8. Callie

We’d ridden for hours through the woods in silence, slowly making our way northeast towards the train station. Magnar’s arms were loose around me, but the heat of his body at my back was as constant as the sun in the sky.

He was searching for something, but he didn’t tell me what it was, his silence back in full force. Every now and then he would call out for Idun, demanding she appear to speak with us. But so far, there was no sign of the goddess.

Finally, the sound of running water reached me, and the stallion raised his head hopefully as he turned towards it.

Magnar let him have his way and he upped his pace to a trot in anticipation of a long drink. The mare whinnied excitedly as she followed, and I couldn’t help but smile at the simplicity of their problems. If only water was the single thing I needed.

The further we went, the louder the roar of the water became.

“What is that?” I asked as the sound filled the space between the trees, drowning out everything else.

“Have you never seen a waterfall?” Magnar asked.

“I’ve never seen much of anything,” I reminded him, the bitterness in my voice clear enough. “There was no free-running water in the Realm. We had to go to the bath house to wash, and we were given rations of drinking water.”

“The Belvederes have a lot to answer for,” he growled. “It is one thing to have seized power, but to have robbed you all of your freedom so completely is beyond words.”

“Well, I’m free now, mostly,” I muttered, trying to ignore the chains of the vow I’d taken. I was certainly free of fences and blood donations anyway.

Magnar’s grip tightened around my waist. “I’ll show you the world, drakaina hjarta,” he growled, his lips brushing my ear, my skin prickling at the touch. “Nothing will ever be kept from you again.”

I wasn’t sure what to say in reply to that. I was so desperate for it to be true that I couldn’t think of anything other than the life I’d once dreamed of with my family and the possibility that I might claim it now. My dad never would though.

We made it through the trees and found the river which had been causing such a cacophony.

My mouth fell open as I spotted the waterfall cascading over a sheer drop on the far side of a large pool which trailed away to our right, the river continuing off into the trees. Moss-covered boulders lined the edge of the waterfall and the greenery around it rose up towards the cloudy sky. It was utterly stunning. I never could have imagined such a thing existed.

The horses waded straight into the shallow water which lapped against the pebble-lined shore and bent low to fill their bellies.

“We should take advantage of this while we can. We’ll bathe and refill our water supplies while the horses have a rest,” Magnar said, sliding from the stallion’s back and raising his arms to catch me.

I didn’t need his help dismounting or even riding the horses anymore now that I had access to my ancestors’ memories, but he had insisted on me still riding with him all the same, claiming it made more sense to use the mare for our packs. My protests had been met with a threat to hog-tie me in place again, so I’d given in, but I had no intention of playing the helpless human any longer.

I ignored his offered arms, instead turning my back on him and dismounting on the other side of the horse before wading back out of the water to remove my clothes.

Magnar followed me, his eyes tracking my movements so intensely that I turned to confront him about it, but I paused as I met his gaze.

I could have sworn his eyes were dimmer today. Sometimes they sparkled with the heat of the sun and other times they burned like the simmering coals of a dying fire. He was still so sad. I knew the grief he was feeling all too well now, the two of us bound in that, but I still had hope. Montana was still out there somewhere. Magnar had no one, and I had the feeling that me taking the vow had only made things worse for him.

There were probably a thousand things we needed to say to each other, but none of them came to mind.

Magnar turned away from me and began to remove his clothes, leaving his bare back to me, exposing the ink and scars adorning his deep bronze skin.

I unzipped my coat too, stripping out of my clothes without a word and trying to ignore the bite of cold wind which nipped at me as I exposed my skin to it.

Once he was in his underwear, he strode into the water and dove beneath its surface. I watched as his shadow surged through the water, heading towards the falls and leaving me far behind on the bank.

Magnar reappeared again after several long seconds, halfway across the pool. I watched with interest as he began swimming. Dad had told us about people doing such a thing before the Realms, but the water in the bath house wasn’t deep enough for me to ever have tried. The idea of diving into the pool terrified me, but it also intrigued me in a way that ached to be satisfied.

