Chapter 42 | Ravinica

Chapter 42

Ravinica

I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO do what she asked, of course. I didn’t know the first thing about being a valkyrie. Like most of her musings, her request sounded esoteric and impossible.

Yet that was the beauty of the ancient bog-seer I had come to see as a guiding force and maternal figure in my life, in just a few short months: She would often infuriate you with the question, but give you just enough of a clue to find the answer yourself.

She was a hard woman to understand at times. Mind-addled, perhaps, by centuries of living for too long.

Elayina was also the oldest, last line of my lineage, and there was no way I wouldn’t do everything in my power to make her parting wish come true.

I didn’t ask her how . I didn’t ask her why , or what , or anything else. I simply nodded, swallowing past my tight throat, willing myself to step up to bat and make her proud in her final resting place, her final moments.

For some reason—maybe my intense need for validation after a life of torment and failure—I wanted the seer to be satisfied and pleased with me. If my face was going to be the last she saw on this mortal plane, then I needed her to be content, restful, and leave us with a sigh of gratitude.

She did not deserve to be killed in her stuffy tree-cave by dark elves who imprisoned and hated her. She deserved to be around friends, smiling down at her, out in the balmy air on a picturesque balcony, after the work she’d put in all her life to make Alfheim a better place for the Ljosalfar.

Elayina deserved peace.

I’ve never assisted suicide before, I thought, gently squeezing her hand in mine. And I’m not sure I ever want to again. But for Elayina . . . after everything she’s shown me about myself . . . it’s the least she deserves. And I’ll do it.

My mates took a healthy step back from the bed, giving me space. The wind drifted lazily through my hair and swept strands over my forehead.

Tucking my hair behind my ears, I closed my eyes. While I held her palm in my hand against her belly, my free hand moved to her wrinkled forehead.

My palm was warm, her skin was clammy and cold.

When I sank inside myself, I closed off the borders of my mind, so no thoughts could get in or out. Any rustling of clothes or whispers of wind drowned away.

I found myself in a glorious suit of armor—a daydream of walking through a cold, frostbitten glade. I did not shiver as I walked through the wintry grounds, toward a shining light in the distance.

Around me, mountains loomed high, the walls of them creating a corridor for me to walk through. A moment’s hesitation as I stared down the dark passage toward the light caused the walls to creak, groan, and start to close around me.

I lifted my shoulders, squaring them and allowing my wings to open to their full breadth. It was a breathtaking moment, even lost in this dream, to witness my majesty—my armored appearance in all my winged glory.

As if reading my newfound strength, the walls of the mountain stopped and reversed course, opening wider. It gave me the width to march through the passage with my wings held high.

I understood these mountains as barriers in my mind. Symbols for my doubts and worries, which I needed to push past to get to the other side.

Digging deeper inside myself, I found a tether keeping my thoughts together, along with my swelling confidence and new strength.

I wasn’t sure if it was Elayina lending me her assistance, or if this was even my memory at all. There was a chance this was her mind, as she saw things, and I was simply an adventurer passing through the walls of her mind.

Whatever the case, I made it to the other side in one piece. The mountain closed up behind me, leaving me staring forward toward the silver light that floated beyond.

A shape took form in that light, and I realized it was Elayina herself, floating above the ground, locked in a fetal position with her eyes closed.

The old woman was nude, bare to her wrinkled flesh.

I embraced her then, stepping into the silver aura.

Power rushed through me, and understanding, as I held her like a babe to my chest.

“Not much longer now, Anvari ,” I whispered to her in a booming, commanding voice. “Your suffering will soon be finished.”

Instinctively, I beat my wings with a heavy whoosh . A plume of snow and white billowed around us.

Gripping Elayina tightly, I took to the sky, flapping my wings another few times until my boots left the ground.

I barreled through the soft fall of snow around me, bringing us out of that wintry setting and into a blue-green sky looking like an amalgamation of Midgard and Alfheim.

Above, higher in the sky, giant tree roots reached down like beanstalks leading to a land of giants.

With a gasp of determination, realizing where I needed to go, I catapulted toward the roots. My wings beat hard as the pressure of gravity became weighty, trying to force me down.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed on, making sure to keep Elayina tight in my arms. When I looked down, the sight nearly caused me to lose my flight—

Because she had shed age like a lizard shedding its outer skin. Her gray, wispy hair was now radiant and silver like mine—like half-elves—and growing more brilliant the higher I got in the sky. Her wrinkles evened out, and the ancient elf looked how I assumed she did in her prime.

I emerged from our land of ice and snow into a dark plane of gnarled tree roots and jagged mountains, high above the snow-capped hills I’d flown over below.

The youthful vigor of Elayina’s face intensified. She looked even younger as I crossed the threshold from land to sky to tree. Her brilliant, bright yellow hair had become wan and flaxen, nearly white. The wrinkles were gone completely, showing me a half-elf in her youth, before the struggles of adulthood had a chance to take over and change her.

I was riding the Tree of Life, launching past the giant roots the size of skyscrapers, weaving in and out of them, becoming accustomed to my wings and the weight of them and their force.

Exhilaration swept through me, and I smiled. “Hold on, Aunt Elayina.”

