Free Master of Miasma (The Valhalla Series) by Poppet

goodbye, planting a promise at my feet that he'll be back to harvest me when my time is due.
    “Odin's strength to Asgard!” I laugh into the violent blasts shuddering bellows after him. The Thurs are raising the roof off the world with the power in this storm, their brilliance so large and inspiring I fall silent watching the magnificent gods recede, dancing their surging lights across the darkest night. That's us up there, full of shadows and light, dichotomous, but how we manifest after harvest as ethereals on an earth plane. My soul longs to be in the arms of my fathers, drinking and eating at the feast of remembrance.
    My body physically aches as I watch the Beauties and the Fierce charge across the sky over my head, running fervently with enough force to shake the ground, their ecstasy clear, the celebration a party of wild chaos of the freed gods, the valkyries carrying the weak while they transform, and the exuberant running of the creatures and allies of legend.
    This time my eyes fill with awe, humbled by my lineage, proud we still walk this realm as living, with them watching over us and taking us home once a year. Unlike humans we can leave whenever we are ready, we do not have to die to move forward in our journey. Why did Lars not take up their mercy?
    I salute a last time at the Einherjar, the lone warriors, the ones who bear Raven's mark. A creepy silence falls as the wind halts abruptly and the lightning seems too far away to hear the thunder, leaving a dissipating band of the merry dancers lingering in the night sky.
    Every year I fight the urge to abandon this earth and fly away with them, but Emma's foretelling has always made me second guess the decision. This is the first year it's been safe for me to stand in the path of the wild hunt, Åsgårdsreia. The return ride to Asgard.
    Raven are allowed in Asgard purely because we have proven our loyalty time and again to Odin.
    The silence is deafening. No creature stirs, all paying reverence to their fallen kin moving on to live in the meadows of eternal peace.
    Sighing, rubbing my hands down my face to get a grip, I turn, walking slowly back through the rock doors of our cavernous home. Only a giant can open and close the menhirs which are our doors. I must check on Emma, make sure she's undisturbed by the spiritual gloaming holding its breath over our land. The aurora borealis is so bright and beautiful tonight, I'm sure half the reason for that is because my destiny is sleeping in my room for the first time, she is heim (home).
    Many will rejoice and many more will cry, not understanding it's natural to move on when the heart has had enough pain for one lifetime, when the struggle to breathe is a mountain crushing the soul in the eyes of the suffering.
    Unbuttoning my shirt, getting ready to wash away the woes of the parting, I stop walking at the sight of Arghin standing reading the book, making sure everyone who was meant to go, did. We intervene if anyone was forgotten in the harvest because right now they are at death's door, vulnerable and broken and in dire need of assistance.
    He glances at me, pausing just long enough to give me his mischievous smile.
    “ What?” I demand, changing trajectory, ambling towards him.
    “ Nothing. Go wash up. We'll talk in the morning.”
    “ Arghin, what are you hiding?”
    He turns to prevent me from seeing the pages, “Mac, go away. If your foresight doesn't see what's coming I refuse to let you see it in the Truth.”
    Punching his shoulder, shaking my head, he's the antidote I needed to clear my misery away, “Thanks brother. I'll hold you to that morning chat if it's the last thing I do.”
    Laughing under my breath I walk back down the tunnel to my rooms, shedding the shirt and unbuttoning my jeans.
    Odin it's been a long night. I am weary.
    Walking into my bedroom I remain stealthy until I'm at the foot of the bed, delighted at the sight sleeping in it.
    She is becoming. Nothing will wake her now, I can