Finding Her Vikings

  Finding Her Vikings

  Norsemen Academy, Volume 2

  Skye MacKinnon

  Published by Peryton Press, 2019.

  Finding her Vikings © Copyright 2019 Skye MacKinnon

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Basically, please don’t pirate this book.

  Cover by Peryton Covers.

  Published by Peryton Press.

  Perytonpress.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Finding Her Vikings (Norsemen Academy, #2)

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 1

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 2

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 3

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 4

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 5

  Resources

  Also By

  About the Author

  Eigi leyna augu ef ann kona manni.

  Eyes cannot hide a woman’s love for a man.

  - The Saga of Gunnlaugur the Worm-tongue

  Rules

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 1

  My runes were getting less shaky by the day. I was beginning to understand what Hjalmar had said about their own intrinsic magic. Deciphering a runestone filled me not only with a sense of achievement, but also with a strange feeling of connection, as if someone was speaking to me through those runes from the past. Even if it was just a gravestone that Hjalmar gave us a picture of, it felt strangely uplifting every time I managed to solve it.

  I was nowhere near understanding all of the Old Norse texts he expected us to read though. While he was clearly a perfect man for the job, being a Viking and all, his teaching methods were lacking a little. He expected too much, too fast. For him, his subject was the most important of all, and he didn’t care that we had a lot of other things to study at the same time. Knowing the two hundred and forty-six Old Norse words by the end of the first week made it easier to get a gist of what the texts were saying, but without knowing any of the grammar, it was hard to understand the details.

  I’d certainly underestimated how hard this would be. And that was just the subject. Trying not to react to Hjalmar’s smirks, mocking grins and amused glances was impossible. There was something between us, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to explore it. He was my teacher, even though he rarely behaved like one.

  We’d not spent any time alone since my panic attack last week. And yes, it was me avoiding him, not the other way round. As much as I had cherished his closeness, the way he’d touched my hands, the words he’d spoken to calm me, we had crossed a line that day. I’d given up far more of my secrets than I had ever wanted to share. Knowing that he knew... it made it hard to focus.

  It took me two days to realise that I was ashamed. As much as it had helped to talk to him, it had also broken down barriers that should never have been touched.

  I slid out of bed as quietly as possible. I was covered in sweat from the nightmare I’d had. The same one I’d had ever since I’d opened myself to Hjalmar.

  I slipped out of the room and walked towards the bathrooms. There were no clocks anywhere nearby, but my inner sense of time told me that it was still a few hours until the morning bell would ring. I was going to be tired all day. I sighed. I needed to get a grip on those nightmares. Yesterday, I’d woken up Kaycee with my screaming. Luckily, she hadn’t commented on it the next morning.

  The bathroom was split into a row of shower cabins on the left and sinks on the right. I took some towels from a shelf at the entrance and headed to the shower at the very back of the room. I snickered. Even though I’d only been at TTA for a week, I’d already established a shower routine. Us humans really were creatures of habit.

  I relaxed under the stream of hot water. The shower was powerful enough to knead the tense muscles of my shoulders and back. It washed away the nightmare, making it dissolve into a distant memory with every minute that I spent under the shower. Since I was alone, there was no rush to make way for others, so I only switched off the water when my skin turned red and wrinkly.

  The towels here were always a little too rough, but the scratch of it helped push away the last of my tiredness. I was ready to start the day – except that I was probably the only person awake in the whole Academy. Breakfast wouldn’t be served for some time yet. One thing I hated about this place. There was nowhere to get snacks, nowhere to make myself a cup of tea when I felt like it. In that way, it was like a prison, no matter how much Hjalmar tried to persuade me that it wasn’t. Teachers had their own apartments at the top of the building, and I bet they could simply port to a shop and get however much chocolate as they wanted. I craved sugar. The food here was good, but it was restricted to three meals a day. I was used to snacking in between, and in the evening, and whenever I felt like it. This was a detox that I really didn’t appreciate.

  Food. Maybe I’d find something down in the kitchens. Maybe they weren’t locked like I imagined. I smiled to myself and decided to turn explorer. Mission chocolate was about to begin.

  I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that both the kitchen and the dining hall were locked. So was the room I’d seen labelled as ‘storage’ on the map. Damn. So much for treating myself. The last few mornings when I’d woken up from nightmares, I’d used the time to study and revise. Time was precious at TTA, and yes, I got the irony of that sentence. Already, I wished I could travel back in time for a few hours so that I could use double the amount of study time. I’d never been an overachiever, never done more than was required to pass my courses, but here, that had changed. I wanted this. In high school, I’d never really had an aim, a purpose. Here, I knew exactly what I was studying for.

  Vikings. I was going to meet Vikings. Real, fricking Vikings in the past. That was worth studying for.

