“Dvalin is in the inner chambers,” said Elmheart. He shifted back into his human form and began walking toward the glittering double doors of the castle. Each door stood well over fifty feet high, and must have weighed several hundred tons.
A man stood beside each door. As the party approached, both men reached forward and took hold of the ring on their side. They pulled, and the doors swung open.
“They’re stronger than they look,” Poppy muttered.
“That’s rather what dragons do,” William said. “Go around being stronger than they look.” She shot him a look, and the three of them followed Elmheart into the inner sanctum of the dragon castle.
Five minutes and ten thousand marvels later, Poppy found her breathless self sitting at a crystalline table beside a window in a veranda-style room high up at the top reaches of the castle. The crystal table was apparently one more part of one absolutely enormous but single crystal that grew and shifted and changed in order to create the castle around them. That was how it was alive. Like any crystal, it continued to grow over time. But in this realm, the speed with which it did so was exaggerated, and the shapes it made did not adhere to a strict symmetrical pattern. There were rooms with crystal swimming pools… rooms with miniature crystal forests… rooms with small streams flowing through them and crystal flowers growing from the floor and even rooms with countless dangling figurines dangling from the ceiling, each one a prism cut into a different animal or plant, each one extraordinary and unique and impossibly detailed. The castle was a living treasure trove of absolute wonder.
Poppy sighed happily and gazed out the window that spanned the length of the room they’d finally settled down in. The view from this height made the one she’d originally had atop that hill in the distance pale in comparison. Here, she could see to the far reaches of the realm. Literally – the edges of the realm shimmered with an iridescence, like the skin of a giant bubble.
“Dvalin is a beautiful realm, but it’s a small one,” said the dragon they’d come there to see. It just so happened the realm was named after him. His name was Dvalin too. King Dvalin of the Dragon Realm.
“I wonder what the Dragon King back home would think about you,” Poppy said suddenly, changing the subject. She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, it was just that she’d been thinking it. She’d been wondering whether the king who sat at the table of the Thirteen even knew this dragon king existed.
All three kings looked at her. She felt conspicuous at once. “What?”
Dvalin’s eyes twinkled.
“She has a point,” said William with a small smile. “Arach doesn’t even know Dvalin exists. The land or the king. I bet he’d blow a fuse.”
“Short tempered, is he?” asked Dvalin in an unusually high-pitched voice. He gently placed his delicate, tiny tea cup back into its saucer and batted his long eyelashes. Poppy never would have pegged the man for a king. A queen, maybe.
Dvalin’s shoulder-length paper white hair was striped with conspicuous blue streaks, massive stag antlers rose from his skull to a height of at least three feet, and his red-gold eyes possessed symbols of some sort floating through their irises. But other than these three very obvious tells, the man looked positively normal. Well… as normal as a cross-dressing ash-blonde man of six-foot-something can look, anyway.
Okay, so there was nothing normal about him whatsoever.
“You’re fascinating,” Poppy whispered. Oh shit. She hadn’t meant to say that either! It had just come right out! What the hell is wrong with me? she wondered as her cheeks grew hot and she tried to sink into the crystal of her chair. What’s with all the sudden candor?
Dvalin threw back his head and gave a full-bodied laugh that utterly belied the femininity he was trying so hard to convey. But when the laughter died down, he wiped his eyes with a tissue, as a woman would, and cleared his throat. “My dear, so are you.”
Kristopher laced his hands together on the table top and squared the dragon king with a hard look. “What Dvalin means to say, Poppy, is that people find it difficult to be anything but outwardly honest around Dvalin. It’s one of his powers. And he finds it refreshing that your honesty isn’t judgmental or cruel, as it happens to be for so many humans.”
“And I happen to think I would make a wonderful queen too,” said Dvalin with a wink.
Poppy’s blood now dropped right back out of her cheeks, and she grew cold. “Can you read my mind?”
“That’s another one of his powers,” said Kristopher. His gaze narrowed on the Norse Dragon king, which caused Dvalin to chuckle again.
