Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1) (42 page)

“Brynn!” Freya screamed.

“Hold on, Mia.” Brynn kicked Fang’s side, and
the pegasus swooped onto the sand. “Scoot back,” Brynn commanded,
and I moved as close to the animal’s tail as I could without
falling off. Freya lifted Tyr easily onto Brynn’s lap before giving
one final command. “Get him to the healing unit
immediately
.
He’s going to die.”

****

“Fenrir’s bite was laced with dark magic.
Tyr’s bleeding out.” Freya raced alongside Fang, pulled Tyr off the
pegasus’ back, and ran my boyfriend into the medical unit while I
was still struggling just to breathe. I heard her shout ahead as
she ran. “Prep the second bed!”

I followed in a daze, barely feeling the
ground beneath my feet. Inside the healing unit, Elsa lay propped
up in a queen-sized hospital bed, skin glowing and lips moist, her
legs covered in the same plushy white comforters that decorated
Tyr’s room next door. But this suite lacked the Jacuzzi tub, and in
its place sat another queen-sized hospital bed, waiting for a
second patient.

It was like the gods were expecting this.

Hold the phone.
It was like the gods were
expecting this
.

I surveyed the room. Elsa was coming into
consciousness, looking radiant in a royal blue dressing gown. Her
hair shone in a mass of blond waves, and her cheeks had the kind of
color that didn’t come from blush. The machine at her bedside
projected her vitals onto the wall, punctuated by one
word—
NORMAL
.

She was healthy.

A second bed was set up to the right of
Elsa’s. Healers stood at the ready, wearing the same white gowns
I’d seen back at the cabin. For all intents, the setup looked like
Elsa’s room had, with one exception: Henrik’s mechanical arm sat
next to the bed.

What was Fred doing there? My mind started to
piece everything together. It was more than a coincidence that
Henrik and Brynn had been developing a robotic arm; and it was more
than a coincidence that the arm was perfectly proportioned to Tyr’s
body. None of this was possible, unless…

I whirled around. Henrik limped into the ward
behind me.

“You knew this was going to happen.” I jabbed
my finger into his chest. “You knew Tyr would lose an arm fighting
Fenrir. You knew he might die! Why didn’t you stop him?”

Henrik wrapped both arms around my shoulders,
pulling me to his chest, but he didn’t take his eyes off his
friend. I turned my head so I could follow his stare. Freya and the
healers were putting Tyr in position on the bed, and Henrik spoke
directly to the medical team. “Once you’ve stopped the bleeding, we
can attempt the transfer.”

“Henrik!” I tried to pull out of his grasp,
but he was too strong. “What the—”

A hand clamped around my mouth. I fought
every childish urge to bite it.

“Don’t aggravate them,” Henrik whispered in
my ear. “Tyr’s losing a lot of blood. The healers need all their
energy to save him. And Tyr needs to focus on getting better. If
he’s worrying about you, he won’t make it. Do you understand?”

I ground my teeth and took a deep breath
before I was able to nod. When Henrik pulled his hand away, I spoke
quietly, in the calmest voice I could manage. “You could have kept
him from fighting.”

“You and I both know that’s not true. Tyr has
always
fought his own battles… and anyone else’s, if he
thinks they need him. I’ve been working around the clock to
mitigate the outcome, but what happened today was always a
possibility.”

“Why didn’t you stop it?” I turned in
Henrik’s arms as healers circled around Tyr, obscuring my view. I
wanted to scream, but Tyr couldn’t afford that distraction.

“Some things are out of our control. The best
we can hope for is to minimize the damage. In this case, there was
no getting around the prophecy.” Henrik kept his voice low.

My eyes narrowed. “And what exactly was the
prophecy?”

“The Norns saw Fenrir turn on Asgard. They
saw the dwarves make a chain to bind him, to slow his path of
destruction. They saw the Aesir use Fenrir to bargain with the dark
forces at Ragnarok.” Henrik lowered his head. “But before that,
they saw…”

There was a commotion over Tyr’s bed. Two
healers stepped away, then quickly returned with an oblong device.
They ripped his shirt off and held the device up to Tyr’s chest.
They left a small gap between them, enough that I could see the
surge of light shoot through Tyr’s body. His chest jerked at the
energy running through it. He convulsed violently, bucking against
the power coursing under his skin. His body went still, and he
turned a ghastly white.

