2. A CROOKED FAMILY TREE

2

A CROOKED FAMILY TREE

M aybe I should have been more specific about going back to my family—maybe I shouldn't have thought I'd just wake up and be okay. A lot of maybes rolled around in my head as I was yanked away from Juniper, as whatever death waited for me disappeared.

I told myself it was a good thing that I was no longer staring at her and the terrible angle her head hung at. That it was good I wasn't dying. Or at least I assumed I wasn't dying. Another maybe . Really, anywhere away from Juniper who'd been sent to gather my soul or whatever her gig was, was good.

Except I was not back in the SUV when the scene settled.

I was not back with my brothers and Bebe. Where I was…I had no idea. "Fu ck, where am I?"

The world spun around me, bits and pieces flashing in front of my eyes as I floated just above it all. Snow. Water. River. A snake that looked like it was made of metal, glowing bits sparking here and there under its scales as it wove its way under the water. Tree branches stretched out wide all around me, some of them covered in rot.

I floated and fell slowly, seeing it all.

A sparkle of gold. Cloth that fell in sheer swaths around me, wrapping me up in a gossamer soft gown.

My feet touched something that was almost solid, giving way under my weight like a carpet of moss, like what Sven had created in the old, abandoned church. I blinked, fully expecting the tree man to pop out and explain his actions. Only he didn't. As far as I could see, I was alone.

I wasn't back with my family. But I also wasn't out of the woods yet. Literally.

"I'm not dead." I did a slow turn, the material moving with me, fluttering against my legs. Above me was an inky black sky, with only a few stars in sight. Nine bright burning stars to be exact. As I turned, I found myself staring up at a tree that was easily a hundred feet across, its limbs reaching impossibly high into that dark sky. Some branches were covered in leaves. Others in fruit. Some were burning. One was covered in thick ice and snow. It took me a moment to recall what I did know about this part of the Norse world.

This was…this was a place that only existed in stories.

The tree of life. A central place from where you could travel to any of the nine realms. A magical place that was impossible to find.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not dead," I repeated as I reached out to touch the tree. The bark was worn, as if it had been touched a great deal, smooth like glass under my fingertips. I leaned into it.

"A thin line between life and death for one such as you. You aren't really here either, daughter of destiny, but yet you stand in front of me. Finally."

The voice rippled around me, coming from all directions, and I jerked my hand away from the tree. I kept moving in my slow turn, trying to pinpoint the voice. Female I thought, older, like a grandmother, but not kind. More like a firm grandmother you didn't fuck around and find out with.

"Someone like me? What do you mean by that?" I kept searching for where the voice had come from.

"That part is simple. You are a daughter of destiny. One born to change the world. I've known that since you were in the womb."

I grimaced and took a step back from the tree. "Nope, I don't like that."

"The ones marked for this kind of destiny rarely do." A laugh flowed out of the strange echoing voice. "But who would you trust to do what must be done? Someone else? I think not. You are the one I've trusted from the beginning. Since I first met you."

I frowned. "What must be done?"

"A quest, all heroes must face a quest. Usually, to save something important. A loved one. A friend. The world."

"I don't want?—"

"You would let your little friend hold the sun? She is mighty of heart. But her choices…well, I think we can safely say her choices might not always be the best."

A breeze picked up, tugging on the sheer dress, pulling me closer to the tree. I let it move me.

"I don't want Bebe to be hurt, and I think her choices are solid. Better than anyone else I know."

The voice snorted. "Nah, fooey. You know that big black wolf is hunting you now. And with the spell that Sven has put on him, he would hunt you to the end of all the worlds. The question is," a face slowly began to form in the tree bark, a body stepping out next, then limbs as long and gangly as Sven's, only the bark was knotted, gnarled, darkened with age, "there, that is better."

I didn't step back. I didn't lower my gaze. I just stared at her .

The tree woman's face pinched as she narrowed her eyes—bright yellow—down at me.

"The question is, what happens next?"

An open-ended question if I ever heard one. "Are you expecting an answer? I don't know what happens next. If I knew…well maybe all this shit wouldn't have happened."

She held her hands, palms up and flexed her fingers, the wood of her bones crackling and creaking.

