Page 9 of Between Broomsticks and Beating Wings (Love X Magic #3)
CHAPTER SIX
OATHbrEAKER
Rune
N ine realms, Rune.
I should have known. I shouldn’t have let my sick curiosities distract me from every warning sign that hung in the air like a waving red flag. I’d collected enough souls in my time to know raiders’ appetites were bottomless, and there was no trusting they’d stop just because one village was sacked.
My toes curled in my boots as I watched the seeress swing the too-heavy sword, slicing flesh and dodging her opponent.
Apple whined at me to leave it be, to fly back to Valhalla where we belonged—where it was safe.
I wasn’t worried about these pathetic raiders taking down Apple or myself.
No, I was terrified about what I might do if they pulled even a drop of blood from the seeress.
She was my mortal, not to be touched, not to be trifled with.
Without her, what were my nights? Eating, drinking, and collecting?
The same three things every day until I drew my last breath.
She was what grounded me, what allowed me to feel connection to this realm of mortals, what reminded me what it was to be truly alive, not just living.
She survived when her family and so many others hadn’t.
No one would fuck with something so pure. I wouldn’t let them.
I lurked behind an alder tree, burying my boots into the loose dirt Apple had pulled up.
My hand gripped the hilt of my sword, and Apple failed to nudge it away as I watched the scene before me unfold.
Kari slid the blade into her attacker, and the man dropped to the stone pathway they’d fought upon.
“That’s my girl,” I began to mutter, but just as pride began to swell in my chest, she was struck.
No, no, no.
Blood dribbled down her shoulder as she fell to the ground below.
The arrow protruded unnaturally from her body in a way I’d seen on a nightly basis, though those bodies held unfamiliar faces, and hers was far from unfamiliar.
I’d memorized every line drawn into her uniquely beautiful face, every curve of her body, every sound she made when she thought she wasn't being watched.
I made a promise, one to end whoever pulled blood from the one thing in my life that grounded me to my mortality. The goddess of love and war wouldn’t have her today. No. Freyja would have to wait.
Before I could stop myself, I pulled my sword free from its sheath and began slaying each raider, one quick movement after another, until all that remained was me and her.
My own blood pulsed in my head, temporarily distorting my thoughts, allowing me not to dwell on the knowledge that I had killed mortals, that I had broken my sacred oaths.
My bloodied weapon found a home within its sheath, and I dropped to the crimson ground where the seeress lay. I pulled her into my arms, thewound from which the arrow protruded oozed blood. “I have you.”
I wasn’t trained in healing humans, or what to do when one was injured. I dealt with them after they’d succumbed to their fatal injury.
Do I pull the arrow out? Break it? Leave it in?
The woman in my arms, at first rigid under my touch, began to grow limp. She wouldn’t survive my indecision.
“APPLE… EPLI!” I screamed into the night, knowing the pegasus wanted to stay far away from this mess.
Even so, when her name left my lips, she came trotting out of the forest. She stepped over the fallen raiders, and when I looked up at her, golden armor and golden feathers shining under the light of fire, I’d never been more thankful to see her.
“Brace yourself,” I warned. “It’s not just me you’re taking home tonight.”
Despite Apple’s protests, I hoisted Kari into the air and positioned her upon my saddle.
This would not be a comfortable ride for her, but I didn’t care for her comfort, just her life.
There was no time to figure out a better way to accommodate her.
She needed to get out of this broken place full of death, for there was a more beautiful place of death awaiting her.
“Rune?” Rayna’s voice called out into the night. “Rune, where are you?”
I climbed onto Apple’s back, tempted to fly away before my younger sister could see us. If there was one thing I hated, it was when my younger sisters were right. Was I in the wrong? Yes, I knew that, but I grabbed hold of the seeress and braced her in my arms anyway.
“Rune!” Rayna called again, this time in the clearing ahead.
When she spotted me, she stared me down, mouth agape in horror.
Her eyes wandered to the slumped woman in front of me, then to the fresh kills on the ground between us.
She moved slowly, as if not to startle me. “Set her down with the rest.”
“I can’t.” My fingers tightened on Kari’s nightdress with one hand, the other gripping Apple’s reins with white knuckles.
“Unless she’s in one of those bottles of yours, you can, and you will,” Rayna said. “I’m staring into her soul now, and there are no final moments, because she has yet to have hers. Do not deny her of them.”
