Her brows pinched. Her back straightened at the unforeseen turn.
“Don’t come back to the Royal Court. That said, I expect we’ll see each other, whether in the mortal realm, among the infernal, or in another pantheon. I want you to understand the grace I’m giving you with my warning.”
The clouds ceased. There was only black as Izi stared up at me.
“I don’t care if I’m visiting a pantheon in a royal capacity, if I’m undercover behind enemy lines, if I’m simply listening to a harpist with my father in the Royal Court…” A light chuckle. Her skin blanched as hate blackened my eyes.
“The next time you see me: run.”
Chapter Twenty
1060 ADE
Adrenaline’s metallic prickle filled my veins.
I rolled onto the balls of my feet, eyes wide, ready to run.
An incomprehensible clash of fire, finger-painted smear of warpaint over pale skin, screams, the high clang of weapons and a flash of white-gold braids swarmed to my right. Frigid wine and ice blew from my left, swelling with the staccato slapping of saltwater against anchored, wooden ships. Seaworthy vessels burned, ornate dragon-heads smoldering, the air reeked with the putrid melding of rotting corpse, burning hair, and fishy stink of salted cod as it fell from drying rods, curling into briny dust among the ash.
Love, where the hell are you?
Electric tendrils cut through the snow as a lightning bolt doomed a thatched roof to join the flames.
Mountains.
Sea.
Ice.
Thunder.
This had to be the Nordes. I looked to the sky for Thor’s fabled lightning. I spied the peeling paint on a fallen shield as Yggdrasil, the Nordic tree of life, sizzled and popped.
And if so, I’d landed amidst the Vikings. The rise to power had been a flash in the pan, and if this was any indication…another in a long line of short but impactful peoples, and not the least of my worries.
The tether that bound us didn’t pull me to the smoldering huts or the ships that succumbed to slate gray waters. I scoured the sheer cliffs, the moss, the trees, the very clouds and the relentless god who rained his white blaze of explosive fire and destruction upon the village.
“Where are you?”
I was here for a reason. Someone knew where she was.
What did I know of the Nordic fae? Their trolls were infamous. Their skosgrå, beautiful, nymph-like entities, were renowned for their beauty. If Thor was preoccupied, then someone,something, had to know where she was.
I could have laughed my relief when I spied a bipedal puff of smoke. I scooped the shadow as it neared, squeezing the member of my legion by a tendril.
“You brought me here, right? Explain yourself.”
“We were only tasked to find?—”
I could separate the fizzle of its throat from the rest of its body with a single, furious pinch. I had no patience for excuses. I bared my teeth. “What’s happening?!”
“The collapse!” It sputtered to relay a message as information poured in from hundreds of its counterparts. “She’s here, Sire, but the people, the village, the nation?—”
Another flick of pressure and I’d smite it where it stood.
“Speak!”
It was spared by the first pair of eyes that grinned at me through the veil.
