Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (26 page)

Tyr bristled, and I reached over to put a
hand on his arm. “Don’t bite. She’s trying to goad you.”

“Oh, am I?” Hel took a step toward us.
Nidhogg shifted his weight as she moved. His eyes darted between
the crystal and his mistress. No doubt he’d been ordered to protect
them both.

Hel flicked a finger and a group of
ikkedød
flew from their horde. Most descended on Tyr, who
lunged with his broadsword and made violent jabs at his attackers,
but one flung itself at me. I dove out of the way, drawing my
dagger from my boot as I rolled away from Tyr. When the demon
passed over me again I jabbed at its decaying thigh, but it was too
fast. It whirled in a tight circle, creating a vortex above my
forehead that felt kind of like the Bifrost, but a
lot
more
uncomfortable. Instead of feeling like my bones were being sucked
out of my body, I felt like my very essence was trying to escape.
The thing was stealing the life right out of me.

Oh,
skit
.

“Arugh!” I let out a cry as I rolled again.
My blade swiped blindly at my attacker as I flipped my body over
and over.

“Brynn, move back toward Tyr,” Henrik called
out. My eyes flew open. The
ikkedød
continued to swirl above
me, and I had the horrible feeling it was going to win.

But I didn’t feel like dying today. And I
knew Henrik had a plan.

Despite the overwhelming suction pulling me
back, I used my fingertips to claw across the icy floor. In my haze
I saw Tyr swinging at the horde closing in on him. Moving
closer
to a group of the soul-suckers seemed like a bad
idea, but Henrik had never let me down.

I really hoped he’d keep that streak
running.

“Now drop!” Henrik shouted.

I watched Tyr fall to the ground in front of
me, just before something large and heavy flew at me from behind.
The smell of sunshine overpowered the stench of decay as Henrik
covered my body with his. A whoosh of air gusted overhead and
deafening shrieks filled my head. I pressed my cheek to the ice,
looking up just in time to see the remaining
ikkedød
sucked
into a tiny black box. The vacuum rattled in protest, then fell
neatly into Henrik’s outstretched palm.

“Very nice.” I panted. I felt dizzy from lack
of oxygen. Henrik pushed himself off me, holding out a hand to help
me up. But before I could take it I was wrenched away, pulled by an
invisible force along the length of the hallway to Hel’s side. She
slid one long fingernail under my chin and let out a quiet
laugh.

“So young.” Hel sighed. “You’ll make a lovely
handmaiden.”

“I don’t think so, sister.” I raised my
dagger to gauge her creepy silver eyes out, but the blade dropped
from my grip and my hand froze over my head. My other hand flew up
to meet it, so my wrists were stuck together. “What the
Helheim?”

“Precisely.” Hel waved her hand and my ankles
slammed together, the shock of bone on bone sending a wave of pain
through me. My wrists and ankles burned, as if they were being
seared by an invisible rope.

“Arugh!” I cried out as Hel flung me against
the wall, binding me to the stone with another unseen tie across my
forehead. It burned, but I’d felt worse. I assessed the room from
my new vantage point as I attempted to breathe through the pain.
Freya was right in front of me, seemingly catatonic in her icy
prison. Hel stood to my left, entirely too pleased with the howl of
fury coming from Tyr as he battled another wave of
ikkedød
.
The dragon was on her other side, stroking the glowing crystal like
it was his firstborn. And at the end of the hall, Henrik charged.
His eyes seethed fury as he bore down on Hel like an enraged
bull.

Gods, I loved his angry face.

“You killed my favorite guard. I think I’ll
kill you myself.” Hel tilted her head to study Henrik’s approach,
then shifted her gaze when Tyr let out another roar. The war god
eliminated the last of his attackers, and turned on Hel with tight
eyes and bared teeth. “Nidhogg, handle the halfling for me, won’t
you?”

I fought against the ties that actually bound
me… in Helheim… behind a dragon. Things were
so
not looking
good.