My grip tightened on her thin frame. I barrel-rolled through a wreath of misshapen branches and tree limbs, deeper into the clear sky above. My holler of excitement became loud, echoing, reverberating through the heavens as the wind pushed against my face.

The echoes of my joyful cries led me to a corridor of sky-roots that closed in around me, creating a tunnel I could fly through. They were leading me a certain direction—diverting me from the wider trunk of Yggdrasil.

After more dips and weaves through the obstacles in my way, the plane leveled out with a great green meadow beneath me. Gone was the snow and ice, and now I looked at a gorgeous landscape of trees, rivers, wildflowers, and summer.

It was paradise.

And it was where I needed to go.

My wings flattened, taking in gusts of air as I slowed my descent toward the ground. There was a structure in front of me, a cottage in the woods, near a wide river that flowed with glittering, sun-reflecting water.

Pumping my wings a few more times to navigate the strong wings of the meadow, I flew over the smaller trees and landed at the foot of the cottage, quickly stumbling to my knees to keep Elayina protected.

I glanced down with a heavy breath, noting she had taken on the appearance of a whelp—a babe with little hair at all.

It seemed my journey through the skies had reverted her to her base form, cycling backward through time to an age when she was innocent, the land was good, and things were different. Back when she had her entire future before her, and never could have fathomed the life she would live.

It was an odd place, this paradise I’d found myself in, considering Elayina and her two siblings had been born under the worst of conditions—in a dungeon, surrounded by despair, an imprisoned mother, and agony.

Perhaps, then, this was the wish of Elayina. How she prayed it would be at her end.

I would see her through it.

I stood, wobbling for a moment before gaining my stride and heading for the cottage. Parked next to the quaint structure was an elaborate, beautiful chariot of elegantly carved wood. Lapping at the river next to it were two big cats—felines resting and lazily drinking, before shooting me a wary look as I approached the lodge.

The door opened before I could reach it, freezing my feet to the swishing grass.

A woman stood before me, as if expecting me. She had long, tawny-blonde hair sweeping in waves across her bare shoulders. Her face was perfect, expectant, and she was nude, with a frame that would put a mortal’s to shame. In her hand was a jerkin of brown leather armor, also immaculate and carved with the same symbols as the wood of her chariot.

“I was just preparing to bathe,” she explained, standing before me in all her naked glory. “Will you join me, valkyrie?”

She did not judge my wings nor the baby I held in my arms. She did not speak her words rudely, or with any affect at all. Her heavy eyes never left mine. They were stormy blue, like the sea, and infinitely wise. Yet there was a hint of playfulness in them too, despite her garb and stature of a warrioress.

I shook my head, taking a knee before her. “Great Freyja,” I said, intuitively understanding who this was. “It is not my time to bathe in the waters with you. However, it is her time. She is Elayina of the Ljosalfar.”

Lifting my hands, I presented Elayina to the Vanir goddess. My great-aunt was little more than a bundle in my arms at this point, reverted back to her purest form.

“She lived a noble life and died a noble death,” I explained. “She belongs here, with you, Freyja, in the majesty of Folkvang.”

Freyja pondered that. “This one died in battle?”

I nodded, gazing up with imploring eyes. “She fought for a thousand years, goddess. The only rest she was given was at the end of her life.”

“Yes, surrounded by allies and covered in fluff and pillows, I see.”

“I would endeavor to make that peacefulness permanent.”

A moment passed. I did not feel tension or hesitation from Freyja, but rather curiosity at the way she looked down at the baby in my arms.

“I see it,” Freyja answered at last. “Were she burdened with the life she lived, this Ljosalfar heroine would be as you left her: old, decrepit, feeble. Her newborn qualities show how much pain, grief, and tragedy she has shed in order to present herself to me.”

I nodded solemnly. “Lady Elayina lived a hard life.”

When I blinked, Freyja stood closer, scant inches from my face. She bent low and took Elayina from my arms, cradling her as I had.

“Thank you for bringing me this gift. She will begin her new journey here.” Her voice was the wind itself. “Bygul and Trjegul will fawn over her, no doubt.” With an unclouded smirk, she nodded her head over to the drinking cats, and the chariot. “She will enjoy many rides in Brisingamen.”

It was enlightening to see these legendary things splayed out before me—the Vanir goddess of love, war, magic, fertility, and death. All her accoutrements, including the big black and gray cats that pulled her noble chariot.

I didn’t want to leave this perfect place, this vision, yet I knew my time was up. The meadows were fading around me. The river stopped running, and I nodded my head to Freyja before beating my wings one time and standing before her.

“May you find many more treasures to bring me, maiden of the sky,” the goddess said.

The last vision I had, which stamped itself on my mind, was that of Freyja standing naked before me, with the babe swaddled in her arms like Elayina was her child, and the beauty of her fairylike land framing her—all part of a landscape portrait from a forgotten time.

I breathed heavily and opened my eyes.

Lifted my hand away from Elayina’s forehead. Her face had gone gray, slack, yet with the smile from before showing forevermore.

“It is done,” I told my quiet mates, allowing a few burdensome tears to trickle down my face after that experience. “Elayina is with Freyja now, living at peace on the golden shores of Folkvang, where she always wanted to be.”