The wages of war were constantly underestimated. Lady Hel and Harley sat at the chessboard, and she stared at the ivory-and-onyx figures. The rules of chess could be simple: all things were done to protect the king.
She glanced up at the handsome specimen across from her. Harley’s perfectly chiseled face as he concentrated on his next move. Playfully, he stuck out his tongue.
“You’re staring again, love,” he said. Yes, her eyes took in everything.
They were seated in matching leather stools in Lady Hel’s library in the castle of Helheim. The black-and-white décor of the room stood in stark contrast against the bejeweled quartz walls and walls of glass. It resembled more of an ice landscape: cold, and almost impersonal.
“You know, I know you will do anything to protect me,” he said and moved his pawn forward on the left flank.
“I know you better than you probably know yourself, but even more, I know that life is never simple.” She reached out and placed her hand over his. She knew her coolness assured him; her touch a comfort. He had said as much many times.
“Finvarra, my heart.” Hel’s low whisper caught in her throat. “It is time to take your throne next to your queen.” She’d not gotten used to calling him by his true name, instead that of Harley seemed somewhat closer to who he was in this rendition.
Although she’d expected him to trade lives to forget the existence he’d had, things hadn’t yet settled in place. Simply put, it was as if he were torn in two and now left wondering how he should embrace this new life. A part of him was still Harley, the young college student who craved purpose, but the other half knew him to be the High King of the Daoine Sidhe, the King of the Dead.
Buried in those mounds of sacred earth rested truth, and although she didn’t tell him that which he lacked, she knew things conflicted. The dust hadn’t yet settled, and instead, it was almost as though his soul had grown restless as if the shell he was in was too weak, too frail to contain him. She recognized it in the way he moved more like the room belonged to him, and those in his presence should recognize his gift.
“There is something amiss, love,” Hel continued. “But when we proceed with the Black Wedding, our powers will be united, and you will again be made whole.”
“Whole is questionable. Why do you grow fearful?”
Under his gaze, she squirmed. He always had a way of riling her up, attempting to distract her from that of importance at hand.
“You know, they have forgotten us out there,” he continued. “They’ve made us into sideshow appearances. They don’t know or remember what we are.”
“Why do I feel that you are planning something terrifying?”
Could it be that he needed to get his blood pumping?
The doors flew open, and in sauntered Eir, the Valkyrie of healing whom Lady Hel had invited to Helheim for a bit, at least, that was the way it had been framed.
“Sorry to interrupt your game today, your highnesses, but it is time for his lordship’s tonic.” She watched Eir stir up a concoction. Every day his sanity seemed to shift. Sometimes he was the attentive lover, and other times, he would then revert to that of wishing to crush his enemies beneath his feet.
Harley shuddered.
“You mustn’t fear, love,” Hel said and squeezed his hand. “We only need to find the other stone to truly return you to your old self, and Eir has assured me that this tonic will help the effects of awakening you without all of the stones.”
The stones, she’d heard so much about them, and still, one was missing. No word yet on where it could be, who might have it. The missing stone had resurrected only part of him, not all. Harley was like a bird with snipped wings.
“And Alfheim did not say anything as to its location?” Harley questioned.
Hel shook her head, and she watched Eir pour the neon-green glowing tonic into what resembled a shot glass.
As the drink filled the glass, Hel let her thoughts wander. If Harley had remained on Earth, if he’d remained as the human Harley, he’d be working a nine-to-five job now, probably stopping his friends from sending inappropriate dick pics on social media, partying, laughing, but not now. Now he was in Helheim, and although he loved Hel, things were amiss.
She knew he was pretending that everything was like it should be, but instead, he was akin to a Ming Vase that she’d put back together with Scotch tape.
“How is the status of our treaty now that I’ve been reawakened?”
Hel sighed for the briefest of moments and bit back her grimace. “Things are fragile, as I think all of the realms are waiting to see what you shall do, what we shall do. The Black Wedding will unify us and our powers. Once that is done, I expect the fealty tour to start, as ambassadors from the realms make their rounds to swear it to us again.”
