Page 42 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings (Love X Magic #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CAVE OF WHISPERS

Kari

V ibrations from the hums living in my throat echoed out into the room as I worked.

My fingers tingled with seidr and my eyes focused on nothing but what I had in front of me.

The scent of crisp spruce hit my nose when my hands raised up to my face and the aroma of the oils coating my palms wafted through the air.

Rune walked into the room, the broomstick I’d made clattering against the door. “Looks like you made some improvements to the broomstick. Care to explain?” she asked.

I didn’t look up from the spell I was working on, and I didn’t want to break my chant to acknowledge her, but she stood before me, watching my moves intently, and it was enough to shatter my waning concentration.

Huffing, I dropped my hands onto the table I worked upon and finally met her gaze.

“While Hel is supposed to take any wicked spirits off to Niflheim for punishment, I’m not naive enough to believe there haven’t been any who’ve slipped past her detection.

I know we’re only here for one more week, but I thought it was worth the practice if nothing else.

” I glanced over at the door to our sleeping chamber as if I could see the broomstick hanging on the other side of it.

What a power that would be.

“Fair enough. Those souls don’t pose as much risk to the residents of Hel, but you’re quite…

alive,” she said, looking me over, and letting her gaze linger on my collection of ingredients on the table.

“Seeress, I hope you know you’re safe with me.

Even with wild spirits roaming. I’ve fought much worse. ”

I took in her black and silver leathers which had been dropped off by the House of Wings Helheim sect, along with a few other items specific to this realm.

She’d promised Hel she would lead a few training sessions with the valkyries here in exchange for some ingredients I could use for my spells, and the ability to harvest anything I wanted from the snowy realm.

With the exception of the onyx of her hall, of course.

“I believe you, but you’re not always around.

And I want to be safe with myself,” I admitted.

Wiping my hands clean of the residual powders on them, and leaning back in my chair.

My back had been growing sore from being hunched over this table for the past three weeks.

I really needed to practice sitting with a straighter spine, but as soon as I started humming and chanting, all thoughts of healthy posture escaped me.

“You’re very good at relying on yourself. You have been for a long time now. Why not rely on someone else for a change?” Rune asked, coming to sit by me, but thinking better of arranging any of the bottles and tools I had laid out, even if it would give herself more space.

“I can do both, you know,” I said. “I’ll humor you when you’re around, but when I’m alone, I’m responsible for myself. Plus, Hel isn’t going to trade some no good seeress to Freyja. I need to take all of my spells to the next level, and I wanted to try something new with that protection broom.”

“Oh yeah?”

I nodded and excitedly began explaining how I harvested pollen from the yellow snow blossoms and mixed it with melted icicles to make a sticky paste to secure pieces of black tourmaline to the base of the broom.

The paste was meant to glow in the presence of negative energy and would attract a swarm of blood bats any time that presence got too close to our door.

If we were nearby, it would surely cause a commotion loud enough to alert us to the incoming intruder.

My favorite kind of spells were the ones that mixed the natural wonders of nature with seidr. I always found them to be more effective than spells that relied on seidr alone, even if they required more time for harvesting and preparation.

Rune just smiled and listened to the other steps I’d taken in preparation for any unwanted visitors, including a few considerably more drastic measures in case they got past the swarm of bats at the door, and gods forbid, got close to the canopy bed.

When I concluded my explanation, she provided me with a proud slow clap, shaking her head and chucking.

“Well done, seeress. Let’s just hope none of your spells mistake one of us for a negative presence, or we’ll be in a world of hurt. I’d rather not be covered in bat scratches, or have the tendons in my ankles severed by swinging axes.”

I shrugged with an amused grin that said she needed to act right if she wanted to avoid the wrath of my seidr. “Anyway, how did training go? Are the valkyrie’s here showing to be less useless than last session?”

“I never called them useless, I?—”

“You might as well have,” I muttered under my breath. I may have been paraphrasing, but when Rune called the group of women the “soil of the House of Wings”, she couldn’t have expected me to believe she thought of them highly.

