Chapter 19
Liz
When I wake, it’s with a gasp.
Axel’s beside me, holding my hand. I want him to hold me, but I also want to run screaming.
“Jörð and Veralden Radien,” I wheeze.
Axel moves closer and runs a hand over the top of my head. “Shh, you’re alright.”
I shake my head. “No, I mean, I’m fine, but it wasn’t a love story. Not at all.”
Axel frowns. “What?”
“I was there,” I say. “I was there. . .at the beginning, I think. I was Kiaga, and I was the first earth child she made.”
“You think that was you? You’re a rebirth of her very first creation?” He blinks. “You did shout Ama from underwater, when you summoned Jörð, I assume, to help the water blessed.”
I shrug. “I really didn’t know what I was saying or doing, and I have no idea whether that was really me. But either way, I got to see what the very first child Jörð made remembered, and it was. . .strange. As Kiaga, I loved only her. I wanted. . .nothing. I was content. We were happy, but I think Ama—who, yes, I believe she was Jörð by a different name—was terribly lonely. And then a comet showed up.” I pull my hand away. “And Axel.” My nostrils flare. The memories, they aren’t mine. They aren’t fresh, but they feel both real and fresh to me in this moment. It makes this hard. “Veralden Radien killed me, and he did it wearing your face.”
Axel’s mouth drops open.
“He was beautiful,” I say. “He shone, and he clearly had powers of light, fire, ice, darkness, electricity, all of it.” I shiver. “He was power and fury. There was no warmth or caring inside him at all.”
“He killed you?” Axel swallows. “So to you, it felt like I killed you?”
“Azar,” I say. “He wore your Azar face.”
“Weird,” Axel says. “Really weird.” He stands. “He really looked like me?”
I shake a little, hoping to shake off my lingering sense of unease. “I mean, the eyes were different, and he had like, an energy trail. It wasn’t exactly the same as you, but he was shaped like a dragon, and his head shape and whatnot, it was almost just like Azar’s.” I pause.
“What?” Axel asks. “Do I repulse you now because someone who looked like me killed you?”
I shake my head. “No, but I just remembered something.” I bite my lip, trying to remember the exact phrasing Freya used. “Your mother said something to me in the volcano the last time I went in.” I frown. “I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t, but maybe it will help us make sense of the Veralden Radien thing. She asked me why we used two names for you—Azar and Axel.”
“Because I take two forms. I had to pretend to be two different creatures, and for all intents and purposes, I was.”
“I told her basically the same thing. I am Liz, but I’m also Gullveig. And Gullveig started as Gyda.”
He nods. “Okay.”
“Here’s where it got weird,” I say. “She said, ‘But my son’s not two people. He’s lived one life,’ or something like that. Then she said, ‘He’s one person with two faces.”
“Two faces?” Axel frowns. “What does that mean?”
I drop my hand on his arm. “Wait, she didn’t say two faces, she said two masks, and that feels relevant. Why would she say you had two masks?” I shake my head. “I mean, you had two completely different forms, and really.” I poke his shoulder. “If you include this one, you had three.”
He laughs. “But at that time, I just had the two. This one was gone, right?”
I nod. “Yeah, that’s right I guess.”
“Two masks.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what that means, or why I have both forms. I’ve never understood it.”
I sigh slowly. “I’m not sure why or how, but I feel like this is all connected somehow.”
“Do you think it’s part of some message from Jörð?”
