“Can you show me to Valhalla?” Vali asked Heimdall who waited near Idun’s cottage in the garden for him to return. Odin remained behind, consumed by the well and the visions which intrigued him.
“What business do you have with slain mortals?” the watchman asked.
“Not business. Questions. Particularly, for a man I recently killed.”
Heimdall nodded toward the eastern wall. “I’ll show you to Gladsheim where Valhalla stands, though I have to warn you, it might prove difficult to find a single man. If the human you are looking for is not there, he may be in the fields of Folkvang lying to the west.”
“Not Ledger,” he muttered. There was only one place in the afterlife a man like him would go. He followed the god toward a large field that stretched miles in each direction. The twelve sections of Asgard were each as large as the fae realms by themselves, each spreading across a different branch to carry the weighty foundation of many worlds inside a single realm. The Hall of Valhalla stood at the end of a field, where Valkyrie perched on top of rooflines made of shields. The winged maidens stretched their wings in the waning rays of the sun, no battles in Midgard to require their services.
Over five hundred doors lined the halls stretching to the east and west, and Leger now resided behind one of them. Only those slain in battle went to Odin and Freya, and although the goddess had first pick over the slain warriors, he couldn’t imagine Ledger belonging to anyone but Odin himself. Even from his brief introduction he knew the man was destined to reach Valhalla.
The ground was bloody as they crossed the fields, evidence of a great battle had just taken place. The warriors fought in the afterlife to train against the inevitable rise of the giants at the end of the world—the day the Norns predicted the gods would fall. Their eternity was filled with fighting that could mangle but not kill, the ultimate heaven for any true, gritty heathen, and a great feast was held at the end of each battle.
Music slipped from behind a pair of towering double doors, informing Vali this feast was already in progress. Heimdall left him to return to the Bifrost, and the elfin pushed aside the doors leading to the revelry.
The smoky smell of roasted boar hit him immediately—boar mixed with the heady odor of blood, sweat, and grime of satisfied northmen all sitting around long tables and boasting about their daily kills. Their conversations hushed as Vali passed, noting the sight of the elfin and his fae appearance, nonverbally questioning his intentions.
But he ignored their silent queries. He was too focused on scanning tables, the hundreds of so that were there, for the face he met on the island in the North Sea. Ailsa did not resemble her father, though she had his mouth. The first time she scowled at him he noticed the similarity.
When it was clear there were too many heathens to comb through, he turned to a man with fiery red braids. “Do you know a man called Ledger Locharsson?”
The man peered over his rack of ribs, his left arm missing from the day’s fight, yet he appeared not to notice. “Who’s asking?”
“The one who sent him here.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Do you really care?”
The man squinted at him precariously before turning to assess the tables behind him. He pointed toward a few tables over. “There.”
Vali locked eyes on his target. Ledger appeared exactly how he did when the battle maidens carried him home. His strawbleached hair was cut short around his skull, a graying beard braided down his chest with the tip now dipped in blood. His fists were filled with meat and mead and speaking obnoxiously loud over the other raised voices competing throughout the hall.
Vali crossed the length of the room and sat on the bench across from Ailsa’s father. The man lowered his feasting hands when his brain recognized the man sitting in front of him.
“We meet again, Ledger the Liar.” Vali smiled pleasantly and poured himself a drink.
The man only grunted. The warriors next to him suddenly became interested in other topics of conversation with others. Ledger licked his fingers of leftover fat. “To what do I owe the displeasure of seeing you again?”
“I want to know something about your family.”
His breath sang sharply between his teeth in a scoff. “Fuck off. “
“It’s about Ailsa.”
Ledger crossed the table in a blink. His fist reached for Vali’s throat. The elfin stopped his hand with a firm catch of his wrist just an inch away from his neck. Ledger used his free hand to grab a nearby sconce and swung hard to strike him in the temple. Vali hissed as the weighted pewter candlestick cracked over his skull. He twisted the man’s arm by his wrist and slammed him against the table, pressing him down by his shoulder. “I thought the fight was over?” he asked the Ostman.
Ledger laughed beneath him. “Fighting never ends in Valhalla, that is what makes it paradise.” He squirmed beneath the elfin until Vali finally released him. “What do you know of my daughter, swine? Has something happened to her?”
The elfin took a stalling sip of rich malt before replying. “We should speak of it somewhere else.”
“Is she…” He swallowed the rest of the words.
Vali shook his head quickly. “No. She is alive, but I have reason to believe she could be in danger.”
“And what do you care of my Ailsa’s life?”
The elfin grimaced. Fathers were not on his good side as of late, and he anticipated Ledger wondered about his motivations as much as his own father did. “Let’s go outside.”