful thumb down the mark before she resumed getting her things in order.

I tried to ignore the reflection in her armor, but I found myself staring ruthlessly at that gouge, wondering why it seemed so familiar.

When my gaze sharpened, I realized, while unintentional, that I’d been staring right at her breasts.

I should have looked away, but even she didn’t move.

Out of the side of my eyes, I saw her watching me, and I couldn’t help notice the way the metal warped around her body so perfectly, she looked as if she’d been dipped in liquid gold.

Rune cleared her throat, and my eyes shot straight across the room—straight to the mirror hanging mercilessly on the gilded wall.

“Great gods,” I screamed, clutching my cheek. “My face!”

I scrambled out of the bed, my hands shaking as my gaze locked on my eyes in the reflection.

Ocean blue.

Deep pools of ocean blue.

My knees threatened to buckle, and the only thing that held me upright was knowing I wouldn’t be able to see my reflection from the floor. I could hear the blood pulsing in my head as my hands fell to the mirror, knocking on it and double checking it wasn’t some cruel trick.

There was no rot, no goo, no peeling skin, no black veins—just the smooth skin I’d always known there to be from the truth of my touch. One hand was still on the mirror, the other one on my face, which shook back and forth in disbelief.

“What did I tell you about screaming?” Rune hissed, marching toward me. I could barely hear her over my own heart and the swirling thoughts filling my mind.

“My, my—” I stuttered, not knowing where to begin. How did one explain what I now saw? Or, more importantly, what I didn’t.

The sound of fists pounding on wood echoed from down the hall.

“For the love of all things living,” the valkyrie cursed. She ran to the glass embedded into the wall and pushed open the panes. Breeze brushed the little hairs over her face as she raised her fingers to her lips and let out a loud whistle. “Come here, seeress. Your ride is on its way.”

“My what?” I asked, but she just clicked her tongue impatiently and strode over to where I stood with numb limbs.

She pulled me over to the gap in the wall, pushing the bench out of her way to make room for me.

Tove squirmed and screeched as she yanked him off the bed and tossed him into my arms. I held his fragile body as his nails retracted.

“When you feel the wind hit your face, jump.” She pushed a bag into my chest, then motioned for me to put Tove inside so I could free my hands.

“Jump?” I said, peering out at the midnight sky.

She blew her frustration into the air, sending the scent of hazelnuts and raspberries in my direction as she grabbed Tove out of my arms and did it for me.

When the bag was slung over my shoulders with a small hole at the top for Tove to stick his head out of, she grabbed me by the shoulders and squared me in front of the gap in the wall.

I could hear beating wings before I saw them, and my gut clenched as the anticipation of wind on my face gripped me. With a loud whoosh, I felt pressure on my back. The dreaded feeling of falling overwhelmed me as I stumbled out the hole in the wall.

That bitch pushed me!

I only had a moment to right myself before landing on the back of a huge pegasus with white wings. I gripped it around the neck with all my strength, suppressing a scream that fought valiantly up my throat.

“Take her to the mist!” Rune shouted, and the pegasus took off into the star-filled sky.

Rune’s pegasus shot through the air at a nauseating speed. Flashes of images of white feathers and the feeling of flying racked through my brain—bits of memories of my travels from Midgard to Asgard.

“You left without me! Seriously?” someone shouted from behind me, but I didn’t dare turn around. Whoever it was clearly didn’t intend for their words to fall upon my ears, and I wasn’t so confident that if I moved, I wouldn’t tumble through the clouds to my untimely death.

“Epli!” the voice called again, and only when an apple came soaring past my head and in biting range of the white pegasus did the creature slow its pace. The crunch of fruit in the winged horse's teeth vibrated through its neck and into my hands. “Rune, what are you?—”

It wasn’t until Rayna grew closer that she realized I wasn’t her sister. No, I was just the woman she couldn’t stand for some reason unbeknownst to me.

Her black pegasus soared next to me, and only then did Rayna and I lock eyes. “Did you…steal Apple? How did you manage?—”

“I didn’t steal this pegasus! I was thrown on top of it,” I yelled out into the sky, hoping my words cut through the wind enough for the valkyrie to hear me.

“Her! Not ‘it’,” Rayna grumbled, having no difficulty speaking through the wind, no doubt after decades of practice, maybe even centuries. “I assume it was Rune who threw you?”

I nodded, watching the way her eyes rolled in response.

“And I assume, since you’re heading in the opposite direction of the Bifrost, that you’re not going back to Midgard?”

“I can assume that to be the case, yes!” I yelled; I didn’t have much more information than she did.

“You have no clue where Apple is taking you, do you?”

I scanned Rayna’s hardened features, knowing Rune trusted her but not quite sure if I should do the same.

“No,” I said, though Rune had mentioned something about the mist, whatever that was.

Rayna closed her eyes for a moment before her pegasus pulled up into the sky and looped back around to fly back in the direction she came from.

“That’s just perfect.” Her grumble drifted to me as we shot in opposite directions, Apple flying farther and farther away from Rune’s home.

I gripped her tighter when Tove let out an annoyed mew.

I could feel him rustling around in the bag, and I used his presence to ground me when I was so far from said ground.

Stone buildings soared past me, all lit up from the inside.

I could hear the whispers of the wind mix with faint music in the distance, the gush of moving water through river rock.

I wished the sun was shining down upon this place so I could see Valhalla in all its glory, but as we flew deeper into Asgard and away from Odin's Hall, I noticed the moon doused the trees in glowing silver.

My breath caught in my throat at the thought of spending an eternity somewhere so beautiful, so serene.

I suddenly understood why so many fought to get here, as if their mortal lives were nothing but a sacrifice for eternal glory—a mere stepping stone.

Something twisted in me knowing I wouldn’t have come here after my death if Rune hadn’t bypassed Odin’s rules and broke her very own oaths. And for what? To tease me?

I wasn’t sure how this couldn’t all be some twisted trick put on by the Goddess of Death, as if my ancestral curse hadn’t been enough for her. But what had I done? Was this punishment for going to the market that day and leaving my family behind while they all had their final moments?

Having Tove whole, escaping the pressures of my village, and being able to see my eyes for the first time in my life was all made possible by leaving Midgard. Asgard had given me the things I dreamed of for years.

I had dreamt of this, hadn’t I?

I recounted the visions that had wormed their way through my mind, keeping me up and giving me a mugwort addiction in the name of uncovering its truth.

Shining gold emerging from a star-lit sky.

Black and white feathers raining down upon the ruby floor.

By the end of the dream, I hadn’t had any senses, no eyes.

I thought at the time that if I had no eyes, that must’ve meant I had no curse.

I realized everything I’d seen in my vision was now my reality.

I was meant to be here upon Apple’s back, flying into the unknown mist. Tove was meant to be strapped to my back, and I was meant to see my own face without fear.

If I knew anything, I knew this. No one was going to take my new reality away from me, even if it was all just a horrible trick.

I would claim it, make it into something that served me instead of something that worked against me.

My reality was my own, and no god, goddess, or strange valkyrie would have a say in it, not anymore.