The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

  “We can’t risk unleashing this horror upon the world,” Wendy insisted.

  “Then we will all die!” Finn shot back.

  “Then that’s how it must be!” Wendy yelled.

  “I think I know what to do,” Ulla said, her clear but soft voice cutting through the tension, and I looked back to see her standing in the greenhouse with her friend Dagny.

  “What?” Finn asked her.

  “I know what to do.” Her expression was nervous, but she stood tall. “I have to kill the wyrm.”

  “Ulla, you’re strong, but you’re not trained,” Finn said. “The wyrm laid waste to many, many Omte soldiers today.”

  “But I’m not just Omte,” Ulla reminded him. “I’m also álfar. I am the morning flower and the summer bird, and I’m the good morning that ends the violent night.”

  “That’s … very poetic,” Loki replied carefully. “But that doesn’t tell us how you are going to go about killing the unkillable.”

  “With her dagger and my arrows,” Dagny interjected.

  “What are you talking about, Ulla?” I asked, since none of what she was saying made any sense to me.

  She took a deep breath and looked uncertainly over at Dagny, who nodded her head in encouragement.

  “I don’t know how to explain it exactly,” Ulla began. “I was reading an old text, talking about this prophecy—the suns will set in the green sky when the good morning becomes the violent night. I just knew what I needed to do.”

  “I’m going to coat the tip of my dagger—” Ulla’s hand went to the ornate Omte weapon sheathed on her hip.

  “And my arrows,” Dagny repeated.

  “—with sorgblomma blood,” Ulla continued. “We’re going to kill the wyrm and the monsters, and when we’re done, everyone can evacuate.”

  “Elof, Noomi, and Sunniva are currently looking for a way to close the portal again,” Dagny said. “Elof can hide out, surviving with the remaining Älvolk and thrimavolk, and seal themselves in again until they find a way to close the portal.”

  “But what if another wyrm gets through?” Wendy asked. “Or something worse? If the portal is open, we’re all still in danger.”

  “You can help Elof look through the books,” Dagny suggested. “That’s what I’ll be doing as soon as the wyrm is taken care of.”

  “I don’t know what it is that you think you know, Ulla,” Finn said. “But if you go up against the dragon, you will die.”

  “I know it’s not a perfect plan,” Ulla said. “But it’s the best one we’ve got.”

  I stood up and looked at Ulla. “What can I do to help?”

  80

  Abyss

  Ulla

  Dagny, Sumi, Wendy, Bryn, and I stood around the map of Áibmoráigi that Sumi had sketched in the dirt. Finn had kept arguing against the idea—even after everyone agreed that it was the best course of action—so Tove and Loki took him back to girjastu.

  Sumi’s map helped us lay out possible vantage points and potential coverage. It was hard to know what exactly we’d be walking into or how many of the Alfheim monsters would be waiting for us, so Sumi and Bryn ran through multiple scenarios and how to deal with them.

  “Whatever happens, you two need to get as high as you can as fast as you can,” Bryn summarized. “The rest of us will run interference so you can take care of the wyrm.”

  “How much sorgblomma do you have?” Wendy asked.

  Dagny slipped her bag off her back and pulled out a corked bottle. It was half full of red liquid, and she sloshed the bottle. “We took everything the häxdoktor had on his shelf.”

  “Are you sure that’s enough?” Wendy asked.

  “Well, it’s all we have, so it has to be,” Dagny replied, and Wendy frowned.

  “Ulla?” Sunniva called for me from the hall.

  “Yeah?” I said as I went back toward the door.

  “There you are.” She came into the room looking relieved, and Noomi was right behind her.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Not anything you don’t already know about,” Sunniva said. “And my auditory precogs are getting louder.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Maybe nothing, maybe something,” she replied vaguely.

  “What are you doing here?” Dagny asked Noomi.

  “I heard you were going to kill the wyrm,” Noomi said. “I want to help.”

  “It would’ve been a lot more helpful if you hadn’t let the damn thing in,” Dagny countered icily.