I reached for my gifts as I continued to undress and grinned as I found what I was looking for. I may have had no idea how to swim, but my ancestors sure did.

I tossed my clothes in a pile and took a deep breath to psych myself up as I ran into the water. It was cold, but I forced my mind away from the temperature as I continued running until it was deep enough for me to dive under the surface.

I opened my eyes to a world of green reeds and shimmering light. My arms and legs knew what to do, and I began to move beneath the surface, laughter bubbling in my chest at the ease with which I did it. This was freedom.

As I powered through the water, I realised the cold wasn’t affecting me the way I would have expected. Though I could certainly feel the chill of the pool against my skin, it wasn’t reaching down to my bones. I could ignore it in favour of continuing my swim. It was as though my body was better able to resist its attempt to subdue me. Just another way in which my slayer gifts had strengthened me.

My head breached the surface, and I was surprised to find myself halfway across the pool. The horses meandered back and forth in the shallow area by the shore, and I watched them as I managed to tread water.

I leaned back, floating on the surface and looking up at the sun as it tried to punch a hole through the clouds.

A huge wave of water washed over me, and I screamed in surprise as Magnar began to laugh. I started flailing desperately, my arms and legs moving in panicked motions as shock severed my connection to my gifts and I became a girl who knew as much about swimming as I did about flying. Fuck all.

I slipped below the surface, then somehow breached it again, coughing up water as I flailed like a lost octopus, arms and legs everywhere, my head beneath the water as often as it was above.

“I can’t swim!” I shouted before I sank once more, a foot poking up in the air.

This time, no matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t get close to the surface again. Every movement I made seemed to send me deeper, and my heart thundered in fear as I stared up at the promise of oxygen too far above my head.

A stream of bubbles shot from my mouth as I cursed my ancestors for abandoning me at this precise moment.

I willed my gifts to return to me, begging my ancestors to re-establish the connection but I couldn’t find it. The more panicked I became, the further it seemed to recede.

A hand found mine in the darkness and relief flooded through me as I was wrenched back towards the surface.

As I made it out of the pool, I was deposited on a hard, glassy platform and I doubled over, my hair curtaining my face. I began coughing violently, my body desperate to expel the water from my lungs.

I sucked in air as the raking coughs finally subsided and pushed my hair aside, ready to yell at Magnar for nearly drowning me. But Magnar wasn’t beside me.

I gasped as I looked around at the pool of water which extended away from me in every direction. Somehow, impossibly, I was kneeling on top of the water’s surface.

I pressed my hands against the liquid beneath my knees and though it still felt wet, it was undoubtedly solid.

“What the fuck?” I breathed as I looked around, hunting for some answer to whatever strange magic had caused this.

Magnar stood on a similar patch of solidified liquid a few feet to my left. The water separating us lapped against the edges of our small islands, keeping us apart. I pushed myself upright, frowning at him in hopes of gaining some answer to what was happening.

“Show yourself, Idun!” Magnar bellowed. “We don’t have time for your games.”

The air crackled with energy, and I turned to look at the waterfall, feeling a pull towards it in the pit of my stomach.

As I watched, pink petals began to fall among the cascading water, slipping over the boulders and tumbling down to fill the pool around us. I frowned as they crept over the edge of my island and slid across my toes, and I tried to move away, but they persisted, creeping over my feet and up my legs. Their touch was gentle, like a breath fluttering against my skin, but the strange sensation set me on edge.

“What the hell is this?” I asked as I tried to smack the petals off.

“A gift.” The voice that spoke was as soft as silk, its tone filled with promises, the fact of its existence scaring the living shit out of me.

I stilled, obeying the urge to trust the voice as the petals covered my body, forming a full-length gown. It hugged my figure, sweeping into a long train beyond my feet which travelled over the water behind me.

Magnar frowned as he watched the petals dancing across my skin but said nothing of them, like somehow this impossible magic wasn’t even surprising to him.

A breeze filled with the warmth of summer blew around me, trailing through my long hair until it tumbled silky and dry down my back. My limbs tensed with the urge to run as far from this place as I could get, but something about this power held me still, whispering calming words inside my mind and urging me to remain where I was.

