Tara nodded. “Button is watching him, too,” she said as she adjusted her stuffed toy’s lookout position atop Cai’s shoulder. “We’re a team, the three of us.”
When they reached the center of the forest, by one of the sparkling and still lakes, Astra advised everyone to get comfortable, cleaned up, and rest. They were safe for now, and while the rest of the worlds outside the forest were battling the dark sorcery, they were protected within the life-giving shelter of Yggdrasil. They would soon need to face the plague themselves, but with such a high concentration of magic and powers between them, they were confident a solution would be found to combat the dark sorcery and reign it back under control.
Brenna spoke with Astra and the others about the Fate, and they tried to come up with a plan to figure out how Brenna’s magic could cure the plague. As the conversation held steady with its ebbs and flows of various ideas and pitfalls, they took turns bathing in the pristine lake and walking the peaceful woods to forage for food to bring back and lay out a spread. Some even were able to catch a few minutes of sleep on top of the mossy patches beneath the trees. No one really noticed that Bard had wandered off and not returned until Leif’s attention broke during a pause in the discussions.
“Where’s Kemma?” he asked as he looked around.
The others looked around too but didn’t see her.
“She’s probably taking a rest somewhere quiet,” Celeste suggested.
“No,” Leif said as he stood abruptly to his feet. “Where’s that bastard, Bard?”
“Easy now,” Jerrik said as he stood up alongside Leif. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”
“You know as well as I do that it’s not.” Leif’s cheeks flushed a bright and angry red.
Jerrik and Colby quickly joined Leif as he rushed into the woods to search for Kemma. They weren’t sure if they were accompanying him as a backup or as a means to calm him down in case he decided to do something rash like impaling Bard with his blade.
When they reached the soft, open patch of grass next to the lake; they realized there was a third option for them to be there; to help Leif kill the bastard who was making love to Kemma beside the gently rippling water.
Leif saw the two of them, bodies intertwined, and Bard clearly penetrating Kemma. He flew into a rage and charged at Bard, knocking him away from her and rolling onto his back onto the ground. His dripping wet cock was still engorged as he flailed nakedly across the glen. Colby ran up to Kemma and pulled her clothes back over her.
“What were you thinking?” he said to her.
“What do you mean?” she replied as if she hadn’t done anything to cause anyone to be upset. “We were simply enjoying each other.”
The others rushed onto the scene only a moment behind, and Astra pulled something from her pocket when she saw what had happened. She popped the cork off a tiny vial and threw its liquid contents over Kemma. The droplets stuck on her eyelids as Kemma tried to wipe the water away. She was getting ready to ask Astra why she had thrown water on her, but the rainwater took immediate effect, and instead, Kemma was finally cleared of her afflicting influence. Finally, she had her thoughts back and her wits about her, and when she realized what had happened, she was embarrassed and shocked. Leif had been right all along, Kemma had been spelled.
“You are no longer welcome here,” Astra called to Bard. “Leave this place at once and fend for yourself within the plague outside.”
Bard laughed and stood up, facing Leif. He had no shame standing naked before all of them.
“You still do not recognize me, do you? Jerrik, I was sure you at least would find this face vaguely familiar. And Lopt, I am disappointed you haven’t have pieced it together yet, seeing that you have an eye for understanding vengeance.”
“You heard the woman,” Leif said as he interrupted Bard’s monologue. “Leave, or I shall have the immense pleasure of gutting you.”
Bard laughed again, this time louder and more violently. “I don’t care what you do now. I’ve already achieved what I set out to accomplish. You think the dark sorcery freed itself from you, Leif? You think this plague was an accident?”
“You’re responsible for all of this? Why?”
“Because I had an injustice to repay.”
“And what did this injustice have to do with Kemma?” Leif snarled as his fury grew, and the grip on his sword tightened.
“She was simply the easiest one to impregnate.”
Shock hung in the air as all eyes rested on Kemma, who looked no less stunned than the rest of them.
Leif could not hold on to his rage or restraint any longer. He lunged at Bard and pushed the sword straight through his chest. Celeste reached to cover Tara’s eyes, but the child had already seen.
“He was a bad man,” the little girl said as she uttered the thought everyone else was thinking.
As Jerrik stepped closer toward Leif, Bard’s body fell to the ground, and he looked up at the two men above him with a sickening grin on his face.
“I’ll be sure to tell Helia you said hello,” Bard said with the last bit of energy he could muster to get the words out before his final breath. It was enough, though, enough for Jerrik to finally place the familiarity of Bard’s borrowed face.
“Baldur,” Jerrik said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Baldur was all too familiar with Hel’s terrain, and when he appeared there before Helia upon his death in the forest, he no longer wore the face of Bard. He had been clever enough to weasel his way into Valhalla on the coattails of another fallen warrior, which had worked perfectly according to his plan. But Baldur had no right to be in Valhalla, to begin with, not after the way he had betrayed everyone and met with a less than honorable death the first time on Alfheim. This time, he knew there would be no leaving Hel for him again.
Helia was shocked to see him arrive in her underworld, especially since she had not seen him since his fall at Aryanna’s hand. Hel was indeed an afterlife, but there were other realms that the dead immortals could go to as well, and she was not particularly fond of housing traitors. The underworld had gotten a bad and false reputation that only the mortal sinners or the outcast gods went to Hel. That was not true. In fact, quite the contrary. Even when her mother, Kara, was alive, Hel had always been a magical place that held brave, albeit flawed, individuals of colorful nature. It was no place for cowards and traitors such as Baldur. And although Helia had once thought him to be a hero and a lover; she no longer had any room for those such thoughts of him. One thing that she had learned in her life was that once someone has committed a great act of cowardice against you, there was no returning, and her heart was hardened to Baldur for an eternity.
Baldur hadn’t hoped for forgiveness or any act of kindness from Helia. He knew what he had done was unforgivable. Stealing Leif away as a child was unforgivable, and certainly, what he had just accomplished with impregnating Kemma was even worse. He knew he would eventually get caught, slain, and end up back here, and he welcomed it. All he had wanted was revenge, and now he could go back to his life in solitude on Hel as an outcast, just as he had always been before he had even crossed paths with the others.
His mother would be disappointed with him, but Freya was gone, and it didn’t matter. He’d had a chance at happiness; he had thought he could love Helia and that she would love him too. He had thought that he had friends that, for once in his very long life, he wouldn’t be alone. But opening his heart to her had proven to be the end of him, and he had not been able to recover from her rejection. All those years living in the shadows of Hel and watching her reign from afar, only to have fallen in love with her and then be rejected. It was more than he could bear.