All Things Devour

twenty-four

Small fingers drawing through her hair woke Sonya from her turbulent dreams.

She opened her eyes and did not recognize where she was or how she’d come to be there. Stiff and puzzled, she sat up on the white sand of an unknown beach and dragged her bare feet away from the tide’s gentle lapping. The air hung still as death itself, but the beach felt calm and unbothered by the unnatural pall. She could hear no seabirds, no rustle of trees or grass. All that came to her was the slow breathing of the water moving on the sand.

Sonya rubbed at her temple, trying to make sense of her current conundrum as she rose to stand.

She wore a dark cloak, tattered and ripped in many places, as was her modern men’s shirt and her less modern trousers. They had tears in the knees, but the skin underneath looked fine. For the life of her, Sonya couldn’t figure out where her shoes had gone.

There was no sun, only a gray sky like a solid slate sheet, and mist clung upon the edges of every horizon. There was no color—the sky like iron, the water like mercury, the sand white as the driven snow, and even Sonya herself seemed rendered in a sticky, bleached monochrome.

“ Sonya—!”

She turned to gaze at the water at her back, squinting. Anton…?

No boat bobbed in the tide, no ship rested out to sea. Where on earth were her shoes?

Where is Anton?

Childish laughter turned Sonya’s head again.

“Fiske?” she asked, voice echoing, a puff of cold air spilling from her lips. It couldn’t be Fiske—she’d barely heard him ever make a noise, but wasn’t that him waiting just there? She could have sworn—.

There was a cave—or, more precisely, a hill from which a craggy crown of basalt rock emerged like crooked teeth, and where those teeth laid against one another, there existed a narrow, darkened passage leading into the earth. Sonya hadn’t noticed it before—hadn’t noticed anything of the stale, static landscape—not until she thought she spied Fiske skipping down among the stones.

The giggling came again.

“Hello?” Sonya called, baffled, and when no one answered, she picked up her bare feet and strode closer, paying no mind to the mountain’s teeth, barely cognizant of how it seemed the earth itself meant to swallow her whole. It should have been pitch black in the belly of the mountain, but as Sonya wandered deeper, she found she had no difficulty seeing the different gradations in the shadows, making out the various lines and textures in the rock and sand.

Laughter echoed. Sonya thought she could hear the measured plop of water falling on a flat surface.

She came upon a cavern much larger than any space she’d ever seen, the path sloping downward from the tunnel’s tiny mouth, the ceiling arching higher and higher away until the black mist ate it whole.

“Fiske?” she whispered again, less and less sure she was following the strange draugr. Ahead, a significant shape loomed.

In the basin of the cave’s beveled interior, the gritty sand formed gentle piles around the bottom of a massive rock, upon which laid the pale, prone body of a man twice Sonya’s height. Iron chains encircled his wrists and ankles, seeming a part of the rock itself. As she approached, liquid gathered and dripped from high above, splashing upon the man’s face. The water was vibrant like bottled sunlight, almost too blinding for Sonya to look at in the dark of the cave. The man’s skin hissed where it landed, and he groaned.

Something of the scene stirred a memory for Sonya, Anton’s voice rumbling in her ear, but whatever it might be, she could not remember, just as she could not remember how she had come to that strange place or what she was meant to be doing. She watched again as the liquid dripped, and the sand sank between her naked toes as she came to the rock’s side and stared in trepidation at the creature before her. His breathing came loud and deep, like that of a great beast deep in slumber. A warning not to be awoken.

Fiske sat on the rock by the man’s head, crouched with his knees folded against his skinny chest. He watched Sonya with eyes like swimming lanterns filled with dull light.

“Where are we?” she asked him in an undertone, wary of waking the giant. “…Fiske?”

“Not home,” said Fiske, startling Sonya. “Between.”

“Between?”

“Not there or there . D’ya think home was the only place there is?”

“I guess I never considered….” Sonya turned her hand and looked at her palm, a slight tremble working through the limb. They’d been doing something important . She’d been with Anton, and Calder. Where were they? What happened…?

Liquid dripped upon the slumbering man.

“I have—I have to go back,” Sonya said, voice shaking at the realization. “Fiske, how do I go back?”

