Page 4 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings (Love X Magic #3)
“You’re too hard to kill, Rayna. I’ve tried,” I said with an amused chuckle. The woman, while still young, was one of the fiercest warriors I’d ever known. The muscle in her jaw pulsed with each word I spoke.
“There are more ways you could harm me and the rest of the sisters than by simply taking our lives. You should know better than anyone, there are much worse fates than death.”
My own muscles stiffened at her sobering words.
I realized then she was holding my boots.
Had I still been barefoot? My throat cleared, and I motioned for her to hand me the leather boots.
I may have destroyed the rest of my gear, but at least I’d had some shred of decency and removed my shoes first. They were my favorite pair, after all.
Rayna handed them to me with a tight-lipped smile. Her eyes wandered my face, like if she looked hard enough, she could see if her words penetrated my thick skull. Lucky for her, they had.
“I hear you, Rayna. I do.”
Her shoulders relaxed, and she silently nodded her head. The two of us didn’t speak for the rest of our walk as we made our way home.
I’d grown accustomed to the pounding headaches that followed after gorging myself on mead and meat all night.
The extra blood pulsing in my temples created music for my ears only.
It was special, really, when you thought of it like that.
What was better than the music of your own blood to remind you that you were still alive? Because I was still alive.
Though my days were surrounded by the dead, I wasn’t truly one of them.
Sure, my mortal self had slowly faded away, as did the color in my hair, but I still lived and breathed just as I always had.
If I were like the warriors who had been flown up to Valhalla, I could eat and drink to my heart’s content and suffer none of the nasty consequences.
But alas, I had something they didn’t: flesh and blood.
Once Rayna and I arrived at the House of Wings, she directed me to the washtub to clean up.
The golden tub had done the rest for us, already waiting for me with steaming hot water.
After stripping out of my sodden leathers, I collapsed into the tub without a shred of grace.
My fingers were still pruned from the fountain water, but the healing waters of the golden Valhalla tub immediately plumped my skin.
I only lingered long enough to scrub myself of stench, not bothering to untie each braid from my hair.
Surely, my locks could wait a day or two to be washed.
When I crawled out of the tub, there was a small plate of berries and honey sitting on a wooden stool to rouse my senses. I popped a sticky raspberry into my mouth, letting the energizing flavors pull me out of my stupor.
Wrapping myself in a towel, I gazed into the mirror opposite me, trimmed with ornate patterns in precious metals.
I stared back at the reflection longer than I should have, like I often found myself doing.
When I first entered the Sisterhood and moved into the House of Wings, I stared into a mirror much like this one, fascinated by the idea that I would someday know every line and curve of my face.
When I realized I had a lifetime to do so, I’d believed it was deeply romantic to know yourself in such a way.
I’d imagined that by the time I earned my one hundredth year, I would have memorized every feature on my un-aging face.
How wrong I’d been.
I’d earned my one hundredth year a half a millennia ago, and I swore, with each year, the image staring back at me became more distant, more unfamiliar.
Sure, I could draw the sharp lines of my face in my sleep, but I’d never been able to capture what lingered beneath my grey-blue eyes. While my hair and body had changed with time, my locks white and my body stronger, my face remained an unchanging enigma.
Sucking all the honey off a blackberry, I watched the way my pink lips closed over the fruit.
Hel, Rune.
I shook myself out of the haze, knowing no good could come from allowing my reflection to hold so much power over me.
I meandered over to my wardrobe, thankful to have my own after decades of sharing one with my sisters.
That was how it always was in the beginning.
Nothing was your own, always shared. The next thing you knew, you’d been in the House of Wings for thirty years, and you were still sharing shoes with the girl in the room next door.
You’d forgotten what it’d been like to have a night’s rest, or a meal on your own, because our belongings weren’t the only things we shared.
I yanked open the wooden doors then scoured through my many dresses, leathers, and pieces of armor. All mine, I thought as I ran my fingers down a velvety sleeve, the texture of the fabric reminiscent of yule’s past. Each piece was earned as a token of dedication.
“Rune! For the love of all things living, what’s taking you so long?” Rayna called out from the other side of my bedroom door. In the olden times, I would’ve jumped, but my nerves had since been lost. “Are you coming or not?”
I’d wondered how much time I’d wasted as I pulled a pair of leathers from the wardrobe. “Be out in a moment!”
“I’m about to remove the mirror from your bathing chamber! Asta should have never allowed you to have one,” Rayna grumbled. “You’re almost as bad as Bodil with her damn boar hair brushes. Obsessed, both of you.”
I climbed into my gear, then swung open my bedchamber door. Rayna stood just past it with her arms crossed, looking a moment away from removing it from its hinges. When she turned to me, her mouth gaped then shut like a breathless trout. “You look rather presentable.”
I suppressed a chuckle, worried she’d think I was still drunk if I broke my frozen facade. There was no way I was being left behind tonight. “Thank you. It’s from all the time I spend staring into that mirror you loath.”
“We all have our vices, Ru,” Rayna said with a shrug, leaning onto a thin wooden table lining the wall of our shared living space. “I just wish yours didn’t make me late every night.”
“There’s no rule stating you have to wait for me, you know.” I turned back to look at my sister as I walked past her, beginning our journey through the chambers Rayna and I’d inhabited for the past two centuries.
“I would see the ice of Helheim catch fire before I ever went down to the mortal plane without you.”
“Let’s go then,” I said, not being able to contain my chuckle this time. “Souls are waiting. I can taste them.”