When Ravens Fall by Savannah Jezowski

Author:Savannah Jezowski [Jezowski, Savannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Savannah Jezowski
Published: 2016-04-12T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KENNA ARRIVED IN time to see Baldur charging across the yard, away from the longhouse. He made a sound that resembled a wounded animal caught in a hunter’s snare. He tumbled through snow drifts, over stone embankments and around pointed palisades, toward the perimeter of the fortress. She launched from the tree, intending to follow him and call him back.

But the Mist called her name first.

She tried to ignore it. She shook her head, squeezed her eyes closed and drove blindly into the warm, damp air that burst to life around her. But the Mist could not be ignored. She felt her wings deaden with weight and tumbled headfirst into a snowbank.

Cawing, she beat snow from her wings. All around her, the snow began to thaw, peeling backwards like burning paper. Kenna fluttered to the top of a stone wall now clear of snow and waited. The Mist did not stop until the entire courtyard was as barren as the last day of autumn.

The bone woman peeled away from the swirling fog, hobbling through the Mist and straight for Kenna. “Not now!” Kenna hissed at her, flapping in agitation. The bone woman silenced her with the swipe of a hand, and no matter how Kenna tried, she could not make a single sound. Bound, mute, humiliated, she cowered against the stone.

The bone woman stopped, her dark eyes unblinking behind her snarl of hair. Then she changed. The wrinkles melted away. The colorless hair turned warm as honey, the black eyes as blue as summer skies, her skin as flawless as polished ivory. Kenna shrank away in disbelief. There was only one woman in all the Niflheim as beautiful as this: a woman who bore beautiful sons and dreamed terrible dreams.

Frigg.

The vision only lasted moments, perhaps only a breath of a moment, and then the bone woman returned. “There is no more time,” the hag wheezed, coughing and clutching at her chest. “I had thought with time—and distance—that my foolish son would find a woman to satisfy the curse, to thwart the prophecy. I had thought—but, no, I too am foolish. I too am trapped by this curse, and none of us can be free until the curse is satisfied.”

She drew several haggard breaths before continuing. “I tried to save him. It is apparent I have failed. You have failed. We have failed.”

Kenna hung her head and opened her mouth to cry, but her bound throat would allow no sound. It was a voiceless, wrenching agony.

“There is nothing left, Kenna,” the bone woman said, in a softer tone. “Nothing left but for us to play our part. When the time comes, you must save him. When the time comes, I will help you. You must save my son. You owe him this. We owe him this.”

Kenna nodded. She owed him this and more.

The pressure on her throat released, and she gasped for air like one close to drowning. The Mist curled away from her, leaving behind steaming stone and barren earth.

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