Chapter 25
" Oh. This is...this is not happening!" Trick said, " How could I let this happen under my watch!"
" I should have never let her make the deal with her father! Shit! Shit! It's all my fucking fault! She did this only because of me!" Tamsin said as she slammed her fist on the wall.
" Calm down, Tamsin. We need a plan. We need to find her."
" Yeah, we do. I'm gonna go to Jotunheim and get her back."
" What? You can't be serious! You can't take the giants in your condition right now."
" I'll have to."
" Then call Dyson. You'll need some help."
" Is that really necessary to send someone else on a suicide mission?"
" It's not a suicide mission, Tamsin, and you definitely need help."
" Ok, ok." Tamsin texted Dyson. She could feel her hands trembling. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
She thought about Bo. She thought about everything happened between them, every kiss, every touch, every smirk, every frown. She knew Bo made that deal with her father solely for her. That thought had warmed her for countless times in the past few weeks. It was the best time in her life. It was the best time in any of her many lives. She got to lie beside her. She got to hold her in her arms. She got to rest her head on her chest.
Every day she had been with Bo, was a day stolen from the hands of the fate.
Bo got into this mess, because she promised she would save her life. Now it was her turn to save Bo's, no matter what it would take.
Dyson came over really fast after he got Tamsin's text.
" What happened to Bo?" Dyson looked at Tamsin. Then he turned to Trick, confused.
" Long story short. Bo is in danger, we need to go find her." Tamsin said.
" Ok. Where?"
" She is in Jotunheim with her father. They are probably on their way to the Mimir's well right now."
" Jotunheim? Giants?" Dyson paused. Then he said:" We'll need some gear then."
" Take anything you need from my weapon collection." Trick said, " But we have to hurry. How long does it take to get to the well?"
" Bo and her father probably started from Helheim. He's probably gonna use the spear to open the passage way. I don't know where the entrance is going be, but the well is in the center part of Jotunheim, so I would say it will take them almost a day to get there, give or take." Tamsin said, " Me and Dyson will go through the back door from our world. It's a little bit closer, hopefully we'll make it in time."
" Well, then we really need to hurry." Dyson said.
" How about you two go to Trick's place. I'll go get some...Valkyrie supply. I'll meet you two at the Dal in thirty minutes. Just pick something for me, Dyson. Any weapon works for me."
" Ok. See you in half an hour then."
Tamsin went to get some shots. She knew that every the shots burnt her energy a lot faster than normal, but she just couldn't care less.
Dyson and Trick were waiting for her at the door of the Dal when Tamsin drove by.
" Ok, let's go." Tamsin said to Dyson. Dyson threw few bags on the back seat of her car and hopped on the passenger seat.
They didn't even bother to say goodbye to Trick and Tamsin slammed down the gas pedal.
" So, why suddenly care about Bo so much. Last time I checked, you said you hated her."
" Shit! Not now! Not now, wolf boy."
" What kind of danger is Bo in right now?"
" Some really serious shit..." Tamsin made a turn, almost threw both of them out of the car.
" If I'm gonna die rescuing her, at least I have the right to know what I'm in."
" Alright, alright! Bo made a deal with her father and now she's in serious danger. We think that her father is going to sacrifice her for a drink from Mimir's well."
" Ok, why the hell did she make that deal in the first place?"
" She made it for me, shit! She made the deal for me! She didn't know about the sacrifice thing, but I guess even if she did, she'd still make the deal." Tamsin let out a deep breath and said.
" That's Bo." Dyson smiled, " She just can't help offering her helping hand."
" Yeah, she just can't help it. Fuck!" Tamsin said.
Dyson observed the look on Tamsin's face. " Are you two...?"
" No we are not." Tamsin said, " One more word on the relationship of me and Bo, I'm gonna kick you out right here right now."
" Ok, ok." Dyson said, " How far are we anyway? I've heard about the back door to Jotunheim. Never been there though."
" We'll be there soon. Then we'll have to go on foot."
Bo and her father walked in the endless darkness for hours already. Although not afraid, She still felt uncomfortable being in the dark like this. She tried hard not to think about all those floating faces around her.
Bo hated the foggy air around her. She hated the uneven ground. She hated the coldness and the darkness. She felt something heavy on her heart, like she knew for sure there was not going to be anything nice anymore.
But the thing she hated most right now was that she had to walk on foot with her father, who was as quiet as a dead man.
She felt like she was walking with a corpse.
" So, are we going to have some father-daughter talks during our journey of walking in the endless darkness?" Bo finally had asked her father.
Her father stopped in front of her when he heard her question. Then he laughed with a low voice. Bo could hear the humming noise around them.
