The wind howled as the tempest battering my body did its best to rip me off the mountainside to plummet into the depths below.
It had taken us weeks to get to Verdandi’s peak. The only portal to Jotunheim that had shown up on our map had seen us trekking over the Spine through a blizzard so violent I would never have so much as contemplated braving the climb for anything other than our current quest.
Annabel.
The last time Magni and I had made the journey up this mountain, it had been because of her as well—before Ragnarök had truly sunk its claws into Jotunheim and he and I had squabbled like children over their favorite toy.
Purple light flashed high above our heads, sending a shock of electricity through the air and pulling Bjarni—who had taken up the lead—to a stop.
“Your dad?” he roared over the shrieking gale.
“No,” Modi shouted, pointing at the sky. “That is not our father. That… That is the end.”
I followed his finger with my eyes and drew in a sharp breath. The thick charcoal clouds that had choked out the sun since the beginning of our journey parted around a purple tear in the cover, and through that tear…
“Is that… Jörmungandr?” Magni choked.
“The fabric between the worlds is starting to shred. That is Midgard,” Modi said as the giant sea serpent reared up through a violent sea, spraying venom into the sky. I couldn’t make out the city its acid fell on through the fissure, but judging by the faint outline of skyscrapers behind the monster, the loss of human life would be significant.
“Press on,” I roared, tearing my gaze from the rift between worlds.
We continued up the mountainside until we finally stood in front of Verdandi’s obsidian cave carved to resemble a dragon’s open maw. Even the howling of the wind could do nothing to drown out the horrendous shriek emitting from its dark throat.
“You’re sure she lives down there?” Bjarni shouted. “That thing looks like it’s gonna break free from the mountain and take flight any moment.”
“It’s a cave. Nothing more,” I said through gritted teeth. If I hadn’t been down there before, I would have been less convinced.
Modi looked about as skeptical as Bjarni, but they both followed me and Magni as we made our way through the dragon’s stone teeth.
The darkness swallowed us after the first two turns, leaving nothing but the eternal howl and a creeping, bone-clattering chill that sank through our clothes and deep into our flesh. It wasn’t as aggressive as the icy cold of the mountainside, but it brought a kind of damp, slithering dread that only increased the farther down the dragon’s throat we walked. Before we had taken many steps, both Magni and Modi called to their magic to illuminate our path.
Time was an unreliable companion in this place, and I wasn’t certain how much passed as we made our way down. It could have been perhaps half an hour, perhaps six when the lack of life became concerning.
“Verdandi!” Magni called. His voice echoed through the cave, up and down through the length of the dragon’s throat. Only that infernal howling answered.
“Hell of a time to go on vacation,” I growled.
“What if she is not here?” Modi said so quietly I barely heard him over the screeching.
I grimaced. If the Norn wasn’t in her cave, then… “She is here. She has to be,” I bit. “Onward.”
We called the Norn’s name over and over as we walked, with nothing but our own echoes answering, and that quiet terror growing stronger the deeper we went.
I will never stop trying, sweetling. Not ever.
“What in Freya’s name is that?”
Modi’s voice broke through my quiet oath, and I let my gaze follow the glow of light from his hand as he held it out in front of him.
A gossamer veil hung on wooden beams in front of the naked rock blocking our path.
“Looks like it’s the end of the road,” Bjarni said.
“Or not,” Magni murmured as he stepped closer to the veil. “This… Is this a portal? It feels magical, but… odd. I have never seen something like this.”
I closed the gap between us, my focus on the fabric. It hung limp from its rafters, but when I was so near I could have reached out to touch it, I too felt a soft, nearly imperceptible hum. It whispered to my subconscious, whispered of otherness and forbidden power. The longer I studied it, the more the small hairs on my body stood on end.
“Do you remember,” I began slowly, “when the Norn took Annabel? Shortly after, it felt… almost like it did when you tried to take her to Jotunheim without me. As if she was ripped from my reality.”
“You think she took her through here?” Magni asked. From the way he clenched his light-free fist to his chest, I knew he remembered it too.
“Where else would she have taken her? The path has no divergence—this is the only way they could have come,” I reasoned.
“So it is a portal,” Bjarni said. He shouldered past both of us and looked it up and down. “Then what are we waiting for? Come on.”
I opened my mouth to caution him against that low, warning hum prickling against my own magic, but I didn’t get the chance. My brother lifted his arms to brush the veil aside and stepped through—and smacked right into the stone wall behind it.
“Fuck!” Bjarni rubbed his nose and turned to glare at the portal. “What is wrong with this thing?”
“Perhaps it requires a toll, like the portal that brought us to Asgard,” I suggested. I looked closer at the old wood and frowned. There didn’t appear to be any runes or symbols carved on them, nor on the surrounding stone.
Modi and Magni followed the path of my eyes, scanning the structure as closely as I, but after more than an hour’s scrutiny, none of us had found anything that might help us figure out how to use the damned thing.
“Blast it! How are we supposed to find that cursed Norn if we can’t get to her?” Bjarni growled, smacking his palm against the wood hard enough for it to creak in protest.
