Page 44 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)

Odin’s Trial

A fter two days of fluctuating between consciousness and sleep, I prayed it wouldn’t take a trial of the Gods to fully wake me.

Divination felt closer now than ever before, as if I could call Loki to come down to this realm and ask him for help, face-to-face.

Of course, Loki wasn’t who I wanted help from, he had his own goals, fully separate from the people of our world, and I still couldn’t grasp why he was part of these trials.

What did he want with me? Chaos, apparently.

I slipped away into another bout of restless sleep plagued by nightmares and it wasn’t until a child screamed for me, calling me Anna, Lux, Silver, that I woke again with cold sweat coating my forehead and my chest heaving ragged breaths.

Out of habit, I allowed a hundred thoughts to descend upon me and whisk my mind away from the nightmare. I’d done it many times as a scared little girl after long, dark nights.

I knocked down the barriers in my mind that held the dwelling at bay and let the everyday fears consume my every thought until I could no longer remember the nightmare.

Simple worries like if my father would scream at me again if I failed to properly conceal my black eyes when out in the village.

He insisted I conceal them, yet denied that I used the magic I’d learned from my mother’s enchantment to do it.

Or if I’d accidentally wailed one of the Gods’ names in my sleep like I had when the nightmares first crept in.

Light from the candles on the walls softly shimmered over the blanket draped across my chest. Stasia silently fluttered between the benches, stooping over my mother with a bowl in her hands.

If my mother reached for the bowl, I was only vaguely aware of it.

Perhaps it was a dream, or a chaotic vision granted by Loki himself. The swimming, blurred sight of everything suggested a dream that I didn’t have the strength to wake from.

I opened my mouth to ask if she was doing better, but my voice came out weak and they were too far to hear me. Soft rain dripped into the windows, rhythmic and lulling me back into the darkness behind my eyelids.

Pressure coated me, like a body laying over mine. This feeling and the dream immediately transported me to when I’d first faced Kayn after our escape.

I expected to experience it again in this swimming illusion.

To feel his breath on my neck, the crunch of leaves beneath my spine, but when I looked up, it was the king’s eyes that met mine.

His icy stare sent a shudder through my core and I found my gaze falling to his mouth as he whispered gently.

How long I’ve waited to call you my wife.

I arched my back, the soft bed sinking beneath my spine as his lips brushed against my throat. He kissed along the curve of my neck, slowly working his way to my mouth.

His teeth hovered over my bottom lip, tugging with a careful bite as a moan escaped me.

His finger traced my neck before he enclosed his entire hand around my throat.

Though his grip tightened and I could barely draw in breath with another gasp, my stomach burned hot with desire and I shifted to spread my legs.

My entire body warmed with the heat between us coating the air, our wanting thick and desperate until he suddenly drew back and the fingers that’d been holding my throat were covered in blood as red as his eyes.

He smirked and told me he’d enjoyed killing and eating those whose blood he painted his hands with. There’s freedom in devouring those who follow you. Let’s enjoy them together.

This was no dream, this was a cursed nightmare. The Mare was the spirit of a woman who could shift into a horse and slip into the quiet consciousness of the sleeping. She preyed on us in our most vulnerable moment.

Not even sleep was always safe.

The nightmarish king’s words echoed again. Devour them…

I woke to sickness souring my gut. I doubled forward, spewing the contents of the stew. My ears pulsed with blood and energy, muffling the sound of my retching until I could no longer hear it. Silence pressed in around me, the only sound a faint knocking—no, footsteps.

I didn’t breathe so I could listen for the heavy rhythmic thumps again.

Though the thudding grew quieter, I managed to identify the weight and sound of the steps as clopping. Hoofbeats.

I bolted upright, my back aching and head pounding.

The world filled in around me as the nightmare of King Drakkar’s words slipped away.

My mother often spoke of The Mare, blaming her for the nightmares I’d had often since the day the Grimward pounded on our door the first time, ten years before they returned for my mother.

This was the first time I’d heard evidence of The Mare’s hooves.

The rain had stopped, but puddles still pooled in scattered sections across the temple’s stone floor.