Nidhogg gave the crystal a longing look as he
flapped his enormous wings and took to the air. He soared down the
hall, passing over Tyr as he ran behind Henrik, then doubling back
to attack from behind. His claws raked the icy floor, which
trembled at the violent contact. A fissure formed where his talon
scraped, traveling along the length of the hall until it reached
Tyr. With a snap, the fissure became a full-on crack, forcing the
war god to fling himself to one side to avoid falling in. As my
friend slid across the slick surface, Nidhogg dove again, clutching
the god in his talons and chucking him against the wall. Tyr slid
to the ground, blood seeping from his cheek.

So,
so
not good.

Henrik bore down on Hel, taking advantage of
her momentary distraction to drive the blade of his dagger through
her chest. She pulled her eyes away from Nidhogg in surprise before
wrapping bony fingers around Henrik’s arms and throwing him off.
She withdrew the blade from her chest and threw it at the wall like
she was playing a game of darts. She looked down and frowned.

“You tore my favorite shirt.” She pouted. She
wasn’t even bleeding.

“Son of a—”

Hel let out a giddy laugh. “Darlings, I rule
the underworld. Did you think you could
kill
me?”

I tugged at my bindings again, but the
movement did nothing but intensify the burning sensation.
Frustration bubbled in my chest as I realized my position. Henrik
and I were supposed to be a team. And at the moment I was of
absolutely
no
use to him.

This place seriously sucked.

“So blades won’t hurt you.” Henrik countered
Hel’s predatory circle. “I’m guessing fire’s not a big deal
either.”

“No.” Hel’s lips stretched into a cruel
smile.

“Hmm. Then I guess the only thing I’ve got up
my sleeve is this.” Henrik whipped Barney out of his pocket.

“And that is?” Hel studied her fingernails in
apparent boredom. Behind her, an extremely angry dragon hovered
over a semi-conscious Tyr.

“A little something that levels the playing
field.” Henrik gave me a wink. Then pulled the satchel of breakdown
powder from his pocket with one hand and fired Barney with the
other. The room rippled as the device emitted the wave we’d
programmed to freeze time. Henrik leapt at Hel, preparing to apply
the powder to her time-frozen body. It would only disable those
protective enchantments she’d cast on herself—it wouldn’t
extinguish the spells she’d cast on me and Freya. But it was our
best shot… and the only one we had left.

Gods, I hoped this worked.

I HELD MY BREATH
as the ripple moved
toward me and time froze. The next instant, Henrik stood at my
side, a grin as wide as the chasm in the floor across his face.

“Point, Asgard.” He chuckled. “I’d high five
you, but you’re still stuck to the wall. Sorry about that;
apparently Barney has a shorter functionality time in the field
than we planned for. I’ll just cut you down—”

He was interrupted by an angry monster
flinging herself onto his back.

“What. Did. You. Do?” Hel shrieked, turning a
palm on Henrik in a vain attempt to shoot a spell.

“The breakdown powder did its job. You’re
incapable of producing new magic. It looks like you have to fight
hand to hand. And sorry, sweetheart, but that’s my strength. Not
yours.” Henrik reached around and flung Hel to the ground. She
scrambled to her feet, then launched herself at Henrik’s ankles. He
landed on the ice with a sickening crack. My stomach clenched as
blood seeped from his head.

“No,” I whispered. I fought against my
bindings with every ounce of strength I had, but it wasn’t enough.
Hel’s entrapment was too strong. I’d spent my life training for
this very moment—to protect Asgard, Midgard, and all the realms in
between from the unspeakable horrors Hel’s dominion would bring. To
ensure Freya’s all-encompassing love was always available for those
beings that chose to embrace it. To make sure nobody ever suffered
the pain of losing someone they loved to the darkness.

Nobody like
me
.

As if sensing my thoughts, Henrik lifted
himself from the pool of blood. As he launched himself at Hel, he
spoke directly to me. “Come on,
sötnos
. Do it for Anja.”

And though the words were barely more than a
whisper, they traveled through my ear and pierced my heart,
unleashing emotions I’d fought so hard to check. Henrik, more than
anyone, understood the pain of losing my sister. After the ninth
day of Freya’s first disappearance, the mortals had turned on each
other. History wrote it off as another war, but it was so much
worse than that. The mortals hadn’t been able to help themselves.
An energy vacuum just wasn’t sustainable, and a realm void of love
must necessarily fill itself with energy of another kind.

The darkness was only too happy to take
over.

