Heroes (Eirik Book 2) (13 page)

Scowling at the ceiling wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I needed to see her again today and work on her. I glanced at my watch and cursed. It was time to get up.

I shrugged on a robe and left my quarters. I was entering the tunnel separating the main hall from the east dungeons when a solitary figure entered the other end at a run and raced toward me. Dressed in all black with a hood up, I couldn’t tell whether it was a guard jogging or one of our guests. The runner slowed to a walk. Closer, I noticed the silver eyes and the tattoed face. It was the pretty
Dokkalfr
girl from last night.

“Morning, Niorun.”

So sure she would ignore me and continue walking, I was surprised when she lowered her hood and seized me, not missing my robe or slippers.

“Not a good one,” she said. “There’s no place to run and train without bumping into your reapers. Rude people. They stare and wink at me. They’re lucky I’m a guest here.” She spoke fast and had a husky voice.

“I’ll make sure we add a private exercise area just for you before the next ball.” If she recognized my response as a joke, she didn’t show it.

“Don’t bother. Not to insult you, but I’m never attending another one of these. Meat markets.” She inclined her head. “Thanks for not taking my father’s offer seriously.”

“Who said I didn’t?”

She scowled. “Offer for my hand and I will kill you in your sleep that very night, son of Baldur.”

I touched my neck and faked a shudder. “Consider the offer rescinded. I love my head where it is.” She didn’t crack a smile. “But I’d still like to visit Svartelfheim.”

“Look me up, but as long as you’re after an adventure, not an alliance.” She pulled up her hood and walked past me. I stared after her and shook my head.

Sounds of animals greeted me when I reached my dragon room. Our guests were leaving late. Or maybe Garm had prevented them from leaving. I could hear him howling despite the door being closed. When Mother had the weapons room modified to suit my dragon, she’d added a rack for robes and shelves for slippers and food. The food was missing this morning.

I opened a portal to the kitchen. “Maera!”

Trudy appeared instead, a broad grin on her face. “Hey, Rising Star. Running late today, aren’t you? It’s a beautiful morning. The sun is shining and they are finally leaving. Having girls around my age in the hall isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. The right kind of girls mattered. Celestia was fun to have around. These Elven girls, not so much.”

A smiling Trudy was a rarity. She’d given me attitude ever since I refused to take her to see Celestia. A chatty Trudy was annoying.

“First, don’t call me that stupid name. Second, where’s your mother?”

Her eyes widened. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“Trudy!”

“Mama is busy. If you haven’t noticed, our guests are leaving and need to be fed. What do you want?”

“Food and something to drink.”

She cocked an eyebrow. Trudy might be Mother’s personal maid, but their relationship wasn’t that of a servant and a mistress. Unlike her parents and most people in the hall, she spoke her mind with Mother and never seemed intimidated by her. Today, she was behaving weirdly.

“What?”

“Are we going to see Celestia?”

“No. I’m going flying.”

Her eyes narrowed. I would never take her with me to Earth. If someone honked a horn and scared the crap out of her, she might shift into her real size and start a global manhunt.

“You are planning on taking me, right?” she asked.

“Flying? No. Can I get food?”

“I’m not talking about flying, and you know it. I entertained those stupid Elven girls for you last night and you promised.”

Damn.
“Fine. Soon. Just not today. Get me something to eat. Please,” I added when she shot me a mutinous glare.

She muttered something under her breath, but I heard it. I was officially a
Dökkálfr
troll
.
I had no idea why the Dark Elves became the standard for ugliness or evil. Niorun was hot.

As soon as the portal closed, I shrugged off the robe and shifted. I lifted my wings and stretched my neck. Ten to one, Trudy wouldn’t bring my food, and I couldn’t fly far on an empty stomach. Five more minutes and I’d call for food. Maera hated when I did after shifting. She often complained my bellows startled the cooks.

Usually, I was gone by this time of the morning, training with Mother or the warriors. The few times I found myself here in the middle of the day, the only sounds I heard were occasional neighs from the horses in the stalls next door. Since the arrival of our guests, the stables had housed not just horses, but wolves, cave lions, saber-toothed tigers, and even giant pigs. The people from other realms enchanted animals to pull their sleds.

Howls, snarls, and growls said the animals sensed my presence. Garm responded from beyond the wall, reminding me I needed to exercise him. Since I overslept, I might have to make our morning run short.

A portal opened, but instead of Trudy, Litr wheeled in the food. I thanked him and wolfed it down, eager to leave. I sniffed. Mother was missing this morning. Her scent often reached me before I left the changing room or after training. It felt weird not having her around.

“I’ll bring more food.”

“Not today, Litr. I’ll eat breakfast with my parents when I come back. I won’t be gone for long. Just an hour.” Last night’s conversation with Chief Skevnir made me resent my grandmother, even though I’d been ready to forgive her and even have some sort of relationship with her. Now I couldn’t see beyond the fact that she’d bitten my sister and Celestia, and bound them to her. It would have made sense if they were orphans.

I opened the door, which I’d mastered the last few months, and squinted at Karle. The colors of his cloak were so bright and in such sharp contrast to the snow behind him my sensitive eyes protested.

“I thought you were leaving early,” I said.

“Not when your family decided to send us off with our bellies full. Your cooks are amazing.” He stepped back to give me space. “My uncles are getting the horses ready. Are you going out now? Do you need company?”

“Not right now. I’m going to exercise Garm.”

“Is that the hound that swallows ten souls in one gulp?” he asked.

I laughed. “I didn’t know he had such a terrible reputation.”

“They say his fangs drip with the blood of his victims and he delivers second death to the oath breakers.”