The healers paused, and brought the
god-defibrillator to his chest again. Another surge of light struck
his chest, and this time his convulsions were more pronounced. His
head whipped viciously back and forth while his legs kicked against
the hands holding them down. It took a full minute for this surge
to pass through him, and when it did his skin was an ashy grey.

The healers tried again, this time firing
nine surges into Tyr’s torso in rapid succession. With each surge,
his body convulsed ferociously, fighting against the power of the
light.

Then he went limp. One foot twitched
imperceptibly before his body fell completely still.

Freya started to cry.

I felt nothing. No fear. No pain. No sadness.
Nothing
. It was as if my entire emotional center completely
shut down.

It felt like I’d died inside.

This was not happening. Tyr was just resting,
gearing up for the next phase of his recovery. He was
not
in
the same coma Elsa had been in. He was
not
dead. He was
fine
.

“Henrik?” My friend’s arms were still wrapped
around my shoulders. “What was the rest of the prophecy? What did
the Norns see after they saw the dwarves make the chain?”

“Mia, you have to understand. The dwarves
said they would require the blood of the Aesir to bind the wolf. We
knew one of us would have to make that sacrifice if we wanted to
protect the realms from the evil growing within Fenrir. We’ve tried
to cheat the darker prophecies for centuries, and we did everything
we could to avoid losing one of our own. We convinced the dwarves
to alter the power of the chain so it only required the sacrifice
of a limb, not an entire life. It still wasn’t ideal, but losing an
arm was a lot better than death, right?” Henrik squeezed me gently.
“Tyr volunteered to take the hit. We knew the wolf would be more
valuable to Asgard alive than dead, provided we could actually bind
him. And deep down, I don’t think Tyr wanted to kill Fenrir. Even
after everything that’s happened, a part of him still wanted to
believe there was some good left in his childhood pet.”

I couldn’t speak.

“But there was another prophecy. One that
fell between our binding the wolf and our using him at
Ragnarok.”

“What did that prophecy say?” My words came
through gritted teeth.

“It said the God of War would fall.”

“
I’M SORRY MIA. WE
did everything we
could think of to save… I’m so sorry.”

“No!” I opened my eyes and tried to bolt for
Tyr, but Henrik held me too tight. “Let me go!” I thrashed against
the hold as my eyes sought out the healers. “Do something. Try it
again. If the defibrillator isn’t working, give him a shot of
something magical. Dragon heart or elf blood or that
älva
dust—I know you have something in here that can help him. Use it!
Now!”

Henrik glanced at Forse. The justice god
stood at Elsa’s bedside, gently holding one of her hands. Something
clicked in my brain.

“Wait! Elsa… Elsa can bring Tyr back. She’s a
High Healer, isn’t she? That has to be important.” My eyes pleaded
with Henrik.

“I could do what?” a raspy voice chimed. Elsa
had woken up amidst the chaos. She looked around the room in
confusion, her silvery blue eyes swimming as they focused on each
of us in turn. Forse spoke her name as if in prayer, and hurriedly
handed her the glass of water at her bedside. The water sloshed as
her hand dipped under the weight of the cup, and Forse helped her
steady it. She raised it to her lips and drank, her eyes locked on
Forse’s in a way that made it clear she returned his feelings, and
then some. He took the glass when she was done and placed it back
on the table.

“You’re okay.” Forse’s torso practically
wilted in relief.

Elsa reached up to touch Forse’s cheek before
she looked around the room and cleared her throat. When she spoke
again, the raspiness was replaced by a melodic lilt. “What’s Tyr
done?”

Henrik glanced over in relief at the sound of
Elsa’s voice. Brynn turned away from the window to face the room,
her red-rimmed eyes now filled with hope. Even Freya stopped crying
at Tyr’s bedside long enough to look up. Everyone had the decency
to honor the moment they’d been waiting months for.

Everyone but me.

“Tyr’s dying! You have to save him
right
now
!”

The tiny girl jumped at the sound of my
demand. She’d just come out of a coma, and I was shrieking at
her.

“Where is he?” Elsa pushed herself to her
feet. She swayed unsteadily, and gripped the monitor to steady
herself. Forse leaped to her side and guided her to her
brother.

“He’s here, but he’s unconscious. Fenrir
severed his arm with a poisoned bite, and he’s bleeding out. Is
there anything you can do?” Forse’s voice was low. He was handling
everything with considerably more dignity than me.