I whipped my head from side to side, fighting
Hel’s invisible restraints. Dark magic was powerful; I knew that.
But hers was stronger than anything I’d encountered. It burned at
my forehead, wrists and ankles—each spot the evil ties touched. My
movement loosened the ties enough that I could shift my head to see
Freya’s crumpled form. She lay crouched, shaking under the weight
of her curse. Her shoulders were hunched and her normally glossy
hair was stringy with sweat and tears. The sight of the powerful
Goddess of Love beaten into submission was heartbreaking. Freya’s
gift was the most powerful thing in all the realms. My sister had
known that. And she’d chosen to give her life fighting for it.

On the ground, Freya whimpered, a sound of
hopelessness that pelted my already bruised heart. I closed my eyes
and for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to
remember.

Anja was sent to Midgard as a young Norn.
Because she was kind and pure and knew the importance of love in
shaping a realm, she was tasked early on with prophesying the fates
of human babies and setting them on the path to finding their
perfekt
match. When Freya was kidnapped, most of the Norns
fled their posts and returned to the safety of Asgard. Not Anja.
Although she knew the mortals were taken with darkness, Anja chose
to stay behind. She was alone and largely defenseless as she
traveled from home to home, laying blessings on the human newborns
and imbedding the choices that would lead them to their true loves
deep within their subconscious. She believed humans’ innate
goodness would overcome the darkness, and that one day the world
would again be beautiful; full of hope; full of love. Just as she
was.

Freya was rescued on the eleventh day. A bomb
killed my sister on the tenth.

I squeezed my eyes harder to stop the
moisture seeping out. The mortals hadn’t known some of their bombs
were infused with dark magic, just as my parents hadn’t known my
sister had stayed behind—they’d believed she was on lockdown in the
Norns’ Asgardian compound, enhancing the protection of Yggdrasil,
the world tree that linked all nine realms. But I’d known where
Anja was. She’d sent me a message and asked me not to tell my
parents she’d stayed behind to serve the mortals. I could have
betrayed her confidence—told them where she was and made them
evacuate her. But I trusted Anja knew what she was doing. In her
message, she told me she was aware of the risks of remaining on
Midgard, and chose to stay for the good of humankind. That was
love. That was
ære
. And
that
was what we fought
for.

My eyelids flew open as I let out a wail. The
trickle of emotions within lapped at my heart, and for the first
time in years I did the unthinkable.

I released my
perfekt
control, and
with it the shackles of fear. In that moment, I chose love.

I hoped it would be enough.

Asgardians are taught there are two choices
in life—act from fear, or act from love. Since my sister’s death,
all of my decisions had come from fear—fear of physically or
emotionally losing someone I loved; fear of losing myself; fear of
letting my family down; fear of losing control. Every choice, no
matter how minute, was made based on fear. And where had it gotten
me? Shackled in Hel’s lair, watching the love of my existence bleed
out in the icy underworld, while the realms’ chance at survival
wept in a cage.

Fear wasn’t exactly working out for me.

But love… love offered the world. As I closed
my eyes and purged the years of fear into the bowels of Hel’s inner
sanctum, I shed layers of agony that weighed so heavily it was a
wonder I’d ever withstood their weight. The fear left in layers,
and I felt the magnitude of each as it passed through my
consciousness—the pain at losing my sister mixed with the
humiliation at Henrik’s rebuff, the frustration at the restraints
of the valkyrie structure, and the loneliness I felt knowing it
could be years before I truly experienced the love my kind fought
daily to protect. But as the negative emotions ebbed from my heart,
I released them from my body and opened myself to love. And I was
filled with an overwhelming lightness that made my skin vibrate and
my hands shake. I clung to the sensation, zeroing in on the first
love I’d ever known—my love for my parents, my brother, and Anja.
The golden memories of my beautiful childhood glowed inside of me
like a pristine sunrise. Then I opened my mind to the love that
graced my life in the years that had followed; my love for Elsa,
Freya, and later Mia—the friends who blessed my heart in the
simplest ways; my love for Tyr, Forse, Gunnar—guys whose gentle
heckling reminded me someone was always looking out for me. As I
thought of each drop of love that had touched my life, the fire
inside burned brighter so my heart felt it had erupted in a flame
equal in strength to a star’s glow.