Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) (39 page)

“How do I do it?”

Jottenson held out his arms helplessly. “That I do not know,” he said. “I only know that with all the powers, you have the ability to reclaim them and then fill them with your extra power. Once you have filled the stones back up with power, you can break Verenix’s binding and we can send him back to the World Tree where he belongs.”

I grabbed Rhys’ hand and gave it a squeeze for comfort. Once I started on this path there was no turning back until it was done. If it even could be done. I only had Jottenson’s word that this was even possible. I would be completely reliant on him to show me what to do.

I let go of Rhys’ hand and took several steps away. I went to Osadyn first. He was the first Havoc I had seen. The one that had sought me out and tried to kill me. It felt right to begin with him.

Rhys started to follow me, but I held up a hand to stop him. “I have no idea how this is going to go down,” I said. “I would feel better knowing that you were not quite in the middle of the bullseye with me.”

Rhys ignored my hand and came up to me. “Not going to happen,” he said. “I started this with you and I intend to be with you when it finishes.”

“What’s the point of both of us being in danger?” I asked.

“Do you think a few feet of distance is going to keep me safe if anything happens to you?”

It was more like a few hundred, but I understood his point. I would have felt more at ease with him having a bit more distance from the center of attention, but I certainly appreciated the sentiment. It was so typical Rhys that I wanted to laugh and cry out in frustration at the same time.

“Fine,” I said. “But you have to promise me you won’t try anything stupidly heroic while you’re with me. No pushing me out of the way of danger or jumping onto a hand grenade or anything like that.”

Rhys held his hand over his heart and said, “I promise I will not jump on any hand grenades while I am with you.” I couldn’t help but notice the corners of his mouth twitch up, even though he was trying to act all serious.

“You know what I mean,” I said. “No pointless heroics. This is my fight. There’s no point in us both dying.”

Rhys opened his mouth as if he were about to disagree, and then appeared to think better of it and simply nodded.

“Good. Now that we have that settled, I have some stones I am somehow supposed to take from these massive hate-filled monsters.”

I made my way to Osadyn who regarded me imperiously with his one good eye. He made no move to run away or to attack. If anything, he seemed eager to face me. I hoped that wasn’t a bad sign.

Once I was a few feet away from Osadyn’s hulking form, I stopped, unsure of what to do next. I needed to get the stone, but I had no idea how to go about it. Should I ask? Reach down his ridiculously long throat and grab it? Maybe do an interpretive dance?

Osadyn lowered his head to my level and seemed to be waiting for me to do something. I tentatively reached out and placed my hand on his head, prepared for another painful vision.

But no vision came. Instead, where my hand touched Osadyn, it began to glow with crackling blue electricity. The electricity rushed down the length of Osadyn’s neck and covered his entire body. He collapsed to the ground, appearing to writhe in agony. He lay on his side, his massive legs thrashing about and his long neck spasming wildly.

After a moment, the blue lighting began to dissipate and Osadyn’s convulsions stopped. His head flopped to the ground, his mouth open, and his nasty tongue lolling out.

His neck twitched one last time, and a small stone fell out of his mouth and rolled onto the ground. It was just like the stones I had seen in my vision.

Like the Sarolt stone I held in my pocket.

I picked it up and wiped the Havoc slime off on my pants – I could burn them later. The stone was warm to the touch and sucked in the light around it. I held it in the palm of my hand, awed, and to be honest grossed out, by the fact that it had just come from inside of Osadyn.

Movement from Osadyn caught my eye. He still appeared to be unconscious – or dead, I wasn’t sure – but he was shrinking. Slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, he transformed from the massive beast I was familiar with to the one-eyed man from the visions the Havocs had shown me. Only he didn’t look quite the same. His hair was longer, more unkempt, and he was emaciated. He looked to be just a shattered shell of the man I had seen in my visions. Clearly being a Havoc hadn’t been a pleasant experience.

