The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

  “Okay, now we all read the incantation together,” Dagny said.

  “We should hold hands?” Sunniva asked, and Dagny gave her a funny look. “It said to say it together.”

  “It’s better safe than sorry,” Elof agreed.

  Dagny sighed and held her hands out. I took her hand, mindful of my cut, and with my other I took Sunniva’s. Dagny held Elof’s hand, and we circled the fire.

  “Omorbba vid all sihkkamatön.”

  73

  Unearth

  Bryn

  My head and back throbbed. I had thrown myself over Tove when he collapsed, shielding him from the rockslide. Fortunately, he had enough strength to catch a large boulder with his abilities, because it certainly would’ve crushed us both if he hadn’t.

  The smaller rocks, some dirt, and debris still got through, leaving me bruised and sore when the rockslide ended. Tove tossed the boulder aside and immediately passed out. I pushed the rubble off me and Tove, and I pulled him up so he was sitting slumped against the wall, and his eyelids fluttered.

  Above us, the wyrm cried out in anger, and I watched him spew fire and fly erratically until his smoke made the air too thick to see through.

  With Tove safe—relatively speaking—I ran over to where Finn and Sumi had been standing. They were buried in debris from the barn—mostly stone, wood, and moldy hay—and rocks from the recent slide, which were heavy enough that I found them difficult to move.

  My whole body ached, my head throbbed, and my vision blurred in my bad eye. I worked as hard and fast as I could to unearth Finn and Sumi, but I worried that I didn’t have enough strength to move fast enough.

  “Help!” I shouted as I dug through the rubble. “Somebody! Please help!”

  Loki—the King of the Trylle—suddenly rounded the barn, running toward me.

  “Hurry!” I shouted at him. “Finn and Sumi are trapped under the rocks!”

  “Finn’s there?” Loki blanched slightly, and he sped up. He lifted rocks I’d been unable to move like they were pillows.

  “Help!” Sumi’s voice barely carried through the rocks.

  When her hand came through, I grabbed it and started pulling her up. Loki kept moving junk out of the way while I pulled her out. She coughed hard as soon as she was free. Wood chips, dirt, and hay were tangled with her hair, and some of it shook free as she doubled over.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her, as Loki kept searching for Finn.

  She nodded and struggled to catch her breath. “All the old crap from the barn softened the blow of the rocks. It would’ve been great if I hadn’t breathed in so much dust and mold.”

  “Got him!” Loki announced, and I looked over to see him helping Finn out of the rock pile.

  He coughed hard enough that he threw up, and he was bleeding from his temple. But he stood on his own, once Loki helped him off the rocks.

  “What the hell happened?” Finn asked, looking around in dismay.

  Loki put his hand on Finn’s shoulder. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “The dragon chasing us,” Finn said.

  “We can’t kill it.” I clenched my jaw, holding back the frustrated tears that stung my eyes. “Tove used everything he had to hold it, and I broke my sword on its scales.” I lowered my gaze. “That was probably the best chance we had, and I couldn’t…” I grimaced. “I don’t think we can hurt it at all. We just pissed it off.”

  Nobody said anything for a moment. Loki stared down at the ground, his arms folded over his chest, and Finn looked up at the dark sky. Sumi sat down next to Tove, catching her breath.

  “I told Wendy to evacuate with everyone she could,” Loki said, and he exchanged a look with Finn. “You should go too. They’ll need you.”

  “You’ll need me if you wanna stop this thing,” Finn countered.

  “She says we can’t stop it.” Loki motioned to me.

  “I don’t know how to stop it,” I amended. “But there has to be a way. There has to be something we can do.”

  “Maybe the thing we can do is step aside and let the humans go after the dragons with their bombs,” Loki said quietly.

  Finn scoffed. “They would blow us all up along with the dragon!”

  “Then we run and hide!” Loki yelled. “But we don’t know how to stop the wyrm, and it’s already taken out so many of us. We can’t defeat it if we’re dead!”

  “Guys?” Sumi said. “Tove isn’t doing so well.”

