Eternal fire threads of.., p.1
Eternal Fire: Threads of Time Book One, page 1
Eternal Fire
Threads of Time Book One
Mariah Stone
Contents
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Also by Mariah Stone
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Also by Mariah Stone
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About the Author
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© 2021 Mariah Stone. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Qamber Designs and Media
All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, contact the publisher at http:\mariahstone.com
Also by Mariah Stone
Called by a Highlander series (time travel):
Sìneag (FREE short story)
Highlander’s Captive
Highlander’s Secret
Highlander’s Heart
Highlander’s Love
Highlander’s Christmas (novella)
Highlander’s Desire
Highlander’s Vow
Highlander’s Bride
More instalments coming in 2021 and 2022
Called by a Viking series (time travel):
One Night with a Viking (prequel)—grab for free!
The Fortress of Time
The Jewel of Time
The Marriage of Time
The Surf of Time
The Tree of Time
Called by a Pirate series (time travel):
Pirate’s Treasure
Pirate’s Pleasure
A Christmas regency romance:
The Russian Prince’s Bride
I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.
— J.R.R. Tolkien
Prologue
Lomdalen, Norway, 894
The door to the mead hall opened, daylight casting the thin, cloaked figure there in shadow.
“Is the king here?”
The figure’s voice wasn’t loud, but like a strong wind rippling the still surface of the fjord, it silenced the great hall swarming with guests.
A crawling sensation of threat had Ulf Hakonson reaching for the sword that lay on the bench by his side.
It was hard to see above the heads of dozens of tall warriors. Despite the daylight pouring into the hall from the entrance gate, oil lamps hung from wooden pillars bearing carvings of dragons, wolves, and serpents, illuminating somber, battle-clad faces. The scent of wood smoke, mead, cooked vegetables, and grilled meat masked the odor of many bodies packed inside the closed space.
King Harald, tall and broad, with a bear hide on his shoulders, rose from the table of honor at the far end of the hall, wiping mead from his long red beard. “The king is here.”
Seven dozen of King Harald’s men turned their heads to their leader, who stood next to Ulf’s father, Jarl Hakon, a tall, muscular Viking with a birthmark covering his left eye. From Hakon’s other side, Ulf’s mother, Mia, grabbed her husband’s large biceps, her face pale.
The thin figure walked down the aisle towards the table of honor, her white fur cloak sweeping over the floor reeds. Silence covered the crowd in her wake like an invisible blanket. Her staff thunked against the floor. With her face hidden in the shadows under her hood, it was impossible to say how old she was or how she looked.
Ulf’s brother, John, rose, trying to see between the broad shoulders of the Viking warriors. “Who is that?”
Mia, Ulf’s sister, named after their mother, jabbed her elbow into John’s side. “Sit down! Are you blind? Do you not see her cloak is made of catskins?”
John sat down. “Oh…”
The witch. The seeress.
Völva.
As she approached the table of honor, an impulse to stop the seeress pulled at Ulf’s gut, but offending a völva meant offending the gods.
John shifted the piece of roasted deer on the trencher with his eating knife. “Do you think it has anything to do with today, brother?”
Right. Today Ulf was eighteen. The last day when he could make his choice.
Ulf fingered an indent in the hard wood of the table. “No. I made my decision a long time ago.”
His sister, only one year younger than him, threw a worried glance at him. Mother locked her panicked gaze on him through the crowd. They all remembered a night nine winters ago, when three Norns had appeared at a feast and forever changed Ulf’s life.
The Norns were the mythical fates that defined all lives and destinies across time. One of them had sent Ulf’s mother from the year 2019 to the year 875 while she had been pregnant with him. His mother had negotiated with the Norn, who had agreed that he could one day choose if he wanted to live in the twenty-first century or remain in the Viking Age. That day had come.
King Harald leaned against the table with his enormous arms bulging. Heavy silver chains rocked forward from his neck. “Do you bring word of the gods to me, honorable völva?”
The witch gave a slow nod, the white fur with black spots glistening in the firelight. “The gods sent me a vision.” Her voice was still low but traveled around the great hall as though carried by the wind into every ear. “I have been seeking you these past twelve moons.”
The pale-blue tattoos on one side of the king’s face straightened as his expression became serious. “You found me.”
Jarl Hakon exchanged a loaded glance with his wife.