“Keep back!” Jottenson said. “He is still alive, and very dangerous.” He stepped forward and gestured with his arms, lifting Osadyn’s limp form off the ground. His body floated through the air until he was close to Jottenson who, with a few more hand gestures, encased the one-eyed man in a semitransparent capsule. He then dropped the capsule to the ground. Osadyn collapsed in a heap at the bottom of the capsule and didn’t move at all. I could see through to where he lay, but I couldn’t tell if he were dead or just unconscious.

“This is for your own protection, Madison,” Jottenson said. “The last thing we need is for him to regain consciousness while you are trying to free Verenix and attack.”

I guess that answered my question about him possibly being dead. But as I looked at his unconscious and emaciated form, I couldn’t bring myself to think of him as a real threat. But then again, I was well aware that looks can be deceiving.

Next I approached Pravicus, my Havoc. They were technically all my Havocs now, but Pravicus was my first. He seemed to instinctively know that I was coming to him next. He dropped his massive house-sized body to the ground, and lowered his head until it was on my level. Even when resting on the ground, his head was twice as tall as I was.

I reached out and touched one of his large horns. Like with Osadyn, blue lightning appeared where I touched him and then streaked along his body until he was completely enveloped. I took several dozen steps back as he began to thrash about in pain. The last thing I needed was for him to accidentally roll over me. It probably wouldn’t kill me, but the prospect of getting steamrolled by Pravicus didn’t hold much appeal.

Once the lightning had faded away, Pravicus stopped thrashing about and was finally still. He let out a cough, and a stone flew out of his mouth and onto the ground. I stepped forward and picked it up. It too, looked like the Sarolt stone – glossy black and sucking in the light around it.

With the stone now out of his body, Pravicus began to shrink and transform. His body changed into the form of person, but not what I had expected. Instead of a man, Pravicus transformed into a regal woman with long white-blonde hair pulled back in a long braid.

It was the woman I had seen in my vision.

Pravicus wasn’t male, she was a woman. Like Osadyn she was emaciated and haggard. When I had seen her in the vision, her hair was perfectly braided and her skin flawless. Now her hair was a rat’s nest of tangles and her skin patchy and mottled.

Before I could take a closer look, Jottenson magically lifted her in the air, as he had with Osadyn, and placed her in a protective capsule as well.

Next was Thuanar. Once he coughed up his stone he became the red haired man wearing his glove but he was missing his hammer. Jottenson also encapsulated him.

The final two Havocs, Navitan and Margil turned into the two bearded men I had seen in some of the later visions. Even emaciated and disheveled, they were both quite handsome and looked to be brothers or perhaps even twins.

Of course with each Havoc changing back, Jottenson encased him in a capsule so they could not escape or even be heard. Soon I had a handful of five stones, all sucking in the light around me, making the world much darker than it should be. I also felt a sort of energy around me. A sense of latent power inside me much greater than what I had ever felt before.

“Well done,” said Jottenson. He strode over to me and looked at the five stones, his eyes bright and excited. “You have completed the first step and have the five stones.”

“What do we do with them?” I asked.

“We need to pull the excess power from you and put it back into the stones. Once the stones have the power again, we can break Verenix’s binding and send him back to the World Tree.”

I listened to what Jottenson said, but I realized that something was off in the way he was behaving. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something about how he moved and reacted to me seemed strange.

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“That is something you will have to figure out,” said Jottenson. He shifted uncomfortably. “I know how my powers work, but yours are another matter. I can tell you what needs to happen, but it is up to you to make it happen.”

That seemed to be a running theme lately. I had all this power, but I was missing the instruction book on how to use it. Ancient beings didn’t seem to be big on documentation.

I turned to Rhys, hoping that he could help. As I did so, I saw Jottenson move out of the corner of my eye and something finally clicked.

He was avoiding me. It wasn’t obvious and he did a good job hiding it, but he went out of his way to not touch me.

Why was that?

Once I saw it, it was obvious. When I came near him, his jaw tightened as he watched, keeping distance between us, or he found some reason to move away from me.

I tried an experiment to be sure I wasn’t imagining it. I held out four of the stones to Jottenson.

