The Lady of the Valley

Chapter 45

45.

A surreal stillness came over Astrid as they moved away from the battlefield and through another tunnel in the rock. Her realities clashed with each other in her head as she took each step.

She was a college student; double major in Art History and Sculpture. She lived alone, thanks to the guilt of her recovering addict father and a low paying TA job with the art department.

She was also the daughter of a goddess. She just knew things sometimes, like how she was different. When she picked up a weapon she knew how best to use it. Like the weapon itself downloaded some information directly to her. Or like some new room that had always been there opened up in her memory. She laughed at movie montage scenes, but somehow there were moments where knowledge beyond her experience became hers. She cast spells. She felt the boundaries of Mystic Falls, sensing the flow of its life if she just reached out to it.

When she'd first learned who her mother was she'd read everything she could, first about the Northern myths, but then about others as well. She'd haunted less than savory message boards, talked with people who claimed to be blessed by the gods. She downloaded original fan art, watched online historical lectures, and listened to podcasts from Norwegian traditionalists.

She knew of Yggdrasil, the world tree which sprang forth from the primordial void of Ginnungogap and united the nine worlds in its branches. But she never really thought about or believed in other worlds. Even when she explained fae to Derek, it had been knowledge repeated the same way it had been told to her.

Now she'd been to another world.

It was hard not to believe in something when your socks squished with its wetness and its dirt littered your skin. She'd thought of the nine worlds of ancient peoples as continents perhaps. Places so distant to their modes of transportation that they might as well be other worlds. Hell, Europe thought of Asia as a mystical place, and many of the tales of the 101 Arabian Nights talked of far off worlds "like China", but now she could unlock her phone and watch live webcams from those cities. The thought that they'd somehow teleported to an isolated Greek island was more believable than the thought that this place where they walked, with its water and dirt beneath her nails, didn't actually exist.

The tunnel widened again and the path became a land bridge over a churning sea. Before them rose what could only be called a castle. Shell-speckled spires rose in the distance and seaweed trimmed arches marked their path every two hundred feet or so.

"Someone's been watching The Little Mermaid," Ellie muttered behind her.

Astrid's lips twisted into a little grin, but she tried to hide it.

She had to stop. Just because she was walking through a fairy tale land with her best friend's boyfriend and two murderous vampires didn't mean she could let herself be dazzled. That made her think. The Little Mermaid.

Astrid stopped. She dug the field med kit she carried from her pocket. The jacket might be mostly water resistant, but it wasn't completely waterproof. The little case was wet around the edges. That was fine. It could be cleaned and restocked later she pulled pieces of gauze out and rolled them up and plugged them into her ears. Jason might have been tied down to the mast to resist the sirens' songs, but his men had to plug their ears.

Derek looked at her, questioning. She shrugged. Better paranoid and safe than sorry.

The path opened up into a grand courtyard, like they'd somehow walked into a sandcastle, with a faintly marked chess board of marble and sea glass beneath their feet. A tall dais, nearly as tall as her, towered at the far end. Nearby by the opening they came though Sarris lay against the wall, hanging from a trident piercing him diagonally across his chest and pinning him at least eighteen inches off the ground.