  He was awake—ish. His eyes were open, and he rubbed at them with the palm of his hand.

  “Tove?” Finn asked.

  “He’s been mumbling nonsense,” Sumi said, sounding concerned.

  “No, it’s just head dizzy,” he said. “Once I get two feet, it’s on the fine.” He started pushing himself up, and Loki rushed over to catch him before he fell.

  “It’s okay, I got you, buddy,” Loki said, and put his arm around Tove. Then he looked solemnly at the rest of us. “We need to get to the tent. We can decide whether to fight or evacuate from there.”

  Sumi got up and started back the way we’d come, around the barn and to the base camp at the southwestern side of Áibmoráigi. Finn followed a step behind her, and Loki half carried Tove to keep with Sumi’s fast pace.

  I went after them more slowly, staring into the dank smoke and listening to the animalistic groans and nearby screams. The ruins were crawling with monsters I couldn’t see, and I had broken my sword.

  A burnt Älvolk corpse lay across the path, his sword still gripped in his hand. I pried the hilt from his stiff fingers, snapping two of them off in the process.

  A kuguar roared, sounding much too close, and I lost sight of Loki and the others in front of me. I held my sword out, and I wanted to charge on ahead, but the ground was littered with bodies. They were bloody and torn up, some completely eviscerated. They had been mauled to death.

  As I stepped over a body, I heard whimpering. A girl lying facedown in front of me moved slightly, crawling away from the body of a child. Her dark hair shifted colorings, changing to a pale yellow-green.

  “Do you need help?” I asked her softly, so none of the nearby predators could hear me, and I crouched beside her.

  She finally looked up at me, and I recognized her as Ulla’s álfar sibling, Eliana.

  “Eliana, are you all right?” I asked, and she nodded meekly. “Come on. Let’s get you to the base camp.” I took her hand and hoped I was leading her toward somewhere safer.

  74

  Escape

  Wendy

  Patrik Boden stood in front of the rows of injured and dying that already filled the tent. He was ashen and blood stained his shirt and arms. He was the Markis Ansvarig of Isarna, with thousands of trolls under his care, and he’d brought along so many to fight in this battle.

  And I understood the look on his face completely. The horror and icy resignation that all of this was happening because of the decisions we made. That lives were lost today because we asked them to be here, fighting this impossible enemy.

  Only time would tell if it had been worth it, if what we gained outweighed all that we lost, if we’d gained anything at all.

  But now wasn’t the time to wax philosophic, and I shouted at Patrik again, “We need to evacuate!”

  “We can’t!” He shook his head, and behind him, Rikky looked up at us while she wrapped a wound. “There’s too many wounded, and some of them will die if we move them right now.”

  “We’re all going to die if we don’t get out of here,” I said.

  Outside of the tent, the saber-toothed cats let out guttural roars, and they were loud enough to be heard over the screams.

  Patrik looked back over his shoulder at Rikky and said, “Start with the ones we can move the fastest.”

  Then, in a strong voice, Rikky barked out orders—directing the other medics and healers to start gathering patients and gear for the arduous journey down the narrow mountain trail.

  I went over to Knut to he
lp him to his feet, but he only shook his head.

  “I’m too slow,” he said. “Help others.”

  “I’ll come back for you,” I said, and went to aid Minnie with her work securing a wounded teenager to a stretcher.

  We worked quickly, getting as many of the wounded ready as fast as we could, but it felt like a Sisyphean task. I ditched my jacket, using the ripped-off sleeves for a makeshift tourniquet, and now I ran around in a camisole with blood drying up, and my long curls pulled up and secured with a tassel from the jacket.

  The flaps of the tent burst open, and Loki came in, helping a limping Tove along, and Finn followed a step behind. They’d helped Tove into a chair by the time I got to them.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Overexerted myself,” Tove said wearily, and ran a hand through his tangles of hair. “Need a minute. But I’m okay.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be halfway down the mountain by now,” Finn commented. He was banged up and dirty, but his expression was stoic as usual.