Fiske didn’t answer, burying his face in his knees.

Drip. Drip.

Without thought, Sonya stretched her skinny arms above him, the stone digging into her hip, and cupped her hands to catch the next drip. The liquid burned where it touched her skin, and Sonya gasped, but she did not let go.

Chains clicked in the dark. Sonya startled when she glanced down and found the man’s attention fixed upon her. Silver clouded his eyes, and the shadow of sharp teeth appeared between his parted lips, his hair like black ink spilled upon the ash-colored stone. The draugr was beautiful; not even the pattern of pearly scars across his brow and cheekbones could detract from that.

Another droplet fell into Sonya’s cupped hands.

“ Dóttir ,” the man whispered in a voice like careful feet sliding through reeds. Sonya had the impression he hadn’t spoken in a long time. “How very strange.”

Another drop fell.

“I cannot recall when last one of mine found their way to these shores.”

Sonya’s arms ached, but still she remained as she was. The man studied her for a long while with a passive eye. She didn’t know what he wished for her to say, so she said nothing.

Anton’s voice swelled in her ears again. “ Odinn then had Loki bound in a cave ,” his words echoed. “ In darkness, beneath the dripping maw of a great, venomous snake— .”

“Tell me, Sonya Marston,” the draugr ordered. “Do you believe in the gods?” A gold coin rested upon the rock by his great head, wrapped in a hair ribbon. Sonya looked at it, and a memory touched her mind, the feeling of lips pressed to her own, devotion skating over her naked skin.

“We have to offer something. A sacrifice,” Anton’s voice echoed. Her own thoughts chased it—.

I would very much wish for Anton’s happiness, Loki, if you can hear me.

Fiske—Vidar—smiled at her.

“Not before,” Sonya replied with an attempt at a smile. “But as of late? I’m not so sure. The things I’ve seen—well. I keep searching for an explanation, and I can’t help but wonder if there is one.”

“Ah,” he murmured, great body shifting on the rock, his bindings clicking again. “It doesn’t matter. They believe in you.”

She cried out when a hand larger than her head closed about the nape of her neck and forced her down, a warm mouth pressed to her throat. Teeth slid into her flesh, and Sonya screwed her eyes shut, terrified, ready to scream—.

She could feel his breath on her skin, his teeth in her skin, hot blood pouring from her—.

The man let go.

Sonya opened her eyes to Anton’s worried, blood-flecked face. His trembling hand smoothed her hair back from her face as she stole a hasty breath, her lungs burning, and he smiled.

“Sonya,” he gasped. “Can you hear me? You’re all right, you’re all right—.”

Her heart thumped in her chest steady and sure. Anton’s fingers ghosted along her jaw, over her cold, sensitive neck. Her lungs ached with the need for air—but there was no mark to show where a dagger had been wedged between her bones moments before.

Ylva lay dead upon the floor some meters away. In the end, for all her madness, gluttony, and power, she had been no match for Calder’s blade.

“Anton?” she asked, swallowing. “Oh. That was—let’s not do that again.”

Laughter mingled with his tears as Anton lifted her higher, burying his face in her hair. “We won’t,” he promised. And then, in a whisper, he added, “Thank the gods.”

One Year Later

For one blessed minute, the only sound heard was the clack of Sonya’s trimmed nails on the keyboard.

“ And in 844 CE, ” she wrote, letters flashing across the laptop’s screen. “ At the Battle of Hrútsstadr, Asger the Livid, later named Jarl or Duke of the draugar collective known as Vidarheim, claimed the life of the giant Hrungnir with a single blow of his ax to its neck —.”

“Raven shit!” thundered Arvid Rifskersson, shattering the hard-won calm. “A load of raven shit, I tell you!”

“It’s the truth!” Jarl Asger boomed in return, dropping his empty mead horn on the table. He had a definite slur to his words that Sonya had noted while she worked. “I brought the wretched beast low, and I leapt into the air, and I swung my ax down onto its neck—.” He mimicked the motion, flattening a tray of pears into a messy pulp.

His adviser Arvid rolled his eyes, barely visible under his bushy brow. “ I was there! I shot an arrow through its eye long afore you brought up your ax!”