Oath breaking was such a terrible crime in all the realms those guilty of it were considered worse than murderers. “I’m not sure what Garm does all day, but if he takes a chunk out of someone, then they deserve it.”

As though on cue, the hound’s howls ripped through the air. Snarls and growls answered him to our left. More guests were preparing for their trips home and were harnessing their rides. They saw me and bowed. A few made eye contact and smiled. Their animals were restless, and I had a feeling that had something to do with my presence more than Garm’s howls.

“I’m sorry I told my father about your grandmother,” Karle said. “He’s always going on about the orphans and blood bond. Then he saw that strange girl in weird clothes, and he got really excited. You should have seen how they smiled at each other. They recognized their connection right away.”

Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

“Her name is Celestia, and her clothes are not strange. Just different.” I spoke with more bite than intended and felt bad. Karle was a great guy and biting his head off wasn’t going to make me feel any less guilty about Celestia’s situation. “She’s a friend from Midgard, and those clothes are worn by girls there.”

Karle’s eyes widened. “Midgard? And she visits here?”

“Sometimes.”

“I wonder what it looks like. Papa said some of the orphans are really unclaimed children of the gods. The gods take many consorts, you know. Then the Norns take their children and give them to Immortals in Midgard to adopt. Papa said Midgard is full of unwanted children of the gods and most of them don’t even know it.” He lowered his voice. “Is the girl one of the orphans like my father said or an unclaimed child?”

Celestia a demi-god? That would be something, but I doubted it. “No, she’s not. Where did my grandmother find her orphans?”

“All over Jötunheim. People would find abandoned pups and take them to her. Some were fending for themselves after their parents died in battle. She also traveled from clan to clan. My aunts said she was trying to replace her children.”

“How far back has this been going on?”

“Since your mother and uncles were taken centuries ago.”

Crazy Granny must have been devastated when they took my mother and uncles, but that was no excuse for what she’d done and I refused to feel sorry for her. She must have thousands of Jötnar bonded to her. Loyal to her. What if her reach extended beyond Jötunheim?

“Did that stop after she joined my mother?”

“No. We still get abandoned pups and other shifters appearing in my village. The women try to be just like Angrboda.”

At least they didn’t go around biting kids. “So, you would know if a child was brought to your people around this time of the year seventeen years ago?”

He frowned. “I was only two at the time, but I could ask my father or my aunts. They’d know things like that. Women talk. One of my aunts adopted a pup. Geri. Funny kid. He used to like skin over fur. The Norns took him when he was five. That was two years ago. Another one was with us for a year. She was only two when the Norns came for her.”

If Crazy Granny was building an army of loyal warriors, the Norns were determined to stop it. Still, I wasn’t sure which enemy was worse, my grandmother or the Norns.

“Karle, I want you to do me a favor. Find out if a baby girl was abandoned in Ironwood Forest seventeen years ago.” Einmyria would be turning seventeen in a week.

“Find out right now?” Karle sounded disappointed.

“Yes. Right now.” Having him around a little longer might not be a bad thing. He was full of information. “Also see if your father can spare you for a few days. I’d like you to stay here and help me with something. I could use a flying partner around these mountains.” The mixture of surprise and excitement on his face was painful to watch. After a few days, I was sure he’d want to go home. I was determined to find my grandmother and that meant daily searches. There had to be a way to undo a blood bond.

“I’ll ask him. We traveled with my uncles, who are fishermen, not warriors, so they’ll need me for the journey back.” His voice lowered again. “The word is out that Angrboda is back, and the other clansmen are on edge. I don’t want them doing something stupid behind my back and blaming
Dökkálfars
.”

I followed his gaze to two guys rigging saber-toothed tigers to a sled. I’d fought both of them. They bowed, but their smiles wavered when they saw Karle.

Their black and yellow cloaks said they were from the Cat Clan. All the shifter clans wore dual colors. Elemental Jötun clans preferred a single color—red for fire, blue for water, white for ice, and gray for air.

“Did you fight them?” Karle angled his head to indicate the two guys watching us on the sly.

“Yes. They seemed to know what they were doing.” They were good fighters, but had resorted to cheap tricks toward the end.

“Did you bind them to you with a blood bond?”

“No.” And after what I’d learned last night, I was happy I hadn’t.

“Damn! You should have. Vrag and Nafni belong to the Cat Clan, the worst of all the southern clans. They sneak into our forest and steal our game, fish at our lakes in the dead of the night, and never admit guilt. Last time the pack trapped Vrag, I almost bit him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He made a face. “I don’t want that
meinfretr
bound to me in any way.”

“
Meinfretr
?”

“Stinkfart,” he explained.

Karle was okay. Sure, he talked too much, but he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. I’d tried talking to some of the other guys last night and they’d clammed up. The fact that he was full of information was an added bonus.

“Talk to your father and see what he says about extending your visit. I’ll be gone most of today, but I should be back by nightfall.” After I convinced Celestia to help me locate my grandmother.

The thought of using her turned my insides. I could be putting her life in danger again. Crazy Granny was unpredictable. Maybe I didn’t need her help. Maybe Karle could. I was grasping at straws, but I had to know.

“Do you have a blood bond with my grandmother, Karle?”

He chuckled. “No, just my dad and aunts. I’ll go talk to them.”

Growling in frustration, I took off and flew over the wall. Garm saw me coming and went crazy, howling and jumping. It was the same every morning. Modgie released him, and the massive dog raced toward the field, the ground shaking and snow flying in his wake. He sprayed me with snow when he stopped by my side.

“Ready, boy?”

He barked and jumped. I took off toward Corpse Strand while Garm raced below, easily keeping up with me. The ground behind the walls was flat for a long stretch, until we reached the section where the wall connected with the face of the mountain. I veered right and went through an opening, entering the banks of Gjöll River.