Shadow Empress (Night Elves Trilogy Book 3) Page 10

  “Do you see that?” I pointed. “What is it?”

  “Maybe the eagle.” Galin reached up to a branch above his head. “If we keep climbing, maybe we’ll find out.”

  One branch after another, we kept moving up the tree—Galin shadow jumping, leaning down to pull me up—until the dark shape loomed above us. The eagle? No—not the right shape, and it was completely still.

  As Galin hoisted me up, I slid in close to him on the branch. “Is that a nest?” I whispered.

  “I think so.”

  It was two more branches before we reached the branch below it, and it spread out far and wide above us. The size of a city block, close enough that Galin could reach up and touch it. It seemed to be blocking our way.

  “Can you get past it? With your jumping through space thing?”

  He shook his head. “I need to see where I’m jumping to. And I can’t portal any higher without having been there before. We will need to find another way.”

  A normal bird’s nest is made of sticks and twigs. This one seemed to be made of massive pieces of wood, many nearly as thick around as my arm. They were jumbled together in a disorganized heap. Still, when Galin reached up to tug one, the wood didn’t budge.

  “Seems solid.” Galin looked out towards the edge of the nest. “We’ll have to climb around the outside.”

  I followed his gaze. It seemed possible—but dangerous as Hel. We’d have to trust that the wood of the nest was strong enough to support our weight. And at the same time? We’d have to hang thousands of feet above the ground. A fall would mean instant death—shattered on the old elf bone pile.

  “Maybe there’s another way.” I peered into the bottom of the nest, eyeing the gaps. Were they big enough to climb through? I thought I saw a crevice twisting up into the starry sky.

  “I think we might be able to squeeze through.”

  “If the wood shifts—”

  “We get crushed by logs. But you said it seems solid, right?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “No, but I can go first. I’m smaller, and used to being in little cave-like areas.”

  He stared at me for a long time, seemingly considering this. Rays of starlight beamed through the cracks in the nest. “This could be dangerous. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

  I felt my cheeks warm. “You need to trust me.”

  At last, he nodded. “I’ll lift you up.”

  He reached down for my waist, his powerful hands wrapping around me. For just a moment, I let my gaze roam over his shoulder muscles, his chest. Then, he lifted me up, and I reached for the nest, gripping onto one of the logs. Galin continued lifting me. I tried not to think of the feel of his hands on my thighs, because I needed to focus. After all the climbing, my arm muscles burned. But at last, I had a secure grip on the wood.

  It was dark, but my Night Elf vision had no trouble illuminating the interior. The crack quickly narrowed, but by dropping to my stomach I was able to squeeze through. Above me I could see light, and the passage widened—large enough for Galin. It would work.

  “It’s a bit tight,” I called down, “but you should be able to do it.”

  I pulled myself in farther. Twisting between the massive pieces of wood, I made my way higher until I was able to poke my head through into the bottom of the nest, my shoulders above the surface.

  Above me the night sky spread out in a glorious sea of stars, but I only gave them a quick glance. Instead I focused on the nest. It was a large platform, about half the size of a football field, made up of a sort of thatch of tree trunks. I guessed I could walk across it, but it would be tricky. One slip and I could break an ankle.

  The surface was marred by strange lumps. Large mushrooms maybe? And in one corner a great tuft of feathers.

  It smelled of death—incongruent with the beautiful scene of stars above. It took me a few seconds to realize that the bumps I’d thought were large mushrooms were actually large animal bones, picked clean. Cow bones, I thought. Disturbing.

  I looked down again, relieved to see Galin pulling himself up next to me. His head breached the surface, and he surveyed the grim scene before us.

  We were squished together now, my body pressed against his.

  “A graveyard for cows,” he murmured.

  “Do you think they’re from Vanaheim?” Swegde would be upset to learn that an eagle was eating our cattle. “And look over there.” I pointed to the large clump of feathers.

