Queen of Swords: The Banished Gods: Book One (The Banished Gods Series 1)

by L. A. McGinnis

  “Are you crazy? Do you even know what those are?” Tyr surveyed the ruined shadowy landscape.

  “I know exactly what they are. I was hoping you didn’t.” Loki had a definite curl to his lip as he scanned the side of the mountain, settling his unfaltering gaze on one spot in particular.

  “We can’t get through there,” Tyr said, “and live. We go across the bridge. It’s got to be the bridge.”

  “We go in through those burrows, right there,” Loki insisted gravely, nodding to the spot he’d picked. “No one will see us, Hel won’t even know we’re here. And we emerge straight up into the dungeons. Exactly where we need to be. It’s the easiest way and the quickest.”

  “We won’t make it ten feet.”

  “What are those holes?” Fen asked, his nose twitching, chancing the air blowing past them, foul and damp.

  “The entrances to the underground hive for the Grim. Those are their little nest-holes, and they run the span of this valley from the base of the mountain all the way down into the dungeons, cutting beneath Hel’s great hall. A straight shot, if we pick the right one, and she’ll never even know we’re here.”

  Fen turned a curious eye to his father. “Gods, you must have a death wish. Those holes must be packed tight with the bastards from end to end. What’s your plan?”

  Loki nodded toward Ava. “Her.”

  “Wait, what do you mean, me?”

  When Tyr, Vali, and Mir looked at Ava as if they were all in agreement, she raised her palms. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I can assure you, I’m not going in there. Not if those holes are dark. I don’t like the dark, and I don’t like tight places, and I sure as hell don’t like demons. So forget it.”

  “Do you want to save your sister?”

  Of course she did.

  “Then get on board with the plan, Ava,” Mir said neutrally, slipping down along the edge of the cavern toward a set of stone steps leading to the floor of the valley below. “Do what we tell you and this will work.”

  “Are you positive this is the only way?” Twenty minutes later, she had to ask again, just to be sure. The holes were huge, now that they were this close, the ceiling looming thirty feet overhead.

  The smell wafting out was horrifying. Another step, Ava thought, and it would suffocate her. As if the whole world was rotting underneath of them, and this was the only place the stench could escape. Even now, the skittering of claws drifted out of the darkness to meet them, adding another layer of horror over the smell, the yawning endless sprawl of the space spiraling down before them. Ava turned to Loki, “Because…”

  “They will think you’re one of them, Ava.” Loki paused, determination glinting in his blue eyes. “Only because of the darkness that’s inside you. Because of that, they’ll allow us safe passage.”

  “No.” It was one thing to know you’re going to your death for a noble cause. It was entirely another to be used as a tool because the enemy thought you were one of theirs. “No,” Ava said again, horrified. “There’s no way I can go in there.”

  “This will work,” Loki assured her, Fen already beginning to shift into the wolf, his handsome face turning lupine, his canines lengthening to an enormous length.

  “It’s not that,” she explained, her voice becoming increasingly shrill, nigh hysterical. “It’s that you think…all of you know those…things will believe I’m one of them.”

  Loki grabbed her by the arms and gave her a shake. “You are not one of them. The darkness inside you, once we’re hidden in the dark, will make them think we’re them, and we’ll be able to get through. It’s either that or we fight our way through a sea of them, across the valley, across the bridge, then into the hall. There are six of us. How far do you think we’ll get?

  “Hel has the entire dungeon spelled against intruders. There is no other way inside. Except the demons’ entrances. You can do this, it will work.”

  His reasonable, calm voice forced her to reevaluate.

  She was being a pissy, hysterical little bitch.

  She tucked her hands underneath her arms, surveying the hole. “Are you sure? Because once we get in there, once we get past the opening, I have a feeling…” Skittering emanated from the dark.

  “I swear.” Loki’s eyes gleamed. Behind her, she felt the mass of Fenrir looming. Tyr and Vali’s swords. Mir’s knowledge. They couldn’t all be wrong, right?

  Taking a deep breath, she plunged into the opening and heard the claws skitter away.

