You are half Elven… Pull on the resources around you.
An oily sensation grew heavier in her stomach as her father's words echoed in her mind. Reluctantly, she turned her focus toward the plant life that wound its way up the trees. Their energy was a bright light in the darkness of her mind, the soft green haze of their presence already feeding her blood as she tapped into their cells.
It wasn't until hergalderstarted to swell with power that she realized she didn't need to take too much from the energy around her, just stay connected to the invisible life force of the forest. As her friends slowly sheathed their weapons and checked in with each other for injury, Maude internally explored the different types of energy she could pull from.
She bounced from plant life to small animals that lie hidden in the crevices of the forest their eyes could not reach until hergalderfound them to the dangling Flame Soldiers who thrashed from where she hung them with her shadows. Each person radiated energy— the type she was familiar with, pure physical strength— except when she started to pull from them, she could feel whatevergalderthey possessed being funneled with it.
Roaring power surged in her veins as she absorbed their power— wind and flame swirled in the very center of her being in a jumble, each element feeding the other until she knew her skin burned with the power of the Flame Soldiers'galder. A deep rumble began to form in her chest as she started to succumb to the power in herveins that crackled with the desire to be used. Her fingers flickered with flames as sparks began to catch from the excess fire in her blood.
Is this what Vilde has been trying to do with the prisoners from Logi?Maude wondered as she instantly cut off the connection with each soldier. As soon as the connection was severed, thegalderin her blood that was connecting to theirs grew quiet.
"Maude? Did you hear me?"
Dahlia's voice cut through the haze of all that power leaving her as suddenly as it had appeared.
"What?"
"I asked if you were injured?" Dahlia repeated, her voice calm but her eyes cautious as she approached her.
"No, I'm fine," Maude replied, shaking off the growing sense of anger toward the Elven that didn't belong to her.
She closed her eyes and placed her fingers on her temples, the headache growing behind her temples beginning to throb like the mornings she woke up after drinking too much mead. Rage, cold and furious, bloomed in her the longer she tried to massage the headache from her temples. If someone were speaking to her, she couldn't make out the words. A buzzing had taken up in her ears, the sound drowning out any other noise until she vibrated with it.
Soft, warm hands replaced hers on her forehead. From either side of her head, a warmth spilled into her that chased the growing frigid wrath that was taking up residence in her mind. The soothing wave made her knees buckle as relief spilled into her, her hands going to her thighs to keep her up until strong arms enveloped her waist.
"She's almost done,minn eldr." A voice like raindrops on still water trickled into her ears, cutting the buzzing sound off until calm replaced it. "You're doing so well."
Chills ran down her spine as she arched into the steady presence behind her that she knew as well as her own body.
"She's fighting me, but I almost have her back," Dahlia said between her teeth, her struggle clear in how her hands shook over her skin.
All at once, Maude's mind was her own again.
On stronger legs than before, Maude rose to her full height as she opened her eyes. Only Dahlia, Bryn, and Herrick stood with her as Hakon and the rest of the Elven soldiers went from soldier to soldier and sliced their throats open. Blood flowed in fountains of gore to the forest ground, where the trees would inevitably soak up their unceremonious deaths.
The Elven healer looked shaken, her skin paler than her usual sun-kissed bronze. When Maude opened her mouth to ask what the Hel had just happened, Dahlia only turned away and began helping the other Elven with the final elimination of the threat. Next, she turned to her sister, expecting her sister to spout off an opinion about what just happened or scold her for being so reckless with hergalderthat she was close to what appeared a burnout. Only Bryn had left with Dahlia and went to work silencing the Flame Soldiers.
Something slithered in her gut as she watched each Elven glance at her over their shoulders and how Bryn and Dahlia were working hard to avoid her eye.
Turning to Herrick, the one person who would always tell her the truth, she paused when she saw how he was watching her. His face was stoic—the blood splatter and sweat mixing on his face stark against his skin as he clenched his square jaw. The same look he had after his ritual was complete had returned to his golden stare—bright and frozen.
Sure that he knew what she wanted to ask him, Maude waited patiently for the ice to break over his exterior. But when it finally had, Hakon motioned over to her and Herrick to join him, so rather than say whatever it was he was about to reveal, they joined the Rivers Heir in silence. As they walked side by side, their effortless dodging of dead or dying soldiers became an unknown dance they each knew well. The silence between them stretched again.
The slithering sensation in her gut started to make itself known again as her heart began to race.
Fear— that was what Maude was feeling underneath her cool mask that she'd worn for years. Fear for whatever was happening to her because she didn't know how to stop it.
Herrick tried to swallow but found his throat had gone dry after watching Dahlia try to pull Maude back from whatever was possessing her. He had his suspicions, but none of them were any good. After Hildr had revealed that the other gods have a chance to interfere with someone's fate, it all became very clear to him why Tyr had appeared so often in his life.
From the stories their nurse used to tell them when they were younglings to the rigid sense of morality he'd felt his entire life, all of it pointed to the god of war and justice.
War was threatening to descend in his lifetime— how appropriate it was that he was General of Rivers.
When he had seen that mural of Tyr in Ljosa, only hours after Maude had destroyed a portion of the city in her rage, he'd felt that otherwordly presence hovering around him. It was like he'd been guided to that exact spot through no will of his own…but that of Tyr's. The god of war and justice had lost his hand to Fenrir— a sacrifice to trap the wolf. Maude's fate telling includedgebo— the rune for great sacrifice.
There were no coincidences when it came to the games gods played. What would Herrick have to lose in the name of sacrifice?
And of course, right as he and Maude had reconciled, agreeing to transparency moving forward, he could not tell her what he had seen the night of the ritual. Warnings from Hildr and Tyr stayed his tongue. When Dahlia had to pull Maude from her mind attacking itself, Tyr's message had burst to the front of his mind.
