Perfekt Balance (The Ære Saga Book 3) by S.T. Bende Page A

break
myself out of this tower without getting any of us hurt, I’ll do my
duty to Asgard and try to figure out why Runa’s doing all of this.
She’s on a warpath, and so long as I’m stuck here with her, I’ll
keep trying to tap her energy to find out who she’s working with
and why. It’s not ideal, but it’s not without its benefits. Once I
leave, I’ll lose access to her, and we’ll lose our upper hand, so
I’m taking advantage of the—hopefully limited—time I’ve got with
her.”
    “You think having you locked up is the upper
hand?” The vein popped across Forse’s forehead, but at least he
kept his voice down.
    “Kind of. The last time she went nuts, we
didn’t see it coming and something really awful happened.”
    “ Elsa…”
Forse’s red-rimmed eyes turned positively crimson.
    “ This
time,” I pressed on, “we have the chance to get inside her head and
see what she’s planning. So we can stop it before it happens.”
    “I thought Tyr was the only Fredriksen who
could read minds.”
    “He is. But I can access her energy, which
allows me to see what her motivation is for whatever heinous crime
she’s planning this time. And if I can isolate her motivation,
maybe I can get her to talk to me.”
    “You think if you call her out on the root of
her issues, she’ll get all meadow-elfy with you and share her
feelings, along with her diabolical plan?” Forse sounded doubtful.
“I hate to break it to you, but she didn’t get to where she is by
being touchy-feely with anyone—even the High Healer.”
    “ Maybe
not.” I closed my eyes. It was a good idea in theory, but Runa was
a master of deceit. I doubted even her own spirit could see through
her darkness. Hold on… The thought triggered something. “Forse, remember a few
weeks ago when we were going through the boxes of my parents’
things, and we found Mom’s old journals?”
    “You asked me to hold on to them until you
were ready to take them. You said it hurt too much to see her
handwriting and know she was never coming back.” Forse’s voice
cracked. “My mom’s still got them in our library. Why?”’
    “ Can you
get a message to Freya? Have her scan the journals and e-mail them
to you, and then forward the scanned pages to my com. When we found
them, I just assumed they were personal—that she’d filled pages
about her epic romance with my father, and that it wasn’t my place
to look at them.” My own journal was peppered with sentimental
nuggets— Elsa hearts Forse 4-ever. XOXO. I’d die if anyone ever read it, and
figured I’d owed my mother her privacy. “But what if Mom wrote
about her work life too? About being the Unifier? What if the
answers we’ve been looking for have been right in front of us this
whole time?”
    Forse’s eyes widened. “If that’s true, then
we’re the thickest gods in Asgard. If the key to unifying is
sitting in my parents’ library, I’m going to be beyond mad at
myself.”
    I nodded.
“Me too. Forse, what if there’s something in there that can help me
figure out how to get through to Runa? I saw a flicker of light
when I was evaluating her energy…it made me think there’s still
goodness in her. If I can figure out how to multiply it, maybe I
can make all of this better.”
    “You think there’s goodness in everyone.”
Forse shook his head.
    “ Because
there is. Sometimes a soul gets confused, but most are inherently
kind. Even if that kindness is really buried.” The blood on my cheeks cracked as
I smiled at Forse. That was a good sign—drying blood meant my wound
was finally healing.
    “ Gods, I
miss that smile.” Forse held his fingers to the screen, and I
followed suit. It was almost as if we were touching. Almost… “I’m so sorry
about all of this, Elsa. We’re doing everything we can to get you
out of there. We’ve ported to three different towers but they
haven’t been the right ones. If only we could break through the
dark magic barrier, we could