  Noomi’s jaw tensed and she met Dagny’s gaze defiantly. “I cannot go back in time. I can only fight forward.”

  “You can fight with me,” Wendy said to Noomi. “We need all the help we can get.”

  Suddenly, there was a far-off boom, and dust rained down from the ceiling.

  “You all heard that, right?” Sunniva asked uneasily.

  “What was that?” Wendy asked.

  Sumi looked up at the ceiling. “Another rockslide maybe?”

  Sunniva was standing beside me, and she reached over and took my hand. Then she took a few steps backward, leading me more into the center of the room.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “No matter what happens, we stay right here,” Sunniva said firmly, and her dark eyes were locked anxiously on the door.

  There was another boom, louder this time, and more dust and pebbles came down from the ceiling.

  “Noomi!” someone yelled, and a young thrimavolk came running in. “Noomi, the wyrm burnt down the stables, and it’s trying to get in through the front door!”

  “Go back to the girjastu and take the youngens to the vault,” Noomi commanded. “Tell everyone else to take what they need from the armory to fight the wyrm.”

  “Is there another way out of here?” Bryn asked once the girl ran off.

  Noomi looked back at us. “Not a way that we could get everyone out. If the wyrm gets back down here, we’re all cooked.”

  Another boom, but this one had a long rumbling aftershock, and the ground shook. With my free hand, I grabbed Dagny’s arm and pulled her back beside me.

  The floor kept shaking—the stones clattering together—and then warm, humid air suddenly rushed up as the floor gave out. We went into a free fall, plummeting into a dark pit below.

  81

  Knightfall

  Bryn

  I opened my eyes, staring up through the water at the white light above. I sat up and took a deep breath. I had no idea how long I’d been under, but my Skojare blood meant I was capable of being underwater for a very long time.

  My eyes adjusted, and I saw everyone scattered throughout a cave with pools of hot water and several small steaming geysers. Wendy, Noomi, and Sumi sat nearby at the edge of the water, coughing and getting their bearings. Farther down, Ulla and Sunniva were sitting while Dagny paced through the shallow water.

  “Where are we?” I asked as I stood up. The pool of water only came up to my knees.

  “The hot springs are under the indoor gardens. The floor gave out”—Sumi motioned around to the chunks of floor and overturned plants littered around us—“and now we’re trapped in a steamy cave while a dragon burns down the world around us.”

  “Doesn’t this water feed into the well?” Ulla asked, and she pointed to the darkest end of the cave. “Is the well down there?”

  “The ladder!” Sumi and Noomi shouted in unison.

  Dagny got the torch lit, and Sumi took it from her so she could lead the way. The springs ended in a small stream that passed through a narrow gap in the stone. We followed it through. The well was a stony tunnel up toward a green sky, and a mossy ladder ran up along the wall.

  Sumi went up first, climbing up the slippery ladder without hesitation, and I went after her. It took about ten frightening minutes, moving upward with a small dot of light guiding us up.

  Not that things were bright on the land. The air was all a green haze, and it smelled of ash and d
eath, and it burned my nose and lungs.

  From where we came up, I could see the serpentine dragon writhing around in the ashes of the stable and the bones of the elk that blocked the entrance. Only a portion of the tail was still out, as it used its head like a battering ram, taking down the winding staircase. The stairs were a narrower width than the massive room, so it had to tear down brick walls to get through.

  “Ulla, how strong are you?” I asked as she climbed out of the well behind me.

  “Pretty strong, why?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Do you think you can pull that thing out?” I pointed to the wyrm tunneling its way underground. “Or at least pull on its tail enough to piss it off?”

  She thought for a second, chewing her lip, then nodded. “Yeah. I can piss it off, at least.”

  “Great, because there’s no way you’re getting through those scales,” I said. My hand was still bruised and throbbing from when I broke my sword over it. “You’ll have to aim for the eyes, so we need to get its head out before you take your shot.”