The stained-glass window in the wall above me shook as a gust of wind slammed against it.

Flickering candles with flame as bright as Stasia’s hair danced across the stone walls, and I tried to slow my choking breaths by counting every crack in the stone.

When a shadow cast over me, I drew my eyes up. Stasia hurried to me, cup in hand. “Take it in gulps,” she said. “You look dreadful.” I shot her a sharp look as I raised the cup to my lips and tipped. “What? It is your mother who says so.”

I nearly choked on the honeyed stew. She’d made another batch, though it had far too much sweetness. Kayn would have retched.

“She’s awake…” my voice trailed off as my gaze landed on the bench at the other end of the Hall of the Gods. It hadn’t been a cruel trick of the mind.

My mother lay still for several long moments, until finally, she rolled her head to look at me. She lifted her frail hand for a weak but warm greeting.

“She is awake and stronger than ever. But it will not last, so I swore to go out in search of Henbane and Hawthorn root as soon as you were well enough for me to leave.”

“The plants don’t grow during the Polar Nocturne.”

“Not in Skaldir maybe, but here, herbs last well into the darkness.” Stasia pointed at the bowl and then folded her arms as if waiting for me to consume it all right now.

“What about the vampire? Why can’t she draw out the toxins?” I asked, ignoring the too-sweet brew.

“After your compulsion faded, she vanished.”

“Kayn didn’t stop her?”

“She overpowered him.”

“How? He’s stronger, even, than King Drakkar.”

Stasia sighed. “You just woke up from a fitful sleep sweating like a hog and yet you’re full of questions.”

With that, she snatched the bowl from my hands and spun around.

I dragged my feet to the edge of the bench and, on wobbling legs, shuffled across the temple to sit beside my mother.

Her chest rose and fell with soft but steady breaths.

She’d fallen back asleep, her body still fighting whatever sickness had poisoned her blood.

A rosy hue had returned to her skin and the hollow of her cheeks filled in. She’d been eating.

I smiled as I brushed a wisp of hair from her face. She was better, but not cured.

“You’re okay,” a deep voice said.

I looked up to see Kayn having appeared on the other side of my mother.

Orange light of the candle’s flames brightened his dark eyes.

Though his features didn’t match the hardened line of King Drakkar’s mouth and his chin was cut clean of hair—without a thick beard like the king’s—the golden rim in his eyes and persistent behavior reminded me of the king.

“So is she,” I said, resting my hand on my mother’s bony shoulder. “But Stasia says it’s not for long. What happened to the vampire I raised?”

When he nodded, a strand of wheat hair fell into his face. “She’s gone, yes. I couldn’t stop her, even she had more recently fed on a human than I have. And she was newly turned, she doesn’t—” He shook his head.

“Now what? I raise another monster to suck this sickness out of her? And then another?”

“Now you face Odin’s trial.”

Stiffening, I frowned and searched his face for any indication of what he was about to reveal. “I’m a seer, not a huntress. I protect, I don’t hurt?—”

“That isn’t true” my mother said, her voice slight.

My stomach dropped.

Her eyes were still sealed shut, but her hand shifted, slowly moving across her chest to her shoulder where she found my hand.

She held onto me, her grip firmer than I expected.

But I wasn’t surprised that my mother was the strongest person I’d ever known.

Even in sickness and after two vampire bites, she grasped my fingers tightly enough to prove she was as tenacious as ever.

“What can I get you, Mother?” I asked, returning the squeeze of her hand.

She shook her head, eyes opened only to slits. “Nothing, Little Spider.”

I swallowed, tears welling in my eyes at the name nobody had called me since she was exiled.

She groaned softly and released my hand.

Her finger pressed into my palm. At first I thought she was tracing the lines across my hands until I recognized the vague shapes of runes.

A mountainous spike, an upright line with two jagged protrusions, and two corners hovering one another. Chance, protection, survival.

With my brow furrowed, I stared at the flesh of my palm, trying to understand the runes with more clarity. “Loki, Freya, and Odin?”

“I had hoped you would not be chosen. The prophecy is very clear. Once you accept the Call and pass the final trial, you will be bound to this duty until it is complete, or else their power will destroy you.”