"Daughter of destiny. There is much you must do if you wish to change things as they are. And you can. That is what you must hold to; it is what I have seen for you."

The wind tugged at my hair. Dark brown and gold strands flew around my face. I wasn't entirely sure I knew what she was saying. "You mean, I can change the outcome of Ragnar?k. Is that right?"

She bobbled her head left and right, the sound of wood crackling as she moved. "Yes and no. The oracle that might have given you answers is dead. Killed by my son."

"Well fuck," I muttered.

"Indeed. Much fuckery has occurred, as you might say. All of which has brought us here." She spread her hand, fingers bending one at a time. "I am Suvenia, the spirit of this tree, the mother of this place."

Suvenia. The one who'd lied to Juniper? Was it coincidence that I spoke with my mother, and then her betrayer right after? Somehow, I doubted it.

"You…"

"No. I did not lie to your mother."

I frowned. "But…she didn't have power. Nothing more than a strong alpha shifter would have."

Suvenia laughed. "She had you. I saw you in her belly, and I saw the power you would wield. If she had raised you to be her daughter in truth…there would have been no stopping the two of you—you would have united every shifter in the world. But she hated you, believing that she'd been tricked into having you."

My heart and guts twisted and tangled inside my chest as if they were fighting to get out of my mouth. The path that could have been taunted me.

Suvenia sighed. "She brought you to me when you were first born. And when she did not get the power she wanted from me, she bound herself to me. I believe her words were along the lines of ‘If I cannot have power, then I will live forever.' I did not think it possible and yet…she did it."

My jaw did drop then. "All her searching for the mate bonds, is that what it was for?"

Suvenia nodded. "Perhaps not initially, but yes. They led her back to me. Believing that I was the one who would outlast every single one of the pantheon, she tied her life to mine." She waved her hand. "But. There are other things you need to understand. "

I was still stuck on the fact that my mother had bound herself to the tree of life. And that apparently, I had some serious power in me because I was a daughter of a Norse god.

Could I throw lightning? Call fire to me? Or was it just an all over magic like a witch?

Somehow, I didn't think it was any of those things.

She waved her hand, and a mounded hump of earth rose, just high enough that she could sit on it. "As old as I am, I know much. But not all. Here is what I can share with you. You must find a new way forward. A way to stop Ragnar?k once and for all. And you have the power within you to do it."

I laughed. "That's all? You want me to find a way to stop the end of the world, a prophecy that has been around for thousands of years?—"

"Tens of thousands if we are being accurate," she said, another shrug crackling like twigs snapping.

I held both hands up. "I am a shifter. A werewolf. And yes, I have carried the sun?—"

"And done what no one has done thus far. You have thwarted Han. You faced his general, and beat him. He has a general in each of the worlds that he's chased the sun."

I frowned at her. "His general being my mother?"

"Yes."

Suvenia said all this like it was normal, and the truths she was dropping weren't mind-numbing .

"How long do I have here to ask you questions?"

"As long as you need. Time does not spin out here, as it does in the real world. Your spirit is with me, your body is on the cusp of death. But you are not dead. In that you were right when you defied your mother. You will die when you are ready, and not a moment before."

My eyebrows shot up. "Comforting."

"Isn't it, though?" Her face crackled and I thought she might be trying to smile.

I looked down at the dress wrapped around me, seeing flickers of color in it besides the white—gold and silver, a bit of blue. They seemed to dance across the material, appearing and disappearing at random points.

"It is a reflection of your soul," she said. "It is gossamer silk, strong and yet undeniably beautiful. Some might think you easy to manipulate, but when they try to pull you apart," she plucked at a string and the silk held firm against her tug. "They cannot make you do as they wish."

"Are you saying I'm stubborn, and that's why this has come to me?"

Her laugh caught me off guard. "You are the daughter of a god—a daughter of destiny. That is why you were chosen. An unexpected child. The first Norse god born in the last three thousand years—a child that I encouraged to be born. And as such, your life is outside of the prophecies. Your life…and your actions, can be the difference?—"

I waved both hands at her. "Stop, stop right there. Tell me who my father is. Please."

