Keeper of the Norns Page 2

  The roaring aquatics were daunting. The fact that I couldn’t see the bottom of the water, even more so. I hadn’t heard any splats, but to be honest, I could barely hear my own thoughts over the waterfall.

  A battle cry came from behind me. A burst of adrenaline shot through me and I whirled around to confront it. Something bit into my chest. It sunk so deep that I screamed before I even realized I was doing so. Zaphori stood before me, teeth bared and empty handed -now that her spear was lodged in me. Any other time, I would have been livid, but I think part of me was proud of her. Proud of the fact that she had made some attempt to save or avenge her sister.

  “You’re a good lass.” I whispered, coughing up something warm and metallic. My balance was stolen, and the water washed me through the eternities.

  Chapter Four

  Falling Into What

  Zhenni

  I was so engrossed in that stupid game and listening to her prattle that I hadn’t even noticed we weren’t alone. I went from planning my next move to being swept up by three blonde heathens. Two of them had braided masses that draped down their back, but the third, his hair hung loose. It fell in a curtain of platinum that contrasted the dark stubble on his face. He smiled often, a predatory flash of teeth, that usually accompanied a chorus of filth.

  He had barked orders and chased after Zaphori. A large calloused hand snatched me, and I was flung about. The smaller, stockier of the braided men was trying to talk the aggressive one down. Arms ensnared me, and just that fast, I was free falling. I tried to scream, but water silenced me.

  The fall seemed to carry us for endless miles, each of them brought another vision of doom before me. I saw the first annihilation. The misery, hate, and devastation that my mortal children wrecked upon each other. I realized half way down the fall, that I was likely being flushed away by my own tears. How long had I been hidden behind the waterfall of sadness?

  A second eternity, that’s how long.

  It flashed just like the first. The diseases, pretenders, and the final explosive bang knocked the wind from me. I sucked in manically, only to realize… the air was dry.

  I rolled to my side, coughing and sputtering to clear my lungs. My fingers met a flat, scratchy stone surface.

  I nearly jumped up, and likely would have if the larger of the two braided men hadn’t planted a massive hand on my shoulder. How in all the worlds had I leapt into a waterfall of my own tears and landed on a rock?

  My hands skimmed down my arms and legs. They ached, but everything worked. Disbelief rattled me, compelling a careful inventory of my hair and neck.

  “You’re safe. I’m sorry, my brothers are thoughtless sometimes,” the stockier one rambled. His hand awkwardly shot down in my direction. The one holding me grumbled before the weight of his hand left my shoulder. I recoiled from his touch and stood up between them.

  “For the love of all that is sacred, he thinks he’s found himself a woman,” the aggressor laughed. “Alexavier, we don’t have time for this.”

  The stockier one, Alexavier, turned to face him. They both had blue eyes. Alexavier’s lit up with passion and just enough green to remind me of the sea. The ones staring back at him held a soulless indifference that both intrigued and chilled me. Just a glimpse into them made me instinctively shift toward Alexavier.

  “Please.” I whispered, “I don’t know what Life has paid you…”

  “Life?” Alexavier repeated, somewhat dumbfounded.

  He was smaller than the other two, but still a good head taller than me. His jaw was strong, and who ever shaved the man had done a wonderful job lining up his shadow of a beard. My palm begged to skim over his beautiful face, perhaps an internal urge for distraction, but the other braided man nudged my shoulder.

  “What do you know of Adira?” he asked.

  “Thorne,” Alexavier chided. He brushed the area his brother had bumped and assisted me until I was more beside him than between the pair. “She’s a lady.”

  “There are no Ladies in Nastrond,” the vile-mouthed one sang around a laugh. His chin lifted in challenge to the younger one. The silent gesture caused everything in me to freeze.

  “Nastrond? Nastrond… like the Heathen Hell?”

  “Hell?” Thane laughed. “I went there once, for a vacation. Well, I tried to.” He sucked in air through his teeth and shook his head. “They said I was the son of the Alfather and unwelcomed. You think that waterfall was something… try smelling your own hair frying on the way out.”