“You knew?”

“I’d heard of these trials testing other witches in the past, yes.”

I sucked in a breath. “Freya’s made sense for a seer, but Loki’s and Odin’s…”

My mother squeezed my hand. “Perhaps you’re not meant to be a seer, Little Spider.” My heart hollowed and I didn’t breathe until she spoke again. “You’ve always been a survivor.”

Survivor. This was another word for fighter in the casual language of Skaldir villagers. Fighting wasn’t allowed, but many of us still practiced defense in secret, and when winter came, those who fought off illness and hunger were survivors .

The words were one in the same, and my mother’s way of reminding me what I’d done to survive.

A chill struck my spine and I dipped my head into my free hand.

“Don’t spiral, Spider,” her voice was as soft as it had been when I was a grieving child. “Commune with Freya and Odin. Offer a sacrifice and then you will know for sure. There will be no question, no more need for hesitation.”

Kayn made a noise between a huff and a grunt. I snapped my gaze up to him as he paced the length of the bench and raked his hand through his hair. When he noticed my eyes on him, he stopped and fixed his jaw into a tight hold.

“Do you have something to share?” I prodded, though I already suspected the source of his thoughts.

He’d insisted I accept the Call of the Gods in its entirety since he stalked Stasia and I into the woods. He’d stayed by my side to ensure it. And as much as I wanted to fight him on it, I couldn’t blame him.

My chest warmed with unexpected admiration for the man—the monster—before me.

He’d dedicated himself to helping the Gods reach me, a human, when he was cut off from them, hated by them.

And for what? To protect us? Passing Odin’s trial would mean eventually killing him too.

His presence here was a sacrifice that I couldn’t help but respect.

Kayn released a breath and closed his eyes for a moment before meeting my gaze. Something akin to sadness, perhaps regret swam in his dark eyes. “You should be training to kill vampires, not offering sacrifices. You are the only one who can remove the blight on this realm.”

My mother’s voice fell to a whisper. “The power of the Gods will destroy you. If you don’t kill every Draugr before Odin, Freya, and Loki overwhelm your mind.

It has happened to every chosen witch before you.

I’ve witnessed these visions, my Little Spider.

” I leaned closer and tilted my ear toward her lips so that I would not miss a single word.

“It is a risk, but the Call is only for you to accept. I cannot tell you what to do any more than Kayn.”

I hadn’t considered where the Call would go if I didn’t accept it. Once I passed on to Folkvangr or Valhalla, carried away by a Valkyrie not unlike the statue over the graves, another witch would face this same decision.

Unless, I spared her from it and saw it through…to whatever end.

My eyes slid back to Kayn who hovered over us. I straightened and cleared my throat of all emotion. “I will commune with the Gods. I will ask Odin and Freya.” I spoke this decision aloud more for the sake of my own courage than to inform them.

“They require sacrifice,” my mother said, her voice breathy but stronger, as if she forced the words out with the last dregs of her energy. “Freya always wants us to have wisdom, because there is freedom in knowledge.”

“Like the lost history?”

“She would want us to have it. And Silver, my sleep was not all lost time.” She tugged me closer to her. I leaned in, just as I had when I was a child and she’d whisper the sagas to me. “I asked her not to choose you, but her response was a single phrase in my mind. Silver is the queen.”

My heart skipped. Did that mean King Drakkar would succeed in claiming me?

I pulled back and looked at her, my mouth hanging open like a child struck between awe and fear.

She smiled weakly. “I believe you will find the lost history and that it will restore the truths of our Gods. The Gods know what they’re doing. The runestones could have been taken from this very temple and hidden in the castle. Seek the answers, Little Spider.”

I nodded, numb from the suggestion behind her vision. Standing, I lay my mother’s hand back on her stomach and turned toward the back of the temple.

With one foot in front of the other, I approached the bloodstained altar.

Runes carved into the dark Yew beneath the flat altar were once filled with the blood of sacrifices.

I’d never seen a person give their life for the Gods, only an animal, but it was the way of our ancestors, to appease the Odin and Freya and receive answers.

If I wanted clarity, I had to offer a sacrifice.