“Now, now,” said Dvalin. “You’ve come here to discuss Yggdrasil. So let’s get down to business and do so. As Mr. Solan would no doubt put it, the clock is ticking.”
“Ticking is what it does,” said William quietly. There was a distinct note of weariness in his tone, but servants came forward then to clear the table, and a weathered piece of blank parchment was laid out between the four of them, and Poppy forgot about it.
“Whose watch was it when the tree’s root was compromised?” asked Kristopher.
“That would have been Cobalt, Adriel, and Drayhem.”
Kristopher nodded. “A rock dragon, a sky dragon, and a sea dragon,” he explained aloud, most likely for Poppy’s benefit.
Dvalin nodded, but his expression grew dour. He waved his hand over the parchment, which began to fill with the lines of a topography drawing. There were lights all over the map, pulsing with life. But three lights were off to the side, as if to represent they were not in the world at al. “All three have yet to return from their watch. Therefore, I’m afraid it is safe to assume….”
“They’ve been killed,” supplied William. It sounded a little cold when he put it bluntly like that. Poppy felt that coldness in her gut.
“It’s quite alright, Miss Nix,” said Dvalin gently. He must have noticed her discomfort. “My dragons knew what they were contracting for when they took the job. They were well aware of the risks. While the forest dragons may delight in such pastimes as games and gambling, the rock, sky, and sea dragons tend to enjoy battle more than anything. And protecting Yggdrasil is a task worth dying for.”
He turned to Kristopher, gestured at the map, and the parchment rolled itself back up. He changed the subject with the expertise of someone who had been in charge of discussions like this for eons. “You are also concerned about a cluster of serpents who apparently appeared in your throne room.”
Kristopher glanced at Poppy, then back at Dvalin. “I suppose coming to see you with a human in tow completely negates the fact that you can’t read either my mind or William’s.”
Dvalin grinned. Poppy caught the hint of fangs. “It does.”
“Very well,” Kristopher nodded. “They were direct offspring of Jormungand. And since you’re related to him as well….”
“You thought I might have an idea of why they were your throne room, as well as how they got there.” Dvalin’s smile was quite pleased.
Kristopher sighed. “That’s about the whole of it.”
Poppy remembered just enough of her study of Norse mythology to know that Jormungand was the Midgard Serpent. It helped that one of her parents was of Nordic descent.
“Well, my answer is, I have absolutely no idea. On either account. However… I’m betting it has something to do with that Valkyrie your future queen is so worried about. Odin’s shield maidens are a lofty bunch, I admit. But revenge will clip any angel’s wings.” He looked pointedly at Kristopher, as if to refer specifically to the Winter King’s own personal bout with revenge. “I wouldn’t put it past the Valkyrie to contract with Jormungand in this case.” He paused then added, “Especially since the Serpent was already involved.”
Those at the small crystal table grew very quiet and very still as Dvalin calmly lifted his porcelain tea cup, took a ginger sip of the steaming liquid, and returned it to its saucer. Finally, Kristopher leaned forward. Poppy could see from his expression and the hardening
of the ice in his eyes that he was figuring out exactly what she was figuring out. That the Midgard Serpent was –
Kristopher asked, “Are you telling me it was Jormungand who – ”
“I’m telling you it was the Midgard Serpent himself who sank his fangs into Yggdrasil’s root and severed it from the Great Tree.”
Holy hell, Poppy thought. The Midgard Serpent is involved after all.
“Well, that’s not good,” said William.
Chapter Thirty-Five
He’d really thought the Entity had been at the core of all this trouble. What else could he have believed? The Entity was at the core of all trouble these days, and this was the root of Yggdrasil. But it wasn’t him after all.
In truth, going up against the Midgard Serpent was not something Kristopher had ever thought he would have to do. The only time anyone of Norse descent would ever expect to have to come face to face with Jormungand was during Ragnarok. But Ragnarok was a myth, and as relevant to everyday Norse life as the apocalypse was for Christians – in other words, it wasn’t. It was this vague, ironically inconsequential threat that didn’t really mean anything because it wasn’t ever actually going to happen.
