Bonds That Break (The Havoc Chronicles Book 3) (41 page)

“Yeah, I don’t like the sound of that,” I said. “I vote against the earth being destroyed.”

Odin looked at me quizzically. Sort of the way Loki had. Apparently old Norse gods didn’t get my kind of humor.

“Yes,” he finally said. “It would be best to avoid that possibility.” He looked at Frig and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “This girl is nuts.”

“Just one thing,” said Rhys. “How do we know we can trust you? I understand that Loki was a bad guy. We figured that out when he tried to kill us. But his being evil doesn’t make you the good guys or serve as proof you’re telling the truth.”

Odin considered this for a moment. “I understand your fear. You know next to nothing about us or the war we have been in. But we do not have much time to give you a complete history.”

“Fair enough,” said Rhys. “Give us the short version.” His gaze was steady and he didn’t flinch as he met Odin’s one-eyed stare.

“Very well,” said Odin. “I will, as you said, ‘give you the short version.’

“We are a race of beings called the Aesir. We have been at war against the Jotunns for millennia. They are from another nearby world. A frozen one. They wish to remake earth in their own image. We five, and others of our kind, have been protecting the earth from that fate. Loki was a Jotunn child we found after a battle, his family gone. Rather than slaughter the child, I took him in as one of my own. I made him one of us, gave him power and granted him equal status with my other children.” He motioned to Thor, who scowled. It sure didn’t look like Thor thought much of that plan. Or maybe he was upset about the outcome. I couldn’t fault him for that.

“I had hoped to show them that it would be possible for the Asir and Jotunn to live in harmony. Loki was to be that proof.” He paused as his voice started to break. “I loved him as a son.”

Thor’s expression softened and he put a hand on his father’s shoulder. Odin nodded, and patted Thor’s hand.

“But as Loki grew older, he became obsessed with learning about his Jotunn heritage. He made the forbidden trip into their land and came back a different man. He was never the same after that. What they told him I do not know, but it turned him against us.

“What I tell you now, I do so with the benefit of looking into the past, for we did not know then what Loki would do. He kept his feelings hidden, waiting for the right time to turn against us.

“He began seeking out dangerous magic and in time learned how to bring Nidhogg into this world. He had hoped that it would kill us, leaving him free to take our powers and bring the Jotunns into Asgard. His plan nearly worked, but I hanged myself from the world tree until I was given the answer to our plight.”

Odin hanged himself from the world tree? I had no idea what that even meant. It sounded like some sort of attempted suicide. What good would that have done?

He must have seen the look of confusion on my face. “As an Aesir I am not immortal, but we have a different relationship with death than you mortals do. By taking myself to the border of death and partially crossing over, I am able to access strong magic and discern answers to questions. At first my answer seemed simple – by combining all six of our magics we could stop this monster and send it back to Yggdrassil where it belonged.

“I explained my plan to these four and Loki, not yet knowing his role in freeing Nidhogg. They all agreed and we fashioned a stone that could contain our combined powers. Had Loki joined us, we would have had enough power to send it back, but he deceived us, waiting until our plans were too far along to change, before turning his back on us.

“I had not yet recovered enough to go back to the border of death and seek another answer. Hoenir and Lodur, my two brothers, made the dark journey and discovered an alternative that would require somewhat less power. With the combined strength of us five we could bind Nidhogg. But it came at a terrible cost – our power and freedom. We would be forced to give up our powers and become the basest of creatures that would in turn need to be bound.”

Odin began to sway, apparently too exhausted to keep standing. Frig stepped forward and stood next to Odin and gently put his arm over her shoulder so she could help steady him.

Odin gave her a tender smile and continued.

“We were willing to make that sacrifice. We used our power to bind Nidhogg under this mountain and then chose guardians to bind us as we turned from glorious Aesir into monsters. Those humans you know as Binders and Berserkers are the ones who were given that power.

“But our solution blocked Loki’s plan. As long as we were alive, and linked to our powers – however feebly that might be – he could not open the portal to bring the Jotunns into our world. He needed our deaths to accomplish that.