  It was strange walking through the Academy at night. My footsteps echoed in the stone corridors. Once again, I wondered how they'd built this place. We were deep underground, yet the architecture reminded me of a medieval castle. Take the massive marble columns in the entrance hall. Had someone ported the entire building underground? It seemed impossible but who knew what was possible with the TTA's technology. They still hadn't shown us the time travel equipment we'd be using, but I imagined it all to be very complex and complicated. Hopefully, we were going to find out soon. If Hjalmar was really going to take me into the past, I'd see how it all worked.

  Now that food was out of the question, I had to find something else to occupy my time with. A strange tension was running through my body. I needed something to do. Something that wasn’t studying. We’d been told we’d get physical training at some point, to help us defend ourselves, but so far, all the training we’d done had been for our brains.

  Maybe I was tense because I hadn’t been able to move much the past week. Back home, I usually went for a run every couple of days, mostly to get out of the house, but my muscles had got used to the regular exercise. Here, I was turning into a couch potato, minus the couch. I hated the plastic chairs in the common room. They weren’t just uncomfortable, they also destroyed the atmosphere the beautiful stone walls created.

  Since I was alone, I randomly started jogging down the corridor. I didn’t have any trai
ners, but the shoes we’d been provided with were comfortable enough for running. The hallway I was running through formed a large square, encircling the large ground floor rooms. Because the building was so large, I got to run in a straight line for several minutes before having to turn.

  I let my mind drift, enjoying the silence surrounding me. Silence had become precious. The Academy was always buzzing with students and staff, and with us not being allowed in our bedrooms until night time, there was nowhere to escape to. This was bliss. I decided I was going for a run every morning from now on.

  Suddenly, someone was in front of me and we crashed to the floor, me mostly on top of him.

  "Where the fuck did you come from?" he shouted as I tried to scramble away. He was a head taller than me with short black hair, eyes the colour of ash and a thin nose that reminded me of a hawk’s beak. He wasn’t pretty in the usual sense, but attractive in a strange, exotic way.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I snapped back, looking around to figure out how he had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. There were no doors on this stretch of corridor, only stone walls with occasional portraits and tapestries. The light was too dim to see much detail, but I would have definitely noticed a door.

  “Why are you up?” he asked in annoyance. “Everyone’s supposed to be asleep.”

  “I’m awake, that’s not a crime, is it?!” That man was riling me up for some reason. He’d disturbed my silence, my moment of peace, and now he was going to feel my wrath. Overdramatic? Hell yes. I was tired.

  “It’s not a crime, but why are you sneaking around here? You should be upstairs in your room.”

  I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. “Nobody has told me about a curfew. I have every right to be here. How about you just go about your business and leave me alone?"

  "What do you know about my business?" he growled.

  I looked at him in confusion. "Nothing. Should I? You've not exactly introduced yourself."

  His eyes wandered over my uniform, focusing on my collar. I didn't have any coloured stitching there, making it obvious that I was a Hummingbird. With each year spent at TTA, you got one colour added to your collar. Then, after graduating, your rank was shown by how many silver earrings you had. Nobody had told us exactly what those were for yet, but I figured they were some kind of time travel technology, not just jewellery.

  "You're new," he said, pointing out the obvious. "That's why you don't know who I am."

  "So who are you?" I asked, beginning to think that I was missing something. If he assumed I'd know him, he had to be important, right? A teacher, maybe?

  "I'm the Archivist," he said with a sigh. His anger was quickly flowing away, although his frown was still a little hostile. "I run the Academy's archive of historical artefacts. One of the most important jobs in this place. If people want to travel in time, they have to come to me." He shrugged. "I guess that's why I'm not used to anyone not knowing who I am."

  "An archive? There's none on the map."

  He chuckled. "Then you've not been given the right map. It's in the basement, taking up the entire floor. I think there's a tour scheduled for Hummingbirds in the next couple of weeks."

  Excitement filled me. An entire level that I'd not known about? That meant there may be even more places to explore. Who was to say that there were only five floors? There could be many more, secret, ready for me to discover. Suddenly, I was feeling like an explorer, not one travelling through time, but one who was exploring the present.

  "Can I see it?" I blurted. "The archive?"

  His frown deepened. "You should be in bed. I'm busy."

  I'd not really expected him to say yes, but at least I now knew that this archive existed. Maybe I could sneak down - if I found stairs leading to a basement. I'd not seen any so far, and they definitely weren't on the map.

  He turned away, ending our conversation.

  "Wait, what's your name?" I called out while he was already walking down the corridor.

  "I told you, I'm the Archivist," he shouted back, his voice echoing through the stone hallway.

  "That's not a name," I muttered to myself, but he'd already disappeared around a corner. I could still smell his scent. I hadn’t realised how strong his cologne was while he was standing in front of me, but now that he was gone, I breathed it in.

