Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles Book 2) (28 page)

Chapter Thirty-one

I
don’t know when I fell asleep again, but I woke on the sofa tangled in an old crocheted afghan. Light from a cloudless morning sky illuminated the room. I sat up and rubbed sleep crust from my eyes. The afghan carried Thorin’s familiar scent of rain and ozone, but the man himself was missing. I shrugged the blanket around my shoulders like a shawl and shuffled down the hall.

“Thorin?” I called into his room.

He wasn’t there, but he had cleaned up the wreckage from the previous night. The evidence suggested he had risen early and not that my enemies had snatched him out from under me while I slept. I shifted my weight and turned on my heel, meaning to return to the front of the house, but a phone rang and stopped me in my place. The sound came from within Thorin’s bedroom, muffled, but unmistakably his ring tone. I crossed the room, following the ringing, and crouched beside his bed. Beneath the dust ruffle I found Thorin’s cell, lying just beyond my reach among the company of a few dust bunnies.
Must have been kicked under here by accident last night, when he was fighting ghosts or nightmares or whatever that was.

On my knees already, I slunk onto my belly, extended my arm to full length, and stretched for the phone.
Maybe it’s Skyla. Or Val. Whoever it is, he or she’s gonna hang up before I get to this thing.
Stretching again, I managed to latch a couple fingertips around an edge on the phone case and dragged it out.

Afraid of losing the caller, I hurried to accept the call and put the phone to my ear.
Please let it be Val
. “Hello?” I said as I slid out from under the bed.

A moment of silence, a cold chuckle, and then, “Hello, Solina. Or should I call you
Sabrina
?”

It wasn’t Val at all.

Shivers rolled over my shoulders and dribbled down the length of my spine. “Wh-who is this?” But I already knew.

“I’ll give you three guesses.”

I swallowed and took a deep breath, trying to overcome my shock. “Rolf.”

“In the flesh, so to speak.”

“Wha—How did you get Thorin’s number?”

“I told you.” He chuckled again. “I
know
everything.”

As silent and graceful as usual, Thorin appeared in the doorway. He opened his mouth, as if to ask a question unrelated to the current situation, but his dark eyes skimmed over me, kneeling on the floor, phone to my ear, and he swallowed whatever he’d meant to say. Blood had drained from my face the moment Rolf verified his identity, so I probably looked pale and drawn. Thorin’s nostrils flared, and he frowned. He stepped fully into the room, his posture wary and alert. “Who are you talking to?”

“Ah, is that the God of Thunder I hear?” Rolf asked. “Perfect. Put me on speaker phone. He needs to hear this.”

I looked up at Thorin and met his gaze. His eyes were turning black, reacting to my distress. I stretched forward, passing him the phone, and said, “Put it on speaker.”

Thorin scowled but did as I said. He swiped his thumb across the screen and held the phone out between us. “Who is this?”

“Hello, Magni,” Rolf said. “I’m afraid you won’t really know me. Not now—not as I am after all these years.”

“It’s Rolf Lockhart,” I said when Thorin raised a questioning eyebrow at me. “Or, that’s what he said his name was when I met him in San Diego.”

“Who were you?” Thorin asked him. “Before?”

“Who I was then is not important. Not now.”

“What do you want?”

“It’s simple.” Rolf’s tone was calm, neutral, almost nonchalant. “I have the sword, Surtalogi, and I want you, Magni, Son of Thor, to come and take it from me.”

The room spun. I closed my eyes and put a hand to my pounding temples. “I knew I saw you at Grim’s house.”

Rolf hacked a derisive sound. “You were the only one.”

“You were there,” Thorin said. “At the cave. During the fight with Grim. I remember.”

“Do you remember fighting with Grim, being so single minded that you didn’t notice me until I brought that ice cave down on you and took the sword while you were busy scrambling for escape? You nearly succumbed. You’re a lucky bastard, aren’t you? Always have been. Damned Aesir and their charmed lives.”

“Where’s my brother?” Thorin asked.

“Oh, he’s your brother when you think someone else has done something to him. You were so ready to kill him yourself. What does it matter if I was the one to finish him off?”

Thorin grunted as though someone had punched him in his stomach. “He’s dead?”

Although I was inclined to say
Good riddance
, then wasn’t the right time.

“I can’t show you his severed head or anything, but you were the only one that came out of that ice cave that day.”

“So you want me to come. And we fight for the sword.”

“Yes. You and only you. No tricks, no cheating. You can have the sword if you can take it from me.”

