Foresworn (4 page)

He sighed. “Flight instinct is pretty strong in you, isn’t it?” He turned back to the plants. “Tyrone will be looking for us any minute with the sandwiches. He makes them great, too. Lots of cheese and crunchy lettuce. You like lettuce?”

“You don’t have to coddle me. I’m fine.”

“I’m not coddling, I’m curious. There’s a difference. Just like there’s a difference in the types of lettuce that work on sandwiches. Most people like iceberg. I’m not a fan. Tyrone likes a mix of green leaf and romaine—which I very much like. My favorite is arugula because it gives food a bite. Most don’t like it, though.”

He was talking about lettuce of all things. And he was doing it to calm me down. How he’d grasped me as a panicky flight risk so fast bugged the crap out of me, but his lettuce speech was cute. Really, really cute. I actually felt some of the stiffness leach from my spine. “I like all lettuce. I like most foods in general.”

“I need to get all these babies into pots, so why don’t you tell me about your sisters and keep me company.”

“Not much to tell. We’re triplets, we’re ruled by these crazy halts to time and we get cryptic messages. Raven went to find Odin and Coral to find Thor. At least, according to our guesses. There was a freaking hammer mentioned in the article about the guy Coral went to find. Life has ceased to make any sort of logical sense at this point.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Oh, and technically, I’m the youngest, though I think that’s a load of bunk. What do a few minutes mean?”

“What does the rank of birth mean at all?”

I crossed my arms. “If you’re gonna interrupt...”

He chuckled, tucked dirt gently around the tiny plant. “I’ll shut up. Go on. Tell me about the one who likes plants.”

A small spark of jealousy flared deep in my chest, and I poured water on it fast because it was the most ridiculous thing ever. “Coral is like a baby witch, though that term would piss her off.” I remembered what he’d said about the redheaded girl and glanced around. Didn’t see her thankfully. “Our mother has Earth magic and can do spells. Coral can, too, though most of her skill is knowing what plants to use or mix together to make a spell. I don’t think she incorporates a lot of natural magic into her spells, but I think it’s there. She does have the same magic I do. It’s a form of seidr. Hers is pretty terrible—it can come with visions of the present. She’s kind of a softy, so it sucks that she has to see bad things sometimes.
While
they’re happening, so she can’t do anything to help.”

“And the urge to help is her first response?”

I looked at him in surprise. “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

That intense stare of his hit me again as he smiled. “Not everyone is wired the way you are. And the other sister?”

I shrugged. “Raven is Raven. Kind of bossy, overly responsible—thinks she’s supposed to take care of everything because she shot out of the chute first. Yet she’s stuck with messages about the past.”

He glanced over his shoulder, piercing me with those dark eyes. “You feel protective towards Coral and resentful towards Raven. Yet, your love for them is huge.”

Uncomfortable that he’d read me so easily, I looked away. “Tell me the truth. This greenhouse stuff is just a front for your real job as a psychologist or, better yet, a fortune-teller, right?”

White teeth flashed in a grin. “You’re kind of fun.”

“Yeah, well don’t get too attached. I’m only here long enough to figure out this music on the lake thing. My mother is in Oklahoma, terrorizing people, and my sister needs my help.”

“Something tells me I should keep you around as long as possible. At least until you stop scoffing over Valkyries.”

“Who scoffs at us?” The girl who said that stormed into the greenhouse in a flurry of color. Bright yellow coat, matching snow boots and the wildest mane of curly red hair I’d ever seen. Curls caught on the long plant stems as she made her way toward us. She glared at me as she stopped momentarily to free her hair. “Don’t believe in Valkyries? Would a flying horse help?” Her eyes flared wide for a second before she looked at Arun, then back to me. She crossed her arms. Her stare made me feel kind of squirmy.

“Would have helped me,” Tyrone muttered as he came in behind her. “But, nah, I get a pretty girl whose clothes make me have to wear my shades inside the house.”

She plopped her hands on her hips and turned slowly toward him. “You really think you have room to talk when you have that huge thing on your head?”

“She hates the cowboy hat,” Arun said in a loud whisper. “She’s no buckle bunny.”

I had no idea what that even meant.

Arun obviously saw my confusion. He laughed. “Wyoming, cowboys and buckle bunnies sort of go together. Guess you gotta live here to get it.”

