Goddess of Fate. Alexandra Sokoloff

the Norn of the Past, Aurora, the Norn of the Present and Val, the Norn of the Future. Three Norns just like them were assigned to every mortal at birth, at the cradle, and they wove the past, present and future of each mortal’s destiny. Sometimes called the Fates, sometimes the Moerae, they were guardians capable of helping, or hurting, at the critical junctures of a mortal’s life—especially if the mortal had some awareness of them and a willingness to ask for help and listen for the answers. But there was always one of the three who became the personal Norn of their mortal charge. So when Aurora had said she was Luke’s Norn, it was the truth, but she was also bending the truth a little. Because Val had jumped in and claimed Luke for herself. Which explained why she was ballistic at the moment.

      “Look at you. You’ve really done it this time,” Val raged.

      “I’m afraid you have,” Lena echoed. “Aurora, you know this is wrong. You must release him.”

      “No,” Aurora said.

      Her younger sister paced in front of the doors, with the moon shining behind her. “You have no right...” she started.

      “You can’t take him,” Aurora said fiercely. “I took him into the Now, you have no power here,” she shot back at her sister.

      “Aurora, you can’t keep a mortal in the Now indefinitely,” Lena said reasonably. She glanced at the bed, at Luke’s still form. “They can’t exist like that. He might even go mad.”

      Aurora faltered at that. Her older sister was always so right at just the wrong times. “I’m not going to keep him here indefinitely. I’m only trying to keep her from killing him.” She pointed at their younger sister.

      “Who said anything about killing?” Val tossed back her hair. “His destiny is to ascend to Valhalla. It’s a glorious future. You have no right to prevent it.”

      “You have no right to make him die,” Aurora said murderously, and the two sisters advanced on each other, as if they were children, ready to pull each other’s hair out.

      Lena quickly stepped between them. “It’s not up to either of you. We’ve been Summoned.” True to form, Lena kept any hint of blame or reproach out of her voice, but Aurora’s heart plummeted.

      “The Eternals?” she asked, her voice trembling. She meant the Goddess Norns who ruled all the rest of the Norns.

      Lena nodded.

      “You are in such trouble,” Val seethed.

      “We’ll see,” Lena said, resigned.

      She stepped with her usual grace to the glass doors and pushed lightly; they swept open like breath, with no weight or substance. Beyond the balcony, the moon was high and luminous as pearl; its light poured across the dark water of the bay like a shining arched bridge. Which was exactly what it was: the Bifrost, the bridge across realms.

      Lena looked back at her sisters and stepped out onto the balcony, then out onto the moon path, which shimmered under her feet but for their purposes was as solid as stone.

      Val stalked after her, and Aurora paused to look back at Luke, so still and peaceful on the bed. Her heart ached for him.

      “I’ll take care of you,” she said again softly, and then shivered.

      She walked after her sisters, onto the moon bridge.

       Chapter 4

      The dark bowl of the cosmos surrounded Aurora and her sisters, with bright lights of galaxies above them and reflected in the black water below them. The glowing white path stretched across the starry blackness.

      By mortal day the Bifrost sometimes appeared as a rainbow, all the dazzling separate colors of the sun. But in the deep and constant darkness of the universe, it had the pearly luminosity of a moon path. The sisters’ skin was fantastical in the glowing light; they looked like what they were: ancient, immortal beings of the Aesir, the pantheon of the gods.

      Below the bridge was the great ocean that surrounded Midgard, the world of men. The Bifrost was the only way to cross it. Aurora looked down, down, down toward the blackness of the water. She knew that beneath the ocean lay the gigantic sea serpent Jörmungandr, who was so huge he circled the world entirely and grasped his tail in his own mouth as he slept. Soon, it was prophesied, he would waken and arise from the ocean, poisoning land and sea with his venom, and causing the sea to rear up and lash against the land. These actions would send cataclysms through the mortal world, signaling the beginning of Ragnarok—the battle at the end of the world.

      In fact, the first stirrings had begun, causing the unprecedented earthquakes, the hurricanes, the destructive tsunamis that crashed the water onto the land, leveling all in their paths. All the signs of the End of Days were there—floods and drought, war and famine and toxic spills and scorching lethal heat waves. But the humans carried on as they always had, seemingly oblivious to their incipient destruction and the multidimensional war to come.

      Aurora’s heart tightened at the thought. That was what Val was trying to carry Luke off to: service in the army of the gods.

      But even if it was prophesied, that didn’t mean it had to be that way. Why should the world end in war and cataclysm? Why should the world end at all? It had always seemed to Aurora that the prophecy could be reversed by a little refocusing: less war and more, well, love...

      “You better snap out of it, we’re almost there.” Val’s voice broke her train of thought.

      Aurora looked up and realized they were already across the bridge: at the horizon line, the darkness shimmered and the sisters stepped as through a curtain.

      At the very end of the bridge was a marble gatehouse—the dwelling of the god Heimdallr, who guarded the bridge from the giants, the Jotunn. He stood in gleaming gold armor at the crossroads of the worlds, always ready to sound the alarm if the evil beings tried to leave their own realm to overrun the world of gods or the world of men. It was only a matter of time before the giants made an assault on the other worlds; it, too, had been prophesied.

      Aurora shivered. It was all so close. So close, and so fatal, unless someone did something...

      Although the three sisters were still so far from Heimdallr they could barely see him, he stood from the throne of the guardhouse as they approached, looking toward them. Aurora had always felt safe, guarded, having the god posted as eternal sentry.

      “My ladies.” He bowed to them, which was chivalry only; he far outranked them in the hierarchy. But all of the gods had a certain respect for the Norns; it had always been that way. Aurora was proud of the duty it implied. A duty she’d now trampled on, she realized with a pang, and felt a wave of guilt.

      But I’m not going to let Luke die, not even for Odin. I won’t, she told herself, and lifted her chin. Val glanced at her, a narrowed gaze, as if she could hear Aurora’s thoughts.

      “Sentry,” Lena said demurely as she bowed back to the god, and Aurora dropped a curtsy of her own.

      “Lovely as ever,” Heimdallr added. “How is the world tonight?” he asked with a certain wistfulness. Aurora thought the sentry must be lonely, always on watch all by himself.

      “Lovely as ever.” Lena smiled at him, and for a moment Aurora saw longing in the look that he returned her sister.

      He wants her, Aurora thought, startled. Does Lena know?

      But there was no time to think of that now. Heimdallr ushered them into the portal of the guardhouse. The sisters stepped through the arch of the guardhouse door—and into brilliant sunlight, so dazzling after the dark night of the other side that they all had to pause to get their bearings.

      And then they looked out into the Wyrd.

      Aurora often watched the young humans who came to the fairs and festivals in the park across from where Luke lived. When she saw them dancing on the grass with their psychedelic clothes