“You’re drunk as a pig’s arse!” Asger hurled the empty horn at Arvid and missed.

“I tell you, the giant was dead already!”

Fru Narangerel sighed as she wiped splattered pear from her sleeve. “I am quite certain you were both as staggering drunk as you are now.”

“Turning my own lady wife against me! Dog!”

Sonya sighed and backspaced until the word processor was blank, and she decided she’d made enough progress on the Battle of Hrútsstadr for the evening—namely, no progress at all. She wasn’t entirely convinced it hadn’t actually just been an ancient pub brawl that ended up with a bunch of draugar passed out in the thrushes. Tomorrow she would persevere in discovering more answers.

As she rose, a scoff from the table’s end pulled her attention from the arguing Jarl and adviser. Calder sat in his black cloak, the side of him gilded in the hearth’s warming light, sipping his libations from a jeweled goblet.

“I warned you, did I not?”

Sonya arched a brow in a silent bid for him to explain.

“You are the fool who decided you wished to chronicle the history of the draugar. I told you it would not be as simple as you thought it would.”

“No, I guess you’re right,” she agreed, closing her laptop and returning it to her bag. “I hadn’t accounted for vampires being prone to boastfulness. That was my mistake.” Still, it was enjoyable work. She’d had the opportunity to learn and gather knowledge far beyond her former purview, and draugar never failed to entertain. She hoped to one day travel and catalog the history of realms across the world, but for now, she was content to record tall tales and rumors told by her neighbors.

Calder snorted and took another drink, eyes never leaving hers. One of his assistants, a vampire from the Albian settlement of Nockgarw, approached with a document, and he glanced it over before sending her on her way with a flick of his hand.

Sonya prepared to leave, but then noted how Calder’s attention had wandered to her neck, to the silver scars the decorated her throat. She tugged the collar of her fitted turtleneck a bit higher, and his eyes flicked to hers again.

They did not often speak of that night on Gebo when Sonya had awoken in Anton’s arms, the seidkona Ylva dead at Calder’s feet, a bloody knife dropped on the rug. Sonya had come back to awareness bearing new, bizarre scars on her throat and palms, the hazy memory of a man in a cave who asked what she believed in buzzing about in her mind. They did not know then, and did not know now, what exactly had happened, or how Sonya had woken up at all from what should have been a death blow. Sonya chased answers, but Anton called it a blessing and chose not to question the All-Father’s will.

He visited the shrine in the murky, transient woods of Eihwaz more often now, though.

Anton had carried her home to Dagaz that night, the tide once more calm, Calder piloting one of the witches’ boats back to Vidarheim. None of the three said a word as Gebo dwindled at their backs.

In the morning, the sea had swallowed the island whole.

“Can you please not have it rain buckets while I walk home?” Sonya complained to the man as she tightened her satchel’s strap over her shoulder. “I did not appreciate your funny little squall yesterday. It almost ruined my things.”

Calder sneered. “Whatever you say, God-Touched. ”

Sonya smacked him in the back of the head on her way out.

The weather held as Sonya ventured out of the Jarl’s house and set off toward the main bridge. Her mind wandered as it was prone to do in these odd moments of solitude. She still thought of England from time to time and felt melancholic with the memories. Sometimes, she missed her parents, friends, schooling, and her cozy little flat. Oddly, she found relief for those stirrings of regret by spending the occasional afternoon with Calder. Her v?rdr encouraged her without reserve to blame her lot in life on him, to remember he took it from her without choice.

“ I welcome your revulsion ,” he said one night after too much mead. “ If only to remember I must stay vigilant. I will not become Radu. I will not be careless again .”

He’d promptly passed out on the table after that and so most likely didn’t remember the confession, but Sonya did. She still felt the compulsion to obey tight in her chest, though he’d yet to issue her another order. Calder lived under the threat of Anton’s knife should he choose to abuse his power either as her v?rdr or as head seidmadr.

The threat was especially poignant given Anton was more jaded and less trusting than the man he’d been when sealed in a tomb.

