The Fox and the Falcon (No Other Gods Book 2)

by Piper C.J.

And all the realms have the same night sky. Isn’t that beautiful?”

“The Aesir have your big heavy hitters: Odin, Thor, Loki, Baldur. On the other side, the Vanir oversee those of us in Álfheimr, even though the Vanir mostly live in Vanheim.

“So, the Vanir in Álfheimr report directly to Gullevig. She’s great. She’s been killed like three times and keeps coming back. Other religions act like it’s such a big deal, but you don’t see her bragging. Freyr and Freyja are a little too important for the day-to-day, so we talk to Gullevig, she talks to them, and so on. Anyway, it’s like a manager-supervisor situation.”

“Vanir is a catch-all category for the gods

the heavy hitters and the Vanir were at war for a hot minute. The tide kept turning back and forth, so for a while it was a toss-up over who would take the crown. Long story short, there was a hostage exchange and a truce, where the Aesir absorbed the Vanir and we were unified after the peace treaty.

“I can imagine Vanir citizens wouldn’t be thrilled to adhere to new rules they didn’t agree to. It’s not like everyone got an equal say when the two morphed into one, right?” She beamed. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said.

reached out to touch the colorful notes, and paused to look at my fingers. They were tingling with a music of their own. “Someone’s finally having fun,” Fauna said, tightening her arm around me. Her doe eyes were larger than ever before. I saw the planets within them. Each freckle was a constellation. She was the Milky Way. I reached out to touch her face and she laughed, giving my hand a friendly kiss as she snatched it away and held it at her side, as if tethering my hands to the earth so they didn’t float away.

“I guess there’s something unifying about looking at the same moon in China and Greece and Brazil.” “No, I mean…” His smile returned as he shook his head. “Yeah, something like that.” “Sometimes, in moments like this, I miss being in the church.” “I make you miss…the Bible?” He sounded more amused than I understood. “No.” I pushed his arm.

“I just miss the sort of catch-all gratitude that came with having a single source for everything. I miss being able to look at a sunrise and thank God. I miss being sad or sick or scared and knowing exactly who to pray to.

“I mean, I’d love to have someone to thank for bringing us together. It used to make me feel lighter to look at the fireworks and thank a deity for a beautiful show, for perfect weather, and for the chance to cuddle on the beach with someone I…”

If you’re missing a sense of something greater, have you entertained the idea that maybe it’s because, well…there’s something greater?”

cleared my throat and did my best impression of a British man: “If I find in myself desires that nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

“I wouldn’t count their chickens just yet,” he said under his breath, but not so quietly that I didn’t slip it into my bank of odd Caliban tidbits. I collected memories of him like they were arcade tickets. Perhaps one day I could cash them in for a real boy.

“I get it, you know,” he said at last. I caught the way his frosted lashes fluttered close, each white hair brilliant in the moonlight, as he spoke. “I have one person to thank for every good thing in my life, and it’s you.”

didn’t abandon her,” Aloisa snapped. “And I’d watch my tongue on things I don’t know about. How many children have you had? How many around you were being killed or accused of witchcraft? What were the persecutions like? How many countries have you had to flee to keep your loved ones safe?” My hands clenched into fists. “I—” “Furthermore”—Aloisa widened her stance as if ready for a fight—“would you have the spine to do it if it needed to be done? Could you shelve your selfish desires for love and sex and romance if your family—if your child—needed you? What do you know of sacrifice?”

I’ve looked into your lives long before your success, Marlow Esther Thorson. This is one of your most privileged cycles. You had food, shelter, and running water. You are an attractive, talented, smart white woman in a world that’s rolled out the red carpet for you. You live in luxury. The cards were stacked in your favor, and your ingratitude is not a pretty

“Because I think it would be loving for her to do everything she could to try to get her daughter to accept that deity and go to her version of an afterlife. She might be wrong, but she doesn’t know that. All she knows is that she can see angels and demons, and that she loves you. She knows she doesn’t want her child to be tormented for eternity. Given the foundations of her perceived reality, she has no other avenue.”

Grow up, Marlow. Be worthy of my genes.”

If Ella’s true name was Hnoss, then she was the daughter of Freyja, the deity of lust, seduction, and treasure. She was fucking gorgeous, charming as hell, and had a dragon’s hoard of jewels to help her defend her title.

“God-killing is two-fold. If you want them to stay dead, it has to be by both someone and something that can kill gods.

“Do you really not know who she is?” Estrid asked, voice ripe with surprise. She kept her question low enough so as not to disrupt the standoff happening only paces away. I could only shake my head. “The wild is hers to command,” Ella supplied. I awaited further explanation that never came.

I’m no more of a nobody than you are. And you, Marlow-Merit-Maribelle, are not a nobody.

spoke for him. “Fenrir has been chained to a rock since before you were born.” “A little after I was born, actually.” “Great, you’re old. That’s really helpful, Fauna.