  “You get the wyrm out,” Sumi told Ulla. “As soon as you do, then you and Dagny need to get to higher ground. The tower ruins are the closest. Me and Bryn can go south to distract the wyrm while you two get in place.”

  “Wendy and I will lead the wyrm back so Ulla and Dagny can take their shot,” Noomi said.

  “Are you ready, Ulla?” I asked.

  She took a fortifying breath and nodded. “We’ve got this.”

  Then she turned and ran over to the wyrm. She winced when she grabbed the tail, covered in spiky scales, and dug her heels in the ground.

  As Sumi and I ran around to the south side of the stables, I looked back and saw Ulla straining. Her face was already red and sweaty as she pulled the wyrm with all of her considerable might.

  Sumi and I took cover behind a burnt-out snail shell. She immediately took her sword and used it to break off a large section of the shell in the shape of a lopsided diamond and handed it to me.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  She flipped it over, and on the underside she used her ankle dagger to quickly take out a small chunk. She picked it up, using the gouge as a hand grip, and held it in front of her. “Etanadrak shells are fireproof. They make a great shield.”

  Then she held it out to me. “Here. You take this one. I’ll make another.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and glanced around. A smoldering kuguar corpse lay a few feet away. The one good thing about the wyrm’s rampage of killing every living thing was that that included the kuguars and the murder snails.

  Ulla still pulled at the wyrm’s tail. The ground rumbled as the wyrm wriggled and fought. It whipped its tail, yanking her through the ash and dirt, despite her best efforts to keep her footing.

  The wyrm was scooting backward out of the stairwell, and with more of its body out, it was whipping her around with more and more force. Until finally it threw her, and she landed in a pile of rubble.

  “Ulla!” I shouted, and started toward her, but she sat up, coughing, and I stopped short. “Ulla! The wyrm’s almost out! Go with Dagny and Sunniva to the tower! Sumi and I will take it from here!”

  She nodded, then took off to where Dagny and Sunniva were waiting by the tower.

  I looked back at Sumi. She held up her fractured snail shell shield with her left hand and her sword with her right.

  The wyrm suddenly burst through the ground right in front of me. Dirt and stone exploded from the earth, and I was sent flying backward. The beast instantly turned its rage on me, and I curled up in a ball, hiding as much of my body as I could under my shield just as the wyrm unleashed a green fiery blast at me.

  The snail shell held, but it got hot enough that it scorched my fingertips. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face in the dirt, and my skin felt sunburnt. All the hair stood up on my body, like I was consumed by static electricity, and my teeth ached.

  “Hey!” Sumi shouted, and I peered out from under the shield to see her throwing broken elk antlers and bones at the wyrm.

  The wyrm roared—right above me at earsplitting decibels—and then it slithered after Sumi. I crawled out from under the shell, and then I was on my feet, charging after the wyrm before it killed Sumi.

  She held her own against it, dodging out of the way of its fiery attacks in the nick of time. I came up behind the giant beast, and in a quick motion, I slid my sword under the thick scales, stabbing at the tender flesh again.

  The wyrm whirled around me, screeching and coiling itself up. I looked around to see Wendy holding her hands up palms out at the wyrm, and it abruptly took flight.

  “Ulla’s up in the tower,” Noomi yelled at me from where she stood a few meters away from Wendy. Then she looked up at the dragon, circling above us. “It’s time to send it back.”

  82

  Shatter

  Ulla

  My hip throbbed from the wyrm throwing me in the rubble, and the palms of my hands were in ribbons from gripping the spiky tail. The beast appeared reptilian with all its scales, but it felt more like a leather cactus. Hundreds of tiny spikes had left my hands a bloody mess.

  My feet were torn up from being dragged all across the dirt, and I’d futilely been digging my heels in the ground to hold it. But there was no way I could overpower that thing.

  The worst, though, really, was my hip, because it slowed me down. I ran as fast as I could, but it hurt like hell and tears formed in my eyes.

  Dagny and Sunniva were waiting for me at the bottom of the steps of the tower, and when I reached them, Dagny asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I lied. “Let’s go. I don’t know how long they can hold it.”