The old tree spirit smiled, her face crackling. "I think you have met him; you know in your heart who he is, do you not?"

My father, the one that no one knew, the one that had helped me. She was right, I already knew it. "Tyr, he is my father."

"That is correct. He is your father. He can help you some, but it is difficult because Loki marked you first. That complicates things some. You have become an agent of chaos with that brand of his." She tipped her head at me.

I had never known who my father was, in all my life, and while there had been times I wondered—who wouldn't?—I had made my peace with not knowing years ago. I had Mars. He'd been the father I needed until Juniper took him from us all.

Rage flickered through me. "Did my father, did you know my life would be?—"

"That your life would be difficult? Yes and no. Mostly we were trying to protect you from the other gods. They wanted to kill you. And they saw your destiny as something that could save us all. Or end us all. They were right on both counts. "

The anger drained from me, like a plug had been uncorked.

Save or destroy the world. It was still going to be on me.

Suvenia groaned and leaned back against the tree. "Do you see my branches? Some are dying. Some are being destroyed. All are in danger because of…You are my only hope to survive—Ragnar?k may not be as we once thought, but it is as good a word as any for the end of all that we know. The destruction of my tree, of everything that holds our realms apart. Nine realms, all cast into nothingness if you do not find a way to save us."

I stared at her, the wind around us moving the tree side to side. Animals scurried around the branches; I thought I saw a deer bound from one large limb to another.

"Close your eyes, and look again," she said softly. "Let your father's blood speak truth to you."

I did as I was asked, feeling the weight of the moment, my body tight with tension. When I opened my eyes, the tree was no longer a tree.

Spinning orbs hung overhead, barely tied together with thin strands of color, nine plus a pulsing energy in the middle that had been the tree. The threads tying the realms, and all the worlds together, were fraying, but still holding .

For now.

"And what makes you think I can do anything about it?" I wasn't angry any longer, I wasn't even afraid, not in this place of non-existence. "I am a single person. Even if my father is Tyr. It doesn't mean anything; it doesn't make me a hero."

"That is where you are wrong. Even your name, it means destiny. Does it not?"

I nodded reluctantly. Cinniúint was a mouthful, but the tree spirit was correct. It meant destiny. "I always wondered why Juniper gave me the name."

"She didn't. Your father did. Because he understood what waited for you, better than anyone." Her words and voice softened. "He saw what you could do, given the chance. He saw what you could be to all of us. And he believed that you would face the task head on."

My father had named me, and strangely enough, that gave me a warm and glowing sensation right in the middle of my chest, as if Bebe still lay across me.

"Why are you being so…helpful? Everyone else is speaking in riddles, and dancing around what has to be done, who is good, who is bad."

"There is nothing to be gained from keeping this knowledge from you. The path you face is not for the weak of heart or mind. Even telling you all I know, will not be enough for your journey to be clear. What you must do to save me and our worlds…will be a trial like no other hero has faced. Will you…will you fight for me, daughter of destiny? Will you save our worlds and all the souls within them?"

My throat tightened, followed by a strange tingling sensation that rolled through my limbs. Why was I crying? Why was I suddenly dropping to one knee? I bowed my head, dark and golden hair falling forward in a curtain around my face. The tree spirit was no queen, but her power was suddenly everywhere, around me, in me, calling me to a task that would likely end in my death in one form or another—that much I knew in my heart.

She was the mother of all mothers, the one who birthed all the realms, and I could see all the worlds reflected in her eyes. If I didn't fight for her, I wasn't sure who else would.

"Yes," I whispered the one word.

Her hand settled on my head. "Then go. It is time for you to take upon you the quest that will be offered. It will not look like what I have asked, but it will take you on the path you need. Water and ice, darkness and death. Face it all with your head up, Cinniúint. Face it head-on with the heart of gossamer that you hold within you."

The tree around us shivered, and a crack split down the middle, wood groaning and shrieking as if it were being hacked at. Splinters exploded through the air, one piercing me through the top of my right ear. Pain and blood, I clasped at the splinter.

The tree spirit gasped and clutched at her heart. "Hurry…we need you, Cinniúint. We need you."