“Hmpf,” he muttered. “There are many things I remember, but the details of my death evade me. It took more than a normal blade to run me through. No, the blade that killed me on that hill so long ago must have been made from enchanted metal.”
There were different sorts of weapons, but those crafted through dragon fire were legendary. Death was not something that even the gods could stop.
The words hung between them.
Death Bringer, the mythical dagger, was also out there somewhere? Lady Hel frowned. She’d have to track it down one way or another.
The thing about the Mad King was with each passing hour his insanity grew. His thoughts pinged from one to the other like he was changing strategies again and again, and liked the muddled confusion. But it was better to have him focused on the things outside of Helheim instead of reawakening the murderous royal he might become.
“How are things with the dragon queen, as she is our best chance to ensure we have the power?” Harley asked, and traced his finger along the glass’s edge.
The dragon queen was only part of the puzzle. Other dragons existed, and had not yet kneeled to the cause. But she was locked away and without the grimoire to free her, they had nothing to fear.
“Fenrir controls her.”
“He will not control her forever, as soon, even she shall break free, and then we will have to start again.”
Lady Hel waved her hand. “No, dear, as the dragons will fight for us, just as the dead will rise and we will seal our place on all thrones.”
“Is that our goal? To dethrone the gods, and then what? That is wicked. I am not a tyrant.”
“We did not start this fight, but we shall finish it. We play chess on this board, but what is best for our people, for those above and below? If you say we fight for what is right, then we shall, but I don’t see that. We stand in the way of what is right.”
“You seek to tell me what is right? You wouldn’t be here without me.”
“I wouldn’t have perished were it not for you.” He quickly downed the shot. “Don’t you see? Your war only resurrects that which will damn us all.”
He jerked up out of his chair, knocking it over, as well as the chessboard. “To blindly fall into war, at what cost? Until the gods attack, we are not defending, but being the aggressor.”
“I am protecting all of us from them, those monsters. I have seen the future and what they will do. Weaklings cannot protect those who are weak.”
“Then you are doing exactly what Odin did and allowing the kennings and premonitions to control you. Not everything. Everyone can be a tool of destruction.”
“My blood cost me everything, but now I will rise and make them rue the day they thought to stomp on me.” Hel had been waging war since she’d been tossed down into the pit. Everything, everyone wanted to break her; to make her bow and bend.
Trauma laced its way through her body. But it would not stand in her way. Only a fool discarded the baby with the bathwater. No, instead she sought new and improved ways to heal and to provide that guiding hand.
The gods terrorized; they painted the sky in gray, promising rainbows, a fool’s errand filled with crocodile smiles, ready to feast on the gullible.
No, she no longer allowed them to dictate how her life would be. This was her chance to serve up an anti-venom to their poison.
Harley cried out in pain and clutched his head.
“What’s happening?” Lady Hel asked and raced to his side. He convulsed and banged his feet against the stone floor.
His eyes began to roll, and Hel reached out. Images then assaulted her. She could see and feel what he saw as though she were Harley himself.
The images of his friends and family on Midgard flashed before his eyes.
His ears began to ring as if invisible banshees screamed.
Harley collapsed to his knees and stared at the shadow, stretching out higher along the wall. He raised his hands and watched as roots broke through his skin, wrapping, tangling, and growing. He writhed in pain, convulsing.
The shadow came ever closer to peer down at him. Its human-like arm stretched into a long blade and ran him through. He tasted the crimson blood on his tongue, as it seeped out of his mouth, and the words of his beloved drifted away to be replaced with that of the shadow: “Do you remember, you are the descendant of the Tuatha Dé Danann, and magic is in your blood?
Hel stared at the shadow and watched as one of its arms morphed into a blade carved with runic knots. It absorbed light and hummed. It was the sort of light, the only known weapon that could kill the gods.