Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Arkon’s first impression of Astrid Verasha’s home was that autumn was yet to touch it. The air was warm and golden, smelling of fresh flowers and honey. The house was made of sturdy logs with smaller buildings at the back of it. Pine, birch, and ash trees with green and golden leaves encircled the property.

"I feel like I’ve just stumbled into a fairytale witch’s house," Arkon said, looking about in case said witch was in listening distance.

Zarya gave his hand a squeeze. "She’s twice as sweet and three times as dangerous."

"If she reared you, then she would have to be." Arkon gazed around him in silent wonder. "I know why you are so good with wards now. Is this in the real world?"

"Most of it," Zarya said which didn’t clear the question up for him. "This way. She will be at her tree."

Arkon followed, and superstition had him stepping only where she stepped. "Do normal seasons not apply here?"

"Not unless she wants them to. Right now, this place is..." Zarya struggled to find the word. "Hidden. Only magic can find it. At least until Arkadi is dead."

They walked along a narrow path through orchards and gardens. There were fat bees buzzing lazily around their hives, and everything seemed like serenity itself. That feeling grew stranger the further they walked.

Arkon could feel the magic humming all around them combined with a drumbeat of ancient power.

A large oak rose out of the ground in front of a clear pool fed by natural springs. On one side the tree was a wooden effigy taller than he was, carved with the likeness of a goddess that Arkon guessed was Freya. On the other side of the tree was one of the All-Father, complete with an eye patch. Offerings and candles had been placed at the base of them.

A woman was sitting by the pool with her back to them.

"Okay, Mother, what was so important?" Zarya demanded.

The woman stood and turned to them with a smile. A thick golden braid hung over her shoulder, and she was wearing an ochre colored hangerok pinafore dress complete with brass brooches.

Arkon had the overwhelming urge to bow. He could make out Zarya in her lips and the shape of her cheeks, but that was it. Zarya was a dagger compared to the soft flower of her mother. Astrid smiled, and it was like feeling the sun on his face.

"You brought the sorcerer after all," she said with a smirk only a mother could muster.

"You knew I would. Arkon, this is my mother, Astrid." Zarya shifted her weight from foot to foot.

"A pleasure to meet you," Arkon said with a small bow.

"I’m sure it is." Astrid brushed a hand over Zarya’s hair. "Perhaps I need to find some scissors and fix this mess before we talk."

"You didn’t summon us here to criticize how I look." They switched to Norwegian to argue, and Arkon waited patiently. He couldn’t remember his mother, but this woman with her generously curved body and increasingly exasperated expression was unmistakably one.

"I’m not speaking about it until we eat something. You are skin and bones from all that running." Astrid’s amber eyes zeroed in on him. "You could have met her halfway at least."

"I didn’t know she was looking for me," Arkon stammered. He held off apologizing, though the impulse was there. Astrid took the lead, her bare feet brushing against the grass and full hips swaying.

"Is it a glamor?" Arkon asked, shaking his head like he had a ringing in his ear.

Zarya let out a long sigh. "No, it’s her magic. She’s a priestess of Freya, so the goddess’s power creates an aura of fertility around her."

"My father has similar magic. His abilities are earth magic and can get anything to grow at any time of the year. He’s got a real talent for grapes and wine making," Arkon said and shook his head again. "I mean they would have to have fertility magic to have seven kids at all."

"And what of your mother?" Astrid asked over her shoulder. She opened a dark door to the main house and brought them through to the kitchen.

"My mother died in the mountains the winter after I was born. She loved to ski. She decided to have a weekend away with her best friend. They went missing in a freak storm, and by the time they were found, they had frozen to death," Arkon said, relaying the old story. He shrugged. "I never knew her, but my brothers and father were devastated by her loss."

"And he never remarried?" Astrid asked. "You never had a mother?"

"No and no. I had tutors mostly. What about you? Where’s your husband?" Arkon didn’t recall Zarya ever mentioning her father. Astrid poured out pale yellow juice from a jug, her smile wide.

