63

YOTUNKHEYM, THE FORMER IMPERIYA YOTNE

Baba Yaga’s empire had fallen.

Stupka-Zamok was taken, and her armies—her divisions in the east, west, south, and in the city—were scattered. But victory had not come without losses to our side.

The resistance had suffered blows. Many Vodyanoi and Leshii and Rusalki and Sidhe fighters had died, and many more were wounded; Veery, Bear’s knight and friend, was among the injured. I passed by as he was carried into a tent for surgery, swearing and sweating, his lean, ropy limbs twisted in pain.

I stopped short, suddenly flattened by a wave of delayed fear and exhaustion and an overwhelming sense of our mortality.

Veery might live, but he might not. And he could have been Torden, or Cobie, or Anya, or Lang. I’d known this already—of course I had. But hearing the cries of one of Bear’s best friends from inside the tent was different than just knowing the risk we’d faced.

There was news from Asgard, as well. The Upper Northern pestykk had attacked the Shield three days prior, the night of Zatemnennya, as I’d predicted. Torden and I stood over one of Baba Yaga’s radios that afternoon, speaking with Hermódr.

“We subdued them, but we lost nearly eight hundred men,” said Hermódr, voice so low it had the sound of a confession.

Torden paled. “I wish I could have been in both places.”

I squeezed Torden’s hand, feeling a surge of guilt. I’d wanted him to come for me.

He would not have chosen differently, but this was the cost: Torden, his heart torn in two.

But Hermódr was steady as ever. “The men knew you were fighting alongside them, on another front. And now the war is over. More lives have been saved.”

Torden kissed my knuckles, jaw tense. “How is Pappa?”

“He’s well. Minor injuries. Rihttá hasn’t left his side.”

“And Bragi?”

“Fine.” But Hermódr hesitated. “And Vidarr and Váli are fine.”

Torden stilled at this. I watched him taking inventory in silence. Fredrik and Aleksei were in Yotunkheym. Hermódr, Bragi, Vidarr, and Váli were fine. “Týr?”

He was the heir to Asgard, the one Alessandra had planned for me to court. He was a brute. But he was Torden’s brother.

Hermódr said nothing for a long moment. “He fell, Torden.”

Torden’s mouth opened and closed, but he didn’t speak. He sank into the desk chair, his hands planted on his knees, his brown eyes wide and dry with a grief too stunned for tears. “Did he suffer?” he finally asked, sounding strangled. “Was it a hard death?”

“We aren’t sure,” Hermódr said. “We found his body among others on the field. He died with his men.”

The brothers were quiet together, mourning in silence with leagues between them.

Týr had died, and Torden had not. I was grateful. He was haunted.

Torden would feel the weight of the lives he couldn’t save and the ones he’d taken. I knew him too well to believe otherwise.

High in Baba Yaga’s tower, I wrapped my arms around him as tight as I could and did my best to hold him together, as he had done so many times for me.