Page 38 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings (Love X Magic #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DOUBLE THE SOCKS

Kari

O nce again, I was left with a valkyrie in my bed.

This time, we were freshly bathed and swathed in black silks we found in the room’s wardrobe.

Rune’s was long, but it dipped low, and the damned mesmerizing material of the nightgown made her look as if she could take Hel’s spot upon her throne.

I wasn’t used to seeing her outside of her leathers, and this dress was a dark sea of temptation.

Snap out of it, Kari. I squeezed my eyes shut as I tried to clear the images of her climbing into bed from my mind.

“What are you thinking about, seeress?” Rune’s voice called to me in the dark room, smoke still lingering in the air in swirling patterns from the candles we snuffed out. “Your breathing is heavy.”

For the love of the Gods.

“I was just starting to fall asleep,” I lied, my back facing her as we laid under the luxurious sheets.

“How have your visions been?”

I sighed and rolled over, feeling awkward having her speaking to my back. When I faced her, the side of her mouth curled upward. I ignored that slight movement, or tried to, at least. I caught my eyes darting to her faint smile twice more before it faded.

“Ever since I started dreaming of you, of Valhalla, and leaving Midgard, my visions have been so distant, foggy,” I said, hating to admit she’d found a way into my visions.

Her hair was free of war braids, and she looked softer than ever as her head rested upon the lush pillow.

I wanted to run my fingers through it, show her I cared little for the status it brought her, but something about that still seemed like it’d be a win for her.

I wasn’t in favor of giving her the upper hand any time soon.

“Have you been reading the scroll I gave you?”

I snorted a laugh. “At least twice. I read it in its entirety when we were staying in the Valley Beyond the Mist with áma. I snuck in moments here and there along our travels when my visions were keeping me up, but what I really need is mugwort and something to write my dreams upon.”

“All you need to do is ask, seeress. There’s a cup on your side table,” she said with a tired smile. She looked as if she’d love to do nothing more than to fall asleep in this incredible bed, and I wondered if her seidr was starting to wane.

I peeked over my shoulder to see a steaming cup of tea sitting just a few feet away. I sat up, using puffy pillows to prop me up, and murmured my thanks to Rune. “I’m going to stay up for a bit to drink this. Why don’t you sleep? You look exhausted.”

“I think I’ve had enough vulnerability for one night,” she chuckled. “I can wait.”

“You’re going to stay awake, watching me drink tea because you feel too vulnerable being asleep next to me while I’m not sleeping? Do you think I’m going to stab you with the dagger you gave me?”

“Well… I…” Rune stuttered with scrunched brows. Did she really not see what she was doing? “I suppose when you put it like that, it sounds rather ridiculous.”

“It does. Go to sleep, Rune. I could use a little alone time anyway, some time when I’m not being observed for once.”

“I can give you that,” Rune nodded, her eyes boring into me. “You deserve peace, Kari.”

“Thank you,” I said, allowing my gaze to trail all over that beautiful hair and the contrast of it against her olive skin. This valkyrie was one I could get used to, the one without the armor. “Sleep tight.”

“Sweet visions, seeress,” Rune said with a yawn. I thought she would turn her back to me to drift off to sleep as she usually did, but tonight, she simply closed her eyes.

As I sipped my tea, I spent far too long doing to her what she did to me for years: watching.

I knew that was exactly what she was afraid of, but at some point, she needed to have the favor returned.

At this rate, I’d need to watch her sleep each night for 730 moons before we were even.

As I sat there, sinking into the mattress, I wondered if that fate would be all so bad.

When I woke, there was no warm body next to me, not even Tove.

He sat by the window, staring off into Helheim’s landscape and pawing at the glass whenever a snowflake blew past. In the place Rune once slept now sat a leather-bound collection of pages.

Sitting up in bed, I grabbed the mysterious object and dragged it onto my lap.

There was a string keeping the pages closed, and I unwound it to see a note scrawled on the first page in runic writing.

The morning is yours.

- Rune

I found myself smiling as I read those simple words. My fingers found Rune’s markings, and I rubbed my thumb down them. As soon as I did, it triggered something in my mind, a vision fragment from the night prior.