“Easily done.” Thorin glared at his phone as if issuing it a challenge.

“Not so fast,” Rolf said. “You can’t bring Mjölnir or Megingjörð or the Járngreipr, and you must come alone.”

Thorin wore Thor’s belt, Megingjörð, as a torc around his neck. Supposedly, it doubled his strength. Without the Járngreipr, the gauntlets he wore as retooled cuffs around his wrists, he wouldn’t be able to lift his hammer. Thorin arched an eyebrow, obviously intrigued. “Trying to level the playing field? What if I refuse?”

After a dramatic pause, Rolf said, “If you refuse my terms or if you violate my conditions in any way, I’ll give the sword to Helen.”

“Why?” I asked, finding my voice. “Why are you doing this?”

“For revenge, of course.” Quickly, before either of us could form a reply, Rolf spat out the rest. “I’ll give you an hour to think it over. Call me at this number when you have your answer.”

The call went dead.

I remained on my knees, head bowed, eyes squeezed shut, bottom lip pinned between my teeth, biting until I tasted blood.

“Solina,” Thorin said, speaking my name in all seriousness.

My eyes flew open, and I looked up at him. He wore fresh clothes—jeans and a soft flannel shirt I had bought for him when I’d gone to town the day before. Everything seemed to fit, so I had done well, guessing at his sizes. The shower and a few hours of rest had restored his healthy coloring, and he looked a lot more like his old self, but with several days’ growth of beard that he rarely sported. He had also tied his hair back in an uncharacteristic knot.

He crouched beside me, still holding his phone. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” I pushed up from the floor. “What revenge is he looking for?”

Thorin shook his head and shrugged.

“And you really have no idea who he was or what he wants with you now?”

“I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

“That’s what I said when he let me go in San Diego. I still don’t know why he did that. It’s almost as if he wanted me to go running back to you. But why?”

Thorin gritted his teeth and said, “I. Don’t. Know.”

I patted his shoulder. “It was mostly a rhetorical question, big guy. Don’t get hung up on it. Like you said, I’m sure we’ll figure it out soon enough. But in the meantime, what are we going to do?”

Thorin’s brow furrowed. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and thought for a moment. “Baldur is here. He should know about this. We’ll tell him, and then we’ll decide.”

I followed Thorin into the living room. Baldur was sitting on the sofa, sipping a cup of coffee. He smiled and waggled a couple of fingers at me. Seeing Baldur’s face triggered a memory of my dream, of the scroll I had tripped over in the orchard. If I could believe it—
and how can I not?
—he wasn’t merely the Allfather sitting there, grinning at me. He was also Skyla’s grandfather. I shook away the thought.
Not important right now. Deal with it later.

I turned away from the men and started toward the coffee pot.

“So,” Baldur said, “I see you both survived the night?”

My gaze darted to Thorin, who tried his best to smother a smile.
Survived, indeed.
I still had the bruises of Thorin’s choke hold on my neck, and Thorin’s cheek showed the pale pink imprint of my burn.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, “but what are you doing here, Baldur?”

“Checking up on my patient.”

“He’s doing a lot better, don’t you think?” After pouring a cup of coffee, I went to the refrigerator to look for creamer. “Miraculous, almost.”

Baldur rubbed his neck and flexed his shoulders as if he felt tension in those muscles. Immortal Norse gods didn’t have to eat or sleep, but they apparently suffered stress pains. How did that make sense?

“I was telling Thorin about what I found when I went back to the glacier to look for him,” Baldur said. “Whatever happened after I took Solina and Skyla away, it destroyed most of the evidence. It was obviously a big fight. Lots of fallen rocks—the cave is just a depression in the ground, now. Lots of melted ice refrozen into unnatural configurations.”

“It was the sword,” Thorin said. “There was a cave-in during the fight.”

Baldur’s auburn eyebrows arched. “Five minutes ago, you couldn’t recall anything. Where did the sudden epiphany come from?”

“From Rolf Lockhart.” Thorin told Baldur about the rest, about Rolf’s demands, and about how neither of us knew Rolf’s true identity or what wrong he sought to avenge by fighting Thorin.

“What do you think?” Baldur asked. “Will you do what he wants?”

“I don’t think he left us any choice.”

“Do you trust him to meet you alone? Fight fairly?”

“Hell no,” Thorin said. “Rolf only said I had to come alone and unarmed. He never said anything about the same rules applying to him.”

“Let us come with you,” I said. “We’ll stay far enough away that he never has to know we’re there. If we’re close by and you need us, Baldur can have us at your side in an instant.”

