Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (43 page)

“No,” he said. “It can
’t be.”

He wouldn
’t allow words weak and without purpose to destroy something he felt was perfect—something that, regardless of its original merit or intent, had blossomed into something beautiful, securing within him a feeling sentimental that he would not trade in for all the gold in the world.

Pushing himself to his feet, Odin made his way to the door, buckled both swords onto his belt, then opened the door.

Though he knew not what he would face, he would do everything in his power to make sure Virgin did not leave.

All eyes fell on him the moment he stepped off the stairs and into the bar. A clock ticking down above his head, ever so slowly waiting for the time in which a dagger could be impaled within a Halfling’s heart, Odin reached up to set a hand to his heart and scanned the room for Virgin’s telltale figure, which would most likely be seen within one of the booths or at the bar consuming enough alcohol to wash sorrow away. While that didn’t seem much of a relief, and though he figured that alcohol would only, if anything, depress him even more, Odin found security in the fact that he would likely be able to find Virgin, very, very easily—that is, if he was still anywhere in the bar.

There
’s only one way to find out.

Starting from the
western side of the room, he made his way to each and every booth and scanned their shadowed interiors for a face obvious in appearance and heartwarming in respect. He made his way first from there, to the front of the bar, then to the eastern side of the room, always careful not to trip or stumble into anyone’s seat, before he returned to the bar defeated and feeling as though he had just succumb to the most terrible atrocity in the world.

For all appearances, Virgin seemed not to be anywhere within the establishment.

He surely had to be gone.

How far could he be?
he thought.

Past the wall, already within the forest, stumbling through the darkness with only a lantern in hand and making his way back toward the outer edges of the Abroen—these were the places Virgin could be at that very moment, where he could currently be slaving thr
ough in order to find salvation.

“Sir?” the barmaid on the other side of the bar asked. “Would you like something to drink?”

“A glass of wine would be fine,” he said, passing a piece of copper across the table.

T
he Elf turned to pull from its rack a brimming but stopped bottle of the red liquid he had come to favor so much. She poured this with ease that seemed impossible in that moment, as Odin’s heart seemed all the more chaotic in spite of everything. How she could do this was anyone’s guess. The world seemed to have turned on its side, forcing every patron to the bottom of the ever-great box of life in order to fend for themselves and fight one another for food.

“Thank you,” he said, sipping from the glass as she passed it over to him.

“Where is your friend?”

“You haven
’t seen him?” he frowned.

“The last time I saw him was when he came down the stairs. I expected him to be back by now.”

So did I.

With a brief sigh, Odin bowed his head and continued to sip on the w
ine, all the more unsure about his current situation.

What possibly might he do without Virgin to guide him out of the forest come time he walked away with the Book? He was sure that he could find a way, though it might take him much longer than he thought it would, as there seemed to be a path laid out freshly for them, but what of the Nagani and their moralistic hunting? Might he be able to keep away from them, or was there the innate and distinct possibility that should he leave alone, he would die in the forest?

A hand graced his shoulder.

Odin looked up.

The barmaid lifted her finger and pointed.

Within the threshold of the bar doors which lay proud and open stood a figure garbed in a green cloak, eyes shrouded but lower face visible to reveal a proud nose and a pair of fine lips.

Virgin.

“Thank you,” Odin said, stepping away from the bar.

He could barely believe his eyes, his heart, his ears, the smell. He started out in a fast walk and then broke out into a full-on run, much to the disdain of the patrons standing who either had to shy away or move directly out of the path. That in itself did not matter though, for at that moment, it felt as though a bird just freed from its cage and allowed to fly for the first time in his life.

The figure tilted its head up.

Odin rushed forward and clapped his arms around Virgin’s torso.

“Thank God,” he whispered.

A hand strayed to his back.

Odin tilted his head up.

He saw from beneath the Halfling’s hood the pair of leaf-green eyes he had come to love so much.

“I was sensitive,” Virgin said, pulling his hood from his head to allow his soft, red-brown hair to fall down across his shoulders. “I shouldn
’t have reacted the way I did.”

“I
’m sorry,” Odin sighed, bowing his head into his companion’s chest. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“There
’s nothing else to say, Odin.”

“Yes there is.”

“What might that be?”

“I…” Odin paused.

Can you do this?
his conscience whispered.
Can you really, truly do this?

If not now, then when would he reveal his feelings to the person
who meant more than anything else in the world to him?

“I love you,” he whispered.

Virgin’s eyes softened. “You do?” he asked.

“More than anything else in the world.”

Reaching forward, Odin cupped the back of Virgin’s head in his hand and drew him forward.

Their noses touched.

Their lips parted.

In that very moment—when magic seemed nothing more than superstition and love
ruled more than anything else in the world—Odin felt his heart sew back together with the fibers of his being.

Things would be all right.

There was nothing else to worry about.

He could look toward his future.