“So he waited. He understood the binding and realized that it could not last forever. We Aesir do not age as mortals do, so he could afford to be patient and bide his time until the situation were right and the binding corrupt. He then hoped to you use you,” Odin pointed at me, “to take our powers and open Asgard and then this world to the savagery of the Jotunns.”

Odin smiled weakly. His legs buckled, and he was clearly struggling to stand despite Frigg’s efforts. She finally laid him on the ground and cradled his head on her lap.

After finally getting settled, Odin stared up at me with his one eyes.

“While we were trapped as Havocs, we were subject to our fears and instincts,” he said. His voice was starting to get hoarse and weaken. I wasn’t sure how much longer he could continue. “We were monsters of the worst kind. The binds were put on us to protect the earth from the horror we would certainly be. But you, Madison, somehow saw through that. You saw past our monstrous exterior and into our thoughts and who we really were. You did not dismiss us as mindless creatures like others before you had, but you sought to understand us. Yes, Loki tried to use that understanding to manipulate you, but in the end, you triumphed and destroyed him.” 

I looked at Rhys to see what he thought. His face was a mask of concentration as he processed what Odin had told us. It was a lot to take in and digest. It’s no easy feat to accept the existence of beings you read about in myths and comic books.

But despite all the over-the-top ultra-weirdness, I ultimately believed Odin.

Rhys turned to look at me and nodded. He also believed Odin. I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t one of those girls who depended on her man to tell her what to think, but knowing that we were in agreement on this made everything much easier.

I grabbed Rhys’ hand and turned to face Odin. “So, how do I send Verenix – I mean Nidhogg – back home?”

Chapter 25

Nidhogg and Yggdrasill

With the help of Thor and Frigg, Odin was able to stand back up. He seemed to be suffering worse than the others. They all seemed frail and haggard, but Odin was the only one who seemed to be having trouble even standing.

“I apologize for my weakness,” he said when he had to stop and rest for a moment. “It is my magic that forms the base of the spell and as it disintegrates, I become weaker and will be the first to die.”

Yeah, time to hurry up and get this done.

Odin led us into the cave with the stone pillar. It was exactly as I had seen it in my vision – a hazy white crystal with black dust swirling around inside. A bright blue beam of light shot out of the top of the pillar and pierced the roof of the cave. As I had seen from outside, the beam went all the way through the rock and into the sky.

Beside the pillar I noticed Odin’s spear and Thor’s hammer. Odin noticed me eyeing them. “The spear is Gungnir and the hammer is Mjolnir. They are the finest weapons ever crafted by the gnomes of Ivaldi. He picked them both up and handed them to me. “You will need them when we free Nidhogg.”

I took the weapons, feeling awed.

Odin’s spear and Thor’s hammer.

I was holding them. Me. In my hands.

I was sorely tempted to strike a pose and hold Thor’s hammer above my head, but given the gravity of our situation, I decided it might be better to refrain. Plus I didn’t want to get on Thor’s bad side. He may not be the blond-haired, excessively muscled guy from the comic books, but the real Thor looked like he had a temper and was not a guy I wanted to mess with.

“Do you have the stones?” Odin asked.

I handed the spear and hammer to Rhys, who looked as impressed as I had been, and pulled out the stones from my pocket. I held them out to Odin.

“What’s next?” I asked.

Odin began to cough and Thor and Frigg each put one of his arms over their shoulders to help support him.

“You know what to do,” Odin said. His voice was now soft and raspy. “It is part of the magic you hold.”

I knew what to do? That was news to me. He’s the guy that started this whole thing. Shouldn’t he be giving me instructions on what to do?

“Sorry to disappoint,” I said, “but I really don’t know what to do.”

Odin took in a rattling breath. The poor guy seemed to be falling apart by the minute. “Ah, but you do,” he said. “You must look deep within you. Trust your instincts. Just as the binding power is within you, so is the breaking power. They are two parts of one whole, inherently connected and inseparable.”

Trust my instincts? Great. The fate of the world is left in my hands and all the instructions I get are “trust your instincts”?

