Chapter 9
Liz
Memories are a funny thing.
For all my life, or at least, as long as I can recall, I’ve had a very vivid memory of being picked up by people I’d never met on the playground at school. They gave me a piece of candy—a KitKat—and then I awoke on a plane. I only knew it was a plane because I’d been on one a few weeks before, on our way to and from Disney World for a family vacation. That flight was quite different from this one, but the altitude changes and the sounds were similar enough I could piece together that it was the same thing.
I recall the agonizingly slow hours I spent tied up, lying with my face smashed on the dirty floor of something other than a normal passenger area of a plane. The fibers of the rope around my wrists chafed. The left side of my face and my left hip, where I’d been lying on the hard floor of the plane, ached, and when I called out, no one answered. At least, not until my cries won me a little container of sticky liquid hastily poured down my throat. Shortly after that, I went back to sleep against my will. When I woke again, I found that I’d wet myself.
I recall almost every moment that I was awake during that ordeal, including when I was hauled up the massive Icelandic mountain and shoved toward the opening in Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano that grounded planes all over Europe when it erupted not long after.
In spite of the details I remembered, the visceral nature of the experience I endured, and the way it was all seared into my brain, when my mom told me about the truth as she knew it, that I was in large part the villain in that story and that in my panic and fear, I had murdered several people, when she told me that there never were any people present at that volcano, chanting. . .
When Mom told me all of that, I started to believe her.
So how sure can I be that my brain didn’t rewrite more details about what happened during that terrible week? How can I be sure that my memories of really any event are reliable? How can anyone trust their memories?
When Axel told me he was willing to let go of his past memories and focus on making memories now, I was relieved. I’d been the one to rob him of them, after all. But the Liz I was a year ago might never have understood the Liz I’ve become today without the very specific set of circumstances that got me here. Heck, without the bizarre dreams I’ve had lately, I would never have even considered that there might be some kind of powerful yet absent semi-deity that created humans as some kind of loneliness-cure-gone-awry.
I’d never have believed that some sky god danced his way past earth and fell for the earth goddess who was busy sculpting tiny humans out of clay, or that he fell in love with her but then couldn’t stay. No, all of it sounds like the dumbest kind of creation myth ever, something early humans made up to explain why they were here in the first place.
And yet, I’m using wings Jörð gave me, and I’m carrying swords she blessed. Everywhere I go, there are more small evidences that point to a very bizarre, very confusing past that I don’t really remember.
Am I Gullveig? Or am I Liz? Or am I both, somehow?
Without her memories, or if I’m only getting glimpses of them piecemeal, am I still her, in my core? I’m mulling over all of this strange stuff in my mind when Azar finally opens a portal to Finland, and a lightning bolt very nearly slams into the side of my head.
“Whoa,” I shout. “What’s going on?”
But then I see it, even if my eyes don’t want to accept the truth. Horned, still somewhat charred beasts, mostly in dragon forms, are attacking the humans and the blessed, and there’s a lot of carnage. Humans ripped in half. Blessed with gaping holes in their stomach, entrails dangling.
I close my eyes and breathe in and out once. Twice.
When I reopen my eyes, Azar’s already plunging into the fray. Normally I’d urge caution, thoughtfulness, but a terrible truth has hit me.
My siblings are here.
While Azar zooms toward the fight, flames already erupting from his mouth, I’m casting around frantically for Gordon, Rufus, Asteria, or Hyperion. Big Red, at least, should be easy to spot. As one of only two flame blessed, he’d surely be a critical target, right? My heart has wedged its way through my ribs and all the way up in my throat, making it hard to breathe, much less think.
I’m looking for them, Azar says. I’m sure they’ll be alright.
I see it then, high above us in the clouds, a fire strike, followed by the shrieking of wind and the cracking of thunder. Thunar or Hyperion, one of them’s up there, and even though they’re fighting, I hope it’s Hyperion, because that probably means Coral’s alright.
Coral, I shout. Jade! Sammy!
Don’t call for them now, Azar says. Even the smallest distraction could leave them vulnerable to attack.
Shoot. I’ve prepared for one-on-one combat, but I know very little about warfare, and certainly not the kind that involves dragons attacking dragons.
But you’re a warrior, Azar reminds me. You have this.
And that’s when it hits me. I’ve spent my whole life training for a moment just like this. It’s why, even when she clearly thought I was a monster, Mom left the kids with me. It’s why she set me free and sent me back to get them. So what if I’m not as accustomed to fighting dragons, and I’m slower with my wings than they are?
This is who I am and what I was born to do—fight.
I lean low over Azar’s shoulder and whisper, “Let’s end this.” And then I launch from his back, but this time I don’t fall to the ground and hand myself over to Gideon. No, this time I’m making a new memory.
I’m not a new flier. I’m not a bumbler. I may not be a genius, but I have body control, and I have swords Jörð gave me to keep earth children safe. I plan to use them for just that.