  “We’re trying to evacuate,” I said. So far, only a half dozen of those that could move themselves had gone. Everyone was rushing around trying to get the immobile patients ready to go.

  “Finn, you could help them down,” I suggested before anyone could say anything more about me getting out of here. “You and Tove can lead them safely.”

  “Are you going down?” Rikky interjected, and wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. “I’ve got some kids ready to go.” She motioned to three children under the age of seven with various limbs wrapped and splinted.

  “Yeah, I got them,” Finn said without hesitation, then looked back at Tove. “You can walk yourself down, right?”

  Tove slowly got to his feet and nodded. “Yeah. Get the kids.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Loki asked Rikky.

  “Are you staying or going?” she asked him.

  Loki didn’t look at me when he answered, “Staying.”

  “Great.” Rikky sounded relieved. “You’re strong, right? I’ve got a four-hundred-pound ogre I’m trying to splint. You think you can help with that?”

  “Yeah, of course,” he said as he followed her.

  I helped Finn get the children situated on a stretcher, and Tove held the flaps open for them as he took the kids outside. I didn’t watch them leave, because I didn’t want to think about what they were walking into, and if they would make it out of the city.

  Minnie started screaming at the other side of the tent, and I ran over to see smaller spiders—these were only the size of a small cat—crawling under the tarp.

  Pan rushed over to help her, stomping on the arachnids, and Minnie swatted at them with a long pair of medical clamps. I used my psychic mind slap to pop a few of them, but they were coming so fast. My head throbbed in pain as I struggled to keep up with them.

  They finally stopped coming in, but I could see the long legs poking into the tarp as they climbed over the tent. I slumped back against a cart, taking a moment to breathe and let my head rest.

  Then I heard Finn yelling, the panic in his voice unmistakable. I ran out the front flaps, barely stopping a spider—squashing it with my foot this time—before it pounced on me.

  “We’re trapped!” Finn shouted when he saw me. He was running, pulling the stretcher of children behind him. He held it by the handles on one side and let the handles on the other drag on the ground behind him.

  “What?” I asked, but my words were drowned out by the sound of the wyrm roaring.

  I looked up, and through the haze, I saw the serpentine dragon thrashing at the sky. A burst of flame from its mouth bowed, as if stopped by an invisible curved wall.

  “We can’t get out!” Finn yelled.

  As the wyrm raged against the sky, I finally understood. We were trapped under a dome with all the monsters, none of us able to escape.

  75

  World Ender

  Ulla

  “Did it work?” I asked.

  After we said the incantation, we stood in silence, holding hands around the fire burning gold and violet. As far as I’d been able to tell, nothing had happened. No sounds, no shaking, no changes in the fire.

  “Should we say it again?” Sunniva asked.

  “It’s not necessary,” Elof said, and Dagny let go of our hands. “If it works, it worked. And if it didn’t…”

  “If it didn’t, then what?” I asked, since he’d trailed off.

  “Our time is better spent finding a way to kill the monsters or send them back where they came from.” Dagny had already put her back to us and gone back to the books.

  “What should we look for?” Sunniva asked.

  “We don’t know,” Elof admitted. “I only found the incantation book because a spider fell on it, and the title sounded promising.”

  I stopped cold. “A spider?”

  A loud banging in the hall interrupted us, and Dagny grabbed her bow from where she’d left it by the entrance of the girjastu. Her quiver and arrows were secured on her back.

  “Someone’s in the armory,” I whispered.

  Dagny cursed and jogged down the hall, moving silently on the balls of her feet. I didn’t keep up with her, so she was basically going in blind since I had the light.

  There was another bang, then Dagny shouted, “Don’t move!”

  I arrived in time to see Dagny holding her bow and arrow on Noomi Indudottir. She was holding a spear with a forked head, but she slowly raised her hands above her head. Her makeup was smeared across her face, the skin on her right cheek was red and blistered from a fresh burn, and her blond hair was singed and jagged on that side.