  I ran up the stairs behind them, and I had managed to get almost halfway up the first set when my hip completely gave out. It was all too much for my body. All of my muscles ached and trembled from using all my strength to fight the wyrm, and the pain was so intense, tears and sweat were streaming down my face.

  “Jakla,” I cursed, and tried again, but it was an excruciating feeling, like a blinding white light that somehow surpassed everything I’d ever known about my pain. I collapsed on the steps and groaned through gritted teeth.

  “Ulla!” Dagny stopped on the stairs and reached back to help me.

  “No, go on ahead,” I told her. “The wyrm could be over here any second.”

  Dagny hesitated a moment, then ran up the stairs. Sunniva stayed back and crouched beside me.

  “Can you stand at all?” Sunniva asked.

  I grimaced and tried again, but it instantly gave out and I let out an agonized moan.

  “That’s a ‘no’ then,” Sunniva said. “Okay, I’m going to try something, and it might not work. And even if it does, it won’t last long. My healing is not very effective outside of auras.”

  She pressed one hand against the soft flesh of my abdomen, and then she put the other hand on my injured hip. Gently, she kneaded the tender area, but it was enough to make me cry out in pain.

  “This will hurt a bit,” she said. “But it won’t last long.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, and held my breath.

  But slowly, the pain lessened, and a soothing warmth spread through me, radiating out from my hip and all through my body. I wasn’t a hundred percent—not by any means—but I felt considerably better, and when I tried to bear weight on my leg again, I could do it with only minimal pain.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Sunniva only replied with, “Let’s go.”

  As I ran up the stairs, I looked down and saw Noomi barely outrunning the wyrm. It threw its head back, like it was about to expel fire all over Noomi, but Wendy did something—the wyrm reacted like it had been slapped—and that gave Noomi enough time to find cover.

  And that’s when I noticed the bodies lying in the ruins. Indu Mattison impaled on a wooden post, and nearby, Jem-Kruk lying on stones. His long hair was splayed around him like a halo, and his arms and legs were aske
w. Somehow, he looked serene and beautiful, even in death.

  “Jem,” I whispered as fresh tears formed in my eyes, but I wiped them away and lunged up the stairs.

  Jem-Kruk had been nothing but kind to me, and I would shed many a tear for him later, but right now, I couldn’t.

  I arrived on the landing just as the wyrm struck the tower with its tail. The tower quaked—and stones tumbled past us—but it remained standing. Sunniva stumbled backward, but she caught herself just before she tumbled over the edge. Dagny fell to the floor, landing on her knees. But the bottle of sorgblomma blood slipped from her hand, and it shattered as it hit the floor.

  Dagny had begun dipping her arrow tips, but she’d only done one so far—I could see the shimmering arrow in her quiver.

  “That was it,” she said breathlessly. “That was all we had.” She looked over at me with wide, terrified eyes. “How will we stop it now?”

  83

  Gutted

  Bryn

  From where I stood, I saw the wyrm crash into the tower, and I saw the bottle shatter. The wyrm was flying around the tower, and Dagny, Ulla, and Sunniva were scrambling on the landing.

  They were going to be incinerated before they figured out what to do.

  I had to buy them time.

  “Hey!” I shouted, running toward the wyrm. “Hey, you smelly, slimy son of a bitch!”

  The dragon tilted toward me but kept flying around the tower. It moved, bobbing up and down in the air, like a roller coaster cutting through the smog.

  When it came lowest to the ground, I chucked my sword like a spear, aiming for the eye.

  It missed—barely—and stuck into the exposed flesh just above the eye. The wyrm howled as it flew at me.

  I dove behind a crumbling wall, and the beast sailed right through it. A rock wall fell on me, but I held the snail shield over me. It helped protect me, but when a large rock hit it, it shattered like glass.

  I scrambled out from under the rocks and broken shield, and I was instantly up and running because the wyrm was on my heels. It was winding to the side, using its long body to block my escape toward cover.