Forged in Blood and Lightning: A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel (Descendants of Thor Trilogy: Book One) by S.A. Ashdown

Author:S.A. Ashdown [Ashdown, S.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brooker Press Ltd
Published: 2018-03-10T22:00:00+00:00

Nikolaj and I skimmed past the barn and the chicken coop, avoiding the boggy areas by sticking to the trampled path trimming the heathland. The temple, despite being dedicated to the Norse gods, loomed like the Pantheon in Rome, with evenly spaced Corinthian columns, and a pediment decorated with Odin, Thor, and Freyr, one god at each point on the triangle. Carved onto the gable, miniature scenes from the Eddas ran across the columns.

We mounted the porch and passed through the small vestibule leading into the temple itself, the airy, square room reaching its apex in the ceiling dome, allowing natural light to flood the spot where the three gods rested on bronze thrones.

The family crests seemed to float on the dome’s tinted blue glass, a colourful triad shedding sunlit hues onto those who craned their necks to look. A green stag on a red shield, Familia Super Omni etched beneath, which was my mother’s maiden crest. Then, Uncle’s Sarrow emblem: a yew-wood bow and arrow nested in green leaves that formed intricate fractal patterns like those I’d found on the trinkets in the undercroft, the night I discovered the Gatekeeper book. Finally, the Clemensen coat of arms: Mjölnir encased in runes, and the motto I had never understood until so recently, now that I was the Gatekeeper. Járner Jörð Líf – Iron is life to Earth.

It wasn’t much of a stretch to assume ‘iron’ referred to Thor’s hammer, above all else the symbol of his strength and power. It was that power that kept the world alive. A reference to our identity as Gatekeepers had been floating over my head since the first time I’d set foot in the temple. Our family secret was on our crest, and I had been ignorant of it.

I was ignorant about many things.

The floor was Italian-grade Carrara marble, polished, and pure. Stained glass windows looked out over the water, turning the sea into a shimmering rainbow in good weather, and splitting it into warring factions of colour in the bad.

Slim, coloured panes also adorned the niches created by the vestibule. It was one of those niches that housed Mother’s ashes in a golden urn, an oil painting Father had commissioned set above in a gilt frame, his wife, my mother, astride an Arabian horse who’d died not long after her, wind-swept, crimson hair blazing over her shoulders. I stopped to look at it and jolted; the night I’d become the Gatekeeper, I’d been trapped in nightmares, chasing Mum through the woods as she galloped away from me on horseback.

We forgot our argument for a short time, paying homage as we crept towards the three thrones, Nik heading the procession, as was the custom. We paused at the heavy, granite altar, or stalli. In the middle, an upturned palm carved from an old branch held a golden stallaringr, a ring Asatruars use to swear oaths upon, especially during a wedding. This had been the spot where Isobel and Espen had joined the Breac and Clemensen lines, with Nikolaj conducting the ceremony, sacrificing to Freyr for marital blessings.

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