Tyrone set down the small television he’d been carrying. On top were six thick wrapped sandwiches. And, yeah, there was a ton of lettuce poking out the sides. My mouth twisted as I worked to hold back a laugh.

“Go ahead and tell Arun what you just told me,” he said to the redheaded girl as he handed one of the sandwiches to Arun and another to me. He smiled, tipped his hat at me afterward.

She turned back to Arun, and her expression made me clutch the sandwich to my chest. If she was truly a Valkyrie, then whatever caused her fear was probably going to cause it in me, too.

“We have a problem. The music just got louder.”

Chapter Four

“Then it’s close to time, isn’t it?” Arun set his sandwich down, his face paling.

The Valkyrie nodded, worry bringing her red eyebrows closer together. “But all the warriors aren’t here.”

My heart thumped hard. She used the term
warriors
like it was a part of her everyday vocabulary. My sisters and I had always kind of giggled whenever we’d said it.

“Someone important must have arrived.” Arun looked at me. “This is Kat, by the way.”

“Oh yes,” the girl agreed. “She’s important. You two don’t even see it, do you?”

“See what?” I asked because she looked at me like she was seeing something the others couldn’t—something even I couldn’t see.

“Even you don’t know,” she murmured. “This changes everything.” She turned to Arun. “She’s the reason the music is louder. It’s starting.”

I shook my head. “No really, I’m not anyone important. I’m just here to keep my mother away from Arun. It’s a long, stupid story I won’t go into, but that’s it. She’s not even here, so I’m here for nothing.”
And could I put the word
here
into my speech any more times?
Here be a smart girl.
Der.

“When did the music get louder?” Arun asked the girl, but he watched me like he could read my mind.

“Earlier. When you ran to the store and most of the people here watched the world around us spin around, then stop. Gillian threw up in front of Tyrone, and she’s really embarrassed about it, so if you see her, stay clear.” The Valkyrie shook her head. “She has the temper of a Viking returning from months at sea to find his woman has moved on.”

He looked back at me but didn’t say anything. That was when I’d stopped time. When the two of us had been in that truck stop. When he said he’d watched everything. My hands started to tremble, so I closed them into fists. Everyone here had watched it stop. Something big had changed. But why?

“Tell me something, Kat,” she said. “Why wouldn’t you believe in Valkyries when your magic is so potent, it’s singeing the hair on my arms?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe in them—just that it’s hard to believe you’re actually here.”

She pointed toward the open door; the rate of snow falling had obviously picked up. “So Ragnarok has begun, you have powerful magic, you know warriors are gathering who carry the old ones’ souls and yet you still question things.” She blew a red curl out of her eyes. “You must be carrying one of the dumber under-creatures.”

“Kara.” Arun’s tone was sharp as he stood up straight and frowned at her. “Kat is the one who stopped the world earlier. Maybe you don’t want to piss her off.”

I had to bite back a
yeah
. Didn’t want to sound like a petulant child or anything.

A shrewd expression narrowed her eyes and tightened her lips. “You stopped time.”

“You did that?” Tyrone asked before taking a bite of his sandwich. His bite was half a sandwich. “What else can you do?”

“Nothing.” I didn’t like the way the Valkyrie kept looking at me. “That’s it, and I don’t do it—my norn does. Oh and she tells the future.”

“Norn?” Kara shook her head. “I don’t remember them ever sending the world into a spin and freezing people. But looking at you tells me you are more than just a carrier for a norn.”

“What do you mean?” Her colorful clothes made me think of Coral. Then I felt a pang. And another. Realized quickly that I’d thought of my middle sister for a reason. I tuned the others out as this horrific feeling swamped me, made me squeeze my eyes shut, hold my breath.

Dread.

There was nothing quite like that feeling—like being suffocated under a heavy black tarp. Like being caught and knowing there was nothing you could do to stop whatever bad thing was going to happen.

Coral had it bad. Right at that moment.

“Sorry, you guys will have to give me a minute.” I dug out my phone and called Coral. It rang over and over, and with each sound, I grew that much closer to panic. I dialed again, watched as Tyrone finished his sandwich and then carried the small television to an extension cord.

“Hey, Arun,” he said. “I caught the news, and it seems there’s a storm coming in here on top of the snow. I don’t think the power is gonna last long, so you better catch up with what’s happening down south fast.”

