Read Online Perfekt Order (The Ære Saga Book 1) by S.T. Bende - Free Book Online Page B

dark elves—seriously scary monsters,
those; Midgard, Earth; Muspelheim, the realm of the fire giants;
Jotunheim, the realm of the frost giants; Niflheim, the primordial
ice realm; and Helheim, the realm of the dead.”
    “And then each realm has a ruler, and races,
and where do the trolls live? I didn’t see a ‘heim’ for them.” I
picked up an index card. “Nope. No Troll-heim.”
    “Trolls are actually inspired by the Sami
people of Northern Scandinavia, but that’s not the point. What you
need to know is that the nine realms were all connected to each
other by Yggdrasil, the world tree. It was a living tree that was
fed by three prophetic sisters called Norns. Every morning they
gave Yggdrasil water taken from the well of wisdom, and that water
kept the tree, and consequently the realms, alive.”
    “I saw the Thor movie.” I nodded.
    “Well, that’s a start. Remember the guy with
the eye patch? That was Odin. He ruled Asgard, and he gave up his
eye in exchange for wisdom.” Charlotte smoothed the front of her
skirt.
    “Did he get it? Wisdom?” I asked.
    “Not the kind he was looking for, but he was
a pretty smart guy anyway. He had two ravens that he sent on recon
missions. They spied on the realms and reported back at the end of
the day to tell Odin what was going on.”
    “And Thor is Odin and Flicka’s son?”
    “Frigga. And yes. Thor was the God of
Thunder, and he married Sif, the Goddess of Beauty. She was also a
pretty amazing warrior. She had a son named Ull, who was the God of
Winter. And that’s the Asgardian royal bloodline, in a
nutshell.”
    I closed my eyes for a moment, committing
Charlotte’s summary to memory. “What about the other gods? I found
at least thirty who seemed to be big deals to Wikipedia.”
    “There are a lot. The most important were
Odin, Thor, Sif, Ull, Freya—she was the Goddess of Love. Loki, the
God of Mischief; Idunn, the Goddess of Wisdom; Balder, the God of
Peace; and,” Charlotte snickered, “Tyr; the God of War.”
    “Right. Tyr, the God of War. Because I
couldn’t have taken up running with some guy named after one of
those nicer gods.”
    Charlotte stretched her legs. “You have to
admit, it’s funny.”
    “I’ll make no admissions. Tell me more
stories.”
    “It’s pretty late.” Charlotte handed me my
spreadsheet. “And there’s a lot to Norse mythology. This is
just the surface stuff. The actual stories are really dark—murders
and rape and destruction and demons. Vikings saw a lot of terrible
things in their world, so it makes sense that their pantheon was
full of heavy characters. Let’s let this stuff simmer for a few
days, and we’ll come back to it.”
    With a reluctant nod, I closed my laptop and
straightened the pile of papers on my desk. Then I followed
Charlotte downstairs and sat at the table while she pulled a gallon
of rocky road ice cream out of the freezer. “You’re running with
Tyr tomorrow morning?”
    “I’m running. We’ll see if he shows up.”
    “Hmm.” Charlotte took two bowls out of the
cupboard and opened the utensil drawer.
    “Hmm what? What does hmm mean?”
    “Well, it’s probably nothing, but when I was
leaving the gallery tonight, I saw him heading into that Italian
restaurant downtown.” Charlotte set two spoons and a scoop in the
bowls, then carried everything to the table. She set the ice cream
carton in front of me.
    “Yeah, he mentioned Italian once.” I opened
the lid and started scooping.
    “Well, he wasn’t alone.” Charlotte bit her
bottom lip. “He was with a girl who had strawberry-blond hair.”
    Oh. My hand froze mid scoop.
    “I wouldn’t have said anything, except she
was hanging on his arm and looking up at him all goo-goo eyed. He
had on a big smile, and it kind of looked like a date.”
    A tiny weight settled in my heart. “I see.”
Why did this news bother me? It wasn’t like I had any claim on the
guy. I finished scooping ice cream and pushed a bowl to