  Galin grabbed me and pushed my head down, just as the nest shifted. There was a rush of wind, and the whole structure shook as if in a storm.

  As the nest teetered, I gripped onto Galin. A deafening shriek nearly shattered my eardrums.

  “SKREEEEEeee!”

  And there’s our eagle. The creature blotted out the stars above us as it settled into the nest. It dropped what I thought was a dead cow from its talons. Then, a giant black eye peered into the crevice where Galin and I were hiding. Unfortunately, it did not seem happy to see us.

  “Scree! Screeeee!” it screamed.

  “It’s huge,” I whispered.

  “So was Ratatoskr,” said Galin. “We will be okay.”

  The giant eagle hopped around, peering at us from between the branches as it continued to scream and squawk.

  “Your fingernails are digging into me,” said Galin.

  “Oh, right.” I unclenched them from his skin, but I was still holding tight to his enormous shoulders. My legs were wrapped around his abs, toes lodged into the wood to keep me steady.

  Above us, the giant eagle picked up the cattle carcass. The bird’s head was the size of a small car, its beak larger than Galin. I winced, expecting to see a gush of gore as it consumed the dead cow, but instead it jerked its head and flung the carcass from the nest.

  Tilting its head back, it screamed angrily into the starry sky.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Galin. “Why didn’t it eat the dead cow?”

  Galin frowned. “I’m not sure.”

  “So what do we do now? Do we have a way to communicate with it?”

  Galin smiled. “Yes. Give me a second.” He stared into my eyes. “But you’ll need to release your arms from my shoulders, and hold the wood. Tight.”

  I shifted off him, letting my legs fall. I got a solid foothold. When I turned back to look at him, I heard the electric pop of a portal, and he was gone.

  I tried not to think about what would happen if he didn’t return. But I didn’t have to worry long either way, because he was back within moments.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. Almost without thinking, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders again. Somehow, I felt safest that way.

  With a faint smile, he held up a strange purplish vial.

  “What is it?” I asked, feeling thoroughly confused.

  “Dragon blood. You will want to let go of me again. Get a good foothold, and try to cover your ears.”

  I released him again, finding a steady spot. “What are you talking about?”

  Before I could ask any more questions, he tilted back his head and slugged the contents of the vial down. Based on the grimace on his face, I guessed it tasted terrible.

  But that was nothing compared to what happened when he opened his mouth and spoke.

  Instead of words he screamed, “SKREEE!”

  Chapter 18

  Galin

  Speaking in the tongue of birds was never a pleasant experience. Firstly, dragon blood tasted absolutely terrible. Hot and bitter, like drinking a shot of boiling-hot pine sap. I had to fight my gag reflex, just to keep it down. Secondly, eagles talked like someone was drawing a dagger across their throat.

  It literally hurt to speak.

  But if I wanted to get Ali safely up to Asgard, my vocal chords were going to have to suffer.

  “We aren’t here to hurt you,” I screeched in the language of eagles. “We merely wish to ask a small favor.”

  At last the eagle replied, “What want?”

  “Pa
ssage to Asgard.”

  The eagle laughed, a terrifying sound, high pitched and demented. “Not a carriage.”

  “You are our only hope.”

  The eagle lowered its face to the crevice, and fixed me with a massive yellow eye. “Asgard ruined. No gods. Only sons of Fenrir.”

  “It is imperative that we go as soon as possible.”

  “Cannot help.” The eagle flapped its wings, and the nest shook as though in a hurricane. “Must hunt. Hungry.”

  I needed to stall. If the eagle left, I had no idea how long it would be before it returned. “Why did you throw that carcass away?”

  “Rotten. I am not a vulture.” The eagle screeched loudly—the equivalent of profanity in bird language.

  “Then why did you bring it here?”

  “The army of the dead eat the great herds. Not much left.”