“All valkyries are impressive regardless of their sect, and all of them are my sisters. Useless could never be used to describe them. Without the valkyries here, your family would still be wandering Midgard, as would many others. When I called them the ‘soil of the House of Wings’ I was referring to them as our foundation.”

“Sure,” I said, which pulled an eye roll from Rune but she continued anyway, not feeding into my commentary more.

“They need to work quickly with the amount of souls they’re bringing in each night.

They have the longest shift, and it doesn’t leave much time for training, or practicing their seidr. Many of them barely know how to use their own strength against their opponents, or how to summon something as simple as barley porridge. ”

My face paled, and my stomach churned, “Don’t you dare bring porridge into this conversation.”

Rune laughed, breaking the serious face she’d been donning after she’d been accused of looking down on her sisters of Hel. “What? You don’t like porridge?”

“Don’t even start with me.” I held up a finger in warning.

“Let’s not pretend that áma wasn’t secretly feeding you in her incantation chamber.” Rune crossed her arms.

“How did you know that?”

“I had a hunch, but you just confirmed my suspicions,” she said with a shrug.

“Yeah, well, unlike someone, she wasn’t going to let me starve.”

“Oh stop. Do you know how long it would have taken for malnutrition to kill you? So dramatic,” Rune scoffed.

“I was more likely to die due to mouth boredom.”

Rune raised her scared brow. “Mouth boredom? That’s a new one. But seeress, if you wanted something to keep your mouth busy, I could have given you a task or two.”

Heat rose to my face, and there was no hiding the blush that surely reddened my cheeks.

“Why are you getting all flustered?” Rune smirked demonically. “There’s nothing naughty about singing your valkyrie captor a little song. Or were you thinking of something else you could’ve been doing with that pretty mouth of yours?”

I cleared my throat and pushed the hair off my clammy forehead. “Singing, of course. What else?”

“Mmm.” Rune hummed. Her deep blue eyes were hooded, amusement hooking up the corner of her lips.

“Anyway,” I said, pushing out my chair, its legs scraping against the stone floor. “Tell me more about training.” I distanced myself from the valkyrie, standing by the end of the bed where Tove was curled up with one of my used socks.

“My sisters did well, but they have a long way to go,” Rune said.

I thought that’s where she was going to leave it, but after a pause, she went on a long tangent about her plans for teaching her sisters, and I swear there was a twinkle in her eye as she did.

I wasn’t going to bring it up because I knew she would deny it, but I saw past her grunts of disapproval, and her crossed arms when she referred to the lack of structure their current house mother led with.

Before I could get much of a word in, Rune sucked in a large breath and then said, “The training wasn’t the most exciting thing that happened today though. ”

“Oh?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested, as I lazily played with the end of Tove’s white-tipped nail.

“I spoke with Hel to report her sect’s progress after training. While I had her attention, I asked her if we could use more of her resources than simply being able to harvest natural materials around the realm,” Rune said from where she still sat at the table, legs crossed at the ankle.

“And?” I asked hopefully, wondering why it took her this long to tell me. Why were we wasting time talking about porridge and soil?

“And she agreed it would be in all of our best interests to be given access to her Cave of Whispers.” She wiggled her brows.

My jaw slackened, and I stared at her before I found it in me to blurt, “ The Cave of Whispers?” My eyes widened with excitement.

“The one and only.”

“What are we still doing here?” I hastily dropped Tove’s tail and darted toward the wardrobe where I’d left my heavy outdoor gear. After I wrapped myself in midnight furs and wool gloves, I began jamming my feet into my boots and tying up the laces.

“Hold on, hold on,” Rune said. “You need to eat first.”

“Fine, but let’s do it quickly!” I all but growled, motioning my hand in the air to demand she hurry it up and summon something already. She cleared some space on the table, and within moments, there were bowls of berry soup, rolls of bread, and glasses of ice-cold water.

I scarfed down every morsel of food she gave me and then looked at her expectantly.

She finally gave in and began lacing up her own boots.

The excitement that bubbled up in me was unrivaled as I imagined all the knowledge that was awaiting me.

The Cave of Whispers was a thing of legends and I never would have imagined being able to tap into such an incredible resource while still living.

I thought only in death would I be awarded in such a way.