Page 47 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings (Love X Magic #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

VESSEL FOR THE GODS

Kari

“ W hat are you going to do?” Haddy asked, nervously biting her lower lip as she digested Odin’s appearance in Hel and all that had come with it.

“I don’t know, but we can’t stay here for much longer,” I said, glancing over my shoulder to see her reaction.

My younger sister paused, an icicle in her hands.

She pressed her lips together for a moment, and I thought she might start crying, the way she had when she left Midgard.

After everything that went down yesterday between Odin and Rune, I didn’t think my heart could take her tears too.

“I understand, Kar,” she said. “It’s not very safe for you to stay here, but do you think it will be safer for you in Fólkvangr?” She looked from me to the basket in my hands I’d been using to collect odds and ends around Helheim to use as anchors in my spells.

I sat with her question for a moment, wondering if there was a safe place for me and Rune anywhere in the nine realms. I sighed in defeat and said, “No, not unless Freyja accepts me as her attendant and allows me to sit on her council.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Haddy asked.

I shrugged, swallowing thickly. “I can’t think about that, Had.”

“Is returning to Asgard what you truly want?” Haddy asked, but I didn’t blame her for her concern, or the stream of worried questions she spat my way.

She wanted to make sure the decisions I was making weren’t going to end up with me killed by a god, and at this rate, there may be more than one competing to make the final blow.

“It is,” I answered honestly, twisting the handle of the basket in my hands as that knowledge, my ultimate truth, stared me in the face.

Haddy nodded, twirling the ice in her hand, as if the frozen thing were a toy. “Then you’ve got to figure it out. If Freyja has a test for you, you have to crush her, and everyone else’s, expectations. And I know you will.”

“You’re not mad I don’t plan to stay in Hel with you and the rest of the family?”

“Of course not! I didn’t expect, or want, to see you for a long time anyway. I had so many old woman jests prepared and everything. For when you finally got here, no sooner.”

I snorted a laugh, nudging her with my elbow. “Of course you did.”

“But seriously, Kari, if you want to go, you should. Anyway, if you go to Asgard, you can visit me! If you stayed on Midgard, you wouldn’t have been able to. We would’ve gone a lifetime without you.”

“Something tells me Odel and Malfrid would have been fine with that,” I said, the words sour on my tongue.

“That’s not true! They love you, Kar,” Haddy said with a little pout on her cute, pale face.

“Is that why they’ve been avoiding me like I’m a raider for the past three weeks?”

Haddy sighed, dropping the icicle she held, watching as it pierced the powdery snow.

Her hand should have been frostbitten by now, but her skin was entirely unmarred.

“They just…feel really bad about what they did. They’re embarrassed, so I think sometimes it’s easier for them to not see you at all.

They’ll get over it, though. They’ll have to.

You’re their older sister. Plus, it’s been giving us more time to chat.

” She nudged me with a little smile playing on her lips, and I couldn’t help but smile back, despite my obvious disappointment the turn my relationship with my other sisters took.

“Speaking of, this is the chattiest you’ve ever been. You were so shy when you were alive. What happened?” I asked, shifting my weight, my thumb rubbing the wicker of my basket as I watched her expression harden.

“Yeah, well, there’s no point in being shy now, is there?” she said with a shrug and a straight smile. I hadn’t realized that comment would strike a nerve with her.

“Why’s that?”

“I wasted time on Midgard trying to figure out who I am. I stayed quiet and listened to what everyone else had to say because I thought it was more important than anything I could think up. It wasn’t until I met Rune that I started talking more.

She started calling me ‘little mouse’, and I didn’t like that much.

She told me I was dead, so what was the point in caring what people thought?

She said it was no way to spend my eternal rest. And while I ran away from her and cried the rest of the day, I realized she had a point. ”

“She made you cry?” I said, my fist tightening on my basket. I took a step toward her in the snow, as if to physically guard her.

“Oh, stop,” Haddy said. “Stop looking for things to be mad about. Can’t you just admit the truth to yourself already?”

“What truth?”

Haddy gave me the side eye.

“What?” I asked again, louder this time as my annoyance shifted from Rune to my sister.

“You’re fighting just to fight. I’ve known you long enough to know you carry your anger, or pretend to, at least, far longer than you need to. You hate that awkward forgiving stage. It’s the same thing happening with Odel and Malfrid.”

“And that has to do with Rune how?”

Haddy rolled her eyes and blew out a dramatic sigh once more.

“You don’t want to forgive Rune for taking you, because then you’d have to go through the awkward phase that comes after.

You’d have to admit you forgave her before you even came to Helheim.

I’m not sure when it happened. Only you know, but you must be tired of pretending. ”

My teeth unclenched, and I just stood there, basket in hand, staring at my sister.

She’d seen through me, but she’d known me her whole life and then some.

Had Rune been seeing through me this whole time too?

The thought of that was far more embarrassing than admitting I cared for the valkyrie.

I knew she cared for me too; it was written all over her face when she found me in the Cave of Whispers.

She’d proven it the day she’d broken her oaths and took down six raiders to save me, and when she’d refused to send me back to Midgard because she’d known it would’ve brought my death if she had.

