“Are they celebrating something?” Colby asked as he walked alongside Jerrik.
“How am I supposed to know,” Jerrik said.
Leif’s stomach had finally settled, thanks to the delicious smell of roasted boar and the tease of mead wafting in the air. “Let’s just find Kemma and leave. As appetizing as this all looks, I’ve learned to distrust most things that look too good to be true.”
“Agreed,” Brenna said as they continued walking deeper into the building.
“We should search some of these rooms.” Brandt broke off from the group to look inside the closest room, and the others paired off to do the same.
They had searched about three rooms before someone confronted them. As Brenna and Jerrik were coming out of one of the rooms, a warrior with his hair tied back in thick, auburn braids stood in their path.
“What are you doing here?” he asked them.
Brenna scrambled to think of a believable reason that they would be intruding into private rooms without permission. Thankfully Jerrik was adept at lying under pressure.
“We’ve lost a friend of ours, and we were just hoping to locate her,” Jerrik said. Okay, that’s not actually a lie. “She’s a servant here, and she is wanted back in the kitchens.” That part is.
The warrior looked at Jerrik without expression. Brenna thought he probably believed Jerrik’s story and would let them on their way.
“We don’t have servants here,” he said.
Shit.
Another man came up and slapped him on the shoulder. “Maybe we should,” the second warrior joked. “I’ll deal with them, go enjoy the feast.”
The warrior with the braids walked away. He seemed happy to get back to his ale, but he didn’t seem to like the other man very much.
“I am happy to help you on the search for your make-believe servant girl,” the warrior before them grinned. He was blond and built and had the kind of look that made him seem familiar.
“That’s okay,” Brenna said quickly, we’ll just be on our way. But Brandt had another idea.
“Actually,” Brandt said. “We would very much appreciate some help, if you don’t mind, that is.”
“What are you doing?” Brenna whispered to him.
Brandt looked at the warrior and waited for his response.
“Sure,” he said. “I’m Bard.” He held out his hand for Brandt to shake.
It was unnerving how familiar his face was. Brandt couldn’t put his finger on it, but he swore that the warrior looked familiar in some way.
“So,” Bard said. “What does this servant girl look like?”
“Like me,” Brenna said without thinking.
“I see. So, can we perhaps drop the guise now and assume that the girl you are looking for is your daughter and not a random servant girl? Like my friend said, we don’t have servants here.”
Colby and Jerrik walked closer to flank Brenna as he spoke. She got a sudden chill up her spine and a feeling that they were unusually protective for a good reason.
“Yes,” Brandt said. “It is her daughter, and mine as well.” His voice was heavy with a dominant and threatening tone, the kind of tone that implied, “If you lay a hand on either of them, I will pull your tongue out through your nose.”
“Perfect, now I have a visual to go off of.” Bard started walking and motioned for the others to join him. They followed behind him cautiously.
It seemed like the other warriors in the room were staring at them a bit more than they were when they had first arrived, and it unnerved Brandt and Brenna with its similarity to the situation at the pub in Hel. It wasn’t quite as obvious, but they definitely seemed to be drawing more attention than they were before.
“Do you see that?” Brenna asked.
“Yeah, just keep walking,” Brandt said as he pulled her hand in closer to his.
Lopt had said there was nothing in Valhalla that would be of threat to them. Except, that was, for the dark sorcery that was invading all the realms without discrimination. Maybe this had something to do with the plague?”
“Dark hair, pink skin, beautifully carved features,” Bard’s voice trailed behind him as they walked. “Breasts that would make any warrior fall to his needs in desire.”
“What are you talking about?” Leif asked. He was starting to think the guy was nuts.
“Kemma, of course.”
The five of them stopped in their tracks, and Leif drew a dagger from his waist. He rushed at the warrior and held the blade to his throat. Leif may have thought he had caught the warrior off-guard, but the others could see he was baiting them and didn’t so much as flinch when Leif held him by the neck.
“You know who she is?” Leif growled in his ear. “Where is she?”
“I’m taking you to her now,” Bard said pleasantly.
“How dare you speak of her in such a way.” Leif looked as though he was ready to slash the man’s throat, given any small reason to do so.
Brandt ignored his rash behavior and instead tried to find out what was going on. “Why did you pretend to not know who we were searching for?”
“Why did you pretend to be searching for a servant girl?” Bard asked in rebuttal.
“Please,” Brenna said in a voice that only a mother desperate to be reunited with her child could muster. “Take us to her.”
“My pleasure,” Bard said. He waved his hand toward the dagger that was still being held to his throat.
“Leif,” Jerrik said as he put on the hilt of Leif’s blade. “Let him go.”
Leif ground his teeth as he jerked his hand away. Hearing Bard talk about Kemma in a provocative way made him want to gut the man. It upset Colby, too, but at least he had more sense than to fly off the handle violently.
“Fall in line,” Colby said mockingly as he walked past Leif.
“I’m going to kill them all,” Leif mumbled under his breath.
“What as that?” Jerrik asked when he thought he heard Leif say something.
“Nothing.”
They arrived at the second to last room in the building. The door was wide open, no locks or guards, and Kemma was within sight, sitting at a table filled with fruits and nuts and meats, and a carafe of bubbling ale. She was quite obviously not being held captive as a prisoner and was being treated well in this afterlife. When Brandt and Brenna came into view of the doorway, Kemma looked up and immediately dropped the book she had been holding to the floor. She ran across the room and threw herself into her mother’s arms. Brandt joined in on the embrace by wrapping his arms around them both and laying his head against his daughter’s shoulder.
“What a happy day to see a family reunited,” Bard said.
The three looked up, and Kemma was surprised to see Jerrik, Leif, and Colby all standing around the warrior in the doorway.
“Oh my,” she said to her mother as she looked at everyone. “This is not going to go as smoothly as we all would like.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The air that hung in the room was full of uncomfortable angst and awkwardness as everyone entered to see Kemma. Brandt hugged her after her mother had, and then Leif rushed in, pushing everyone aside to hold her. He held Kemma tightly up against his chest, and she felt relief in his arms that she had missed as if it had kept her alive. But when he let go of her, it wasn’t Colby’s hug, which came next, that made the tension in the room rise. It was the way her eyes darted toward Bard. Jerrik was the first to pick up on it, and it caused him to stand closer to Bard in case any funny business was to arise. When Kemma had hugged Colby, she had inadvertently glanced over at Bard, and everyone saw it. The look in her eyes was strange…and telling. Colby didn’t see it, which was probably good.