Legacy(20)

“His second-in-command is probably one of the most sadistic I’ve ever met,” I added helpfully. “And can freeze time, making him near invincible.”

“Yes, thank you,” my mother said. “We have no real plan, no idea what’s coming, no resources to draw on save for the intelligence that you can filter to us. So we can see parts of the threat as it’s coming to wipe us out, but really the only thing standing between us and the one hundred most powerful metas in the world is me, my shut-in daughter, her teeny-bopper friends, and whatever castoffs from Omega have survived the extermination of our kind.” She sat back and let the silence consume the table. “Yes. This is going to be marvelous. I’ve saved myself from prison just so I can be killed by Sovereign.”

No one said anything for a long time after that, not even Foreman. His face was so grey it was almost ashen. I felt more than a little annoyed and tried to figure out the most creative way to bring our morale back from the brink that my mother had just pushed it toward. “Look on the bright side,” I said, looking directly at her, “at least you didn’t get locked in a box by one of your loved ones who then disappeared on you for months and months.”

Nope. That wasn’t it.





Chapter 9




Norway

1635



His breath frosted in the air, the chill of the Norse morning sensual on his bare skin. It was almost like a lover’s touch to him, something with its own appeal, something that gave him a thrill of pleasure. Bjorn walked down the path that had become familiar to him over the last year, a trail between the new halls of his family and a village just down the way. The place where he stayed with his father and brother and other family members was good enough, pleasant enough, but it lacked mortal company. Female mortal company. And so Bjorn walked this path at least twice per week, sometimes more, to partake of the girls of the local village. They were accommodating enough, having seen an example of the folly of resistance, and made him welcome in their own way. He took a breath of the frigid air as the partially snow-covered ground crunched under his feet. Even if they weren’t as willing as they are, I’ve dealt with that before. He smiled at the thought. And it carries its own pleasure and rewards.

The trees were bare, brown, with branches standing out from the trunks like fingers stretched out to each other. It reminded him of the skin of the men he had met in the years he had gone south, across the wide sea below Rome, and onto the shores of a much hotter land. He walked stark nude, his clothing clutched in his hand out of sheer enjoyment of the cold weather. When he had done so in that hot, dry land, he had not been nearly as comfortable.

The winter is in my blood, he thought, and luxuriated in the chill prickling at his flesh. He touched one of the rough trees as he passed, letting his palm cross the gnarled bark and caress a knot where a limb had been lost a century earlier. He leaned his shoulder into it and felt its rough touch. Everything was blissful this morning. He’d been well fed the night before, well satiated by a village girl. Now he looked forward to a day of lounging around the fires of home. Perhaps later, if he felt the need, he’d walk this path again. Two nights in a row. I might end up spoiling these village girls, getting them too used to what it feels like to have their wombs blessed by a god.

His nose caught the scent of something in the wind as it shifted direction from ahead of him. It was sharp, heavy. It was smoke, a fire, but stronger than the simple fires that kept their stronghold warm and the houses heated. This was more pungent. He cast off from the tree and regained his balance, standing there in the chill morning, hesitating as he took another deep breath. The smoke was heavy with the smell of roasting flesh.

Bjorn felt his feet move underneath him without giving it thought. They carried him onward, running under the canopy of bare and empty branches that only allowed the orange of the rising sun to peek down on him every now and again. It was a short enough run, a mile or two, and the smoke smell grew heavier and heavier until he caught sight of a black cloud where the village should be.

He burst out onto a clearing at the edge of the field before his village and his eyes beheld a sight of purest horror. Everything was in flames, a thick, orange conflagration rising from the angular frames of the wooden homes, burning bright and roaring with great fury. The semi-circle of buildings was completely enflamed, the heights of the fire reaching above the trees.

Bodies were stacked on the outside edges of the fire, just starting to be consumed. They were still a few hundred feet off but his eyes could see them from here. There were only a dozen who lived there, all grown men and women, and few enough women at that. Most prominent among the bodies was his brother, his golden hair visible at even this distance. His father was there, too, his grey beard stretching halfway down his chest, easy to pick out from the small mass of corpses.