A small flicker at the edge of my magic made me freeze, eyes trained on Bjarni’s large hand. “Do that again.”
“Do what?” He frowned, looking from me to the others.
“Hit it,” Modi said. “Hard.”
Bjarni arched a brow, but gave the beam a slap hard enough to make the veil shake. And again.
The flicker turned to a buzz tainted with… irritation.
“Here we go,” Magni murmured just as the buzz turned to a physical press against my skin.
Bjarni’s next smack against the wood sent a squeal through the old beams and made him stumble back a few steps. The veil whipped wildly before white light flashed, momentarily blinding us all. When we could see again, Verdandi stood in front of the portal.
“What?” The Norn hadn’t bothered with the more human disguise she’d worn for Annabel, and I suppressed a shudder at the sight of her pointy teeth as she glared at us.
Modi didn’t manage to hide his shiver, but he steeled himself and bowed deeply. “Wise one, we are here to seek your aid.”
Verdandi tsked and snapped her fingers in his face. “You come banging down my door for help? Modi Thorsson, it is the end of all that is. I am busy!”
“Please, Verdandi,” I said, stepping forward to rescue Modi from the Norn’s terrifyingly wide glare. “Our mate is lost, and we don’t know where else to turn. Trud Sifsdottir believes you will be able to help us find her.”
Verdandi snapped her head around to me. “I know she is lost! She is gone, and there is no stopping Ragnarök now. So many years I watched over her, so many years I protected her. All for nothing.”
“No. It was not for nothing,” Magni said, his voice hoarse, but determined. “She is not dead. Not truly. My sister believes she is stuck in Hel, but she cannot be dead or we would be too. Blessed Weaver, you must help us find her. It is not too late. Not yet.”
“Not too late?” she barked. “Not too late? Ha! The sky is literally falling, and everyone—everyone—is dying! Go home, godlings, and spend this finite time we have left with those you love. We lost. We all lost.”
“You wove our life threads with this mortal,” Modi said quietly. “You spun our fate. You should know that we will never, ever give up on her—not until the universe implodes into atoms and we cease to exist in this world or the next. So long as she breathes, there is hope, wise one. I will implore you one more time to help us. Do not deny us, sacred being, because there is nothing I will not do to bring my mate back. Nothing.”
Verdandi snorted, her neck wrenching unnaturally as she stared him down. “You think to threaten me, godling?”
“To be fair, it’s Ragnarök and our mate is gone. Even if you snip our threads, you won’t bring us more misery than what we already carry,” Bjarni rumbled.
“They are right,” Magni said. “We have nothing to lose without her, wise one.”
Verdandi looked at all of us one at a time. She shook her head and tossed her hands up, the movement making my stomach clench from the way her elbow joints popped the wrong way as she did.
“Fine. Fine! If you wish to see for yourself why I cannot help, by all means, come on through.”
Without another look at us, she spun and disappeared back through the veil.
To Bjarni’s credit, he didn’t even hesitate before he followed her.
The rest of us took a half-second before we followed in his footsteps.
The second I passed through the veil, pressure gripped my ribs and squeezed, and I experienced a moment of blind panic before I smacked my knees into dusty soil, and the sensation of having the life squeezed out of me eased.
I coughed and rubbed at my ribs as I looked around.
My brethren all knelt around me, also gasping for air as they took in our surroundings. We were in a large earthen cave with roots growing through the crumbling walls and high ceiling. Shimmering threads in earthy tones of greens, browns, silver, and gold hung from them, millions of them interwoven in intricate patterns, but there were large gaps between them and piles of what looked like ashes on the ground beneath them.
“Come on!” Verdandi called from deeper in, impatience coloring her sharp voice. She twisted to eye a tangle of what looked like a few thousand threads, sighed heavily, and pulled a pair of golden scissors out from a fold in her clothing. With as much care as a low-grade gardener, she chopped several bunches in a few brutal hacks. They all withered to ash and trickled to the floor in another large pile.
“Tidal wave,” she explained at our dumfounded stares, pointing at us with her scissors. “You see what I have to deal with?”
The Norn didn’t wait for a response before she swung around and continued stalking through the multitude of threads, snipping off clumps left and right as she walked.
By the time she stopped at a fine tangle of four golden threads, I was pretty sure she had culled a few hundred thousand lives.
“You see the problem?” she asked, voice clipped. She poked one of the golden threads with the tips of her scissors. Magni shuddered, his face taking on a green tinge.
“This is us?” Modi asked, his eyes trained on the strands. They were woven together with knots and braids at different intervals, but toward the bottom they all coiled together, as if swirling around an invisible core. “Where is Anna’s thread?”
“And Grim’s?” Bjarni added as he too leaned forward to examine them closer.
“That’s just it—they are simply gone.” Verdandi threw her hands into the air again. Her scissors brushed against another of the golden threads in the process, and something twanged deep in my gut and in my spine. I croaked before I could steel myself.
