The Chosen of Anthros (20 page)

She jumped and backed up a little. “What?” she asked.

“Why are you here?” Fortarian smiled at her showing an even line of yellowed teeth that were more terrifying than she could have imagined.

“You had a darkling god within you for the All Father knows how long,” Leona squared her shoulders. “You will tell me about that.”

Fortarian snickered at her and cast his eyes to the floor. “You’re funny,” he said.

Was there something different about him this time? Something that wasn’t like the last? He seemed more confident, more predatory. She stood her ground and waited for him to answer her.

Finally Fortarian rolled his hand as if waiting for her to continue.

“What do you know about the God Slayer? What do you know about Hilda’s plans? What do you know about Hafaress and the All Father having left the Ever After?”

Fortarian stared at her for several minutes where Leona became painfully aware of dripping water somewhere out of the reach of the torches.

“Wouldn’t you rather know about Olik? Or maybe why Rowan is no longer Mattelyn? Or maybe the true reason I became a harbinger of darkness? Maybe you’d like to know why your father stole you away in the night along with the hammer all three of us were protecting? Why your father took you both away from your mother?”

“My mother’s dead,” Leona said drawing closer to Fortarian. “My mother’s dead and my father had to take the hammer from Agaranth, so the darkling gods wouldn’t find it.”

“We can go with that story,” Fortarian said. “Or we can be aware that your father is Olik. This you know. You’ve heard him called it too many times by too many people to refuse that simple truth. And if you accept that your father is Olik, then you are aware that Olik has always been a trickster. Trickster gods aren’t always fun and laughter; trickster gods are dangerous and deceiving.”

“No!” Leona said. She refused to believe him. She took an angry step forward. “You’re lying.”

“Maybe I am.” Fortarian shrugged. “But you should ask your sister why she no longer calls him father. You should ask your sister why she only calls him by his first name. Maybe he’s deceiving you.”

“He wouldn’t!” Leona stomped her foot and leaned toward the bars. “He isn’t like that any longer.”

“Trickster gods are conniving and always tend to get their way, Leona,” Fortarian smiled at her. “I should know. I have one inside of me.”

Fortarian’s hand shot out like a snake. Before she could move back the harbinger of darkness had his hand locked around her wrist in an iron grip.

Even in the darkness of the stockades, Leona could see the tendril of shadow slither from his hand and over her wrist.

“Say hello to the shadow plague, dear niece.”

“You have the afternoon off, don’t you?” Gil asked Abagail. He tossed the collar she’d been wearing into a chest at the back of the yurt.

Abagail stretched her neck as if she could still feel the cold iron of the collar around her throat. It felt so good to be rid of it.

“I do,” she said.

“Would you like to go get some lunch?” he asked her, closing the lid of the trunk and locking it.

“Sure. I have to meet Leo real fast, and when I’m done she and I can go to lunch with you,” Abagail said.

“I kinda thought maybe it could just be you and me,” Gil said.

“Oh,” Abagail said. She itched the back of her neck feeling awkward as a silence stretched between them.

“Or you can bring Leo if she’s hungry,” Gil said. He smiled at her, but the statement sounded like what it was, a diversion from an awkward question left unanswered. He suddenly found something rather interesting with the hem of his blue shirt and started studying it with furrowed brows.

“Yea, she’s always hungry it seems,” Abagail said. She smiled at him when he looked back up. “But it would be nice to get away from her for a little while. She may be my sister, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have other friends, right?”
What are you doing? Don’t lead him on!

“True,” Gil said. “You’ve done a great job controlling your anger,” he told her.

Abagail tugged the work glove over her infected hand. She was proud to see in the last couple weeks of being in Haven that the shadow plague hard retreated to her palm.

“Maybe one day I can stop wearing this,” she joked.

“That’s possible. Along with learning to control it also comes controlling the spread of the plague from you to others,” he told her.

“You can control who you infect?” Abagail asked.

“Sure,” he nodded. “Darklings not so much, but harbingers definitely can. That’s why you don’t see many of us wearing protective gear over our plagues.”

She grunted. “It doesn’t really matter. I’m just happy I got a reign on my emotions. For a moment I didn’t think I was going to be able to.”

Gil laughed at her. “Come on, Rowan’s a fire-etin. If she can control her anger, you certainly can.”

That brought Abagail up short. Her blank stare greeted Gil.

“Rowan’s what?”

“A fire-etin,” Gil said, crossing his arms over his chest. He frowned at Abagail. “I thought you knew. I thought
everyone
knew.”

“Not me,” Abagail said. She blinked a couple times. “Wow. She’s really from Muspelheim?”

“A dwarf of Muspelheim to be exact. Most fire-etins are giants.”

“So she’s a dwarf giant?” Abagail furrowed her brows.

Gil nodded once.

“So you mean she’s a human?”

Gil laughed at her. “Human sized, but different than a human.”

“Wow, that’s really interesting. People aren’t afraid of her?” Abagail asked. She remembered what Surt had said to the All Father in her last dream. She didn’t think the fire-etin were precisely evil, but it seemed a lot of people did…
even Leona.

“Nah,” Gil waved away her question. “Well, I mean yes, but not because she’s from Muspelheim. Maybe they are too afraid of her attitude to bring up her lineage?”

Abagail laughed at that. “She is rather blunt.”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

“Well, I should go get Leona. Sisterly duty and all. I will meet you back here shortly?”

“Sounds perfect.” Gil smiled at Abagail. She recognized the smile because it was the same type of smile she used to give Rorick. The same smile she felt ghost across her face whenever she was around Skye.