“Here,” I said. “Why don’t you hold these while I try to fill one with power?”

His expression was blank, but I saw the muscles in his neck bunch as I moved toward him. He was scared to touch me and didn’t want me to know it.

“No,” he said. “I think it best that you keep the stones until they have been charged. You have the power, not me.”

Impulsively, I reached out a hand and touched his face.

The whole world went dark.

I saw Jottenson arguing with Osadyn, but even though it was clear they were yelling, I couldn’t hear a sound. Like my other visions, this one had no audio track. They were in the same throne room I had seen before. Jottenson was angry and destroying things. He ripped down a beautiful tapestry and threw an intricately carved wooden chair. Osadyn did nothing and simply watched impassively.

Thuanar burst into the room carrying his hammer and looking furious. He stood before Jottenson and held up his hammer, ready to attack. They yelled at each other until Osadyn stood from his throne and slammed the butt of his spear onto the ground. Energy flew out from the spear, flinging Jottenson and Thuanar apart. Jottenson stood up and gave Osadyn a look of loathing. He yelled something and then stormed off.

The scene shifted and I saw Jottenson alone outside a mountain. Although some of the features had changed, I knew it was the same mountain we were at now. He gripped Osadyn’s spear tightly in both hands and drew a circle in the air. Where the tip of the spear touched, the air seemed to tear around it leaving a gash. As he completed the circle, it flashed and the inside of the circle changed to show Veranix and the World Tree. It was some sort of portal. 

Jottenson jabbed the spear through the portal and energy crackled around him. The entire circle began to grow larger and glow brighter and brighter. Verenix appeared to get larger and larger within the circle until he suddenly burst through the portal and into our world.

Jottenson laughed as he watched Verenix come through the portal. It seemed to take forever for him to slide his massively long body through the tear in reality. He raised his head and roared, causing the very mountain before him to quake. 

Once his entire bulk was through, the portal began to shrink and in a few seconds completely disappeared. Jottenson jumped onto Verenix’s back and jabbed it with the spear several times.

Verenix roared in anger and thrashed his body about, attempting to dislodge Jottenson, but he had already jumped off and disappeared. Verenix began a rampage, destroying everything in his path, his body leaving long furrows in the rock itself.

Then I was back. I pulled my hand from Jottenson’s face.

“It was you,” I said. “You were the one who brought Verenix here.” I looked over at the five former havocs in their translucent prisons. “They aren’t the criminals, you are. You betrayed all of humanity and brought this monster here.”

Jottenson’s face twisted into an expression of rage. “What do I care for humanity?” he said, his voice filled with loathing. “You are nothing compared to the gods. We are the rightful rulers of Midgard but Odin and Thor wouldn’t listen to me!”

Odin? Thor? Weren’t those Norse gods? Wasn’t Thor that guy with long blond hair and a winged helmet... and a hammer.

Thor. Thuanar – the grumpy looking redheaded guy with a hammer.

“That would make you Loki,” said Rhys. He stood beside me with his varé open and ready to attack.

Jottenson made a mocking bow. “Indeed I am,” he said. “The only one of the gods with half a brain.”

“I thought it was half a soul,” said Rhys.

Loki looked at him with disgust. “A human attempts to preach morality to me? Should I speak with the ants about philosophy next? Your pathetic little minds can’t even comprehend the true nature of the universe around you, let alone make judgments about it.”

Loki turned his attention to me. “I had hoped to use you to free Verenix and then finally kill Odin and the other gods. It looks as if my plans will have to be modified. Well played, Madison. Now I will simply kill you and use the stones to drain their power from the binding myself.”

As he spoke, a dark cloud began to gather around him. He floated into the air, his arms out to the side calling some unknown power to him. It might have been my imagination, but Loki seemed to be growing as well.

The cloud began to spin faster and faster. Rocks, branches, and other debris began to be pulled into the cloud. Black shapes started to form from the darkness, hideous beasts slowly taking shape. They were jet black and seemed to be made out of the night itself.

Azarks.

Thousands and thousands of Azarks.