  Every time I had seen her before, she was so strong, angry, and sneering down at me. Now she was trembling, with tears in her eyes.

  “You were right,” Noomi said when she saw me, squinting in the torchlight. “About everything. I have been jallaki.”

  “So you’re saying that we should put you out of your misery?” Dagny asked.

  “No!” Noomi shouted. “Please! I have seen so many of the ones I care about slaughtered today. I only want to protect those I have left.”

  Reluctantly, Dagny lowered her bow. “Do you think you can kill the nightmare creatures running rampant on the surface?”

  “I’ve already taken out a few. With proper weapons, I can take out more.” She held her weapon up higher as an example.

  “How do you kill the wyrm?” I asked.

  Noomi laughed, a dark sound with a high-pitched lilt of hysteria. “As far as I’ve seen, the flying serpent cannot be killed. It is Jörmungandr, the world ender.”

  “Everything ends, even wyrms,” Dagny said.

  “And what of me?” Noomi asked. Her hands had slowly fallen back to her side as we’d been speaking, and she stood taller, even when her chin quivered. “Are you ending me today or are you allowing me to fight alongside you?”

  Dagny looked over at me, deferring to my judgment about the woman who had helped torture me during the Lost Month.

  “I remember what you did,” I said, and she visibly gulped. “Not all of it. But enough to know that you’re a sadist, and you don’t deserve forgiveness.”

  Noomi lowered her eyes and sniffled as a tear fell down her cheek.

  “But life isn’t about what you deserve,” I said finally. “And we need anyone we can get to fight these fucking things.”

  “You can join us,” Dagny agreed with a sigh. “But don’t make me kill you.”

  76

  Betrayals

  Bryn

  I only made it a few steps, leading Eliana by the hand, as we stepped over the bodies of Älvolk and allies alike. Some of them were even children, and I paused to make sure they were dead. I didn’t want to leave them behind if there was still hope.

  “We shouldn’t stop,” Eliana said, frantically looking around while I crouched over a toddler whose burnt body had already gone cold. “It’s not safe.”

  “Talking t
oo loud isn’t safe,” I told her with an icy glance back over my shoulder. “Checking for survivors is prudent.”

  Her jaw tensed and her mouth twisted into an irritable scowl.

  “If we don’t help those that need help, we’re no better than the monsters,” I said.

  She looked like she wanted to argue, but then her eyes widened when she looked past me. As I turned back, I already heard the slurping wet sound of the thick mucus trail the murder snail left behind.

  It stretched its long neck outward, snapping at me with a narrow mouth of crooked fangs, and I leaned backward, grabbing Eliana’s arm as I did, pulling her down and out of the way, and I somersaulted back onto my feet.

  Eliana ran away, leaving me to face the snail alone, but it was better that way. I remembered the way Tuva had screamed and writhed after the venom got her.

  When the snail came at me again, I dodged to the side at the last second and swung my sword to quickly slice through the stalks that held up its big ginger-red eyes. Now blinded, its head moved erratically, and I had to move quickly to evade the gnashing teeth.

  But it couldn’t see to block me, and it only took two strong blows to get through the neck and decapitate the murder snail.

  I took a deep breath and ran on, after Eliana and toward the tent.

  I could hear yelling before I saw them through the smoke and haze. Sumi cursing, Finn yelling about no escape, someone else just screaming bloody murder. As the tent took shape through the smog, I saw the full horror of the situation.

  Spiders were crawling all over it, while Sumi and a few others tried to fight them off. Finn and the Trylle Queen were arguing outside, but the spiders were coming faster so he dragged her inside.

  I stayed outside, fighting alongside Sumi, taking out as many spiders as I could. Until I saw an arachnid the size of a hobgoblin tear a hole into the tarp, making a new entrance in the side.

  I went after her—cutting through a pair of fat, angry spiders on the way—and made it inside the tent in time to see the spider wreaking havoc with the medical equipment. Standing in front of the rows of cots were Eliana, Minnie, and a few others creating a troll wall before the wounded.