Ulf’s mother smiled at the hooded figure. “Would you like a bite to eat, völva?”
The witch cocked her head. “Ah. It is you. The woman who crossed time.”
Hakon stood up so fast, his heavy wooden chair fell back with a crack. “By Odin, how do you know?”
Ulf’s fist clenched around his sword. His sister put her hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Channing.”
Channing was the nickname his mother used when she spoke English to him. It meant the same in the Celtic language as Ulf did in Old Norse. Wolf. She called him Channing to remind him of his roots.
Eirik, Ulf’s best friend, leaned over to him. “What is going on?”
But Ulf was hanging on to every word spoken at the table of honor. The witch moved her staff to the left and to the right and the tiny mouse and bat skulls hanging from it rattled. “The Norns told me everything, Jarl Hakon. Everything.”
At the mention of the Norns, his mother swung her gaze back to Ulf, and a shudder went through him.
King Harald chuckled. “Crossed time? I heard rumors but always thought people made up stories because of your legendary healing skills.”
The witch raised her head. “What I must tell the king cannot wait.”
Why was Mother shaking? Her forehead glistened under her beautiful hairdo; a straight line separated her strawberry blond hair in the middle, and a braid went around her head like a golden crown.
King Harald nodded and leaned over the table, closer to the völva. “No one respects the true gods more than I do. What did you see?”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she looked over her shoulder in Ulf’s direction. A chill, like the tip of an icicle was being dragged down his spine, went through him.
The völva turned back to King Harald and took one last step towards the table. The skulls clunked as she leaned towards the king, their heads almost touching.
Time slowed down, every beat of his heart loud in his ears.
His mother mouthed one word to him.
Run.
King Harald straightened up and unsheathed his sword with a loud swoosh of metal.
His bushy red eyebrows knit together. There was one thing in his hard stare.
Death.
“Kill Ulf Hakonson!” The king’s voice sounded around the hall like a war horn, and a hundred pairs of eyes fell on Ulf.
Ulf scrambled across the bench and jumped to his feet, sword lifted.
Jarl Hakon unsheathed his own sword. “Protect my son!”
Both Harald
And now, to kill the son of a jarl? Spill the blood of their host’s kin? That went against the Norse law of hospitality.
And why—because a woman in a catskin cloak had whispered something to the king?
“Kill him!” roared King Harald.
His men echoed him. The battle cry was thick and loud in Ulf’s ears. Somehow Hakon had made it to his side and yanked him back by his collar.
The battle began.
An ax flew in Ulf’s direction. A cold swoosh of air tickled the side of his head as it bit into his ear and cut a lock of his dark-blond hair. With a thunk, it hit the wall behind him.
Someone was pushing him.
Mother. “You need to go, Channing!” she said in English, trying to move him towards the gate.
“Go where?” Ulf cried.
“You know where, Channing. It’s the only place he won’t reach you.”
Only it wasn’t a place.
It was a time.
The future.
A rune stone stood in the sacred grove, raised in honor of the Norns. It would take him to the future if he chose.
Swords and axes clashed as the warriors fought. The room was full of grunts and yells of pain.
Ulf held his sword tighter. “No. You know my decision.”
A warrior scythed his ax, and Mother deflected his attacks with her scramasax. Men now lay around them, dead and wounded. His father fought King Harald, who threw furious glances at Ulf. His sister and even his fifteen-year-old brother were fighting with grown men.
They were all protecting him. They could all die because of King Harald’s whim.
They didn’t need to die.
The king wanted to kill only Ulf.
So he’d challenge King Harald and finish this before anyone else was hurt.
Pushing the man off his mother, he darted towards the entrance gate. “Hey! Harald, you dirty cocksucker,” he yelled. King Harald’s face reddened, and he delivered a punch to Hakon’s jaw. “You want me, come and get me!” Ulf pushed away another man and kept moving towards the gate. “Come on!”
“Get him!” roared Harald as he fought his way through the mead hall.
Ulf ran into the gray daylight of a Norwegian summer, looking around. From behind him, warriors spilled out of the mead hall, screaming, roaring, still in battle rage. Wheat-haired Eirik followed him.
Eirik whirled around and slashed at a warrior, then cried over his shoulder, “I have your back, brother! Go!”
