Page 40 of Baldr's Secret Mate

“You’re doing really good,” Baldr whispered, his lips grazing against my neck. “Keep going.”

His touch sent a wave of pleasure through my system, the sensation wrapping around my magic and causing the plants to put on a burst of growth. I couldn’t help but laugh as I felt them surge through the soil around my hand, their tiny green leaves tickling my skin. Without a second thought, I fed them more magic, wanting to see if I could make them bloom too. And I wanted to make Baldr proud, to prove to him that I could handle my magic and that it was safe to try small things.

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I felt something snap inside of me. There was a loud crack deep down, somewhere beyond my body. And it wasn’t until the rush of chaotic magic came suddenly crashing through my body that I realized what had happened. Somehow, without meaning too, I’d tapped too far into the well of roiling arcane power contained within me. And now there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“What are you doing?!” Baldr cried, his fingers still laced through mine. “Stop!”

“I-I can’t! I don’t know how!”

Baldr tried to pull his hand away, but it was almost as if our skin was fused together. Not only that, no matter how hard I pulled, my fingers wouldn’t come free of the soil.

“How do I stop it?” I cried back.

But I didn’t hear the answer as my magic connected with the earth. Suddenly I was no longer inside my own body.Instead I was watching the scene unfold before me as if my spirit had been shunted ten feet above me. But it didn’t stop there. My perception followed the flow of dark blue magic down into the soil, streaking through it like a bolt of lightning. It shot off in several directions, seemingly searching for something. I only had to wait a split second to find out what.

My magic found bodies under the ground, except they weren’t buried. Instead they were entombed in vaults or laid out on stone shelves. I could see them plain as day, their swords and shields still at their sides or lain over their chests. My magic seeped out of the stone, wrapped around their corpses, and began to weave them back to life. Stringy mummified grey muscle swelled and pulled at joints. Where no flesh could be found, the bones rattled and creaked, moving of their own accord as the bodies came to life. And the last thing my magic did was grant them sight, coalescing in their eye sockets like burning blue flames. I felt more than a dozen take their first breaths in centuries and their bodies begin to shift and quake before I snapped back into my own body.

Suddenly Baldr and I came apart, both of us panting from the toll the magic had taken on us. It seemed my magic, thanks to the bond, caught his in the flow, and it drained us both to fulfil its purpose.

“Wha… What was that?” I asked, staring up at him wide eyed. “I… I was just trying to make the plants grow! To breathe life into the soil!”

Baldr stared at me for a long moment. “You did,” he said simply, a note of surprise and fear in his voice.

“Why did it go wrong then?! What did I just do?”

“You lost control,” he replied, not trying to spare my feelings. “And you made Draugr.”

“Draugr? What the hell is a Draugr?”

“Undead… Powerful undead.” Baldr shook his head, pulling himself to his feet. “And they will hunt us mercilessly until the magic that brought them back is extinguished forever. That way they might one day rest peacefully once more.”

“Can’t we just undo the spell?”

“Once you open the floodgates, how do you undo it?” Baldr asked, his eyes wide. “This isn’t telepathy or a simple candle-lighting incantation. You gave those creatures life. They are conscious now and in full control of their own faculties. Nothing short of burning them alive will put them back to sleep.”

“Doesn’t your mother’s spellbook have something about Draugr in it? You told me it did!”

“It did,” Baldr nodded. “In the part that Tyr ripped away.”

“What do we do then?”

He held out a hand, a look of urgency in his eyes. “We run.”

Chapter Twenty-Two: Baldr

The moment Mist took my hand, I pulled him to his feet and we took off running. The ruins around us groaned and shifted, dust and small debris raining down as the Draugr stirred in their ancient resting places. We had to get out of there before they fully awakened and came after us, which they would inevitably do considering we were the only living creatures in the entire place except for a few rats. I seemed to recall that Draugr had an almost sixth sense for finding living creatures they could destroy.

“I'm sorry,” Mist panted as we ran. “I didn't mean to—”

“I know,” I cut him off. “But we can't worry about that now. We need to focus on getting out of here alive.”

We raced through winding corridors, the glow of the strange fungi our only light. Behind us, I could hear the scraping of stone against stone as the Draugr began to emerge from their tombs. The sound sent chills down my spine. It seemed their vaults weren’t enough to hold them back. Then again, they were said to have inhuman strength and some of them even had theirown magic. That made them not only terrifying, but dangerous beyond all reason.

As we ran, I tried to recall everything I'd read about Draugr in my mother's spellbook. They were undead warriors, often ancient Norse chieftains or powerful warriors who refused to truly die. They guarded their treasures fiercely and would attack anyone who disturbed their rest. Some could change size, shape-shift, or even drive people mad just by looking at them. And they were notoriously difficult to kill. Most people agreed that only by chopping off their heads and burning their bodies could you truly kill them. Not only did I not have a weapon, but burning them posed a problem as well with my energy at an all-time low.

When we rounded a corner, I skidded to a halt, nearly causing Mist to crash into me. Ahead of us, the corridor split into three different paths. I cursed under my breath, trying to decide which way to go.

“Which way?” Mist asked, his voice tight with panic.

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