“South as in Florida?” My hands shook as I punched in Coral’s number again and held the phone to my ear. “I just came here from there. Is that where you’re talking about? What’s going on in Florida?” I asked Tyrone, my voice going higher in panic as I listened to the ringing.

Arun’s expression went tight with concern as he squeezed past Tyrone and stopped in front of me. “You have a sister still there?”

I nodded, having to stretch my neck back to look up at him. The knot of fear and anxiety from Coral was spreading like wildfire in my chest. “She’s not answering her phone.” I hung up and tried again, my hands shaking so hard I had to click on the dial icon three times. While it rang, I stared up at Arun, hating the worry that had bled into his concerned face. “What is it?” I whispered.

“You don’t realize that Ragnarok is escalating at a crazy rate?”

“What are you talking about?” I clicked off the call, muttering under my breath. Coral’s fear had turned into outright terror. I gasped, grabbed at my chest, shut my eyes.

“Storms hit most of the lower East Coast. It’s bad, Kat. What part of Florida is your sister in?”

“The panhandle.”

The tightness around his mouth and eyes eased. “Then she should be okay. Let’s turn on the news to make sure.”

The storm systems that showed up the second we turned on the television made me cover my mouth with my hand. Everything in my body became tight and painful as I watched the frantic newswoman, who looked like she’d been crying and didn’t care who knew it. She talked of evacuations and how the storms sped up and so many hadn’t gotten out. She showed a picture of Cuba—or what was left of it.

“No one could have survived that.” Tyrone set down the second sandwich he’d been eating, his tanned skin going pale. “It looks like some of Florida is gone, too.”

I tried Coral again. Every nerve in my body fired as agitation fueled my anger when this call didn’t even go through. I buried my face in my hands, knocking my phone on my nose as I tried to reach out mentally, to feel that she was fine, but that dread and terror of hers had faded out. The reason that could have happened had me tearing up, shaking like crazy.

Arun came to me, put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently until I looked up at him.

“I’m sure she’s okay. You said she was looking for the one with Thor’s soul. If anyone could handle storms, it would be the god of thunder.”

“That’s not the point. I just need to know she’s okay.”

“You guys have a strong connection?”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s why I’m freaking out. I can feel her fear and it’s awful. Or I could. I’m getting nothing now, and I can’t even call Raven because she lost her cell phone.” My shoulders slumped; then my own dread shot to the surface when the television and the lights suddenly went out.

He squeezed my arm. “Don’t worry. This happens a lot up here. We have backup generators that should kick on pretty soon.”

I hadn’t realized how much noise had been in the greenhouse until it all stopped. The watering hose, the television. Now the storm outside really made itself known with hard pattering snow and wind. A bee buzzed my head and I jerked back.

“Natural pollinators,” Arun said. “Kind of a necessary nuisance but we’ve found that—”

He broke off when screams sounded outside. Loud screams that were easily heard over the snow. Arun, Kara and Tyrone ran toward the sounds.

“Oh no!” Kara cried as she bolted out the door.

My nose twitched as a scent came in through the opened doors. Smoke. “Gods, I think there’s a fire.”

There were very few things I was truly scared of. I was overly cautious and didn’t trust easily, yeah, but outright fear? I’d dealt with a lot of things that would scare a normal person. I’d driven all the way here by myself and only got creeped out once when I’d stopped for a drink at some trashy convenience store. The guy in the restaurant parking lot this morning had made me kind of nervous, too, but not afraid. Sometimes I was scared that Coral would trust the wrong person. She’d come close to it in the past—closer than she even knew. Always willing to embrace Dru’s new boyfriends because she’d hoped for a father figure, she hadn’t realized one of them was a complete perv. I had. When I’d told Dru, she’d pulled her head out of her butt for once and done something about it. I always wondered how long that itching spell lasted.

But there was one thing that sent me into panic faster than anything. Fire. Years of nightmares of burning to death probably had a lot to do with that. And in the past few months, the dreams had been nonstop.

Tyrone and Arun had followed Kara from the greenhouse.