  Another step and the dim, barely there light receded until darkness completely enveloped her, the sound of claws moving away. One more step, and again, the claws retreated. She felt, rather than heard, all of the loosed, relieved breaths behind her. And her hands tightened into fists.

  “You’re all bunch of pathetic liars, do you know that?” she muttered, walking faster as demons scrambled to get out of her way.

  37

  Morgane was surprised she was not dead.

  More accurately, she was surprised she was not still dead.

  Because this last time…

  This last time had lasted a very long time. An endless, suffocating darkness she hadn’t been sure she would escape. She almost felt the grasping of something pulling her down, down, down.

  Yet here she was. And on the floor instead of overhead, suspended from those chains hanging from the ceiling. Cold, hurting, hungry. But very much alive, once again. Not like her mother. Hel had killed her mother.

  No, she’d done worse than that. She’d rendered her truly nonexistent. Morgane idly picked at the scab covering one of her wrists until it bled, remembering the look in Gwen Burke’s eyes as she’d died. Bright red blood bubbled up, shiny and horrifically bright against her gray skin, the scarlet brilliant and beautiful against the dirty-black of the stone and dried gore coating every inch of this place.

  It was a relief to discover she still bled. She still hurt. That her bones ached and her head pounded and her stomach felt carved out. Anything else would have worried her. Anything else might have…

  “Well, well, well. Look at you. A bit worse for wear, although I must admit, I’m relieved to see you breathing.”

  Such savagery contained in that lovely, slim body. Watching the way it glinted from Hel’s obsidian eyes, it occurred to Morgane she would not be so lucky to escape this time.

  Not that escape was foremost on her mind. Survival was. And if she succeeded at that? Then, maybe, discover why she was a pawn in this much bigger game. Before the end.

  “You have a bit of grit to you, I’ll give you that,” Hel continued, tapping a manicured fingernail against the bars. The hollow sound pierced the dull pounding in Morgane’s head. “It won’t matter though. Everyone breaks down here. Everyone. Balder.” She paused. “Your sister.” A note of satisfaction snaked through Hel’s voice as she went on. “It took me months, years to break that one. I tried sooo many things. Had to get creative. Rather bloody, in the end.”

  Morgane stopped watching her own blood, though it was snaking down to her fingers. Instead, Hel’s words seemed to take on a life of their own, each one containing an image of Ava, her face outlined in pain.

  “The floor you’re squatting on right now is caked in her blood, as a matter of fact. Rivers of it I spilled.” Morgane tried to tune the words out, tried to ignore them, but they wormed their way into her brain. “However…in the end, she broke. Her body, first. Then her soul. As I knew she would. And that was that.”

  Morgane curled up her toes, away from the dried gore covering the floor, away from the sheen it left behind. So thick the stones seemed buried beneath it. And she knew only one thing would happen down in this hideous place. Only one outcome was possible.

  Death.

  The barest ember kindled inside her. Not hope, nothing so futile as that. But defiance. Hel had killed her mother, burned her soul into oblivion. She had hurt Ava. That ember flickered into a steady flame of fury.

  Morgane would not allow Hel to eras
e her. She meant to survive. If only long enough to see Hel pay. Her mother…her mother had ordered her to live. Ordered it, with her very last, dying breath. But her mouth wouldn’t make words, and her body was almost done for.

  Staring back down at her wrist, at the band of caked blood, at the wounds cutting in some places almost to the bone, Morgane traced the cut tendons, the broken flesh, celebrating every vibration of pain echoing through her. Alive. She was still alive. And alive meant she had a chance.

  “Nothing to say? Not a single word? No pithy comebacks? No smart ass remarks? If I knew I could shut you up this easily, I would have hung you from the ceiling at the start.” A small, cool smile curved her perfect face. “Perhaps burned your mother to ash first. But another round…would destroy you, I’m afraid. As I destroyed your sister.”

  The words rattled around in Morgane’s brain, as a hazy image formed of Ava, draped from the ceiling above.