“You’ve looked into her soul, so you’ve seen the way she would have died, protecting that old woman! She belongs in Valhalla, and you know it.”
Apple began to step forward, impatient. Gunhild blocked her by spreading out her massive charcoal wings, a few loose feathers drifting to the ground below.
“Yes, I did, but she didn’t die, Rune! You carry a mortal along with your collected souls. A mortal seeress, not a viking. She doesn’t belong where we’re going. Put her back!”
“I won’t,” I said. “I don’t want to fly away from you right now, Rayna, but I have to, before she really does die. I won’t have Freyja’s Fólkvangr sect showing up and taking her.”
Rayna shook her head in disbelief, and how could I blame her? Centuries of service, just to end up slaying and capturing mortals. When she spoke, her voice cracked. “What’s your plan?”
“I’ll bring her to the House of Wings through the tunnels and find her help. Bodil was a healer in her mortal life,” I said. “Now, come with me or don’t, but either way, I’m leaving.”
I motioned Apple forward, worried about what this interaction had already cost the seeress. Just as Apple launched off the stained dirt, Rayna screamed out, “Bodil has been trying to knock us through the ranks for years! You want to give her all the leverage she needs?”
“Fine, then. I’ll make Gro help me!” I shot back behind me. If she wanted to continue this conversation, she was going to need to keep up. I heard her grunt as she mounted Gunhild.
“You want to bring a spirit into the house?” Rayna’s voice grew closer as she gained on me. Apple slowed, working against me. She too knew Rayna was right. When Gunhild flew over us and blocked our path yet again, Apple almost came to a full halt.
“Rune, snap out of it! What’s wrong with you?
” Rayna was staring right at me now, our two pegasus’ wings beating the air around us as they remained at a standstill.
My braided and unbraided hair alike whipped me in the face from the sheer strength of Gunhild’s wings, and I had to hold on to the seeress’ thin night dress to hold her in place.
There was only one thing left I could do if I wanted the seeress to get out of Midgard alive.
I had to tell my sister my long-awaited truth.
I took a deep breath, my face settling into stone as I revealed the woman’s identity, and said, “This is the mortal.”
Rayna’s face paled. She’d never met Kari, never seen her, but she’d known why I hung around this little village so often. Her mouth parted, and she closed her eyes right before she said, “Bodil it is. You’re lucky I have dirt on her.”
“You’ll keep her mouth shut?” I asked, ready to shoot through the sky now that I had no one in my way.
“She’ll keep it shut herself when I tell her I’ve seen the ways she keeps herself entertained on Midgard.” Gunhild flew to the side, letting Apple and me pass. As we picked up speed, the mortal rocked against my chest, pulling a moan from her dry lips.
“Tell me all about it later,” I said “I have to go slow with her. Now, leave, find Bodil, and have her prepare for our arrival… Please .”
I was thankful Rayna stood down. How did one choose between family and the object of their desire?
If the seeress passed on, she would be with all the other souls wandering the expansive meadows of Fólkvangr, or wild up in Hel.
She wouldn’t be able to return to Stormheim, and without her presence in the mortal realm, I feared what my nights would turn into.
Who would I watch? Who would be my nightly muse?
I’d grown so accustomed to watching her through cracked doors, gaps in the walls, or even the smoke holes of her roof. I knew her longhouse like the back of my hand, and I craved to know her so thoroughly.
Apple flew slowly through the sky, careful not to send the mortal woman in my arms careening off her back. We were close, so very close to safety. When the Bifrost was in my line of sight, the knot in my gut loosened a tiny bit.
A rustle of fabric brought my attention between the seeress’ legs where her nightdress gathered.
“What the Hel?” My shouts had Apple shooting through the sky like a bug on fire. I almost lost grip of the unconscious woman in my arms when I saw a blue little creature crawl out from under her dress.
Is that ? —
I stared at the creature tinted blue with death at the tips of its orange fur.
A cat? What in Odin’s great realm is the seeress’ cat doing on my pegasus?
The thing looked up at me and mewed, leaving me utterly dumbfounded.
I tried my hand at settling Apple, but she was not welcoming of our new guest. On top of having no interest in war, the flying horse also feared incorporeal beings.
A spirit passed through her body one time , and that was enough to scar her for the rest of her life.
“Just get us to the Bifrost!” I shouted. “Everything will be okay soon!”