Toward the fire. I knew they needed help, so I squared my shoulders and started to follow. My coat caught on a long splinter from one of the planters. I reached to get it loose just as this horrific roar sounded overhead. It was like a whoosh of furious wind, and as I looked up at the plastic covering the greenhouse, I saw the first spark hit. Then another and another. They came like fiery drops of rain and before I could blink, the plastic shriveled, then burst into flames. The fire licked right and left, rolling down the walls until everything around me had caught. I stood in the center, surrounded by the cracking and popping, the hiss of steam as a stream of water arced into the opening of the roof. Snow pelted hard and fast into the opening.

“Kat!”

Arun’s yell snapped me out of shock. I hadn’t realized that thick black smoke had filled the room. Suddenly I was on my knees coughing, eyes watering.

“Come on,” he urged as he knelt beside me and grabbed my arm. “What are you waiting for?”

A burning piece of wood dropped onto the arm of my coat and instantly melted through the top layer of material. The grip of panic had me so tight in its hold; I didn’t think about running. I just started tugging off my coat.

Familiar pain spiked through my chest and I gasped, forgetting about my coat. I bent over, crying out. It was hot, searing and overwhelming to the point I saw nothing but stars.

“What? Shit, are you burned?” Arun tried to lift me, but I fought him off because I knew what was coming and didn’t want to be stuck up high in his arms.

“Gods!” I yelled as the wooden boxes next to me caught fire. The heat blazed, sweat poured down my body, dripping into my already irritated eyes. And as I blinked, the fire smeared fast to the left as everything around me moved into the spin. Red, green, black and what was left of the brown boxes swirled into the whirl of the world around us.

“Not again,” Arun groaned as he crouched over me. He flinched, then yelled, and I knew it was a cry of pain. I scrambled out from under him, trying hard to keep my balance as my equilibrium took a ride with the spinning world. A burning plant had fallen on him, the vines wrapping his body as if they were trying to stay alive by touching him. I pulled at one and my eyes flared wide as the burning parts of it fell to our feet and the rest sprang fully green and healthy again. But mostly I stared at Arun.

He was fully aware of what was going on around us, and he stared into the swirling mass in shock. He’d said he’d been aware when this had happened to me earlier, but I hadn’t truly believed him because nobody had ever come into my
rune tempus
with me. Ever. Not even my sisters.

When everything came to a halt, even I stood in awe as I took in the absolute wonder of seeing fire frozen in place. The crackling, the roaring, the popping...all of it had stopped. Even the wind outside had. It was as if someone had taken an image of the flames—like we were looking at a photograph. The glow of red, orange and white had paused in wild curved shapes that reached toward the sky. Smoke hung around us, like suspended granules of ash. I covered my mouth; sure it would be like inhaling rocks. The smoke around the plastic sheeting that had covered the greenhouse was thicker and nearly solid black, making it look like phantoms had been circling us.

Arun straightened, his mouth hanging open as he turned a slow circle. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I mean, how is this even possible? Fire is a chemical reaction—what sort of strength do you have to just stop it in place like this?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. Then my shoulders snapped straight. “We have time to save things! I don’t always have to write right away.” I turned frantically, trying to decide what to grab first.

Arun had flown into motion. He pulled out a small rolling flatbed, and together we piled as many plants as we could on it. He hefted bags of fertilizer, plant food. We focused on the plants that hadn’t gone into the long wooden planters at first; then Arun started plunging his hands into the dirt and pulling the plants out. I couldn’t quite manage that one—didn’t have his strength and was afraid I’d kill them all. So I started to run out the door and stopped, my chest heaving.

A wall of unmoving flames blocked our way out.

“What if we throw water on it?” Arun asked as he came up behind me.

“Water goes solid when I do this, see? At least at first. Whatever this is doesn’t hold them for long.” I picked up a handful of pebble-like objects from the sink by the door. “These were water drops.” As I held them, they started to melt.

“Water is strong,” Arun murmured. “Maybe your hold on it is only temporary.”

Fear bled into my veins as I returned my gaze to the statue-like flames above us. “Fire is just as strong.”

“Hold on—I have an idea.” Arun picked up the television and threw it at the wall of fire in front of the door. It sailed through—shattering the fire into pieces. Before they hit the ground, I noticed some had started to move. The snow put them out.

“We have to hurry.”

Arun picked up the chair and used the legs to swipe away the rest of the fire in the doorway. He gestured at me to run through as he grabbed the handle on the flatbed. He rolled it outside behind me.