  After another long minute, the goddess snapped, “Fine. Rot down here for a few more hours then I’ll be back. I’ve got plans to finalize. The sort that will ensure I’ll never be stuck down here in the dark again. Pretty soon, girl, your world will be all mine. And those gods of yours? They’ll be my slaves. Or worse.”

  Morgane kept her mouth shut until, finally, Hel spun on her heel and left. Whatever these plans were, Morgane would bet her eternal soul they had everything to do with why she was down here.

  And who had the power to make the immortal gods slaves?

  She was not going to die.

  Not before she figured out why she was here and what Hel wanted her for.

  Lifting her eyes to the chains dangling from the ceiling, she wondered how many nights Ava had sat right here, hoping the very same thing?

  38

  Ava was overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the tunnel. The stench burned her eyes, her nose, wormed its way into her senses until Ava knew she would smell it and taste it every time she closed her eyes. Bile rose in the back of her throat, and she swallowed it down as she had a hundred times before.

  But they were getting close.

  “There. Up ahead, where it splits, go to the right.” Mir touched her right shoulder lightly, and she followed by instinct, her body noting they seemed to finally be climbing instead of descending.

  Not a single claw had swiped at them, not a single demon lingered over them. As Loki had predicted, whatever darkness was inside her swept them away, like a giant exterminator’s cloud of poison. She only hoped it continued to work, at least until they reached torchlight.

  “There it is, do you see it?” Loki had her other shoulder. His hand had been steadily steering her the entire way, sometimes it had been the only thing tethering her to reality. Other times, she resented him, even hated him as he pushed her onward through this horrible, depthless dark.

  Unless her eyes were lying, the dark grew brighter, a flickering, golden light. “Torchlight.” She practically sobbed in relief.

  “Yes. Torches. Which means guards. And eyes everywhere,” Tyr warned from behind them. “So Vali and I’ll go first, then you and Loki. Mir and Fen can watch our backs.” A low, feral growl from far behind confirmed the wolf had heard every word.

  The first step into the light, though she was pressed tightly within the circle of bodies, felt like they stood within a spotlight. Tyr and Vali her shield to the front, armored and bristling with weapons, Mir to her left, Fen poised in lethal readiness at her back. Loki, to his credit, still at her side, hand on her, ready to snatch her back should anything spring from the shadows. Only the faint, horrific sound of sharp things against the rock gave them any indication they were not alone down here.

  “Any idea of where we are?”

  “Lower level dungeons. We may have to go up a level, maybe two.” Loki charted out their approximate position, while Fen and Tyr flanked him, before moving as one toward a set of steps carved into the solid rock. “This way, and then we start looking for Morgane. If we’re lucky, we find her midlevel and get out of here before anything happens.”

  Ava snorted. “Luck doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she clarified, nodding to the unending rows of cells, the iron bars, the stench that lay thickly over it all. “But Loki’s right. We need to go up a level.”

  “How do you know?” Mir asked quietly. Even gently, for him.

  “Because these steps”—she nodded to the uneven, rough hewn ones they had reached—“are too hard on her shoes. Which is why she tends to stick to the upper dungeon cells. Or to do her torturing in the hall itself, depending on her footwear choice of the day. Plus, she has more of an audience there.” The rest of the way up was silent, Fen barely squeezing himself through the narrow, curving stairway, Mir and Loki keeping her firmly sandwiched between them.

  The next level proved busier, more demons lingering, less willing to give way to them as they passed, hissing and clicking their teeth together. But so far, unwilling to attack. Ava kept moving, but her eyes never left the walls, the ceiling, the dark corners, waiting, just waiting for one of the creatures to drop into the middle of them and begin chewing away.

  And then she felt her. Felt Morgane.

  “Up there. Up ahead.” Her feet took over for her head, and she burst out of the middle of the pack, making for a cell…

  Ava’s mouth went dry. Curled on the floor lay her sister, naked, bone-white, dirty and bloody. Her stomach caved in. Unmoving on that shiny, bloody floor. Ava’s vision blurred for a second, before focusing wholly on her sister. Morgan’s chest rose. Slightly, and too slowly, but it rose and fell. She was still alive.