"I haven’t found the right man. All of my girls were conceived during rituals," she said, passing him his juice and continuing to move about the kitchen. "I couldn’t tell you who their fathers are, but we did just fine without them. Zarya is the only one of us that gets twisted up over the men in her life." She threw Arkon a flirty wink, and ice formed under Zarya’s fingertips where she was holding her cup.

"We found parts of Asa, but I won’t stop until I have it all," she said bluntly.

Astrid’s beautiful mask fractured, and Arkon glimpsed the grieving mother underneath. "I know you won’t. This path you walk, daughter... There is such a darkness in it, I can barely look at it."

Zarya crossed her arms. "Then don’t. I told you I’m going to handle it, and I will. You always seem to forget that Freya is a war goddess. They declared war on us when they killed Asa. I won’t stop until crows pluck out their eyes and their blood waters the earth."

Arkon found her hand under the table. "We won’t stop, little wolf."

"I know you won’t, and it’s what worries me. I saw in a vision the emperor come for me here. He wants to know if he will take Constantinople," Astrid said, putting together a tray of food. "Get the door please? I want to be outside. Zarya, you take the tray. Arkon, would you help me with something?"

"Of course," he said, watching Zarya disappear out the door. Astrid caught him by the bicep.

"You have to know, I had a vision of you as well," she said, keeping her voice low. "Zarya will react poorly if I say this in front of her, but I saw you sacrifice yourself for her. I didn’t see the how, only the outcome."

Arkon patted her hand. "Thank you for the warning, but it’s unnecessary."

"Why?" she said, blue eyes narrowing. "Do you not believe in visions?"

"I don’t need a vision to tell me what I already know," Arkon said softly. "I’m never going to let her be taken. No matter what happens in this fight or any other, I’m always going to stand between them and her."

Astrid cupped his face in her hands. "I knew you’d be powerful. I didn’t see that you would be good too."

Arkon shook his head. "I’m not that good, but I will try to be for her."

"Goodness is not what my Zarya needs most anyway. We had best not keep her waiting," Astrid said, strolling out of the kitchen with a bowl of peaches.

Zarya was waiting for them at a wooden table in a clearing in the orchard. Arkon felt a twinge of homesickness that he hadn’t experienced in a long time. He wrote to his father weekly but had stayed in Venice where he was needed. At least, where he felt he was needed.

"Did she interrogate you? Or was just being nosy?" Zarya asked.

Astrid put down the bowl of peaches. "A mother has a right to have five minutes alone to talk to the man her daughter is sleeping with. Don’t look so alarmed, Arkon. I’m a devotee of a love goddess. I can see it for myself."

"Well, that’s good. It means I can hold your hand now," Arkon said, sitting down next to Zarya and wrapping his fingers around hers. There was a touch of frost in them that he warmed away.

"We can eat and then you are coming with us back to Venice. No arguing, Mama. We pissed off Arkadi today in Kyiv, and if he’s going to come for you, he will do it as soon as possible for revenge."

"What mischief have you been up to? I swear Loki whispers in your ear, and you do whatever he asks," Astrid said with a sigh.

As they ate, Zarya told her mother everything that had happened in the past few months. Thankfully, she kept what was happening between her and Arkon private. There were things about them that people wouldn’t understand. Especially their parents.

After eating, they went for a walk through the orchards with Astrid laying down wards and spells to make sure her plants didn’t die when she was away.

Arkon was admiring the delicate weavings of a watering spell when he felt a ripple of darkness move with the calm glade. He ran towards the source of it, arriving in time to see a portal of churning darkness open up and Strahil step through.

Zarya came in from the other side of the orchard, and Strahil touched a bloody sigil drawn on his chest. Behind her, Astrid screamed, clutching at her head. Zarya turned instinctively to help her mother, so she wasn’t watching for the follow-up spell.

Arkon didn’t think. He threw his counter spell at it, knocking it off course and causing it to hit a nearby tree. Arkon collided with Strahil, tackling him back through the portal before he could throw another spell at Zarya. He collapsed the portal spell behind him, leaving him floating in the churning void of darkness.