Some days it was more challenging than others for Sonya to accept the cups of red liquid, to look down into the bottom and know someone had died for her to live. Some days it was frightfully easy, her instinct and need making the decision for her, and those days frightened Sonya the most. She would look at Anton, with his easy smiles and generous disposition, and remind herself there was more to being a draugr than being cold like Calder or vicious like Ylva. That she had not lost herself, not really; she was still Sonya Marston.

Or, well, Sonya Morvell.

She visited the market on her way home, stopping to chat with various denizens of the realm who always snuck peeks at her scarred palms or neck when they thought she wasn’t looking. Sonya hoped they’d grow out of it someday.

She saw Fiske on her way, the boy headed somewhere unknown with a basket of goods. He wouldn’t have noticed her at all if Sonya hadn’t gently caught him by the arm, steadying the little draugr as he blinked up at her.

She’d never been able to figure out if the boy she’d seen in that liminal place had been a figment of her imagination, or if Fiske had truly been there with her. Nevertheless, she stopped him when she saw him, and pressed a golden coin into his little palm.

“For your father,” she whispered, and Fiske smiled, flashing his fangs. Then, he was off like a shot, disappearing along the path. Sonya shook her head.

Nearing Gudbrand’s house, she made for the front door, hearing the low warning growl of thunder over the far island, which meant the storm was due to roll through again. She paused, however, when voices drifted from the garden.

“…and your hand, up like so. Concentrate,” Anton said.

“I am concentrating.”

“Not enough if you’ve the energy to back-chat me.”

Sonya came round the house to the garden wall, spying Anton and a young vrykolakas by the name of Niketas standing with their attention on a small pebble balanced on one of the wall’s posts. Niketas came to Vidarheim by way of the Byzantines, who had an abundance of young magic users and not enough teachers to go around. Vidarheim, in contrast, had an appalling dearth of seidmenn or seidkonur thanks to Ylva, but they did have a powerful draugr who was perfectly suitable for teaching them.

“You must envision the pebble obeying your will,” Anton instructed the younger man. “Seidr is an extension of your being, of your intention. In the beginning, it’s easier to envision things you can do by hand—like tossing the pebble. Envision the weight of it; envision the strength needed to pick it up with your fingers.”

Niketas kept staring at the pebble as if it had insulted his honor and killed his entire family. Feeling mischievous, Sonya lifted her arm and snapped her fingers. The pebble hopped off the post and landed in the dirt.

Both men spun to find Sonya on the other side of the garden wall, and a smile spread across Anton’s handsome face.

“My sweet girl,” he said, and a moment later, Anton stood in Gudbrand’s vegetable patch, reaching for Sonya so they could embrace with the cold wall between them, his mouth as warm as a summer day on hers.

“My lovely husband,” Sonya whispered against his lips, and Anton kissed her all the more fervently.

Niketas made a noise somewhere between disgusted and apprehensive.

“You!” Gudbrand shouted from the back step, his glower centered on Anton. “Get out of my potatoes, you love-struck half-wit! Stop trampling the garden!” He huffed, and made to go back inside, then paused. “And send the boy in! Gods know he doesn’t need you two burning his poor eyes.”

“Go in, boy,” Anton said, not turning from Sonya, and Niketas scampered with a relieved mutter of thanks to Gudbrand. Both retreated inside, the door snapping shut.

Anton hopped onto the wall, knocking mud from his shoes, and Sonya joined him, the pair of them sitting hip to hip. Sonya leaned her head on his shoulder, and she felt Anton’s lips on her hair, his arm looped tight about her waist.

“I owe Loki another sacrifice.”

“Hmm?”

“Another night you have returned to me,” he murmured with a sigh, shutting his eyes. “Another thanks I owe to our mischievous patron god.”

“I still don’t know if it was actually him in the cave.”

“No?”

“Perhaps it was only a dream. A very inopportune time for me to have one, I admit.”

Anton laughed. “My life is a dream,” he said. “Because of you. If kneeling before his altar and offering trinkets from my pockets is the sacrifice I need to give to keep from waking, I will give thanks for you every day, my Sonya. Every day.”

Sonya didn’t reply. She only smiled and held his hand, and together they watched the rain sweep across the bay.

She rather liked this dream, too.