فصل 16

Norns. Why Did It Have to Be Norns?

I REALLY WISHED someone had warned me I was going to die. Like, Hey, you’re diving off a bridge tomorrow and becoming an undead Viking, so go read up on Valhalla.

I felt seriously unprepared.

I remembered hearing about Norns, the ladies who controlled mortal destinies, but I didn’t know their names or their motivation or the proper etiquette for meeting them. Was I supposed to bow? Offer them gifts? Run away screaming?

Next to me, Sam muttered, “This is bad. The Norns only show up in extreme cases.”

I didn’t want to be an extreme case. I wanted to be an easy case: Hey, good job. You’re a hero. Have a cookie.

Or even better: Oops. This was all a mistake. You can go back to your regularly scheduled life.

Not that my regularly scheduled life was so great, but it beat getting judged unworthy by twelve bearded guys named Erik.

As the Norns got closer, I realized how big they were—at least nine feet tall each. Under their hoods, their faces were beautiful but unnerving—blank white, even their eyes. Trailing behind them came a sheet of fog like a bridal train. They stopped twenty feet in front of my table and turned up their palms. Their skin was like sculpted snow.

Magnus Chase. I couldn’t tell which Norn had spoken. The soft disembodied voice resonated through the hall, seeping into my head, turning my skull into an icebox. Harbinger of the Wolf.

The crowd stirred uneasily. I’d seen the word harbinger somewhere before, maybe in a fantasy novel, but I couldn’t remember what it meant. I didn’t like the sound of it. I liked the sound of wolf even less.

I’d just about decided that running away screaming was my smartest option. Then, in the hands of the middle Norn, fog collected, solidifying into half a dozen runestones. She threw them into the air. They floated above her, each rune expanding into a luminous white symbol as big as a poster board.

I couldn’t read runes, but I recognized the one in the center. It was the same symbol I’d picked from the pouch in Uncle Randolph’s office:

Fehu, announced the cold voice. The rune of Frey.

Thousands of warriors shifted in their seats, clanking restlessly in their armor.

Frey…Who was Frey? My mind felt coated with frost. My thoughts were sluggish.

The Norns spoke together, three ghostly voices chanting in unison, shaking leaves from the giant tree:

Wrongly chosen, wrongly slain,

A hero Valhalla cannot contain.

Nine days hence the sun must go east,

Ere Sword of Summer unbinds the beast.

The glowing runes dissolved. The three Norns bowed to me. They melted into the fog and disappeared.

I glanced at Sam. “How often does that happen?”

She looked like she’d been smacked between the eyes with one of Gunilla’s hammers. “No. Choosing you couldn’t have been a mistake. I was told…I was promised—”

“Someone told you to pick me up?”

Instead of answering, she murmured under her breath—as if running calculations for a rocket that had gone off course.

At the thanes’ table, the lords conferred. All around the hall, thousands of einherjar studied me. My stomach folded itself into various origami shapes.

Finally, Helgi faced me. “Magnus Chase, son of Frey, your destiny is troubling. The lords of Valhalla must think on this further. For the time being, you shall be welcomed as a comrade. You are one of the einherjar now. That cannot be reversed, even if it was a mistake.”

He scowled at Sam. “Samirah al-Abbas, the Norns themselves have pronounced your judgment in error. Do you have any defense?”

Sam’s eyes widened as if she’d just realized something. “The son of Frey…” She looked around the room desperately. “Einherjar, don’t you see? This is the son of Frey! Surt himself was on that bridge! That means the sword…” She turned to the thanes’ table. “Gunilla, you must see what that means. We have to find that sword! A quest, immediately—”

Helgi banged his fist on the table. “Enough! Samirah, you stand in judgment for a grave mistake. It is not your place to tell us what to do. It is definitely not your place to order a quest!”

“I did not make a mistake,” Sam said. “I did as I was ordered! I—”

“Ordered?” Helgi narrowed his eyes. “Ordered by whom?”

Sam’s mouth shut. She seemed to deflate.

Helgi nodded grimly. “I see. Captain Gunilla, before I announce the thanes’ judgment on this Valkyrie, do you wish to speak?”

Gunilla stirred. The gleam in her eyes was gone. She looked like someone who’d gotten in line for the merry-go-round and unexpectedly found herself trapped on a roller coaster.

“I—” She shook her head. “No, my lord. I—I have nothing to add.”

“Very well,” said Helgi. “Samirah al-Abbas, for your poor judgment with this einherji Magnus Chase, and for your past mistakes, the thanes rule that you be expelled from the sisterhood of Valkyries. You are hereby stripped of your powers and privileges. Return to Midgard in disgrace!”

Sam grabbed my arm. “Magnus, listen to me. You have to find the sword. You have to stop them—”

Like a camera flash: a burst of light and Sam was gone. Her half-eaten meal and the bread crumbs around her seat were the only signs she’d ever existed.

“So concludes our feast,” Helgi announced. “I will see you all tomorrow on the field of battle! Sleep well, and dream of glorious death!”