The rushing sound of the waterfall fell quiet, and I realised with a jolt of surprise that the water had stopped moving. It looked as though it had been frozen between one moment and the next, a deep and profound magic taking root in the nature around us. The centre of the waterfall parted like a thick curtain and a woman stepped out, smiling at Magnar like he was an old friend.

Words couldn’t describe her beauty. It pained me to look upon the perfection of her features. She was sunlight given life. Her dress was a shimmering waterfall which flowed over her body in a never-ending cascade of silver and blue. It didn’t make a sound as it continued to move across her skin, but it was alive with motion, impossible as it was.

“It’s been a long time, Magnar,” she sighed, her voice like the trilling of birdsong in spring.

“A thousand years has passed, and yet you still kept me waiting when I called you. So you can’t have missed me too much,” Magnar replied, and I wondered how he dared to speak to the goddess with such disdain.

“You know you were always my favourite,” she purred as she took a step closer, her bare feet pressing to the water as if it were land.

“Then I should hate to be your enemy. For being your favourite never did me any favours,” he growled.

“You wanted true love, didn’t you?” Idun asked as she stopped before me. I blinked at the insinuation, instinct making me want to recoil as she looked at me like I was some great achievement of hers instead of my own person.

I could only stare at her as she reached out to brush a finger along my cheek, her touch thrumming through me like the beating of a drum.

“You have taken every chance of that from me,” he replied bitterly.

“I only said you would find it. Not that you could have it.” She smiled at him, and it was a cruel thing. Her gaze travelled back to me, and my heart pattered with fear as she lifted a lock of my hair, the words making my thoughts scatter in alarm. Surely she wasn’t saying that I was meant to be the love he’d been seeking? We might have been attracted to each other, but we infuriated one another beyond measure. If true love looked like this, then it was a hell of a toxic bonfire. I scoffed internally at the idea, ignoring the way my heart thrummed in my chest like a hummingbird. “I thought you’d appreciate this.” She pulled it close to her own hair, and my eyes widened with surprise as I realised it was the exact same colour as mine.

“That is the only similarity I see. And you kid yourself if you believe I covet your beauty so,” Magnar said angrily.

Idun’s eyes hardened and she released me, snapping her fingers. The petals fell from my skin and blew away on a cold breeze, so I was left standing in my underwear again.

“You’re boring me, Magnar,” the goddess murmured as she moved to join him, and I sagged in relief as her presence withdrew. “I hope you’re not here to complain about this again.” She reached out and pressed her finger to the tattoo lining the skin beneath his heart.

“I have no interest in discussing my obligations to the dead,” he replied irritably.

“Oh yes, Valentina is long dead,” Idun agreed but her gaze sparkled with amusement. I frowned, wondering who the hell Valentina was and what they were talking about. “So what is it you want from me?”

“I made a promise to you,” Magnar replied.

“I am aware of your unfulfilled promises,” she said, and her expression darkened with anger.

“A lot changed while I slept, and it is much harder to finish what I started now. We are the last two slayers left in existence and a sea of vampires lay between us and the Revenants.”

“The last two? How romantic that notion is.” Idun’s gaze swept over me again, and I shivered beneath her scrutiny. She lost interest quickly and turned back to Magnar, running her hand down his chest as she leaned closer to him. “Get to the point,” she breathed.

Magnar seemed frozen in place, and he ground his jaw as she continued to caress him. “I want poison. Enough to taint their entire stock of blood.”

Idun laughed, releasing him and the clouds parted in the sky, letting the sun pour over us. “That I can do.”

A vine sprang from the water, twisting itself towards her before curling around her outstretched arm. Two apples grew from it, one was deepest red and the other shimmering gold. She plucked the red one from the branch and held it out to Magnar.

I was looking at a goddess. An honest-to-shit deity in the flesh. I wasn’t sure if I’d hit my head or had stumbled into an entirely new existence, but I was having a whole shit-heap of trouble accepting what I was staring at.

“Any who taste this shall die. Even those who are dead already.”