Chapter 7

Carmen Delarosa wandered the outer edges of the castle grounds in search of something to do. Bored out of her mind and unsure exactly what room Nova and his family had moved to in likely preparation to start a family, she made her way along the streets and looked in at the vendor booths when something caught her fancy. Occasionally, she passed a stand that sold something exotic—particularly Kadarian jewels that gleamed black in the oppressing shining light, or the chocolate stand that made her mouth water—but nothing seemed to hold her interest.

Look at you,
she whispered, tucking her hands into her pockets as she continued down the road.
Being all fancy and trying to find something to do.

The likely truth of the matter was that she felt lonely. Had she a reason to put her mood into perspective and isolate the true reason why she was wandering alone, she would have to say that it was because she missed Elrig. She couldn
’t help but wonder how he must be faring, what he must be eating, how he was carefully but surely arranging the clothes she usually washed out of kindness rather than actual need. His blindness, as limiting as it was, had always kept him from doing finer, specific chores, so she had been fine with doing them as long as her husband need not stress about the situations beforehand. That alone made her wish she was home, back in Arbrider and living a somewhat-normal life.

“It
’ll happen soon,” she whispered, kicking a stray rock that landed in the road and smiling as a stray cat chased after it, batting its still-rolling form with one gangly, outstretched paw.

This war
couldn’t last forever. If not come winter’s end, it would surely be finished by the time spring came, after the ice thawed and created miniature rivers along the lowlands.

Raising her head, she looked up just in time to see a group of women stepping forward from the castle ground
’s open front gate.

“Hello,” Carmen said.

All five women stopped in place.

“Uh… down here,” she continued, wavin
g her hand to catch their attention.

“Oh, honey,” one of them said, falling to her knees. “I
’m so sorry.”

“About what?” Carmen frowned.

“We didn’t see you down there.”

“That
’s all right,” Carmen smiled, tilting her head to the side to get a better look at what was going on behind them. “How’s the building coming?”

“It seems to be doing just fine,” the woman who
’d crouched down said, pushing herself to her full height and turning, along with her friends, to view the progress. “They’re working as hard as they can to put those new houses up.”

“Why aren
’t you helping them?”

“Helping them?”

“Yeah, you know… uh… using a hammer, maybe a few nails.”

“They wouldn
’t let us even if we wanted to help,” one of the leader’s companions said. “At least, so far as I know.”

“I
’m getting tired of standing around and doing nothing while the men get to have all the fun,” Carmen said, placing her hands on her hips and starting forward, around the small group of women and toward the houses being built along the outer walls.

“Honey, you
’re much too young to be working with—“

“For your information,” Carmen cut in, “I
’m sixty years old.”

“Sixty?” the woman frowned.

“You’ve never met a Dwarf before?”

All the women
’s eyes instantly fell upon her.

“No,” one of them said.

“We didn’t know you were one,” another thought. “We just thought you were a child because of… well… your height.”

“Assumption makes a fine ass out of you, ladies, though that isn
’t to say that assuming things is a bad thing, because sometimes you assume right.”

“Ok,” another of the women said, casting her locks behind her head and turning to look at her friends. “We should probably be going now.”

“I’ll be fine by myself,” Carmen said, turning back to make her way toward Ornala’s front gates. “Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be fine by myself.”

When the women faded into the distance, Carmen gave herself but a moment to regain her composure and pushed forward, grinding her teeth together in an effort to control the stupidity she felt ebbing off their still-distant forms.

Those poor things,
she thought.
So brainwashed into thinking that they can’t do the same things men can do.

“Hey!” Carmen called, raising her hand to catch the attention of one of the men working on what appeared to be a two-story house. “Hey, hey!”

“Stay back,” the man called back. “It’s dangerous over here.”

“I will have you know, sir, that I am a woman of strong values, and I think you might be needing some help.”

“You’re too short to help,” another of the men said.

“Yeah,” another replied. “Besides, how old are you—seven?”

A chorus of laughter sounded among the group.

“For your information,
gentlemen—
if you can even be called that, that is—I am a Dwarf, and I am much older than I might lead on to be.”

“A Dwarf?” one of the men asked.

“She
has
to know something about construction,” another added. “She’s a goddamn Dwarf!”

“That
’s right,” Carmen grinned, stepping toward the skeletal outline around the house. “What do you need me to do?”

“Well…. to start, we could use a little help securing the foundation in place.”

“Have no fear, Carmen is here!”

*

Nova braced his hands against Katarina’s swollen stomach and tried his hardest not to burst out in laughter. Happier than he had ever been in his life and feeling as though he now truly had a purpose, he raised his head to look his wife straight in the eyes and tried not to succumb to tears.

This is it,
he thought, smiling, unable to control himself when he stood and lifted her into his arms.
This is finally it.

For what had seemed like days, weeks and even months he had been awaiting Odin
’s return, constantly waking up early in the morning expecting the young man to come through the front gates with news of his sanity recovered and his heart mended from its horrible place, but not once had he ever seen a thing. At one point, it had appeared to be a lost cause, for Odin seemed not ready in the least to come back or willing to send any sort of message. For that, he’d stopped waking up so early and instead began to entertain himself with the idea of a newer, better life, one that could exist somewhat-normally in spite of everything happening around him.

