Baldur’s eyes shone as bright as the blue Alaskan sky beyond the waterfall curtain. The time changes from east coast to west had bought me several more hours of daylight, although the position of the sun mattered little in the belly of a cave. “You can still change your mind,” he said. “I’ll take you to New Breidablick.”

“To do what? Hide behind your runes and wards while Thorin goes crazy from suffering? Hide until I grow old and die?” I bit my lip and shook my head. My throat burned from unshed tears. “No.” I cleared my throat. “I can’t do that, either.” I turned and faced the cave. Hugin hopped forward into the shadows and cawed again. It sounded urgent and impatient. “Get my mom and dad. Keep them safe. Tell them I love them. Tell them I never meant for any of this to happen. Tell them—”

“I’ll tell them everything, Solina. Everything. They’ll know the truth. They’ll know your bravery and honor and loyalty.” He raised his voice over the roar of the waterfall. “Hear me now, ravens. If you betray Solina, if you break her trust in any way, I will hunt you down. I will stuff you and make you the newest additions to my trophy room.”

Hugin and Munin squawked in unison and hopped further into the cave.

I said nothing and kept my back to Baldur. Leaving him hurt much less than leaving my brother at the well, but it wasn’t easy. I took a tentative step forward. The frozen ground—rocks and scraggly little weeds mostly—crackled beneath my feet.

“Bring Magni home,” Baldur said. My ears popped, and he was gone.

I raised a hand and lit it with enough fire to light the way, and I hurried after the ravens, moving as fast as possible over the uneven floor. “Can anyone say déjà vu?” My voice echoed off the cavern walls: “vu, vu, vu…” Further down the way, a raven cawed.

Unlike the cavern in my vision quest, this one neither wound in corkscrews nor sloped at a noticeable angle. It did, however, exude the same dank mineral odor and impenetrable blackness. It extended into the same never-ending, repetitious terrain. “I guess once you’ve seen one stalagmite, you’ve seen ’em all.”

One of the birds squawked again, presumably urging me to shut up and move faster. I obliged. Not that I was anxious to reunite with Val again—or fight him if it came down to it. But I will, if I have to. I will… Maybe if I told myself that enough times, I would believe it.

Every so often, Hugin or Munin slowed enough to allow me a glimpse of a wing or tail feather, reflecting my firelight. They led me on a twisting and turning path along which I would never find my way back without help. If they abandoned me here, I’d be lost. I fingered the golden chain around my neck: Mjölnir’s lanyard. Thorin could find me if he used the hammer to track the lanyard, but I had a feeling he’d lose the will necessary to maintain possession of the hammer the moment he changed into a wolf. The hammer might still find me, as it had before at Mount Rainier, but without Thorin to wield Mjölnir, what use did any of us have for it?

I rounded another corner and ran smack into Hugh’s bare back. I choked on a squeal, but even my garbled gasp echoed in the darkness.

“Shhh,” he said. “An elephant makes less noise than you.”

“Sorry,” I whispered. “We can’t all grow feathers on a whim. Why did we stop?”

“Thorin’s here.” His head twitched like a curious bird’s. “Has been here. He’s moving faster than I would have guessed, almost as if he knows where he’s going, but he doesn’t. Not consciously anyway. Either he’s lucky, or it’s instinctual. Something to do with brotherly bonds, maybe?”

“Will we make it in time?”

“If we fly.”

“Then being quiet and sneaky doesn’t matter, much, does it? If you don’t get me there in time to save Thorin, our deal is moot. If I kill Val...” Bitterness pooled on my tongue, but I swallowed my disgust. “If I have to kill Val to save myself, I will. But if Thorin is turned, I won’t let you go. I’ll keep you to myself.”

He bared his teeth at me. “The vastness of our knowledge could destroy your mind.”

“Don’t underestimate me, bird.” I poked his skinny chest. “And you’d better get us there before it’s too late.”

Hugh mumbled something under his breath but raised his voice so I could hear the next part. “I’m going to fly fast. Do your best to keep up.”

He shivered, throwing off his human form like so much dust. He flapped once and shot off in a glossy black streak, joining his brother, who swooped from the shadows overhead. I sprinted after them and tried my best to keep my feet beneath me, despite the uneven floor.

We ran long enough for my heart to throb and my lungs to burn from the effort. The ravens never stopped for a break, and I never asked for one. Whatever awaited me, whatever came next, I sprinted toward it without hesitation, without questioning. It was the same way I’d learned to ski. Mani and I had cut our teeth on the little slopes in the North Carolina mountains. If I stood too long at the start of a steep slope, I would psych myself out and lose my courage, so I had learned to never hesitate. I jumped off from the lift, headed for the run, and shoved myself over the edge without stopping. No uncertainty, no planning my attack, just go and try not to die.

I ran toward Val the same way: no uncertainty, no planning my attack, just go. And try not to die.

Don’t think…

Just act.

Just survive.

Get in, do what you must, and get out alive.