“Don’t be crude,” Poppy cut in, presumably knowing where his joke was going. “The Prince of Hell and his bride? Come on, darling, how often do we get to meet a couple like us?” “She’s missing her better half,” he said. “She is the better half,” Poppy said, positively twinkling. She released my hand and perched on the arm of Hades’s chair. “He’s going by Dorian. Dorian Castellanos, if anyone asks who’s running our museum.”

“Dorian and Caliban have something in common.” My lips parted briefly at hearing the Prince’s allotted name on her tongue. Undeterred, she went on. “Caliban is patient—legendarily so. We’ve known about you for a long, long time, Merit. Well, we knew about the Prince’s human. It being you was a surprise. So, he won’t rush you, even if the realms wish he would—and they do, Merit, make no mistake. But Dorian’s like that, too. True

“There are no gods in Hell,” she said. “There are courts, sure. They have royal families—the King and the Prince, the infernal divine, the other courts, what have you—but it’s nothing like the absolute supremacy of gods in other realms over their subjects. Hell’s king dreamed of equality. Hell stands for the egalitarian rule we laud. I think it’s part of why so many of us spend our time in the mortal realm. Here, Dorian and I aren’t squished beneath another god’s thumb.

Your presidents, your prime ministers, your queens—it’s just a ship and its sail. The sail can be collapsed at any time, and then you can steer with rudders and oars. It’s not forced obedience. Hell is doing something other realms dream of, and at a steep price. Heaven is a formidable foe—a nearly unconquerable one.”

she whispered, “Please, don’t waste this life.”

She whispered, “She wants it, too.” I frowned. “What?” Popped dipped her chin, voice low as she said, “For the first time in countless cycles, you have fae blood. This is the first time another realm has been able to step in like this and intervene. Your Norde wants it every bit as badly as I do. Ask her why she’s helping you. Ask her why she really came into your life. It was sudden, wasn’t it? Out of the blue? Ask yourself why a nymph would be charged with such a task. With Fauna… You’re important, Marlow. You deserve to know who she really is.”

Words were keys to endless doors, each door the book to a fantastic escape.

Instead of calling me a future princess, Poppy had said something a bit more ominous. For the Bride of Hell.

gods won’t share what belongs to them and only them. Whatever they say—Poppy, Persephone—they’re channeling my energy. It’s little more than a funnel.”

“It’s written in the stars, Pops. What will be, will be.”

said a quiet prayer as I thanked my guardian angel for helping me escape the dark, scary basement,

Then I smiled as I thought of a better end to the story. I’d make the popular girls unimportant. Everyone would realize that the uncool girl was interesting, and pretty, and fun.

“Because she was different, Marlow. And people don’t like things that are different.”

“Even the gods die,” she said quietly without looking at me. “Humans pass, yes, but you return in your cycles. If a demon is slain, well…you

if gods die—if they’re truly killed—there’s no rebirth.”

“I’ve dedicated lifetime after lifetime to finding you,” he murmured. “Maybe it’s my turn.”

“I’ve spent my existence doing questionable things. The most reckless has been loving you, in all your forms.

“Not at all. I see what she’s done to your eyes. It was very wise. We can’t very well have you going insane just yet.” I straightened slightly in bed. “Excuse me?” He made a compassionate face before saying, “Your tattoo is lovely. It helps you see things rightly in the mortal realm. But when you’re in other realms, you need to see things…wrongly.”

“True forms would be overwhelming for you, and that’s not your fault. You’re human. Your Norse deity friend has done you a great service.

Time has its cracks, its regrets, its imperfections. But you and I? We’re always.”

“As her ancestor and appointed guardian in the realm of her bloodline, I’ve been made responsible for the Prince’s human.

Like true names, there was a core meaning to each word. Most of us are neither worthy nor able of comprehending their importance.

“Because you’re a mortal playing the game of gods.”

Honestly, I’m not even sure that you’re older than me. How old am I? Two-thousand-some years?” “Older.” He smiled softly. “But you and I have been bound for just over two millennia. Still, those are thousands of human years.

Caliban’s pause stretched the width of the Grand Canyon. “If you’re asking me to start a war, I need to know it isn’t over…I’ll do anything for you. I’ll be anyone you need me to be. I’ll burn the world to the ground for you. But for Silas?”

“And yet,” I pressed, “it’s all interconnected. I might not be part of their grand godly movement, but something’s happening that’s bigger than all of us. And personally speaking? I don’t care about the bigger picture. What matters to me is that I can get my friends out. I came for you, Caliban, but I’m not going to let Azrames be whipped until he’s little more than pulp. He’s my friend. I’m not going to sit by and watch Silas be drained by a horror movie monster. I’ll stop it.” He was quiet.

Caliban was in pain. Once more, his hands were tied. He’d chosen time and time again to insert himself in realms where his reach was limited.