Valhalla Beckons by Alex Steele

Author:Alex Steele [Steele, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781732451872
Publisher: Steel Fox Media LLC
Published: 2019-01-14T22:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Nine

It was the middle of the night, but I couldn't sleep. Swift had gone to bed a half hour ago, deciding to stay in one of the spare bedrooms instead of going back to her apartment.

Slipping quietly out of my room, I headed toward my father's office. If sleep wasn't an option, then I might as well put the time to good use.

The question of how to access the chest in my father's office hadn't stopped nagging at me. I unlocked the secret room and walked in, shutting the door behind me.

A ball of light jumped from the palm of my hand and floated near the door. The hastily scrawled runes were another mystery, and the more I thought about it, possibly the best clue I had. They were out of place compared to the careful work done on the chest and the rest of the room.

I took a picture, then began sketching each of the runes into a notebook. My magical education had been thorough, both in school and at home. You could tell the purpose of a rune based on its construction. They were similar to Kanji –– the symbols in Japanese that are adopted from the Chinese writing system –– in that respect. The pieces all had their own meaning, and once put together, formed an idea.

My mother had been a bit of an inventor. Swift had mentioned that she might have been the one to create the chest, and it wouldn’t surprise me.

In many ways, time had dampened the pain of losing my parents, in other ways, it hadn’t. The grief was simply part of me now, like an ache in your knee that never went away after a fall. The days when I realized I could barely remember what they looked like were the hardest.

With a sigh, I pushed the door open and walked over to my father’s desk. These runes were left for a reason, and that reason should be obvious once I figured out what they were.

I examined the first one, making notes around the rune about what each symbol or line most likely meant. They were complex for something so hastily drawn. If I’d discovered this years ago, I might have been able to identify the handwriting, but it had been too long.

The next few hours were spent digging through old books in an attempt to identify each rune. A few were easy to figure out, but the remaining runes were a mish-mash of seemingly contradictory symbols. I knew it required the first person to open the room to be a Blackwell, but it also had what I was interpreting as rules along with it. Age, protections against coercion, and something that I suspected would have harmed someone if I hadn’t been alone the first time I opened the room.

Dust billowed up from the last book I’d pulled from the shelves as I opened it, forcing me to turn away and cough. My eyes watered from the small particles. I grabbed the bottom of my shirt and attempted to wipe my eyes clean but they still felt gritty when I was done.

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