  Snap out of it, Lainie. What do you even see in that grumpy man? It's not like he was nice to you.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. The tension I'd almost got rid of with my run was returning. I could continue running, but exhaustion was slowly taking over. I needed to build up my stamina again. It was as if a week of doing no exercise at all had ruined my fitness. Maybe I could ask at the student support office if I could have some trainers. They’d already provided me with some additional notebooks.

  I sighed and turned back, ready to head to my room again to collect my textbooks. Maybe I should have stayed there to do some homework after all. I still had to do an essay on the history of time travel. It was ironic that they made us study the history of it, but didn't actually tell us how it was done nowadays. Hopefully, we'd be taught that soon. I was impatient to learn all about it, especially after Hjalmar had talked about taking me to visit some Vikings. That would be crazy amazing. Which is why I didn't hold out hope. I didn't want to be disappointed. It was possible that he'd only mentioned it to get me out of my panic attack.

  "I've changed my mind."

  I swirled around, watching as the Archivist was hurrying back towards me.

  "You can come along. I need help with something. Take it as your punishment for being out here at night."

  "Punishment?" I protested. "I don't deserve any punishment. It's not a crime to be here. There's no rule for being out of bed, I've told you that before. I've read the rules many times."

  He waved his hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter. I need another pair of hands and you're here now. You're awake. That's what counts. Now come along, hurry."

  He led me back to where I'd first stumbled upon him and stopped in front of a blank stretch of wall. The only thing that distinguished it from the rest of the corridor was that there were no paintings or tapestries. It was just... wall.

  “Are you a ghost?” I asked jokingly. “You know, who can walk through walls?”

  He only raised an eyebrow but didn’t crack a smile. “You believe in ghosts?”

  “No, but... never mind.”

  He pressed one of the large stone slabs that made up the wall and suddenly, not only this brick, but also several others bent backwards like a door. A secret passage? I should have known. This building hid many secrets.

  So that’s where he’d come from earlier. No wonder I’d run into him.

  “Quickly, follow me and close the door behind you.”

  He disappeared into the narrow passage and after a moment’s hesitation, I hurried after him, dutifully shutting the heavy stone door. It was almost as thick as the walls and I needed to push my entire body weight against it for it to move.

  The corridor was dimly lit by a flimsy light bulb dangling from the ceiling. It highlighted a string of cobwebs lining the corners. Lovely.

  I had to run to catch up with the Archivist, who was hurrying away with large steps. He was much taller than me and I had trouble keeping up.

  I almost stumbled when the corridor turned into a steep set of stairs, leading down into the basement. I wondered why this wasn’t on the map we’d been given. If we were going to be shown the archive soon anyway, why hide it?

  I was glad when we finally entered a bright room looking like a big office. Far too big for the solitary desk in the centre of it. The walls were lined with bookshelves, hiding any trace of the stone walls. A door on the other side of the room was made from sturdy metal, looking like it was meant to either keep something in or out.

  “Sit,” the Archivist commanded and pointed at the chair in front of the desk. He himself sat on the only other chair and started rummaging around the papers
on the table. There was no computer, just old-fashioned files and folders. For an academy dealing with the advanced technologies of time travel, this looked positively archaic.

  “Something has gone missing from the archive,” he said without looking up. “I didn’t think I could trust anyone with helping me find it, but with everyone a suspect, you’re ideal. You didn’t even know this place existed, unless you’re an excellent liar, which I doubt. Your face is an open book.”

  I glared at him. I prided myself at keeping my thoughts and feelings hidden from the world. Being called an open book was an insult that I took personal.

  “What’s gone missing?” I asked instead of heatedly disputing his accusation. It took a lot of effort. I was still tired and my self-control was at an all-time low.

  “A ring. Tenth century, likely from Sweden. It’s got some rather unique cut marks that may be faded runes.”

  “Viking?”

  He nodded. “The archive is sorted by both historic and geographic origin. The Viking section isn’t very popular since few people get to travel that far back, so I know exactly who’s borrowed what. The ring hasn’t officially been checked out, but it’s disappeared. Someone took it without permission.”

  “Are there no security measures?” I asked.

  The Archivist sighed in exasperation. “Of course they are. They somehow circumvented the detectors at the entrance. Only a few teachers and agents would have known how to do that, but none of them has a reason. Nothing prevents them from simply filling out a form to borrow Viking artefacts. Unless they’ve gone rogue.”

  I stared at him. “Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he snapped, probably angry at having to admit that. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. Students regularly try to smuggle artefacts out of the archive, but the sensors help stop them before they get a chance to leave. Besides, I have an eye for spotting people who’re up to no good. It’s a complete mystery how this happened. But I need it back. The archive needs to be complete. We have a reputation to uphold. The archive has never been broken into before and if that becomes known, trouble will follow.”