I expected Embla’s words to outrage Grim. Instead, he threw back his head and laughed. Embla’s grip tightened. Naomi leaned in closer. Animosity and the promise of violence sparked through the air like static electricity.
“I have cared for you,” Grim said, “provided for your every need. I have celebrated your success, and in your despair, I gave you support. I have always been faithful to you. In return, you betray me.” Grim pulled himself up tall and straight. He threw his gaze into the distant darkness. “All have forsaken me, except one. Only she has remained true.”
A streak of light blinded us. The Valkyries cried out, and Embla threw her knife as a wall of fire erupted through the night, cutting between the Valkyries and me. Naomi shouted my name. I called to her, trying to reach for her, but the flames were too hot.
“Fight fire with fire, they say.” It was the voice from my dream—and it belonged to Tori.
No big surprise, but the fact she would turn on me like that stung my pride.
“Tori!” Naomi screamed over the roar of the fire. “Why are you doing this?”
Naomi lunged closer, ready to strike, but Tori swiped her weapon, Surtr’s sword, and sent a literal rain of fire falling over the Valkyries. They shrieked and fell back.
Tori’s attack on the others had absorbed her attention. Taking advantage of her distraction, I prepared to strike.
Grim understood my intent and called out, “Tori, watch it!”
Tori spun, and the sword vomited flames over me. I had yet to develop my ability into much of an offensive weapon unless someone stood still long enough for me to give them a bear hug made of fire, but my abilities provided for a pretty terrific defensive shield. I raised my fire and created a barricade, a protective wall that resisted the scorch of Surtalogi’s flames.
Voices yelled and cried out around me, but my own fight required all my concentration, and I had no attention to spare for the others. I let down all my walls and engaged Surtalogi fully, pouring out my flames. The sword took everything I gave and more. I pushed harder, fearing that I was treading close to the threshold between corporality and supernova star power, when I would convert to that other state of being. But that moment never came. The sword sucked away my heat and light until my well ran dry.
“Tori, that’s enough,” Grim said.
Tori turned the sword aside, throwing a fiery wall up between me and the Valkyries who might have helped me. I fell to my knees and slumped to the ground. A dark and bitter chill filled the place where my fire had lived. A void opened in me and drew me toward a frigid, bottomless abyss. I had nothing left with which to resist. Naomi cried out my name once and fell silent.
Strangely, the face I saw in the dimness of my fading consciousness wasn’t hers. No, in those last moments, my gaze fell on a shadowy figure standing in the gloom behind Grim, watching my defeat with a cold, detached expression.
I reached out and pointed, willing someone to turn around and see him—to verify he was real. But the darkness came, and I passed out, not knowing if I had really seen Rolf Lockhart or if my imagination had made him up.
Chapter Twenty-four
A blackened and ancient city loomed over me—a skeleton left out in the elements to age and decay. In the distance rose a monstrous mountain range, crowned by snow. The sourness of old smoke lay heavy on my tongue and stung my eyes. I walked the dead city’s streets, dodging broken stones and bricks, fallen pillars, and shattered glass. A frozen wind tore through the torched and ruined landscape, carrying the shrill cries of ghosts.
One voice rose above the others, mournful and wrecked. I searched for it, stepping over and through piles of rubble and ash. The voice called higher and louder. Like a siren, it screamed and wailed until I could no longer bear it. I crouched, covered my ears, and squeezed shut my eyes.
I stayed like that for an eternity before the sound faded. When I finally pulled my hands away, an echo rang in my ears, but the horrible noise had faded away. The place where I’d stopped was the courtyard of what had probably once been a fine home. A few beams and doorframes remained, teetering on a foundation of besmirched stone. In the yard beside me stood the burned-out remnants of a tree, little more than a twisted, blackened stump.
Compelled to touch the charred remains, I went to the tree and flattened my palm against its cold, dead bark. At the instant of my touch, new shoots sprang from the blackened body. I gasped and pulled my hand away, and the new growth withered. I touched the stump again, and the shoots recovered and grew. The roots beneath me stretched and wriggled in the ground like a child waking from a long sleep.
Branches unfurled, and tiny green buds sprouted on their tips. The buds grew into leaves and sweet white blossoms. I held my hand to the tree and watched it shed its black skin, revealing warm brown bark underneath. The flowers fell off, and in their place formed little green bulbs. The bulbs grew into apples that turned bright yellow before deepening into burnished gold.
Finally, the tree stopped and rested. I took my hand away to test what would happen. The new growth remained, the fruit sparkling in the sunlight. I grasped an apple and plucked it free. The air around me went still. The breeze died. Every leaf on the tree froze in place. The whole world held its breath, waiting for me to take a bite.
I rubbed the apple’s skin over my lips, teased it with my tongue, and sank my teeth into its flesh. Its juices dribbled down my chin, and I knew I was eating the apple from my dream—the sweetest, brightest flavor I had ever tasted. The breeze returned, but with a freshness that hadn’t existed before. I heaved in a deep lungful, and the coldness of it stung and cramped in my chest. I gasped and coughed and fought for air, but it was frozen, and I could not breathe.
Darkness surrounded me. I rubbed my eyes, but none of my visions returned. No tree, no burnt city, no imposing mountains. Nothing. I tried sitting up, but dizziness washed over me.
Haven’t I been in this situation before?
But no stony arms were binding me in place. My own weakness was keeping me immobile. Grim had done me the courtesy of providing a thin blanket to cover my bare flesh, but it left my extremities cold and numb. I envisioned my toes turning black and falling off. The one comfort in that horrible situation hung heavy around my neck: the gold chain, Mjölnir’s lanyard. It had survived the firefight.
“Does Sleeping Beauty finally awake?”
“Grim?” My words came out in a rasp from my dry and frozen throat.
A match struck, and a lantern flared to life. Light bounced off Grim’s face, but the shadows drew harsh lines that turned him into a haggard and haunted creature. He grinned, the lecherous beast, and leaned closer. Heat from the lantern supplied the only relief from the frigid air, and I wanted to hug it, but raising my hand would’ve required strength I didn’t have.
“Where am I?” I asked.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Safe from what?”
“Meddlers.”
“What happened?”
“Surtalogi feeds on fire. It sucked yours away until you were empty.”
“Why is it so cold?”
“Ice.” Grim patted the walls. “A whole cave made from it.”
He wore a fur-lined parka. The hood hid his hair and made his resemblance to his fairer brother more pronounced. It creeped me out, big time.
“I-I’m going to freeze to death,” I said, my teeth chattering.