This had the potential to turn ugly in a hurry.

I took in a deep breath. First things first, I guessed. I needed to break the bond that holds Verenix – or Nidhogg. Whatever his name was.

I closed my eyes and did my best to look inside. At first I felt kind of stupid. Was the answer just supposed to magically appear in my head? A set of mental instructions or a big flashing sign?

Instead, my thoughts turned to the stones I held in my hand. They had held the power of the Aesir at one time, but now most of that power was in the binding.

I needed to pull that power out of the binding.

I took the stones and placed them on top of the pillar. The reaction was immediate and dramatic.

The light in the pillar turned from blue to jet black. The ground began to shake, and the stones lifted off of the pillar and began to spin about in the column of blackness.

Hopefully this was what was supposed to happen, and I hadn’t triggered the self-destruct mechanism or something.  

The black dust inside the crystal pillar began to move faster and faster, seemingly agitated. The shaking grew worse and the six stones spun so quickly I could no longer make out the individual stones.

With a sound like thunder, the stones smashed together and dropped back to the crystal pillar. The blue light shut off like someone had flipped a switch.

A single stone the size of a baseball rested on top of the pillar. It glowed with a brilliant white light and crackled with energy.

My initial reaction was to back away from it, but I somehow knew that I needed to pick up the stone. I would need the powers of the combined Aesir to stop Verenix.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I reached out and grasped the stone with my hand. When I touched it, I felt a tidal wave of pain inundate me. It started in my fingers and quickly spread throughout my entire body. My every nerve was alight with red-hot agony. For a moment I couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, or even think. There was nothing in my world except for pain.

And more pain.

I tried to let go of the stone, but my fingers refused to obey my commands. I dropped to my knees, still clutching the stone, my mouth open in a silent scream. White light burst from me, oozing out of my every pore.

I was vaguely aware of Rhys rushing toward me, but the energy coming off my body was too much and he couldn’t get close enough to touch me.

And then the feeling began to change.

No, that wasn’t it.

The feeling was the same, but my body began to change. It was adapting to the power inside. I was transforming from a Berserker into... what?

I opened my eyes and saw the world as it was meant to be seen. I could see every spectrum of light at once and understand what it all meant. I saw colors that we humans can’t even imagine, let alone describe. I saw blurs around moving objects and realized they showed me what they would do and where they would move before it even happened.

And it wasn’t just my vision.
All
my senses were similarly changed. Hearing, smell, taste, and touch were all so far off the charts that they began to blur together. I could taste Rhys from across the room just as well as I could see him. I heard the blood pumping through his veins, and felt the disturbance in the air his movements made. They didn’t feel like separate stimuli, but they worked together to give me a cohesive experience of every being and object around me.

I thought my senses had been heightened as a Berserker, but it was nothing compared to this. It was the difference between looking at the stars through binoculars and looking at them through an observatory telescope. And strangely enough, even though the perception was so much greater, there was no feeling of being overwhelmed with the stimuli, like when I had first ‘zerked. These heightened senses felt natural, right. As if this were how I should have always perceived the world. 

I stood up and marveled at everything around me.

Then Rhys collapsed.

I zipped to his side fast enough that I stopped him before he hit the ground. In a heartbeat I perceived the problem. I had been so overwhelmed when I touched the stone that I had dropped my snare. The one that had been holding Rhys’ gaping wound on his shoulder closed. Blood was pouring from him, and he had passed out.

I had been unable to do anything but hold off the bleeding before. Now things were different.

I was different.

I quickly took in his wounds and examined the extent of the damage. With my senses, I could see the tears at the cellular level. I cast a snare with hundreds of thousands of tendrils each a fraction of the width of a hair. I ran them across his wound, pulling skin into position, removing dirt and bacteria, and manipulating his blood and platelets to accelerate the healing process. In a matter of seconds, his shoulder was completely covered in whole skin. After that, I focused on the less severe cuts along his hands, forearms, and face. There would be a bit of scaring, but it would be minimal.