Maybe we got it wrong. Maybe the dreams I had about caves and rivers had nothing to do with Loki and Val and Grim. Maybe I was foreseeing this moment. But it seemed redundant to have a premonition about a vision quest.
My light reflected off shimmering minerals and lit elegant swaths of stalagmites and stalactites dripping from the walls in ruffled curtains and lumpy, waxen mounds. But after a while, the formations became redundant, and monotony chipped away at my enthusiasm. Darkness pressed in, cloying in its prevalence. The cave went on and on, winding endlessly down. Would I walk to the center of the world before I found what I was looking for?
With no way to account for time—and what was time on an imaginary journey?—I couldn’t measure the length of my trip, but it felt endless. I questioned my progress or the lack thereof. My uncertainty deepened, and each step fell heavier and slower, leading me closer to defeat. This exercise was futile, and I wouldn’t learn anything from it other than a couple of shots of whiskey and some chanting could make a very vivid, but pointless, dreamscape.
Dante’s sign should have hung at the mouth of this cave: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
I stopped and let my light go out. Absolute blackness fell over me, thick, viscous as crude oil, dense as volcanic rock. It seeped into my lungs and stifled my breathing. It not only felt like despair but tasted like it, too—as cold and bitter as old coffee grounds. My shoulders slumped, and my chin fell to my chest. My knees wobbled, and I dropped into a crouch, burying my face in my lap. With my eyes closed, the darkness’s oppression eased, and I inhaled several times, blowing each lungful out in an emptying rush.
My heartbeat throbbed against my eardrums. In the silence, my breathing crashed as loud as ocean waves on a rocky shore. I inhaled and held it in. Tears burned against my eyelids, but I gritted my teeth and growled, chasing away the frustration. Focus, Solina. Don’t leave the path. Don’t turn around. Don’t go back. You can do this.
Wolves and gods hadn’t defeated me. Neither would a stupid dream cave.
I stood and brought my light out again, more brazen and brighter than before, defying the darkness. One step at a time, I inched forward, still heading down, still uncertain where all my efforts would lead, but I was determined to see it to the end.
The powers that be must have taken mercy on me, or perhaps I had proven something—my worthiness, perhaps. Whatever the reason, I had only to walk a few more steps before the glimmer of a distant light reached me. The descending slope leveled out, and the narrow cave passage opened into a magnificent cavern whose walls vaulted so high that the darkness camouflaged the ceiling’s true elevation. When I looked up, I might as well have been staring into an endless night sky devoid of stars.
Cutting through the cavern’s floor, a quiet stream trickled like a silvery ribbon rippling in the wind. A simple arching footbridge spanned the water, but it seemed superfluous, considering I could have stepped over the stream at its narrowest places. The bridge, however, provided the only suggestion of a pathway. I started toward it but hesitated before setting foot on the first slat. An undulating light stood at the bridge’s apex, occupying a space roughly the shape and size of a person, a grown man.
The figure of light waved, as if beckoning me, and something about the being seemed familiar. As I stepped forward, the light solidified into a rigid shape and form. The suggestion of a man became more pronounced, more real, more unmistakable.
Shimmering hair darkened into a shaggy black mop. Luminescent eyes dimmed to silvery gray, the same silvery-gray eyes I had looked into almost every day of my life. My heart stopped, and my breath froze. It can’t be. How the hell could it be?
My light guttered and died.
I choked when I said his name. “M-Mani?”
Chapter 13
That smile. Oh, the gods, that smile.
My memory of his brilliance was a dulled photograph of a sunny day viewed in a dark room. The real thing was like standing outside in an open field under a cloudless sky in the middle of July. I had forgotten... How could I have forgotten?
My lip quivered. My knees wobbled. A sob scrabbled its way out from my throat, but before I dissolved into a puddle of tears, my brother caught me and locked me in his embrace. His arms were strong and solid and real, and any thought of this being imaginary or only in my head drained away.