“Haddy, I have to go,” I said, feeling my heartbeat quicken.

Was I really about to be honest with Rune?

The thought made me want to vomit all over myself.

“You sure do,” Haddy said with a big, knowing smile. I hoped she knew how much I loved her, because even as I gave her a big hug and kissed the top of her head, I still felt it wasn’t enough.

Bounty in hand, I headed toward Hel’s Hall.

I stared down at what Haddy and I had found, but our options were limited.

Here in Helheim, there was a whole lot of ice and stone.

Maybe it was time I started focusing more on the spells that required nothing but my own natural seidr. After summoning ice and fire, I was beginning to believe I didn’t need to rely so much on bounties anyway.

Someone bumped into me, sending the contents of my basket all over the snow.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” the woman exclaimed. “Here, let me help you with that.”

Before I could get a good look at her face, the woman began collecting my sprawled items and returning them to the basket.

“Thank you,” I said as she handed me the woven handle. She looked up at me and smiled, and I swore, it was like looking in the mirror, though her hair was black and grey instead of berry blonde.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“I don’t believe so, but who knows. Maybe we’re related!” The woman threw her arms up and laughed. “You must be new here. You’ll soon find ancestors dating back throughout time.”

“What’s your name?” I asked, scanning her features, the deep blue of her eyes, the freckles on her pale cheeks.

“Norfrid Bosdotter. It’s nice to meet you, Kari.”

“Norfrid Bosdotter?” I asked, my face numb with the cold but also the shock of running into my ancestor like this.

The number of souls here was unfathomable.

Out of all of them to run into me, it was the person Hel had given her “gift” to?

The one who inadvertently passed it to my mother and me?

I didn’t believe in coincidences like this. “How do you know my name?”

“Oh my, did I already slip up? I’m a seeress like you, dear. I can sense these things.”

“Except your seidr wouldn’t work in death. It dies with you and passes to your ancestors. It passed to me.”

“Um, yes. You caught me again,” Norfrid said with an awkward chuckle. “Hel may have told me you were here, and I may have been looking for you.”

“So why didn’t you just say that instead of running into me and pretending you didn’t know who I am?”

“Hel says you’re not very trusting,” she said with a wonky smile.

“For good reason. You started this conversation with a lie. Why are you here, Norfrid?” I asked, shifting on my frozen feet.

“Hel was curious about what you were up to, and I had no complaints about meeting my descendant.”

“She sent you to spy on me? Is she in there right now, watching me? You know she’s looking out of your skull with her creepy dead eye, right?” I asked, aggression lacing my tone, but I couldn’t help myself.

Norfrid laughed. “Of course I know, silly! It’s hard to make a deal with someone without knowing what you’re trading.” She slapped her hands on her frock, as if this whole situation had been hilarious, but I wasn’t laughing.

“You, you did it willingly?” I could’ve lunged forward and strangled the woman. I didn’t care if she would pop back up unharmed a few moments later. She did this to me, my mom, and countless others without caring how her greed would impact her descendants for centuries to come.

“It seemed like a fair trade for power. We weren’t seeresses naturally, you see. The gift didn’t run in our family, but Hel was willing to change that in return for something equally valuable: our sight.”

“You’re despicable,” I spat. “I hope your years on Midgard wielding gifted seidr was worth an eternity of being Hel’s spy. But from the looks of it, your time was cut short. The other villagers didn’t like your rotting eyes too much, did they?”

It was the first time Norfrid showed a crack in her creepy front, and she pursed her lips in retaliation of my words.

Before she could speak, I asked, “Why are your eyes normal once more—free of rot? I know she still sees through you, so what’s the deal? Did Hel reward you for your service?”

Norfrid turned up her nose, and for a moment, I didn’t think she would respond.

“A reward of sorts. When Hel first gifted me, the words she spoke made it so the death-laced eyes would only be visible on Midgard. That way, while we’d still be servants in death, we could enjoy our afterlife without the shock of our own reflection.

Haven’t you looked in a mirror? Or are you still scared of what you may find? ”

“I was only ever scared of what I might find because of you,” I hissed. “You are a selfish?—”

“Selfish? Unlike you, I enjoy loyalty. I am a vessel for the gods to do with what they will. Hel is my supreme goddess, my queen. You’re lucky she hasn’t stolen your soul for this utter lack of respect you’ve shown.

You think she’s just going to let you keep your seidr and stop seeing through you? ” she laughed, sickly and sinister.

“Let her try to take it,” I spat, not able to revel in this positive news when this wretch stared back at me.

Fire sparked in my palms, the flames reflecting in Norfrid’s traitorous eyes.

My self-serving ancestor took a step back, horror in her gaze.

She knew I couldn’t hurt her, but I sure as Hel could set this place aflame.

There were two things her precious goddess hated more than anything: life and light.

I pushed Norfrid with a fiery hand, and she instantly caught flame. She stumbled and fell into the snow, the fire scorching her. She sat there from her spot on the ground, staring up at me with terror glazing her darkened gaze.

“Enjoy your afterlife,” I muttered as I walked away from her. “And let it go wrong at every turn.”