She shook her head. “It’s fine. It’s actually easier to walk in now. Unless…” Her brows rose half an inch as she asked him, “Unless my legs offend you?”
He sucked in his cheek to prevent the grin pulling at his lips. “Definitely not.”
Ailsa ignored the way the confession made her heart squeeze and skip a much-needed beat. She cleared her throat and picked up his cloak off the cold earth, crossing around the fire to drape it over the fallen tree.
She sat down next to him and waited for the elfin to finish his tale. “So, I am assuming this Gullveig witch woman’s power is now tethered to me?”
“The very same,” he said
“And what doyouhave to do with it?”
Vali stretched and cleared his throat, preparing for another speech. “When Gullveig lost her power, the Vanir were furious with Odin, and war broke out between the gods. As I’m sure you know from history, the Aesir-Vanir war came to a stalemate, and the god’s arranged a trade of hostages. Frey and Freya, who are the same deity in truth, went to live in Asgard while Hoenir and Mimir were sent to Vanaheim.
“Odin made Frey ruler over Alfheim without my mother’s knowing. He took over the realm, passing down the magic he had learned in Vanaheim and spoiling the souls of the elves who lived there. The elves are creatures of Light, because it is what our power dwells from. But this power made their magic dark and lifeless, splitting our people into two sides: the Light Elves and the Dark Elves. Sedir in Alfheim was slowly destroying the realm, and my mother was desperate to save her people and the fae worlds.
“She prayed to the fates, and the same night she had a dream. She would bear a son of Odin who would take back the darkness and use it to raise Baldur from the dead. She told this to Odin, who with his all-seeing eye saw she was telling the truth and vowed if their son returned the power of Gullveig to him, he would remove Frey from the land and restore the realm to its former brightness. She agreed and they conceived me, and I have been trying to fulfill her vision and restore my mother’s land. Alfheim is the only home I’ve ever known, and why I call myself fae, not Aesir.”
Ailsa was quiet when he finished. He told the story like it wasn’t his own, and truthfully it wasn’t. It was a tale concerning him, but not about him. His life had been decided before he took his first breath.
Her eyes drifted across his bare chest and followed the markings spilling over his chest, down the corded edge of his shoulders. “And the runes on your chest? Are they the same as mine?”
He shook his head and touched the spot where she stared. A point of insecurity she didn’t understand until he explained. “Odin wrote them himself when I was barely a few hours old. They tell of my destiny and bind me to my purpose. Runes have the ability to protect as well as harm and weaken, and mine keep me on the path mapped out for me. If I take a step out of line, Odin will know. And he can end my life as quickly as he ordained it.”
“You mean you have no choice?”
His neck constricted with a swallow. “Fate is very difficult to fight, especially when an entire realm depends on me to do what I was born to accomplish. The marks on my skin remind me of this. But I hope, one day when I return the Tether and Odin releases me from this duty, I can begin my life and choose a future for myself.”
Ailsa released a long breath in place of a reply. Beside her sat a man not unlike herself, whose fate was written for him, who did not get to choose his destiny. The desperation and rage he unleashed when she took the power in the Tether, the slaughter of her family, the loneliness she recognized in his eyes, they were the product of a universe of expectations all placed upon the shoulders of a single man. And she realized, for the first time, someone else understood the weight of the world. Someone else knew the strength it took to carry it all.
He was not a monster. No, he was not barren of remorse like he had first shown her. She did not recognize him from nightmares but from a spirit she knew in her own bones.
Ailsa set her chin on the bony parts of her knees and tucked them close into her chest, trying to trap the tears even as they escaped. Vali traced her arm with a fingertip before his hand fell back in his lap. “I’m sorry, Ailsa. When I came to Midgard I was fraught and failing, and I let my despair destroy hundreds of lives—including yours.” His voice was heavy, quiet as a breath. “As you have seen today, I thoroughly understand your loss. And I see their faces every time I close my eyes.”
She turned her head and looked at him. The elfin stared into the flames, unblinking, his eyes a clear gold that shone like a cloudless sky in winter. She reached over and grabbed his wrist, smoothing her thumb over the top of his hand. “I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you, Vali. But I understand, and I…” She cleared her throat to hide the tremor. “I do hate you a little less.”
He shook his head. “I do not deserve your forgiveness, and I will not ask for it. But thank you, Ailsa. If all else fails, I was very glad to meet the fiery Jarl of Drakame.”
She laughed and shoved him aside, the tension melting between them. “Don’t speak so soon,” she warned. She then remembered something she had been too afraid to ask before. “Are you really heartless?”
He shifted in his seat to face her, gently taking her hand and bringing her palm flush over his ribcage. She felt for a moment. His warmth penetrated the chill inside her bones, the soft skin contrasting the firm muscle of his chest, the stillness where a heartbeat should be. She locked eyes with him, her hand pressed between his body and his palm for far too long, before pulling away. “How?” she asked.
He scoffed and sat back against the tree. “Thatis a story for another night. One I do not wish these trees to hear.”
She smiled at the canopy. “The trees know me now, and we are friends.”
“I am concerned about the company you attract.”
Ailsa pulled the cloak over her shoulders and settled against the log, feeling increasingly comfortable the more she learned of the man with eyes like sunshine. “I will help you as much as I am able, to fulfill your calling and restore your home. Even if it costs me everything.”
“Why would you willingly pay that price after all I’ve done to you?”
A good question, one she was still figuring out herself. There were two sides of her heart constantly warring, and in the middle was an impasse named Vali. His first impression battled what she learned this past week, who he was when he stood on her shores against who he was now sitting beside her. And though she missed her home and the faces of her old life, they felt like ghosts—stories of a distant time. In front of her was an adventure, an opportunity to make her mark, and if not in her world, then someone else’s.
She stared into the satiated flames as the elfin waited for her reply. “I only agreed to come on this journey to save my people, to protect them from you. But as I learn more of the threat on the worlds and the one on your own, I think perhaps I was supposed to help you. I’ve been sitting on a cliffside for the past twenty-six years doingnothingwhile everyone was experiencing life beyond the fjord, and it is my turn to leave a legacy, to make the world better than I left it.” Her eyes fluttered shut against the pull of sleep. “I will help you because my world does not need me, and yours does. And because one of us deserves to be free of our fate.”
Vali deeply regretted tearing apart his shirt.
Any warmth left in the Between Realm followed the sun when it set. Each time he fell asleep, the fire dwindled. His shivers shook him awake until his efforts became futile. Ailsa reclined next to him with his cloak draped around her delicate shoulders, and he listened to the steady rhythm of her breath like it was a chorus, a secret song without words that seemed to speak to his emotions all the same. Guilt ate away the remaining fragments of his dignity. One of them deserved to be free of their fates, and it wasn’t him.