Eirik had had his back so often; in every battle they’d stood shoulder to shoulder. He’d saved Ulf’s life countless times. Odin’s feet, he was thankful to have his family and friends. Risking their lives for him, always by his side.
He wouldn’t be the cause of their deaths.
He gathered in as much air as his lungs could hold and let it out in a single, long roar. Everyone froze, and King Harald stopped at the gate, staring at him. There was a deep, bleeding gash on Harald’s cheek.
Ulf hit his chest with his fist above where his heart was. “You want me? Come and get me. Leave my family alone.”
He ran.
The village flashed by him as his feet pounded against the dirt-packed streets: timber longhouses with thatched roofs, fences, racks of drying fish, and smokers for meat. The village lay by the fjord, mountains rising like walls all around them. He ran uphill, following the path into the woods of the nearest mountain. Angry yells sounded behind him, then reduced to the soft pounding and rustling of many feet on the dirt path.
Soon, his lungs were burning, despite his good physical form. Behind him, tunics flashed between trees and bushes, blades of swords and axes glistened in the dull light.
He didn’t know how long he ran, but when the woods cleared into a small grove, he stopped, panting, sweaty.
There it was, the rune stone that had brought his mother, pregnant with him, here from the twenty-first century.
The piece of granite reached his waist, bearing Norse runes and wavy patterns—it could be his escape.
Branches cracked behind him, and he turned back. There they were. King Harald, like a large red-maned bear, panting, sweat and blood mixed on his face. His father and his mother, who was holding on to Hakon. Everyone was breathing hard, exhausted from the long run up the hill.
“What are you waiting for?” cried his mother in English. “Go, Channing!”
He met King Harald’s eyes. “No. No one will chase me away from my home and my family.”
King Harald took his sword with both hands and positioned it on his shoulder. “You have nowhere to go, anyway.”
If this would be Ulf’s last day, so be it. He’d die protecting his family and meet his death with honor. With his sword in his hand, on a battlefield. He’d go to Valhalla.
But before he could launch at his enemy, something flashed in his side vision. As more warriors arrived at the sacred grove, everyone went still, staring at the rune stone. When Ulf glanced there, he couldn’t move, either.
By the granite stone stood someone he’d never wanted to see again. An old lady who, together with her two sisters, had come into another mead hall nine years ago and had forever changed his life.
The Norn.
“No…” Ulf whispered.
Her eyes, icy blue, piercing and as old as time, held him. The rune stone stood beside her, dark and menacing.
His mother was shaking her head, covering her mouth. “Go, Channing…”
King Harald’s eyes were darting between Ulf and the old lady. “Go where?”
The Norn Skuld, the one Ulf’s mother had negotiated with, cocked her head. “My sisters were against this. But I am giving you your very last chance, Ulf Hakonson.” She stretched out her hand to him and opened her palm. There it was, the golden spindle engraved with runes and patterns of leaves, serpents, dragons, and wolves. Sunlight shone on the spindle, blinding him. “Go.”
Harald roared and ran at Ulf, but Hakon grabbed him by his red tunic and slashed his sword across. The king barely deflected the weapon with his own. The battle between the king’s men and Hakon’s men started again. The king tried to run at Ulf, but Hakon kept attacking him to distract him.
“I do not want to kill you, Hakon,” roared Harald, “but if you keep trying to stop me, I will have to.”
With horror, Ulf saw that now Harald’s sword strikes turned to murderous. He aimed for his father’s neck and head, like any warrior would—intending to end a life.
Eirik, wounded in his right shoulder, fought, holding the sword in his left hand. Ulf’s sister, Mia, backed up against a tree, deflecting the strikes of a warrior’s ax. John, who had never even been on a raid, fought a warrior twice his size…and was losing.
They were about to lose their lives because of him.
Even if he went back to the fjord and stole a boat, King Harald would find him and kill him. He was the most powerful man in Scandinavia.
Worse, he’d harm Ulf’s family to get to him.
The Norn gave him a sad smile.
But how could he abandon them? Wasn’t this an escape, an act of cowardice? This was not how his father had taught him to live. He had never run from a fight.
Just as Ulf’s fist tightened around his sword, he saw it. Harald’s arm, high in the air, sword raised for the deadly strike, aiming for his father’s neck.
Ulf could never reach Hakon in time to protect him.
All he could do was distract Harald—and be gone.
Then this fight would be over.