Because life went on. It just did. Every day. And it would keep doing so for another 5 billion years, until the sun went Red Giant and swallowed up the planet. And by then, humans would probably have moved on to the outer planets anyway, if not other solar systems – and so life would still continue, regardless. There was no apocalypse. There was no Ragnarok.
Not only that, but as he’d told Poppy, legends and myths tended to botch their facts now and then, and the Great Tree actually had nothing to do with Ragnarok after all. It was the source of Winter and it bound Winter’s immortal realms to the mortal realm.
Hell, there were times when Kris would have believed the Serpent wasn’t even real, if it weren’t for the fact that the Norse Dragons were its living descendants, and some were old enough to have met their father personally.
So Kris truly hadn’t expected to have to deal with the Serpent. Ever.
But apparently Jormungand was tired of waiting. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he was a little pissed that the Fates had determined he would be utterly ignored until the end of the fucking world. Maybe he was throwing a temper tantrum.
He’d certainly gotten Kristopher’s attention.
The Winter King had no choice now but to face him. And the other ironic thing was that in order to confront the Midgard Serpent, Kris would need all of his strength back. The very strength Jormungand had severed when he’d cut off the Great Tree’s root. Who knew what the Serpent would do next? Sever another root? Cut the Tree down entirely?
“One doorway down, two to go,” sighed William once they’d transported back to the ice castle and were again standing in the study. They were clustered in the middle of the room, facing one another.
“We’re heading to the seed vault first,” said Kristopher. He found the nearest table and used a bit of his magic to summon food and drinks for them. Bread, cheese, fruit, sweets, and teas of varying flavors appeared across the coffee table. “And you have no reason to accompany us, William. This isn’t your fight.”
“Right,” Will said. “Because saving the world has nothing to do with me.”
Kristopher met his gaze. Steady emerald stared right back.
“In fact,” continued Will undaunted, “I am not opposed to the idea of letting some of the other kings in on this. We could use all the help we can get.”
Kristopher shook his head. “If it is a trap, I won’t be responsible for compromising any of them.” Especially not now, he added mentally, when so many of them are finally finding the happiness they deserve, and the rest are on the verge of doing so.
“Forgive me for changing the subject,” said Poppy as she made her way over to the coffee table perhaps a little too quickly to hide her immediate interest in it. It was just as he’d suspected; she was hungry. She was mortal still. That was why he’d made sure to include Honeycrisp apples amidst the dishes. She’d told him she adored them. “But how did Dvalin know that the Midgard Serpent had been the one to damage Yggdrasil if his three guardians had yet to return from their watch?”
“The Serpent and his children are connected at a fundamental level,” he told her. “The eldest of the dragons in Dvalin, such as Dvalin himself, are capable of gleaning information about him, such as this. But only the most basic knowledge is passed on. The rest is a blur.”
Poppy took one of the apples from the bowl of fruit he’d magically placed there and rubbed it on her shirt. “Okay,” she said before taking a giant bite. Then, around that giant bite, she asked, “Why dow he dwess ike he dow?”
Kristopher tried not to smile, and failed. Both the subject matter and the way she was asking about it were funny. She wanted to know why Dvalin dressed the way he did. “Dvalin is ancient and sometimes he gets bored. But believe me, today was all an act.” He chuckled. The things he’d seen the dragon do over the years would bewilder anyone. At this point, Kris very much doubted there was anything Dvalin could do that would surprise him. But in all the multiverse, there were few creatures more powerful than the Norse Dragon king. Almost all of them were gods. One of them was Lalura Chantelle. “He is connected to his realm by blood,” he explained. “It was literally his blood that seeded the realm’s creation. When someone enters it, he feels it. No doubt, he sensed the arrival of an unknown mortal and decided to play it safe.”