  As if to emphasize his words, the vile one smoothed his hair and started preening.

  “Tragic. I’m sure. How do I get home?” I demanded, whirling about to face the trio one at a time. The abrupt ignition of my anger startled everyone. Fueled by frustration, I stepped toward the man who was now inspecting his chest.

  “Your sister has good aim…” He snorted.

  “Thane,” Thorne warned from behind me

  “Not good enough, apparently,” I quipped. I had no business facing off with the man. I was the Goddess of Love, not Valor, and certainly not War. I was a compassionate, warm, nonviolent individual, and yet I felt a cool satisfaction in knowing that Zaphori had hurt him. My gaze roamed proudly over him in search of damage, but I found nothing that suggested imminent demise.

  “I hear cats have nine lives, how many do you expect I get?” He laughed, pulling his shirt aside. Over his heart, a jagged bright red scar appeared freshly healed. He made eye contact with me and ran his finger over it before shooting a suggestive wink.

  “I’m sure there’s not a great deal of difference in the life afforded to pussies and that afforded to pretenders,” I mused.

  His face fell, and he stormed past me without a word. I turned to find Alexavier and Thorne watching with matching smirks.

  “The insult to his ego might have held more bite than the blow your sister delivered,” Alexavier predicted. He smothered a laugh until it was nothing but a provocative noise in his throat. Amusement danced in his beautiful blue-green eyes, and dimples pathed the way to a smile. He took his long, dark cloak off and fashioned it over me before leading the way toward a high-set tavern in the distant hills.

  For a moment I couldn’t move, my feet plastered in place. The man’s back was littered with wild looking snake-like scars. They were painful to even appreciate from a distance.

  Thorne nudged my shoulder and I absently began to follow. What else could I do? There wasn’t much chance the rock was going to swallow me back home.

  Thorne

  Who needed a village fool when you had brothers like mine?

  Thane the Vain and Alexavier were my reason for existence. They were all I had left, perhaps all I ever truly had. It’d been so many lifetimes, I’m not even sure anymore that the faces in my dreams belonged to our parents. So many faces over the centuries, so damn many.

  I was the weaver of the past. I could have easily looked at the quilt or closed my eyes and forced history back to surface, but it was too painful with Mother and Father. I refused to look at the first few threads of the Quilt of Life. I become queasy even when contemplating it. I was the only one that remembered the sacrificial ceremony that brought us here. We were betrayed, by our people. Both the village and our parents.

  An honor, they had called it, but the term curse would have been more appropriate.

  For all the honor deemed, we were rewarded with a place most people avoided uttering. Nastrond, for better or worse, was our home. That horrid tavern puts a chill through everyone, but it’s worse for me. It isn’t just the buildings profound lack of heat that makes my bones ache and my body shiver, it’s the memory of waking up in the damnable place on that last day. Every morning, the memories rushed back to me, haunting me with excruciating knowledge.

  I led our small group up the dirt and underbrush path. It had been trodden enough to leave a compressed walkway, but it was still treacherous if one wasn’t familiar with the terrain. I forgot about it until Zhenni screeched behind me
. She could have put an owl to shame. I whirled about to locate her and was forced to either catch her or collide with the airborne woman. I opened my arms and her weight landed haphazardly against me. A mass of ginger hair and violent swatting proceeded to hail over me. She twisted and turned until I wasn’t sure if we were fighting or righting each other.

  “Fine. I am fine!” she insisted, setting her jaw and glaring at me. Laughter crawled out, I couldn’t help it. She was knee high to a piss ant and trying desperately to look ferocious, with her chin tucked and her eyes narrowed.

  “Great. Does this mean I can trust my ass to you without it being fawned over again?” I asked.

  Her head popped up, her eyes went wide, I even managed to leave her jaw hanging slack.

  “Fawn...I was not fawning,” she stammered. The woman’s cheeks grew brighter than her hair. “And certainly not over your ass!”

  I left her to compose herself, my focus having already returned to the path ahead.