She waved at Gil and rushed out of the yurt into the cloudy day. It was one of the warmer days Haven had seen since Abagail arrived, but the wind did a great job at reminding her that it was still winter.

The stockades were several yards from her class, situated to the right and slightly behind the barracks. There wasn’t a guard on duty outside of the prison, something Abagail thought was strange until she pushed into the main entrance to see a small lobby with a wooden table and two guards situated behind it.

The lobby was well lit with candles and lanterns. The guards were playing a game of dice behind the table, but looked up when she came in.

“My sister Leona is here,” Abagail said.

“Yea, visiting that darklings bastard,” the dark-haired guard said. “She just went in not too long ago.”

“I’m supposed to join her,” Abagail told them, tucking her hands behind her back.

The guard grunted and motioned to the door behind him. He jingled a keyring in his hand and followed Abagail to the door.

The hallway stretched out before her into the darkness. It was wide enough for three people to walk abreast, but Abagail figured that was just so the inmates couldn’t reach a guard walking down the hall.

The door closed behind her, and Abagail jumped.

“Leo?” she called into the darkness, not seeing her sister. She also didn’t see any prisoners.

“Why did you do that?” she heard her sister ask from somewhere ahead, through the darkness.

A cold lump settled in Abagail’s stomach. Dread flooded through her. There was something about the sound of her sister’s voice.

Around her the torches and lamps flickered and danced. As she raced down the hallway, more of the stockade came into view.

“Because you have the hammer and it’s apparent no one else can use it. Now our hope is you will come to our side,” the voice said sweetly.

Abagail pulled to a stop when she saw the figure crouching on the floor to the right. It was Leona, bundled in her wool jacket. She was sitting with her back against a stone column. A torch danced above her sister’s head.

Leona was clasping her left wrist in her right hand. Abagail didn’t want to look at her sister’s hand, but that didn’t matter. She saw the shadow spreading across Leona’s palm all the same.

“Ah, big sister,” Fortarian said. He leaned against the iron bars, his arms handing out of the cell in a relaxed way, as if he’d meant to be in the cell. “Come to join the party?”

“What have you done?” Abagail asked. She stepped between Leona and Fortarian and faced the darkling. “What did you do to her?”

“I just touched her,” Fortarian said with a shrug. “How was I to know that my plague would spread?” A coy smile split his face.

A flush of anger colored Abagail’s cheeks. “You knew what you were doing,” she told him. All around hem flames of the torches flared, raging higher as she took a step closer to him. The darkling’s eyes trained on the torch closets to him, perhaps waiting to see if it would calm down. “You have control over your plague, and you can spread it just as easily as you can control your wyrd.”

“We have to have the hammer,” Fortarian told her. “We must be allowed back into the Ever After.”

But her anger was mounting and she couldn’t hear him. No matter how badly she wanted to find her place of peace, she couldn’t. This wasn’t a class. This wasn’t a lesson. This was real, and this monster had just infected her sister.

Abagail let her glove fall to the ground.

“Abbie, no!” Leona called to her sister.

Abagail didn’t listen to her.

The torches streamed fire toward Abagail, wreathing her feet. The consuming flame answered her call, twining up her legs and around her body. She stood tall, her head back, her hands splayed open before her, commanding the fire as any self-respecting fire bringer would do.

But the fire wouldn’t obey. It ringed her body, flared around her head and soared higher. Abagail opened her eyes and looked to her hands, but she no longer saw flesh. Instead of skin she saw molten rock. Her hands were cracked and glowing red as if she were in the heart of a volcano.

The pain came to her right palm, and she cried out. The shadows rippled up past her wrist and slithered up her arm. She felt the shadow plague go wild, painting itself across her chest, around her neck and over her face. The shadow plague was like rivers of black malaise against the red of her new, rocky skin.

Fortarian stumbled back. His sly smile was no longer there. His mouth was open, but no smart remarks came out. His eyes were wide. His body gave the merest of trembles.

“Your eyes,” he said. “What is wrong with your eyes?”

She felt the wolf inside of her then. She felt the darkling god known as Anthros enter her and whisper into her mind.

Chosen. Together we can be rid of him. Together we can use the fire of your birthright to be free of this parasite. All you have to do is let go.

“No,” she said. She turned her face away from Fortarian, and though the fire now controlled her body, Abagail willed her wyrd to answer. It wouldn’t. It was no longer her wyrd. It was the darkling wyrd within her, taking her over.

“You’re no darkling,” Fortarian said. “Why do you have the eyes of my brother? Why do your eyes glow blue?”

She couldn’t answer. Abagail was trying to force Anthros from her mind.

You’re imprisoned,
she reasoned with the darkling god.

But my chains weaken each day the gods are away from the Ever After.

But they still exist. The All Father is still alive,
Abagail said.
In his name, I command you to leave my body.

There was a bark of laughter in her head. She could almost see the white wolf howling that laughter at a moonless sky.

The All Father disobeyed the rules of the void. He tried to make amends for it, but he’d already allowed me into his body with his transgression of the rules that bind us all. He and I share a common wyrd now. He and I share the same fate.

Helvegr,
Anthros whispered into her mind.

She fought him. Abagail tried to make the fires dim, but her panic that she would lose control of them only made the fires tower higher.

Giving in would be much easier. Just let go Abagail. This is the man who sentenced your sister to death. He deserves to die.

And with that the fires exploded from Abagail.