Iris. Iris Ariti.

Something in my mind itched, screamed, and clawed; it wanted me to remember that name, who it belonged to, the story behind it. I wrote the name under Rune’s note and found my hand and fingers working on their own accord, crossing out the four letter word spelling out Rune.

Iris and Rune are one in the same. As soon as I thought it, Rune’s story from the night in Nidavellir came rushing through my memories.

Heat rose to my cheeks as I recalled our conversation and the secrets she’d shared with me, the name she hadn’t spoken in years, the reason behind that gouge in her armor.

The damn dwarven ale had almost robbed me of everything beautiful from that night.

The past wasn’t the only thing I dreamt of, though, and I began to sketch out everything I’d remembered: faint lights, draping cloth, flashes of olive.

So many details felt hauntingly familiar but too distant to reach out and grab.

I needed to master these visions if I was ever going to be a seeress worthy of Freyja.

I hummed to myself as I scrambled to find the teachings on seidr of the underworld. As my stomach growled, I wished Rune was here to summon me some tea and a nice little breakfast.

I spent the morning studying everything I could, getting lost in a world of runes and spells.

The ingredients I brought with me were limited, and I wondered if I could collect more, or if Hel would frown upon me practicing my seidr in her realm.

She did give it to me, after all. Why let me have it if I wasn’t allowed to use it?

My fingers zinged with power, and I felt unknown spells forming on my tongue. They came to me as if they’d been carved into my skull, always there, always meant to be spoken by me. I hadn’t realized the sun had dipped into its afternoon position until I heard a knock on the door.

“Come in!” I called out without looking up, lazily waving the visitor in with charcoal staining my nails. I was locked in, dedicated to my craft.

“Someone’s been busy.” I heard Rune’s chuckle before I saw her.

My fixed gaze broke, and I finally glanced up at her from where she stood at the end of the bed.

Her eyes scanned the texts covering the bed, scattered bottles I’d brought with me, a few items I’d found in the room, then finally landed on my fingers.

“Iris?” I asked.

Rune cocked her head, blowing out a large sigh. “I was worried you didn’t remember.”

“Our night in Nidavellir? I remember…most things,” I said.

“Something about moss, Rayna smiling for once, and your armor. I remember why you didn’t have it fixed,” I confessed, memories coming back to me even more now as I spoke them aloud.

I reached for the runic scribbles I’d jotted down, running my thumb over Rune’s crossed out name.

“I’ll admit, I’d forgotten most of it, but I had a vision last night, and I heard the name Iris Ariti. ”

Rune glanced down at my work, no doubt seeing the charcoal smudge where I rubbed my thumb down her name. “So, you do remember.”

I nodded slowly, then tilted my face to look at her. “Do you want me to call you Iris from now on?”

Rune looked taken aback, as if she’d never even considered this option, before finally saying, “I haven’t been Iris in a very long time.

The name ‘Rune’ reminds me of my rebirth, of who I was destined to become, not who I once was.

I’m glad you remember me sharing that piece of myself, though, and while I don’t ever intend on going by ‘Iris’ again, I never want to forget it, or where I came from,” she said.

“Will you hold on to this memory with me?”

“I will,” I promised, meaning it with every fiber of my being. “And if you want to add more memories to it, I will listen to stories of your past life and keep them alive in my mind too.”

“Thank you, seeress,” she said with a genuine smile. When she found herself smiling at me for a moment too long, she cleared her throat and ran her hand over her leathers. “Have you eaten?”

I shook my head, and, within the next second, there was a feast waiting for me on the table by the window.

I didn’t hesitate to push the spell work off me and crawl out of bed.

Rune, Tove, and I ate together, and as we did, I caught Apple soaring through the snowy Helheim sky.

Rune told me about taking Apple out for a ride and refueling her power stores, and I had to say, I could tell the difference in the food she’d been able to summon for us.

Everything was far fresher and more flavorful than it had been the past few days.

The berries were so sweet, I was pretty sure I could die happy.