  The eagle flapped its wings again. The nest shook to a terrifying degree, and I slid my arm around Ali’s waist, pulling her tight to me. More than ever, I felt an overwhelming need to get her to safety. Not just now, but for as long as I could. I had to stop the draugr.

  “We wish to help stop the plague of the dead,” I shouted in Eaglish.

  The eagle cocked its head, but its gaze continued to follow me with an unnerving intensity. If I didn’t convince it to help us in the next breath, it was definitely going to try to eat me.

  “What’s going on?” Ali whispered.

  “The eagle is starving. The draugr have been killing its cattle, and I believe it wants to eat us.”

  “Tell it that I’ll let it feed from my herds as much as it likes, if it helps us. And that we will stop the draugr from ruining the cattle.”

  The eagle crouched, preparing to strike.

  “Wait!” I shouted. “This is the Empress of the Vanir, she says you may feast on her cattle if you help us. We will stop the armies of the dead, and keep you fed.”

  The eagle’s beak lowered into the crevice.

  I sensed that the cattle wouldn’t be enough. “And I wish to raise the gods, to bring Ragnarok to an end.”

  “What?” asked Ali.

  The eagle’s head jerked back. “You lie?”

  “I am a sorcerer. I want the gods to return just as much as you do.”

  “I eat cattle and my friends return? The gods?”

  “Yes.”

  The eagle pressed its eye against the crevice.

  “Nod your head,” I whispered sharply to Ali.

  She nodded like her life depended on it.

  “Agreed,” said the eagle with a croaking squawk.

  It pulled its head away from the crevice at last.

  My chest unclenched with relief. I pulled myself out of the passage, and turned to grab Ali’s arm. Just as I got her out, I felt a claw closing around me, and I stared as another gripped Ali.

  With a great beat of its wings, the eagle lifted us into the air.

  I had been hoping to ride on its back, but undignified transportation would have to do.

  The great eagle beat its wings in a deafening cacophony of rushing air as we lifted off from the nest. It held each of us tightly in a clawed foot. Pounding the air, it rose above Yggdrasill. For the first time, I could see the tree in its epic majesty, bathed in starlight—a massive ash that dwarfed any living thing I’d ever seen. The dragon Niddhogg would have been but a worm in its roots.

  Gaining altitude, the eagle spread its wings and began to glide silently through the air. As we rose higher and higher, it adjusted its grip. Now, it gently curled the toes of each foot into a sort of cage that we could sit in. It was actually quite comfortable—as long as you didn’t stick yourself on the end of one of its talons.

  Yggdrasill disappeared below us as we flew into the space between worlds. An inky darkness surrounded us, and stars flickered above and below, as if we swam in an ocean of bioluminescent sea creatures.

  I glanced at Ali. She sat like me, cozy in the curl of the eagle’s other claw. Her silver hair spilled out behind her in the astral wind, and her eyes shone in the starlight. She was shockingly beautiful, and I’d hardly been able to think straight when her arms and legs were wrapped around me, body pressed against me. In Hel, I thought my soul had died again—that I’d stopped desiring anything. But now? My mind whirled with all the things I’d like to do to her if she were still my mate.

  If she were. I had to forget that though, because she was no longer mine.

  “Galin,” she called out through the wind. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

  I was about to say no, when I realized that this place was actually familiar. I had seen something like this. “If the stars were souls,” I called out, “this would be just like traveling to the astral plane.”

  Ali peered at me through the eagle’s talons. “Maybe they are.”

  I looked up to the stars. Without any ground below us or clouds above, there was no horizon, no way to calibrate my depth perception. The stars could be a billion light years away, or only just beyond the reach of my fingertips. Was it possible that they weren’t stars at all? Could the stars really be souls? Were we actually flying through the astral plane itself?

  I supposed I could check by ascending, but I realized I didn’t care. The view was extraordinary, and I didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

  “You could be right,” I said at last.

  “How did you become a sorcerer?” she called. “Who taught you?”

