Transcendent by Livingston Lesley

Author:Livingston, Lesley [Livingston, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780062063137
Publisher: HarperTeen
Published: 2014-12-23T08:00:00+00:00

XVI

The torch on the opposite wall suddenly flared, blindingly bright, and Fennrys put up a hand to shield his eyes. When he lowered it again, a figure stood before him, silhouetted in the glare of the sun’s light. Startled, Fennrys turned to Loki, but the so-called trickster god of the Norse was gone.

So, for that matter, was the catacomb Fennrys had shared with him only a moment before. In its place, he found himself outside beneath a brilliant blue sky dotted with puffball white clouds. The air shimmered with a kind of dreamy haze and Fennrys wondered for a moment if that was what it was—a dream. But he’d never had a dream so vivid. He could smell the pine sap from the nearby trees and feel the feathery brush of long grasses waving around his knees. He stood near the edge of a precipice that dropped away, falling in a gentle slope toward a vale, cut through by a sparkling river that twisted like a giant blue snake below. Through the trees, Fennrys thought he could see some kind of boat bobbing on the surface of the water, but he wasn’t really concerned with that at the moment.

What concerned him more was the tall, striking woman who stood before him, smiling. As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, he saw that she wore a long belted tunic woven of green wool and her arms and feet were bare. Her hair was long and plaited loosely down her back. And “tall” might have been an understatement. She was well over six feet. But she was slender and her face was pretty, if slightly weathered. There were fine webs of lines at the corners of her eyes and she had a deep tan. Even with that, the skin on the bridge of her nose was peeling and just a little pink. It looked as if she had spent the last year outside without any shelter from the elements. It didn’t look, though, as if such circumstances would be any particular hardship to this woman.

She looked at him and smiled.

“You grew up strong,” she murmured in a gentle voice.

While she spoke in a language Fennrys didn’t know, somehow he understood what she was saying, and he had an immediate sense of déjà vu. He felt as though he might have once heard that same voice singing lullabies in the darkness in that same language. The woman cocked her head and a gleam of wry humor sparkled in her blue eyes.

“And handsome,” she said. “Like your father.”

“I’ll tell him you said so,” Fenn said, swallowing the knot that had tied itself in his throat.

“I used to do that.” She chuckled. “Even though he already knew it. He’s a touch vain, you know.”

“And completely mad.”

“Do you think so?” She cocked her head, seriously contemplating that. “I always thought he was the only one of them who wasn’t.”

“The only one of who?”

“The Aesir.”

Fennrys shook his head, wearied by the further confirmation—assuming he wasn’t actually dreaming or delusional in that moment—of his origins, and his impending disastrous destiny.

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