  Alive, and they were not too late. “Morgane?” Ava whispered tentatively. “Sister?” Dull, exhausted eyes drifted open, fluttered closed then opened again, focusing slowly, painfully on her through the bars. Morgane tried to raise her head. Failed as it flopped back to the floor with a heavy thud.

  Morgane’s mouth loosened, and the look, the look in those eyes made Ava’s knees buckle as a desperate, frail whisper slipped out, “No. No, no, why did you come? Why? Don’t you know what she’ll do to you if she finds you here?” She struggled then to push up, her hands, oh God, her wrists, they were nearly cut through…

  Loki shouldered up beside her, barely breathing, his eyes darting all over her, moving from her broken body, to her wrists, to the matted, bloody hair, to the bruises, dark and blotchy, covering most of her torso. Ava could feel his heart hammering, too fast, from where she stood. Putting a hand over his, where it clenched the bars, she murmured, “Hang on, Loki. We’ll get her out of there. Let Fen pull open the door, you’ll have to give him some space…”

  But beneath their hands, the iron gave way, a high, keening whine filling the air as the bars bent and twisted, the metal glowing red-hot under her fingers, so hot she yanked back, startled. Loki stepped through the smoldering hole and sank to his knees beside Morgane and gathered her into his arms as he rocked her, his head bowed low, back and forth.

  He didn’t know where to start. Not with her hands, practically divided from her wrists, or the pattern of deep, bloody welts crisscrossing her back, marked every inch by wounds made from something large and sharp and especially wicked. Not the bruising, or the dried blood and dirt encrusting her.

  For a moment, the world stopped. As if everything froze around them, as if his magic faltered and died at the sight of evil things that had been done to her.

  “Let me take a look at her, brother, let me in there for a moment, then she’s all yours.” Loki felt Mir push him to the side, but he made no move to remove her, only separated them enough so he could inspect her arms, look at the wrists where the thick, iron bands had cut and torn, then at her head, where blood-encrusted blonde hair was matted down to her skull. “I can take away her pain, my brother. And I can fix all of this, once we are out of here.” He shot them both an apologetic look. “But not before. If I use my magic down here, it will bring your daughter running.” His smile faded. “And we don’t want that.”

&
nbsp; Loki turned Morgane slightly in his arms, wincing as she moaned. “I’m sorry, baby, I have to pick you up now, we’ve come to take you home. Then we’ll stop the pain. Mir can heal you.”

  “Not yet. You can’t take me out of here.” Her weak, shaking voice was slurred with pain, yet full of quiet determination. “There’s something I’ve gotta do, first.”

  Panic shone in Loki’s eyes. “If you think, for a moment, I’ll consider leaving you down here for another second, you are mistaken. We’ve come to rescue you, so don’t even say whatever you’re about to say.” He hated the note of sheer desperation that crept into his voice, but neither could he mask it. “I love you, Morgane.” Her eyes widened, but he had to say it now, in case there wasn’t another chance. “So you cannot expect me to wait. I barely made it through these last few hours, knowing where you were. Knowing what she was doing to you. Don’t ask me for anything else. I can’t…”

  “You love me?” she husked, wonderingly. “Really?”

  He dipped his head so his mouth was pressed to her ear, so only she could hear. “I love you, Morgane Burke. I have loved you since the moment I scooped you up off the pavement. Which is why I’m taking you out of here right now.” She moaned as he shifted her, trying to avoid hurting her.

  He nestled her carefully against his chest, letting her settle herself into a better position and she moved until she gazed into his face. “But you can’t.” There was a hint of desperation in her voice. “You don’t understand. She’s about to forge an alliance with someone stronger than any of you, even Odin. She means to take over the world, and turn you all into slaves.” Loki felt Tyr’s attention riveted to every word. “So if you take me out of here now, chances are, we won’t find out what she’s doing. But if I stay, there’s a chance to stop her.” Even though every word was a struggle, her eyes were bright with expectation by the time she finished.