  I stared into the stars, my mind swelling with long-forgotten memories. Learning magic had been the most extraordinary experience of my life. Terribly hard, but also incredibly rewarding. More than that, it had given me purpose, a sense of identity. A sorcerer was what I was; I would never not be one.

  But it was also inextricably tied up in loss, in death. I didn’t want to think about that now, not when I flew in the ether that surrounded the nine worlds. And I didn’t want to think about my other loss—my soul mate. If she were still mine—at the first chance I got—I’d be pinning her up against a wall, claiming her mouth. I’d make her gasp. Because mating bond or not, spending time around her had lit a fire in my chest, and I wasn’t sure it would ever go out.

  But she was gone now, too. So I would burn for her, and I would never tell a soul what I felt.

  She had made her choice, and I would honor that.

  I tried to ignore the sharp pain in my chest as I said, “My mother taught me magic.”

  “Your mother?” said Ali, sounding surprised.

  “She showed me how to use my emotions for magic.”

  One of Ali’s eyebrows flicked up. “So what do you think of when you cast the fire spell?”

  “Honestly, so many terrible things have happened to me, that anger is an emotion that I can channel at will.”

  Ali frowned, unsatisfied with my answer. “What about the portal spell? You have to feel love to cast that one, right?”

  I took a sharp breath. “I use Hela’s magic. Before that, I scribed my first portal spell when I was seventeen, a week after my mother died. Only when she died did I understand love.”

  I looked at her, ten feet from me, clasped in the eagle’s foot. Her eyes shone now in the starlight. My chest ached, like I’d been carved open, and I wanted to change the subject. “The light spell—swilio—the one I cast at the roots of Yggdrasill, you just have to feel happy. I think about the time King Gorm’s trousers split during an important meeting, and he accidentally mooned the room. And there’s a spell for darkness that’s powered by sadness.”

  “If anger causes fire, what causes ice?” asked Ali.

  “There is no cold spell,” I called out. “We might have lost some knowledge. Long ago, there were entire magical families that worked together. Brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. They could do exceptionally powerful magic. Fire spells so hot they could melt diamonds, light spells so bright they outshone the stars, but they were extremely secretive. With their deaths, their spells and methods were lost. No one knows how
they did it. There are tons of stories like that. Witches and sorcerers with great powers and spells that were forgotten.”

  “And I thought sorcerers wrote everything down in grimoires and spell books …” She trailed off, looking below us.

  I followed her gaze down. Sure enough, there was something there, a darkening in the stars.

  The eagle’s wings moved, and we began to descend.

  I called up to it in the language of eagles, “What is it?”

  My heart thrilled at the great raptor’s answer. “Asgard.”

  Chapter 19

  Ali

  I leaned forward, looking between the eagle’s claws. Even though the bird could drop me at any time, I felt safe.

  A shape loomed in the darkness. When I’d first spotted it, it was nothing more than a black smudge. Only now as we grew closer did it become more distinct, like an enormous pile of gray cotton candy miles below us.

  Clouds.

  The eagle swooped lower. My hair flew back, and my ears filled with the rushing sound of wind as we passed into the clouds. From high up they’d looked soft and fluffy, but now that we were within them I quickly discovered they were wet and cold. I shivered involuntarily.

  I glanced over at Galin, but he was staring intently straight ahead, unaffected by the cold.

  As we swept lower, the eagle screamed. We burst free of the clouds, just above a churning gray sea. Pale vapor swirled above the roiling waves.

  When I envisioned Asgard, I’d always imagined a beautiful city, marble buildings and golden roofs. Ice-cold water and iron-gray crashing waves had never been part of the picture. Freezing sea spray spattered us, even from here. I licked my lips, tasting salt. The air smelled of brine.

  The eagle’s wings beat loudly as it raced over the ocean, only a hundred feet above the waves. In the distance grew a shadowy darkness. Land, I realized, as almost simultaneously we soared over it. The eagle banked sharply, then slowed.