He smelled crisp and sharp like a snowy winter day, but his warm breath stirred the fine hairs at my temple. His cheek pressed against mine. He held me, and I held him, and perhaps the world could go to hell, as long as I could stay forever like that, wrapped up in the one person I had always considered my other half.
I never denied my brother’s death had carved a hole in me, but there, in that moment, I fully comprehended the vastness of my emptiness. Only after Mani’s presence filled it did I realize how much of me the hollowness had consumed. Not only had I forgotten the wonder of his smile, I had forgotten what it felt like to be whole—wondrously and completely whole.
At some point, my voice returned, and a million questions flooded my tongue, stumbling over each other for a chance to be spoken. But one word broke through all the others, and I said it over and over. “Mani, Mani, Mani...”
He chuckled, raised his head, and leaned back to peer in my eyes. “Solina, Solina, Solina,” he teased. The repetition of my name ignited a memory. Had he always sounded so much like our father? Had I heard Mani’s voice in my vision and mistook it for our dad’s?
His teasing didn’t bother me. In fact, I welcomed it. A man dying of dehydration in the desert never tasted anything sweeter than his first drink of water; and a grieving sister never heard anything more beautiful than her name spoken by her beloved brother.
“How can this be? Is it real?”
Mani’s smile dimmed. Others might not have noticed, but his every molecule and each of his atoms were familiar to me. “It’s... complicated.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes. “Tell me something I couldn’t figure out for myself.”
“I don’t know how this is happening.” Mani’s arms relaxed, and he released me from his hug, but he took both of my hands in his, maintaining our connection. “Your being here is as much of a wonder to me as it is to you.”
I looked up at the darkness and let my gaze fall to the cavern walls. “What is this place? Where are we?”
“The others here call it the helgafjell.” Mani waved as if shooing a fly. “It’s not important. It’s a lot to explain and comprehend, and I get the feeling we don’t have much time together. Let’s focus on what you came here to do and not waste our time on sadness, grief, or useless questions, okay?”
“Okay?” I blinked at him dumbly. “How can any of this be okay?”
“I know it’s not.” Mani squeezed my hands. “But you have to trust me.”
“I’ve always trusted you.”
He nodded. “And it’s one of the million reasons why I love you. But we have to get going.” Still holding my hand in his, my brother turned and tugged me forward, leading me over the bridge. Urgency seemed to fuel his footsteps, and as I followed him, my mind reeled. An abundance of unanswered questions slowed my thought process like a computer running too many software applications at once.
How? That was the main question nagging me. How could this be? I shook my head as if I could shake away my confusion. “How did you find me?”
Mani led us into an area that looked less like a cave and more like some ancient dwelling carved of stone blocks. Iron sconces supported torches burning on the walls, spilling yellow light along our path. He glanced at me but didn’t slow his pace. “A messenger came and told me to meet you and lead you to the well.”
“Well?” Goose bumps shivered over my arms. “What well?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” He tugged me again, and I stumbled forward. Our path wound in a tight corkscrew, sloping at a steady decline. After my long descent from the mouth of the cavern, I should have dreaded going any further down, but Mani could have led me into a fiery lake or jumped off a cliff, and I would have happily followed him.
The winding corridor leveled out in another vast, cavernous opening. Darkness obscured the far walls, and shadows expanded infinitely. Instead of a high ceiling veiled in gloom, a woven tapestry of gnarled tree roots crisscrossed overhead, branching and dividing like blood vessels. Knotty, twisted lianas trailed down the nearest wall and along the floors until they converged and spilled over the rim of an inky pool set in the ground like a black mirror. Warmth, mustiness, mildew, and decaying wood permeated the air.
Mani pulled on my hand, urging me forward, but I stopped and held my place. “Is this...”
I paused and scanned the space again, taking in the details. Gears in my brain chugged to life, processing the clues and delivering a result. “Are we beneath Yggdrasil? Is this the well at the base of the World Tree?” Was I looking at the legendary home of the Norns: divinities of fortune, fate, and destiny? Impossible.