My eyes immediately dropped to the floor, my heart lurching, but there was no hint of ashes below our tangle.
“How is that even possible?” Magni asked, his brows knitting into a deep frown. “Where is our mate?”
Verdandi bared her too-many teeth in irritation. “I have no idea! My threads don’t just get up and go walking about. The only way out of my cave is if I snip them. But these two just… poof! And if there is no thread, I cannot find the soul. I told you—I cannot help you, godlings. Not this time.”
I turned to my brethren, trying my best to keep a hold of the fissure of despair threatening to split me apart from the inside. “This changes nothing. She is still out there, somewhere.”
“So we still go to Hel,” Magni said, his lips pinching as he stared at our web of threads with its missing core. “And we keep searching until we find her.”
“Hel is vast, young ones,” Verdandi said, and for the first time I could almost make out a drop of empathy in her voice. “If she is truly there, you will not find her in time without knowing her approximate location.”
“Perhaps we can help with that.”
I jerked upright at the voice creaking right next to me and spun around, but I saw nothing.
“What in Ymir’s armpit is this?!” Verdandi shrieked behind me. “No. No! I do not care if this is Ragnarök—I will not allow pests in my house! Shoo! Psst! Out!”
“Who are you calling pests?” another voice squawked, and though its hollowness rang through the air around us like a bell, I recognized its haughty tone.
“Magga?” I spun around again, trying to catch sight of my old raven companion. “Show yourself!”
“Now where is the fun in that?” the other voice asked.
“Arni!” Bjarni gasped. “You’re alive!”
“Well, technically…” Magga muttered.
“They are wayward spirits,” Verdandi broke in, disapproval clear on her face as she stared at a point above our heads. “Misplaced souls who have decided to break out of Hel and come wreak havoc with the natural order of things. Your kind is not welcome here. You’re disturbing my threads!” She snapped her long, bony fingers in the air.
Perching on a root a couple yards above our heads, two semi-opaque ravens came into view, their matted feathers outlined by a shimmering green.
“Well, that’s just petty,” Magga huffed.
“You say you can help us?” Modi asked. If he had any reservations about the ghost ravens, he didn’t show it. “You come from Hel. Is Annabel Turner there? Do you know where she is being kept?”
Arni looked to Magga, then to us. He set off from the root and swung through the air, landing on Bjarni’s shoulder with an echoing caw. Magga followed, but when her claws gripped my shoulder like she had so many times before, I only felt a gentle chill.
“We were sent to you with a message,” Arni said.
“From the human girl you so love,” Magga added.
“She resides in Hel. She bids you to come to her side.” Arni nodded at Modi. “Most urgently.”
Bjarni swiveled toward the Norn. “Can you help us get there? Or do we need to get there the old-fashioned way? If the ravens can come back after what Loki did to them, so can we.”
She sucked her teeth at my brother and gave Arni a displeased look. “You do not wish to share their fate. An afterlife as a spectral may suit the Masters of Whispers, but it is a miserable existence for any creature who wishes to feel another’s touch ever again.”
“But can you help me?” Magni insisted. “Because if you cannot…”
He didn’t finish the thought, but we all shared it. If she could not, then eternity by Annabel’s side in Hel was a far better fate than staying here without her.
The Norn fell silent as she stared at the two ravens, her lips pinched in thought. After some time, she hummed and cocked her head, eyes narrowing.
“Perhaps… Perhaps there is a way. Your familiars may be little more than spirit vermin, but… they are still souls, of a sort. If there is enough left, mayhaps I can… borrow a connection.”
Arni and Magga looked at each other, then at her. “Borrow a what now?”
“A connection. If I can reach back to the place you exited Hel, perhaps I can create a portal.” Verdandi gave her cave a long look before she turned her attention back to us. “It is not a safe passage, young ones. If the cretins have too little spark left, there is every chance you will all be lost in the in-between for eternity. But I see your devotion to the girl I tied you with. Your determination. Perhaps… Perhaps it will be enough to bring her back. Enough to save us all. But it is your choice. I cannot weave this destiny for you.”
“There is no choice,” I said. “We will go.”
“Good.” She nodded, and without warning, reached for both Arni and Magga.
They shrieked and flapped their ghostly wings, but Verdandi held firm, her fingers plunging through their semi-opaque bodies and making green sparks fly. Slowly a flickering, obsidian rectangle specked with emerald rose from the cave floor. Up and up it stretched, until it was as tall and wide as a doorway.
Verdandi released her grip on the birds, who both flew back up to the root above our heads, slinging several hollow curses at the Norn.
Verdandi ignored them, her expression grave when she looked at us. “You must be careful on your journey, godlings. Things have shifted. Fates have been rewritten without the guidance of me or my sisters. If you are to succeed in saving us all, there will have to be a sacrifice.”
“Whatever sacrifice is needed, it will be given,” Modi said, voice gruff as he looked at the portal. “You have our eternal gratitude, wise one. You and the birds.” Without another look at the cave or our golden life threads, he stepped through the dark portal.
One by one, we followed him.