Poppy finished chewing her enormous bite and swallowed. “You mean by mystifying me?”
He laughed again. “Perhaps. By confusing you, to say the least. It’s difficult for most mortals to think of someone who behaves and dresses in that manner as being strong or powerful. Judgments annul wisdom. What better defensive tactic than to force your enemy to underestimate you from the get-go?”
“So why didn’t he drop the act when he realized I meant him no harm and couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to?”
Kris grinned. “By that time, he was just plain having fun.”
Poppy shook her head, ran her free hand through her hair, and looked down at the food. He could tell she wasn’t really seeing what was there on the coffee table, though. She really was mystified. This had been a lot for her to take in. She was just lucky she’d already been familiar with the idea of magic and other realms before fate had dumped her lot in her lap.
There was a flash behind Kristopher, and he turned to find that the Time King was no longer standing in his study. Odd.
“Well, that happened,” Poppy said.
William didn’t possess the ability to transport on his own, but he’d lived long enough to acquire plenty of other means for using magic. It was certainly a little strange that he hadn’t given them a warning, though.
“I thought he didn’t have any magical powers?” Poppy asked, looking up from where she’d moved to the opposite side of the coffee table. Her non-apple hand now had two cookies in it. Chocolate chip, of course.
“He doesn’t. Well, not internally anyway. Actually….” He frowned, his mind churning through the scenarios of time and space.
“I see you’re thinking the same thing I am,” said Poppy. She smiled and took a big bite out of one of her cookies. He wondered if she knew how to take anything but big bites, and for some bizarre reason, that turned him on.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, curious.
She shrugged, moving her cookies to her apple hand so she could pick up a fresh croissant. “Well, I mean, think about it. If you lived forever, literally forever… wouldn’t it be probable that given that amount of time, you would learn a trick or two? Wouldn’t it be impossible not to? How long would a normal mortal have to survive before discovering magic, and not only discovering it, but learning to control it – inherent magical ability or not? A thousand years? Ten thousand years? A hundred thousand?”
Crunch. Poppy carved into her apple again with her perfect white teeth. He could watch her ea
t all day. She didn’t delicately nibble or take tiny pieces and leave three-quarters of her meal on her anorexic plate. She ate like a warrior. It was actually turning him on.
But what she was saying garnered attention too. Normally, being a mage didn’t work that way. It truly was a gift a person was born with and learned to hone over time. But she was right. And he had been thinking it, if only now and quite suddenly. He’d always assumed that when William flashed from one transport location to another, he was using a ring or a pendant or some kind of charm. And he’d assumed William was able to access the Winter Kingdom because of the charm Kris had given him long ago.
But now Kris could see that he hadn’t given the Time King the credit he perhaps deserved. After all, William had learned to communicate with the Dire Bears. That was no small feat. What else could he do?
Kristopher pondered it for exactly 4.6 seconds further. Until Poppy winked at him from behind her juicy, half-eaten apple, and he decided he had an appetite of his own to satisfy.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Is there any way of tracing where she’s been in other realms?” Violet asked anxiously. She’d been pacing back and forth on the other side of the spell casting table for what felt like forever now, and Lalura’s fascination with whatever concoction she was working on in that pot of hers was beginning to aggravate Violet to no end. Why wasn’t she as concerned about Poppy as Violet was? Why wouldn’t she say something that would make Violet feel better? Something like, “Abracadabra, and here she is in my scrying spell!”
After that odd phone call from her friend two nights ago, Violet had hung up feeling a little off. She’d tried to shrug it off, but not a whole hour had gone by before she’d checked her phone to see that Violet had left a message. Once she heard the message, she’d known she was right to be worried.
She’d called her friend back immediately, but the phone had done this strange crackling thing and the call was never connected. It wasn’t that it went to voice mail. It was that it simply didn’t work. Not one time out of the fifteen times that Violet tried. And it was obvious to her that the reason it wasn’t working was magical in nature.