  The forest grew thicker and the trail steeper, until at last, we arrived. On the right, stood our tavern. To the left, a dreary circle of thatch roofed houses announced the rest of the village. It looked as cold and welcoming as the dark beings that occupied this most sacred of cursed places.

  “Are you coming inside, or will you be taking up your own campfire?” Thane taunted.

  I turned to find her frozen in place once again. Her vivid green eyes glossed over with tears and turbulence. I had never seen eyes so beautiful, nor a woman’s soul bared so clearly.

  No wonder she was the Goddess of Love.

  Chapter Five

  No Guts No Glory

  Alexavier

  Thorne took the hill like we were in a relay race. I still wasn’t sure if the big lug did it on purpose or not. Part of me was a little jealous that it was he who had caught her; the other half was relieved that he had. Why did I care? Why did I always give Thane the ammunition that often led to my being taunted?

  “Are you okay, Goddess?” I asked, once we reached the tavern. I moved to the side and shoved the thick ancient door open for her. The wood screeched over its bolt in protest and caused Zhenni to startle. I couldn’t do much about the chilled air or the stale stench that lingered from the copious amounts of liquor.

  She wrapped her long slender arms around herself, drawing my attention to the raised goosebumps that covered her flesh.

  “Fine. I’ll be fine. Thank you,” she managed, before finally meeting my gaze. She still hadn’t committed to crossing the threshold, and I could see Thane losing his patience behind her. That scowl could have been read from yards away.

  “Please let me show you to your room. You can get settled in, and then we can talk.” I tried to reach for her shoulder, but she scampered ahead into the tavern. It was the end goal, but the fear in her eyes when she dodged my touch crushed me. We may have lived in Nastrond, but I liked to think of myself as more than the monsters I surrounded myself with. I hoped I was, at least.

  “This way.” I mumbled, weaving around the stage in the corner. I threw the door beside it open and took the stairs two at a time, hoping it encouraged her to keep moving as well.

  At the top of the stairs, another door led to the balcony. Though I traveled the length and stopped in front of the guest room, the patter of her steps had stopped shortly after the entrance.

  “Wha- what are those?” she asked. Her amber eyes were wide, and her lips danced silently over air.

  Below us, the residents of Nastrond stared up at the newest addition. Her wholeness, the life and energy in her, stirred all of them. It was obvious. The sloppy, drawn-out slurping and bizarre eye contact announced their appraisal. Some even blew her kisses.

  “They...they’re fucking hideous,” she whispered.

  Laughter rang from me despite my attempts to conceal it. I wasn’t ready to leave her offended just yet—I wasn’t Thane, after all. I tipped my head towards the door, but her attention had already shifted to the back corner of the balcony. Thane’s weaving area.

  His long, free-hanging locks were already dip-dyed with the evidence of our thread. Even if it hadn’t been, there was a bucket of intestines hanging over him. Lengths of it spilled over the side, preventing any denial.

  Her knees buckled, and a breathy sound echoed when I broke her fall.

  “Zhenni?” I panicked. For some reason, I didn’t want Thane mocking her, nor have Thorne fawning over her. I wanted it to be me. I was compelled to hoard her safely away to myself.

  With my arms locked around her, I dragged her toward the bed. Thorne always made it seem so easy when he saved them. Fuck, how was I going to get her on the damn bed? I turned to our side, but quickly realized it would leave me bending lewdly over her. I sighed and threw a knee onto the bed. I jerked her back and tried to bring my other leg up. We started to weave. I gasped behind her before we collapsed onto the mattress. Her weight settled over my arm. Not for long, though; she wasted no time in rolling to confront me.

  Her eyes snapped so wide, I thought she might die of fright. Something exploded with a loud, deafening crack against my upper cheek and ear. I closed my eyes, and turned my head toward the pillow, trying to thrust myself away from her. I wasn’t quick enough. The sting set twice more over my face and once against my forearms before I half-rolled and mostly danced out of bed. Well, fell would be the more appropriate term.

  My ass connected hard with the floor, and my brothers guffawed from the door like a pair of heathen hyenas.

