“She will,” I reassured him. “Her concern right now is Celestia. Please, heal your wounds.”
“I need the pain until you are mine again. It keeps me from going crazy.”
Gah, he could be such a baby.
“I am yours, silly. Always.” I didn’t care if the Grimnirs watching us heard my next words. I reached up and palmed Echo’s cheek. “Seeing you like this breaks my heart, Echo. Please, heal yourself.”
“Not yet.”
“Fine. Suit yourself.”
Even as the words left my lips, I wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let go. It took all my energy to drop my hand, turn, and walk away. The crowd parted. When I glanced back, he was looking at me with so much longing I almost ran back to him.
Shaking my head, I kept walking until I cleared the crowd. A glowering Nara was on the outskirts and fell in step with me. We’d moved from her dislike of me to grudging acceptance to some kind of sisterhood because of Dev. It looked like we were back at the beginning.
“Why didn’t you tell us who you are?” Her voice dripped with ice.
I didn’t need to explain myself to her. “Nice to see you again, Nara.”
“He’s hurting,” she whispered, following me to the door.
“He’ll be fine.”
“He’s been like this since last week. Coming here and challenging anyone who’d fight him.”
All because the goddess had turned down his request? I glanced back, but Echo was now punching a bag as though to obliterate it. He was a hot mess over nothing. I wasn’t sure what I’d do, but I needed him to get his act together.
“I can’t help him. Not now.” Rage flashed in Nara’s eyes, but I didn’t let it bother me. “Keep him out of trouble until Celestia gets better.”
Chapter 12. My Echo Is Back
“How is Echo doing?” the goddess asked when I joined them.
“Better. He is impossible and intense and tends to blow everything out of proportion.” I realized what I’d just said and wondered if I’d given myself away. “I’ve known him for over a year now,” I added.
My parents didn’t comment, but unasked questions hung in the air. Part of me wanted to tell them the truth about us, but I remembered the story Mom had told me. Men had big, yet delicate egos. Dad would have been humiliated that his in-laws knew he hadn’t defended her. Echo wanted to be the one to tell my parents about us, so I wasn’t going behind his back and upstaging him.
We went back to their quarters, which had a gorgeous 3-D mural of a pillared hallway. It gave an illusion of a larger hall and a gorgeous sunset that seemed so real it was uncanny. My bedroom used to be a baby’s room and still had a rainbow mural and gorgeous snowflakes on the wall, but instead of the crib, there was a large canopy bed. Jessica had used it, but now she had Eirik’s old quarters.
“We are still working on your quarters,” Baldur explained.
“This is fine. Tonight I’ll probably stay up with Eirik anyway. Maybe even force him to sleep.” Astrid had unpacked my things, putting my makeup and paraphernalia on the vanity by a full-length mirror and my clothes and shoes in the large walk-in closet. They barely covered half of one side. The rest of my toiletries were in the bathroom, which was pretty modern.
I grabbed my laptop and the external hard drive where I stored most of my videos and pictures and joined them in a cozy room with a fireplace and shelves of books.
I shared my childhood while answering their questions. They had many. I was happy when the goddess called a halt.
“You can show us more tomorrow. It’s time to finish my duties in the Sorting Hall.”
The Grimnirs crowded the doorways leading to the room as I took my place beside her. Black runes like mine appeared on her normal side, so I knew she was glowing.
“I know you are tired and scared, but everything is going to be okay,” she told the hall of souls. “We have a place you can rest and be with your loved ones. You can talk and catch up, and stay with them as long as you like. When you are ready to be on your own, you can rest with your happiest memories. You decide which moment of your life to revisit and relive, who you’d like to join you there. Some of you can correct some of the wrongs you did or were done to you. The Eternal Resting Halls are meant to be happy and worry-free.” She glanced at me and smiled. “Ready?”
I wasn’t sure whether I was, but I nodded. A guard appeared beside me with the book the goddess had given me earlier. He turned it to a blank page. Several guards guided the souls to where we stood.
They passed me before going to her. The first one, a man, reached out and touched my hand. His thoughts flowed into mine, and from my thoughts into the book.
“Donovan Fuller, born October 1965 at 3:42:22 in Wichita, Kansas. Rest in peace,” the goddess said. The guards took him and disappeared through a portal to the entrance of an Eternal Resting Hall. The whole process was surreal and seemed never-ending because Grimnirs kept arriving with more souls. Luckily for me, there were not a lot who needed closure. The majority just wanted to connect with someone.
When we stopped, I had a knot between my shoulders. I rotated them to remove the kinks. “You do this every day? It’s only been”—I glanced at my watch—“an hour? It seemed longer.”
“It’s not bad once you learn to pace yourself.” She ran a hand along my back and the knot disappeared. “If you get tired, you will it away or sit. There’s a chair around here somewhere, and you can adjust it at will so you are at eye level with each soul.”
The Grimnirs, who’d stayed and watched the whole process, stepped back as we left the room. I didn’t realize more had arrived until I heard the buzz. The Throne Hall and the adjacent Waiting Hall were packed with reapers, guards, and the staff.
The goddess led me to her seat, but instead of sitting, she stayed standing until Baldur joined us. I had a feeling they’d planned this. He raised his hand, and silence spread through the halls. I tried to find Echo in the crowd, but there were so many reapers. I found the hooded ancients, or Idun-Grimnirs. There couldn’t be more than a dozen. At the very front, along the stairs leading to the throne, were the goddess’ private guards in their black and green cloaks. Behind them stood regular guards.
“I had planned to have a big welcome home party to make this announcement,” Baldur started, “but we have to postpone it because our daughter Celestia is gravely ill. I’m sure you’ve noticed the lack of laughter in the hall the last week. We hope she’ll recover soon. In the meantime, I want to introduce you to our long-lost daughter, Einmyria. Some of you know her as Cora Jemison, the courageous young Mortal who selflessly helps souls find closure. We thought she died as a baby, but that was not the case.” He turned his head and smiled at me. “She was taken from this hall by Angrboda, left in J?tunheim, where the Norns collected her and took her to Earth with other orphans. She will be staying with us for a while, but her life is still back on Earth, where she was raised. Regardless of where she is, Einmyria is a young goddess, our daughter. Treat her with the same respect you give her mother and protect her with everything you’ve got.”
The guards were the first to drop on one knee, bow their heads, and press their fists to their chests. The silent allegiance spread like a wave. Even the Idun-Grimnirs went on their knees and showed their loyalty.
My throat thickened with all sorts of emotions, part of me touched, but the other part worried about my future. Echo was somewhere in this crowd. What must he be feeling? An invisible line seemed to have been drawn between us.
“Rise,” Baldur said, and the crowd did. Flanked by my parents, I gave tentative smiles and nods as they parted and we walked through them.
“That was daunting,” I said when we reached the hallway to their private quarters.
“Why?” the goddess asked. “You are our daughter, and they needed to know that.”