The ravens and I rounded another corner into a long, narrow passage. A dim light shone from the other end. I threw on a burst of speed, lowered my head, and charged forward, a silent war cry burning in my chest. The hallway curved and spilled into a small room, one with a ceiling not much higher than my head and walls slightly wider than double the span of my arms. A simple kerosene camping lantern sat on a rock ledge, and it illuminated a metal cage squatting in one corner, a prison the size of several large dog crates stacked together.

A man’s nude and limp body lay curled upon itself on the cage’s small floor. His hair mostly covered his face, but red welts and dark bruises stood out on the pale skin over his ribs and spine. Despite my animosity for Grim, my heart sank at the sight of him. Maybe I should have reveled in karma’s justice, but nothing about his sorry, broken body inspired my glee.

A shadow shifted in the room’s opposite corner, and I shrank from it. “Rolf,” I said. He wore the features of the dark-haired man to whom I had served drinks in a bar in San Diego not long ago. He was the man I’d battled in an alley behind that same bar. He was also the man who had once been my brother’s best friend—a man who had betrayed us all for an ancient vendetta.

“Or do you prefer Val?” I asked. “You are Vali Lokison, right?” My voice came out calm and controlled despite the blizzard freezing my bones and the desert burning in my throat. My vision narrowed until it encompassed only him, and my blood thrummed against my ears until I thought my head might explode. Keep it together, girl. Keep it together.

A flicker of surprise crossed his face before he forced his features into a cool, neutral expression. His violet eyes glanced behind me, and a nasty grin split his lips. “You little birdbrain twits. I knew this day would come, but the two of you putting all your faith in her...” He gestured in my direction. “That’s something I would have never guessed.”

The ravens, perched on a rock ledge behind me, kept their silence as well as their feathers—the better to make a hasty escape if things went bad.

He raised his eyes to mine, and his cold smile thawed a little. “There’s a small part of me that regrets this, Solina. I don’t guess that matters to you, but it’s true. I really did care for your brother. Might have loved him, in another place and time where I was still capable of such a thing.” He shrugged as if to say, Not that it matters, now.

I gagged but recovered after a brief coughing fit. “How can you say you cared about Mani when you knew Helen was going to kill him, and you did nothing to stop it?”

He pressed his palm against his chest and bared his teeth. “I loved my brother, and I did nothing to stop his death.” He pulled his fingers through his long black hair. “I killed Narfi myself. What does the death of anyone else mean in comparison?”

The little bit of compassion I still harbored for Val surged through me. My whole body slumped, and nothing appealed to me more than melting to the floor in a puddle of despair. My heart ached for all the lost brothers and the broken siblings left behind to mourn them, but I had cried enough for all of them. I stiffened my shoulders and straightened my spine. I raised my chin and peered down my nose. “I’m not going to let you do this.”

He sniffed and thinned his lips into a sardonic grin. One black eyebrow flickered. “I can see how much you believe that. You think you’ll do what you must to stop me, but belief is only the potential for action. Potential and reality aren’t the same thing.”

“I’ve killed before.”

“Hati was a stranger to you and a beast.” He rubbed his face as if washing it—washing the Rolf away. When he lowered his hands, a familiar face smiled back at me. Blue eyes instead of violet. Auburn hair instead of black. “You’ll have to give yourself over to Sol to do it—to kill me. You’ll have to let yourself go and lose control again. Can you do that? And can you kill someone you were in love with only a few weeks ago?”

“I never loved you. Not like that.”

Val snorted. “You cared for me.”

“As much as you cared for my brother, I suppose.” Not complete honesty—I had more than cared for Val, but analyzing the truth of the feelings I once harbored for him would have cost me too much in a time when I needed to avoid vulnerabilities.

His thin smile fell. “Touché.”

“Please.” I stepped toward him, hand outstretched. Val had once said people believed lies because they were easy, and I had told him I refused to accept anything but truth. It would have been easier to believe Val was once the man he pretended to be, but none of that had been real. Don’t forget that. “Please don’t do this. Don’t make me do this. It’s not too late. There’s still redemption for you if you want it.”

His face crumpled into a mask of agony and rage. “Who’s going to give it to me? You? You just accused me of letting your brother die. You weren’t wrong about that. ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ The only trouble is, I’m not a good man. There’s nothing to redeem.”

His expression softened as his anger drifted away. Val’s mood was like a summer storm, quick to thunder and rage but equally quick to dissipate. “If there’s anyone who can empathize with me, it’s you, Solina.” He crossed to the cage, crouched, and pushed a finger between the slim bars, poking at the figure inside. Grim moaned and pulled away. “Put yourself in my shoes. Would you surrender your quest? Would you forgive?”

“Or destroy myself for vengeance like you?” I asked. “Mortality puts a limit on my suffering. I have to let it go at some point if I’m going to get any happiness out of the short time I’m given to live. But if I was immortal, if the hurt could go on forever...” Well, then I could see where it would be hard to let it go. “You never found a reason to live? To move on?”

Val huffed and gave a sad smile. “Maybe if Mani and you had come along a few millennia ago... But, no, it’s endless. It’s eternal suffering. It’s hell.”

“Will revenge on Thorin and Grim end that for you?”