  “Fuck both of you, too!” she shrieked, waving her tiny fist in the air. Her cheeks were flushed, and that wild fiery hair was a gorgeous mess.

  Zhenni

  Indignation and anger coursed through me, until I cursed everything, including myself. It took a moment to get my bearings again. The chorus of giggles in the doorway and the man sprawled across the floor before me were not helping the matter. The recollection of that light-headed feeling and the darkness that followed slowly came back to me. Along with the reason of why it had occurred.

  I stared unblinking at Thane. His hands were covered in red. Alexavier’s palm skimmed along my cheek. The shock of it was still fresh, and my body naturally moved with him. Even if I kept my attention and focus on the man in my peripheral.

  “That… that was intestines…” I babbled. I tried to pull back when a sudden flash of panic was tossed past my heart and anchored in my stomach. It doubled me, but Alexavier was fast, he swooped me up. Which only provoked another fit of giggles from Thane.

  “We’ll leave you to it, stud,” Thorne taunted, shutting the door.

  My pulse raced. I was alone with a strange man. A man who was involved with gut...weavers.

  “Norns!” I charged, my voice lowered to a gasp as the reality of it set in. “You guys are Norns.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved, repulsed, or terrified. What the fuck did they want with me?

  Alexavier’s full lips parted, and the tip of his tongue snaked over them. Rather than deny or explain, he merely nodded to confirm my suspicions. “Yes. We are the Norns of Nastrond. Thorne, Thane, and Alexavier.”

  “Great. I’m Zhenni, someone who has no business with you. Why am I here? Why did you take me? And how am I to get home?” I had meant to quip back, possibly bully him, but the more questions I voiced, the more rapid and desperate sounding they came. “Did you enjoy taking advantage of me? Is this how you lot get your rocks—”

  “I... hey.” He attempted a chuckle, but it was awkward and hollow. “I’m sorry. For the strategy my brothers had. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you. You fainted, and I was helping you…” His hand waved before it dropped down, landing at his side with a rejected, muffled swat.

  “Why don’t you get your rest, like I said… and we can talk in the morning.” He backed away and hurried out the door.

  I was so livid, I couldn’t even stand straight. My body weaved, and my hands clenched, but what could I do? Take on three Heathens the size of tree trun
ks and the mob of monsters they were responsible for? Even if I did, how would I get back? I hated him for it, but he was right.

  I needed sleep. I needed a plan.

  Thane

  I was surprised to see Alexavier still passed out with his head on the table. To be honest, I figured he would be sleeping on the floor beside Zhenni’s bed like some pitiful love-struck puppy. That’s exactly what he looked like yesterday.

  I leaned over the balcony and put a finger over my lips, warning the server below not to disturb us and started around the balcony. Each groan of the aged boards stilled me. It made me sympathize momentarily with the rebellious teenagers whose fates I often weaved.

  I should have turned back. I still could.

  Who was I jesting? No, the fuck I couldn’t.

  That door handle called to me like the sweetest of carnal sirens. I hadn’t slept much last night, but the few hours I had were spent dreaming of her. The woman with the smoldering honey eyes and hair that burned so bright.

  I held my breath and opened the door ever so hesitantly.

  When I saw what lay inside, I forgot to exhale. Across the pristine white sheets and mountain of pillows, the Goddess’ knee was brought up mid belly. It made her bottom blossom until the covers had started to spill from it. A glorious sight. It was a sign. It had to be.

  I stood there, inhaling and exhaling. Taking in the wildflower and sunshine scent of her. Sweet. Warm. Promising, just like that smile of hers. I blinked, and somehow, I was beside her. Just like the door, my palm itched to touch her. I bit my lip and fought the urge. My hand trembled and started the journey for her shoulder.

  I couldn’t, could I? We needed her! What sliver of a conscience I had left warred for reason, if only for my own benefit. My fingers spread. I could feel the charged air between our flesh. Until I snuffed it almost entirely out. I closed my eyes and called on everything that was sacred. I don’t know why I did it. It isn’t like the universe would even bother to waste spit on us.