“No.” Thorin shook his head. “I can’t risk giving Rolf reason to take the sword to Helen. Whatever his vendetta against me, it’s not worth Helen getting her hands on Surtalogi.”

“So, you’ll fight him without Mjölnir?”

Thorin nodded. “If I have to.”

“But you still have the lightning,” I said. “The storms. That isn’t dependent on weaponry or, um, accessories, right?”

“It’s rune craft,” Baldur said. “Originally created by Odin and passed through the blood of Thor’s offspring. Magni’s way with thunder and lightning is as inseparable from him as his blond hair and brown eyes. You could say it’s in his DNA, I guess.”

I imagined a scientist decoding Thorin’s genes and finding tiny runic symbols engraved in his chromosomes. “And there’s no removing it from him, right? No tricks that Rolf might have for stealing Thorin’s power?”

Thorin shook his head. “Only the Allfather has that ability, right?”

Baldur pursed his lips. “After this many eons? I don’t think even I could take away your thunder.”

“How long since you’ve had a knock-down-drag-out with an immortal?” I asked.

Thorin arched a single eyebrow. “Are you implying I might be rusty?”

“I wouldn’t dare. I was just…
curious
.”

“Don’t worry about it, Sunshine. Fighting is ingrained in my DNA, too.”

“So it’s settled? You’re going to accept Rolf’s challenge.”

Thorin glanced down at his phone. “I’ll call him now and tell him.”

Rolf answered Thorin’s call right away, and Thorin grumbled answers and questions at him until they’d settled on the details. Negotiations concluded, Thorin ended the call and stuffed the phone in his pocket. “Tomorrow at dawn,” he said, not meeting my gaze. Instead, he stared out the living-room window, his eyes distant and unfocused.

“Where?” Baldur asked.

“He gave me GPS coordinates. Said it was in an open area outside Portland.”

“Portland?” I asked. “Why there?”

Rather than answer, Thorin turned his attention back to me and crossed the space between us. He grasped my arm, between shoulder and biceps, urgent but not intimidating. “I know you would tell me if you had seen anything. But I still have to ask.”

“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “The fire, the apple orchard, that’s all come to light. There aren’t any more mysteries.”

“What about…” Thorin stopped and cleared his throat. He lowered his voice. “What about when you touch me?”

“I don’t think it works like that. The things I see when I touch people, they’re memories and thoughts, not predictions.”

“Maybe, if you were to try, you could see something in my past that I’ve forgotten.”

“I don’t know, Thorin,” I said, reluctant to delve into the dark places deep inside him. Never mind that a being as old as him had accumulated several millennia of memories. Talk about a search for a needle in the most epic haystack. “Besides not knowing if I can even do anything like that, I might find things you’d rather I didn’t see. It’s not like you to willingly give away personal information.”

Quietly, so only I could hear, Thorin said, “I trust you, Sunshine.”

My breath caught and hung in my lungs like a kite string trapped in a tree limb. “Are you sure?”

As Thorin stared into me with the warmest look I had ever seen in his eyes, he nodded, took my hand, and held it between his own, close to his heart. The beat of that mighty and timeless muscle thumped under my hand—so human, and yet so
not
.

Baldur cleared his throat and stood up from the kitchen table. “I’m, uh, I’m going to get some air. I’ll be back after a while.” And,
pop
, he was gone.

“Okay.” I returned my attention to Thorin. “I’ll give it a try.”

“It’s all I ask.”

I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath. “I guess… I mean, I don’t know how to do this, but I guess it would be best if you can clear your thoughts. Don’t concentrate on anything and just zone out if you can.”

Thorin mumbled something affirmative, and his warm breath rushed over my face. He had kept his walls up so long, he had probably forgotten how to let them down, and I saw nothing, at first. But slowly, slowly, I sank through a gray fog and dropped into the light of a recent memory. I saw myself from his point of view, the day we’d first met, when he picked me up from the airport in Anchorage.

Maybe it’s all coincidence, and I sincerely hope it is. This isn’t the first time the past has reincarnated. Some players from the original game have reappeared from time to time only to experience a violent death in a way that suggests history is prone to revisit some of its more…
thrilling
moments.

But this girl, coming here after the brutality committed on her brother—she’s either stupid, brave, ill-fated, or some of everything. I should have sent her flight back home before it crossed the first time line, saved us all a mountain of trouble. Now Val and I are burdened with watching over her, surreptitiously keeping her safe until I find out if her brother’s murder is happenstance or omen.