Short and sweet this time. Excerpt of FORETOLD for the Summer YA Book Party!
The sheriff, a long, lanky guy with a shock of orange-ish hair sticking out from under a
black wool cap, hooked his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. “You say you’re eighteen.” His skeptical expression didn’t escape me. I got this a lot from my looks, but I had shown him my license. “And you drove all the way here, in a snowstorm, from where?”
“Florida.” I carefully did not look at Vanir’s aunt, Sarah. Her last name, Eir, had freaked
me out. Eir, in Norse mythology, had been the goddess of medical skill. The magic radiating
from this woman like heat from a bonfire confused me. It hung thick and sweet in the air,
smelling faintly of citrus. It was a good smell. Clean, healthy. She was a full practitioner of
seidr magic. Too many things were falling into place. Fear coiled behind the wooziness that had finally settled in with a vengeance. This was too much.
Way. Too. Much.
Seidr, a Norse magic practiced mostly by women, could gift someone with abilities
ranging from trance prophecy—like mine—to healing. It was believed by some to even be
behind the berserkers who raged like insane people into battles. Reminded of Kat’s last
prophecy, I frowned. Mom’s magic was definitely not seidr.
The cop, who must have noticed my attention had wandered, squatted in front of me. I
cut my gaze to him too fast and swayed in the chair. Hands came down on my shoulders. That weird comfort seeped through my clothes and under my skin. Vanir.
He was still pissed. I felt it in the tension pouring off him. And he had to be curious about
the rune tempus—yet he comforted me. I wasn’t imagining the narcoticlike sensation coming from his hands, either. Made me think of the stories of Odin and his use of seidr. Men had practiced it but were often considered feminine for doing so. Vanir was anything but feminine.
Boggled the mind to know I was being touched by a future warrior, one who carried part
of the Allfather’s soul. And that I was surrounded by the very kinds of people my mother had spent my lifetime keeping away from me.