Odin may have been gone, but that didn
’t mean he couldn’t move on with his life.

No more than a few weeks prior, Nova and Katarina had discussed the possibility of children.

It had begun and ended simply.

Yes.

Now, some three, possibly even four weeks later—just as the snow was beginning to fall in thin flakes and the men outside were preparing for the inhabitants of Bohren and Dwaydor houses to live within—he finally had what he had been waiting upon for the past several years of his life.

“You look beautiful,” he said, kissing his wife
’s hand before planting a kiss upon her lips.

“Thank you,” Katarina said, a blush crossing her cheeks and turning them scarlet
0.

He couldn
’t have seen a more beautiful thing in that moment than his wife’s face. Her small nose, her easy eyes, her happy lips and her beautiful, radiant white teeth—she seemed a great deity fallen from the sky to live along mortals, whose purpose had been to court and then fall in love with a mortal, human man. She would deliver upon the world a hero from within her Godly womb, thus creating the first living Demigod to walk the earth for hundreds of years, and she would bestow upon the world a future saved from the calamity that was evil in the face of a traitor’s war.

Thank you,
he thought.

There would be, in almost a year
’s time, a child in his arms, one of which he had already foretold would be a boy.

A knock came at the door.

Nova looked up.

A short minute later, Ketrak—escorted by several armed guards—stepped into the room alone before closing the door behind him.

“Father,” Katarina said.

“How goes the building?” Nova asked.

“They should have a house for us done within a fortnight,” the older man said, pulling his hat from his head and settling down into one of the plush armchairs. “I saw Carmen out there with them.”

“Carmen?” Nova frowned.

“She’s working with them?” Katarina asked.

“And speeding up the process, it seems,” Ketrak laughed, slapping his thigh and tilting his head back to laugh. “Everyone
’s been swarming around her asking how to make something stronger or more durable. She’s giving them lots of great tips.”

“Dwarves have always been master innovators,” Nova agreed, “even if they are stubborn.”

“It seems stubbornness is a good trait to have, especially when the need to build something before the winter comes happens.”

“We should invite her to dinner,” Katarina said. “The four of us have seemed so distant lately, especially after Odin
’s disappeared.”

“I
’ll do that,” Nova said, standing. “In fact, I’ll go tell her now.”

“Be careful,” Katarina said.

“Don’t worry. A few hammers and nails won’t bother me.”

Nova found Carmen along the outer edges of what would soon be a thriving town. Hair pulled into a ponytail, sweat pouring down her face even in the cool autumn air, she raised her head only slightly when a man next to her gestured to a sack of nails and returned to her work just as quickly. Not sure how to approach and even less unsure as to what he would say to the Dwarf he had not spoken to for the past few days, he straightened his hair at the sides of his head, closed his eyes, then took a step forward and raised a hand.

“Nova,” Carmen said, lifting her eyes from the nail she
so vicariously attempted to pound in. “Hi.”

“Long time no see.”

“Long time yourself, buddy.” The Dwarf pounded the nail in the rest of the way, then jumped down from the place on the foundation she’d been kneeling on. “What’s up? How’s your wife, the baby? Have you got a midwife yet?”

“Not yet,” Nova replied, crossing his arms over his chest as Carmen bid her fellow workers farewell and began to walk with him back up the road. “They
’re fine though. We all are.”

“That
’s good. Say—your house is coming along fairly nicely.”

“Thanks.”

“Is something wrong?” the Dwarf frowned.

“I
’m just not used to the idea that we’ll be living in Ornala instead of Bohren,” Nova sighed, stopping in midstride just before they would have crossed the threshold into the castle grounds. “I wish there was something more we could do.”

“I
’m guessing the Dwarves will try and reclaim it for the kingdom once they return from Denyon or wherever the hell they are. I mean, they’re heading in that direction anyway. Why not get rid of whoever’s taken control of it?”

“Still…”

“I know, buddy. It’s all right. Things’ll get sorted out eventually.”

Will they,
Nova thought,
or will they just get worse?

Judgmental toward whether or not he should say anything, Nova decided to keep his mouth shut a
nd led Carmen through Ornala’s gates, down the road blanketed by stalls and the vendors within them that called out their wares and toward the stone wall that separated the royals from the normals. He imagined the surrounding stores had to have been getting extra business, what with an extension of the town being built outside and all, but he couldn’t help but wonder whether or not they were preying off the people who’d come from Dwaydor to escape the war.

War—such a simple, yet elegant word, all the more devious in the light of a horrible expression.

Bowing his head, Nova gave himself but a moment to compose himself before reaching down to touch Carmen’s shoulder, though as always he miscalculated the distance and ended up touching the top of her head. “Sorry,” he said.

“Eh, don
’t worry about it. It’s an endearing thing, more or less.”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to have dinner with us. Katarina wants to see you.”

“That’s awfully nice of you to ask,” the Dwarf smiled. “Of course I’ll come. Who’s cooking?”

“I assume the castle—that is, unless Katarina gets a wild urge to go down to the kitchen and make dinner herself, which isn
’t completely out of the question. She prefers to cook for her guests.”