Well, of course he was. The person he loved
was standing in his arms, and the person I loved…

I couldn’t even finish the thought.

“Oh my gods.” Elsa’s blond hair whipped back
and forth as she looked from her brother to Freya and Henrik. “How
did it get this bad? Didn’t you use the—”

“Resuscitator? It failed,” Freya whispered.
“The healers did everything they could. We don’t know what else to
do.” Freya’s tears spilled over. “Please, Elsa. He can’t really be
gone.”

“Stand back,” Elsa commanded. “Healers, you
too.” All nine of us obeyed. Elsa was tiny—maybe five-foot-one if
she stretched. She still didn’t look a day over eighteen, with her
shiny golden locks and cherubic cheeks. But as she stood over her
brother in her shimmering dressing gown, she stretched her arms out
authoritatively, and a calm settled into her eyes. She looked every
bit the magical goddess I needed her to be.

Elsa murmured an incantation in a language
that sounded different from Tyr and Henrik’s—this dialect sounded
ancient, simpler and more guttural than the bits of Swedish I’d
picked up over the past few months.

“What’s she saying?” I looked at Freya. She
stepped back to stand next to me. Henrik tightened his arms around
my shoulders, and Freya took my hand in hers. I couldn’t tell if
they were trying to comfort me or to hold me back.

“She’s calling on the High Healers of the
allied realms, asking them to join together to heal Tyr,” Freya
explained.

“Why didn’t you guys do that?” I practically
spat it out.

“Elsa’s the only one who can do it.”

“Is it working?” I redirected my focus on
Elsa. Her hands moved up and down over Tyr’s body. As she continued
to chant, a gold glow came out of her fingertips. It covered the
bed with a glittery sheen, wrapping Tyr in its shiny cloud.

“I don’t know.” Freya shook her head.

While we waited, Elsa reached for Fred. She
positioned the arm at Tyr’s elbow, pinching the limb where it bled.
By now, the white sheets were stained red, and Tyr’s skin was
practically white.
Please, hurry up.
Elsa waved her hand
over the metal and it bound itself to the skin. The smell of
burning flesh filled the room as sparks shot from Elsa’s palm,
soldering Fred to Tyr’s arm. The odor was cloying, but when Elsa
stepped back Fred stayed in place.

We watched in silence while Elsa touched
Tyr’s forehead, implanting Fred’s control panel in Tyr’s brain with
magic rather than surgery, and then resumed working on Tyr’s chest.
The tension in the air was palpable—Forse hovered at the edge of
Elsa’s bed; Brynn had moved away from the window to grip Henrik’s
shoulder. Freya and I huddled together, hands still tightly clasped
as tears rolled down my face.

After a slow eternity, Elsa stepped back. She
opened her eyes and stared at me.

“I’ve done all I can,” she spoke calmly. “The
rest is up to you.”

I blinked. “What am I supposed to do?”

“What do you think?” She smiled.

I had no freaking idea.

“What’s the most powerful thing in all the
realms?” Elsa prodded.

I stared.

“Give him a reason to want to come back,”
Elsa said gently. “Are you in love with my brother?”

My gaze darted around the room. I tried to
ignore the eyes staring at me, waiting on my response. Of course I
was in love with Tyr. He was everything I never knew I wanted, and
everything I absolutely needed. But how could I say that in front
of a room of gods?

Elsa waited patiently until I nodded. “Then
tell him,” she urged.

“What if it doesn’t work?” I was terrified.
Losing Tyr would be like losing a part of myself. It would
absolutely destroy me.

Henrik released his hold and Freya nudged me
forward. “Try.”

I approached the golden glow surrounding the
bed. Tyr had more color in his cheeks, and when I pushed through
Elsa’s enchantment to touch him he felt okay—cool, but not icy. I
brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, and stared at his angular
jaw peppered with stubble, the strong nose, and the thick lashes
I’d have traded my eyeteeth for.

Good lord, I loved this man. This god.
Whatever. He’d changed my life in so many ways, and I wanted to
shake him awake and thank him for every single gift he’d given
me—for the security I felt every time we were in the same room; for
the feeling of belonging I had at his side, even in the most
unimaginable of worlds; for the adventure I wouldn’t have sought
out on my own; for letting me believe I might have found the
person—the god—who knew all my little oddities and loved me
anyway.