Magnar accepted the apple, his gaze fixing on it in a way that suggested he was disturbed by it.

“Including the Belvederes?” I asked hopefully, my tongue finally loosening.

“No. Not them.” She glared at me angrily, and I recoiled in fear. “Their gift cannot be so easily removed. But...” She smiled as if she’d just thought of something exhilarating. “I could help get you past your enemies too.”

“The poison is more than enough,” Magnar replied quickly but her gaze stayed fixed on me.

“Nonsense.” Idun plucked the golden apple from the vine and took a bite. She moved towards me as she chewed on it, her motions as fluid as the water she walked upon. “A touch of immortality and they’ll believe she’s one of them.”

“Don’t!” Magnar snarled as he took a step towards us, but more vines sprung from the water, immobilising him.

Fear washed over me as the goddess approached, taking another bite from her apple and letting the juice run down her chin.

“Hush, Magnar, it won’t last for long. Just long enough to get you where you need to go.”

Idun reached out and grasped my chin, pulling me closer. I was a slave to her, unable to move as she leaned in and pressed a kiss to my mouth. The juice of the apple washed over my lips and the sweetest taste danced across my tongue, like honeyed fruit. She released me and I gasped as my skin tingled with her power, the strength of it simmering within me, aching to burst free.

“Hurry up now. You only have until midnight.” Idun smiled and the water beneath me suddenly turned to liquid again.

I sucked in a huge breath moments before I was submerged and the icy pool swallowed me whole.

I began to panic as I started to sink, but Magnar’s arm clamped tight around my waist. He dragged me back to the surface, and I gasped as my head met with the cold air once more.

He swam to shore, pulling me along with him, and only released me once the water was shallow enough for me to stand.

“What did she do to me?” I asked shakily as the echoes of her power continued to race beneath my skin.

“She made you look like one of them. Like an Elite,” Magnar replied, and I noticed his eyes had moved away from me like he didn’t want to see what she’d done.

I dropped my gaze to the water which lapped around my waist, and it stilled, forming a mirror in which my face was reflected back at me.

My skin glimmered with an unfamiliar coolness and my eyes were icy and hard. My features were still my own, but they weren’t at the same time. Every minor imperfection had been smoothed out. Every tiny thing that made my face my own was gone. I was looking at the face of stranger. A statue given life.

“So…that was a motherfucking goddess,” I pointed out, in case he hadn’t noticed and I’d actually lost my mind.

“It was,” Magnar agreed darkly.

“And she said…she called me, or implied that I was-”

Magnar stepped closer to me, catching my throat in his grasp, lifting my chin so I was looking right at him.

“Do you believe the gods get to decide who you love, drakaina hjarta?” he growled, a challenge in his expression which didn’t fully mask the distaste he was feeling as he studied my changed appearance.

My mind whirled with the impossibility of what we’d just seen, but the pounding lump of muscle in my chest still beat hardest for the one love in my life that I had left. Montana was the only person I cared for like that. The only one I could ever see myself offering that depth of feeling to. Romantic love had never been on the cards for me, had never been something I coveted or even wanted. So why was my tongue sticking on the denial that had risen to it?

“My heart is my own,” I told him.

Something in his golden eyes shuttered at my words, the lethal creature in him all that remained within their depths.

“As is mine.” Magnar released me, jerking back like he’d been fighting to maintain even that small contact against Idun’s rules, and I dropped my gaze to the mirror-like water once more, scowling at my vampiric appearance.

“It won’t last,” I said as I fought off the disgust I felt, sweeping my hand through the reflection and casting it away. “But she’s right; this will help us.”

“Let’s go then. The sooner we get to the train, the sooner we can get you back.” Magnar headed away and my mind trailed over the things Idun had said. There were so many questions I wished to ask him, like who the fuck was Valentina, and why did Idun seem so hung up on Magnar? But I got the strongest feeling that he didn’t want to answer them.

I followed him out of the pool, wringing the water from my hair as I went and heading back to my clothes.

If Idun wanted to give me this gift, then I’d be sure to use it well. The vampires guarding that train had no idea what was about to hit them.