" Yes, of course. Anything for my Isabeau. What do you want to talk about?" He said.
" Say, maybe you could tell me things like...how you met my mother? I mean..." Bo almost tripped. She stopped to gasp some air, then she continued," I mean, I don't really know you two that well. Why didn't you come to me earlier? "
" I have certain things that I need to take care of first."
" So...I've heard...that you kept my mother as your prisoner for years." Bo carefully picked the words. She didn't want to use words like torture, or caged, or rape. For some reason, she didn't want to provoke this man. He had been nice and polite to her, since the first time they met, but Bo just didn't like him. She didn't like him at all, especially after she found out Aife was kept prisoner by him, but like staring at a rattle snake in a tank, Bo would never remove the lid.
" I didn't, my child. Your mother kept herself as my prisoner for years."
" That doesn't even make any sense."
" It started with me having her as my prisoner, yes. But she stayed."
" You tortured her too much that she started to love you eventually?"
" I wouldn't call it love." Her father said, ignoring the torture part, " Aife is...special. She resented me, but at the same time, she desired me. She hated me, but she also adored me. She actually tried to kill me several times, not that she could ever succeed, but she missed my heart on purpose every single time."
" Not that I am judging... but that sounds a little...fucked up."
" Hate is a relative thing, my child. Like dark and light, like pleasure and pain. One thing doesn't exist without the other."
" Huh?" Bo was confused. She picked up her paces so she could catch up with her father.
" So, why did you have to have someone to deliver me? Why can't you just come to me?" Bo started a new topic.
" I can't exactly come to you. Your mother hid you from me. I didn't know where you were. I have to send someone out to look for you."
" Why did my mother hide me from you?"
" Aife is... her mind sometimes gives her illusions. She thought I was going to hurt you, so she stole you from me and gave you away." Her father held her wrist, " Come, we must hurry."
" You killed Tamsin's mentor, to force her to deliver me to you, didn't you?" Finally Bo had let this question out from her chest. She didn't want to confront him with this, but she knew she had to.
" There are certain things I have to do, in order to make things work." The man said in a very calm, peaceful voice, as if he was talking about the weather instead of killing someone.
" So in order to have her to deliver me, you had to kill someone to manipulate her?"
" Don't blame yourself. If the Valkyrie didn't fail to do her job, her mentor would still be alive."
" It's not her fault!" Bo said, "You shouldn't have done that in the first place!"
" You care too much, Isabeau. One day you will regret it."
" Oh yeah? At least I won't be some cold stone hearted, cruel...person like you." Bo wanted to use the word asshole, but she swallowed it back.
" Caring is a weakness."
" So you don't care about anyone..." Bo said, " Whatever, why did I even ask. Let's just go to this stupid well, and give me the spear."
She heard her father laughed quietly. Bo felt like they had walked for a whole day now. She felt exhausted, and tired. She missed the warm hands and soft kisses.
" Where exactly are we going? Why can't we take a car and drive or something?"
" We are going to the edge of Helheim. Then I'm going to open the passage way to Jotunheim. We can't drive, Isabeau, we are not supposed to. We have to walk. It's a journey of the wanderers."
" Right, the wanderer. Why call yourself that? You wander a lot?"
" Because Odin called himself that too." The man said, " And yes, I'm always on my way to something."
" Yeah. Why do you want to drink from the well anyway? What's so good to know everything?"
" Because that's the only thing that distinguishes a God from a mortal, my child."
" What's so great to be a God. I heard even Odin died in the doom day."
But her father didn't answer her. He stopped in front of Bo. Bo almost hit her nose into his back.
" We are here. The edge of my realm." Bo's father said in a low voice. Then he took the spear in his hand.
He stood there for a while. The emitting light from the runic carvings on the spear drew his silhouette in the darkness. Bo saw his lips moving lightly.
Then her father pulled his arm back and threw the spear to the horizon.
The spear flew to the edge of the world like a shooting star. Sparks fell from its tail, lighting up the darkness.
Like a lightning striking tearing up the sky, Bo saw a bright light in front of her. She thought she heard thunder roaring in the air.
Then she saw something. It was like a vague image in a broken mirror.
She smelt something. The wet, foggy air, different from the air that was around her right now, because she could smell the dirt, the grass and the sun.
" Come with me." Her father grabbed her hand and pulled her in.
Like going into a bubbly bath with clothes on, Bo found herself traveling through something. Or something traveled through her.
But eventually she saw herself standing in a place full of grass, wind, sunshine and fog.
" Welcome to Jotunheim, Isabeau. Now, let's go find the well."