“You should be proud of yourself for still being alive,” Odin said from somewhere above me. “If it weren’t for the part of you that is immortal, this realm would tear you apart.”
At his words, the pressure built to a tugging sensation that intensified until a sweat broke out all over my body.
“It’s your mortality that’s holding you back now,” he said, and I could sense him walking in a slow circle around my fetal form. “You really should hurry. Your body won’t be able to tolerate much more of this.”
His words triggered me to release my mortal self, and I threw open the door within my mind, bathing myself in its golden light. My spirit separated from my body, and I stepped free. The pain vanished as quickly as dousing a candle’s flame with water. But as I gazed down at my body, still wretched and prostrate on the ground, I knew Odin spoke the truth: I didn’t have much time.
“Clever girl,” Odin said, his eye now on my ethereal spirit form.
“Where is Valhalla?”
Odin smiled as his gaze shifted to somewhere behind me. I turned, and a massive eagle let out its shriek into the sky. It flew above a colossal longhouse, the roof made of thousands of shields. There were more windows and doors than I could count, and the whole structure was made of bright, shining gold. Above us were two suns and a moon, and the sky was gray, as though a storm would soon be upon us.
“Mind the wolf Fenrir at the western door,” Odin said. “He will know you are no einherjar.”
Before I could ask him anything else, he disappeared, leaving me with nothing but an unsettling urgency. One of his ravens, though, kept track of me from the air. I sprinted forward, faster in this realm than I would have been on earth, and the raven followed, casting its shadow above me. It took me mere seconds to reach the doors—heavy with gold and with snakes for handles—but when I wrenched them open, all hope that this would be an easy task fell away.
The hall was bigger than any castle I had ever seen, bigger even than the city of Dubhlinn. The rafters were made of spears, and there were tables so long I couldn’t see the ends of them. They were filled with food and drink—fruit and cheese and meat, honeyed mead and cold ale. And there were more men and women than all the armies I had seen put together. They crammed the hall and filled the tables, their voices and laughter carrying to the spear-tipped rafters. Finding Leif among so many was going to be as hard as finding a single grain of sand in the sea.
I would have to do this as I did everything else: one step at a time. I walked and searched, for how long, I couldn’t say. All the while, my body called to me, and the tugging sensation became nearly unbearable. Still, I pressed on.
I quickened my pace but began to feel the tautness of the link to my body stretched nearly to capacity. I had searched only half the hall, and I knew I was rapidly running out of time.
But with my spirit form came quickness of thought. I was the Morrigan’s daughter; I had a communion with the dead. If I couldn’t continue my search, then maybe I could summon the dead to me. I thought of Leif; I thought of the way he smelled, the deepness of his voice, the iron-like strength of his muscles. But mostly, I thought of the way he made me feel: like I had finally found where I belonged.
Just then a bellow of pain rang out somewhere in the middle of the hall, the sound echoing off the walls. Voices near me fell silent as a tall, golden Northman came sprinting toward me. Leif had found me.
He stood before me, his chest heaving for breath though I was sure he no longer needed to draw it. His arms reached out and drew me to him. “Ciara, no. No, you cannot be dead. Please tell me this is only a hallucination brought on by Valhalla mead.”
He pulled me into his ethereal chest, solid to me in my own spirit form, but strangely absent of everything that made him his familiar self: no warmth, no smell, no . . . heartbeat.
“I’m not dead, and you’re not hallucinating,” I said in a rush to Leif, who had yet to realize the danger we were in.
“Then what are you doing here?”
Again, my body called to me, and I put a hand on Leif’s arm. “I’m here to bring you back . . . if you’ll go with me.”
For a moment, Leif was so quiet I was terrified he would say no, and then the grin that had once enraged me spread across his face. “How could you doubt me?”
Relief bloomed within me, and I returned his smile. “Because all you’ve talked about since the moment we met was Valhalla.”
He touched my face. “That was until I fell in love with you.”
I leaned into his touch, imagining how it would feel when we were back in our proper bodies. “We don’t have much time,” I murmured.
He tilted my chin up to look at him. “Before I leave the golden splendor of Valhalla, I need to know if you love me.”
“Yes.” The word came from deep within, and once I had spoken it aloud, I realized just how true it was. I felt a blush steal over me even as something within me clicked irrevocably into place. Leif had died, and with him, my inability to see him as he really was. He was kind and merciless, frustrating and encouraging, beautiful and dangerous. But most of all, he was not his father.
My gaze dropped to our feet. I felt shamed by how I’d responded toward him when I’d learned of what his father had done—not in love and understanding as he had, but in coldness and distrust.
And it only took his death to make me realize it.
I shook my head. “I’m so sorry, Leif—”
His finger traced down my cheek, his eyes intent on my lips. “Don’t apologize,” he said, “I understand. My reaction would have been worse had our circumstances been reversed. You can apologize and make it up to me all you want when we return to Midgard.” He took hold of my hand and gave a little tug. “What did you trade in order to bring me back?” he asked as we strode down the golden hallway.
“Odin seemed to think you would never want to leave Valhalla, so only your agreement was required,” I said, and related everything I had seen after Leif’s death.
His ghostly eyebrows shot up when I described the vengeance I took on the Valkyries on his behalf.
“I was a fool to think only my mortal life would be payment enough for the gifts the Valkyrie gave me. They had plans for my soul as well.” He glanced around him at the tables filled with other warriors. “There was a time when I would have gladly accepted such a fate, but”—he pinned me with his gaze—“everything has changed now.”
I squeezed his hand in response and prayed that Odin would hold to his part of the bargain.
Leif must have read my mind, for he said, “I doubt my agreement to leave is the only thing needed before we’ll be allowed to return to the mortal realm.”
As we pushed open the same massive doors I had opened before, a sinister growl greeted us.
I froze, cold fear eating its way through me. An angry mob behind us, and a wolf guarding the door. “Is this not the way I came in—the eastern door?” I said in a hushed whisper to Leif.
“It is.”
“Then tell me that wasn’t the growl of a wolf.”
The growl came again, louder and closer than before. Leif gave me a shove. “Go. I am einherjar now. It won’t attack me, and I can distract it.”
“And then what, Leif?” I demanded in a hiss.
“Just go,” he said, and gave me another stubborn push.
A snarl came from just behind us, and I ran. The scenery—a rocky cliff overlooking a fjord—rushed by. I heard Leif jump in front of the wolf, but it easily dodged him and came after me. I risked a glance back. Its enormous paws thudded as loudly as a horse’s hooves, and it was massive—bigger than a bear. Bigger than any animal I had ever seen on earth. Its yellow eyes were trained on me, hungry. Its teeth were like daggers in its mouth. It no longer growled, only raced after me silently with single-minded intent.