by S. T. Bende
“Get in here. Quick,” a scratchy voice beckoned from up ahead. It sounded as if it came from behind the arch of boulders twenty-five meters away. “Back here. Before they catch you.”
Henrik raised an eyebrow and I blinked, not breaking my run. On the one hand, it was suicide to trust anyone in Muspelheim. The odds were good whoever was behind that rock wanted to maim us, grill us, or turn us over to Surtr in exchange for… well, whatever fire giants found valuable these days, since apparently the value of rubies had plummeted. The price for two Asgardian heads must have gone up.
On the other hand, the streams of flame shooting at us were only getting closer. And if my visual assessment was accurate, the fire-breathing mutants were no more than fifteen meters behind us, twenty tops. If we didn’t lose them, and fast, we wouldn’t be heading back to Midgard without some serious blisters… or worse. Chances were the monsters would be more than happy to serve up flambéed Asgardian for tea.
“What do you think?” I tipped my head toward the boulder arch. We were only ten meters away.
Henrik shook his head. “My gut says no. But if we don’t take cover, they’re going to roast us. Do you see any other options?”
I scanned the grove. There was nothing but trees in any direction. A glance over my shoulder proved Henrik was right—a thick billow of smoke crawled through the foliage like Freya’s forest cats stalking a reindeer. The giants spouted fire with each exhale, incinerating trees on contact. There was no way we’d make it if they got even ten feet closer.
“That arch is the only break in the tree zone I can see. Climbing the elderwood is out, since the whole trunk seems go up in smoke the minute the base is charred.” I squared my shoulders and darted to the right. “Do it.”
Henrik followed me without question, flinging his body over mine as we dove through the small opening in the arch. He wrapped his arms around my chest and tucked his legs against me, rotating so his body bore the impact of our fall. His back made a dull thud as it struck the hard dirt. My landing was slightly less uncomfortable, thanks to the thick layer of muscle adorning Henrik’s chest, which I so didn’t think about because I was erecting extremely major boundaries today. Boundaries that totally didn’t include committing the sensation of Henrik’s body wrapped around mine to memory, because I absolutely was not going to relive this moment every night from here to forever.
That would have been pathetic, after all.
We skidded another meter, Henrik gripping me tightly and my hands locked around his thick forearms for the sole reason of not flying off and hitting my head and being an ineffective partner. That would have been irresponsible. Then we came to a stop and leapt to our feet, backs close together—but not actually touching because, boundaries—in a defensive stance.
The cave was too dark to see anything at first, but our pursuers’ peculiar breathing habits were quick to remedy that. We heard the thundering of their footsteps right before our shelter was illuminated with the thick, hot light of fire breath. The light shot right past the opening of the arch and faded as the fire giants drove forward into the grove, decimating the fauna and sparing us.
When I finally permitted myself to breathe, the smell of burnt wood overwhelmed my nasal cavity. It stung at the back of my throat, and made my eyes feel like they’d been scrubbed with sandpaper and rinsed with alcohol. What the Helheim?
“You okay, Brynn?” Henrik punctuated each whispered word with a muffled cough. No doubt the black smoke affected him too. I didn’t have to see through my burning eyeballs to know his sword was drawn.
“Yeah. I can’t see so great though.” I rubbed the back of one hand against each of my eyes in turn. The other pulled my dagger out of my boot and held it steady. This situation wasn’t ideal, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d fought blind.
“You don’t need your weapons in here.” The scratchy voice came from my left, and I whirled around, blade at chest level.
“Identify yourself,” Henrik barked.
“Chill out. I’m Hyro. Your friend Forse’s… eh…acquaintance?” The scratchy voice rose on the last word, and for the first time I realized its owner was female.
“Prove it. Because we are having one skit-tastic day, and the only faces I want to see right now are friendly ones.” Henrik guided me behind him with one hand. He was giving me time to clear my vision, and I rubbed frantically at my eyes, making the most of the lull in the action. Things could get heated fast around here. Ha!
Apparently, smoke inhalation made me think I was funny.
“Fine.” The voice sighed, affecting a tone of long-suffering patience. “You’re here because somebody stole your love goddess. You’re afraid of the chaos that will envelop the realms. You’re looking for a scout that knows something about a portal and a bound female.” My vision finally returned and I squinted through the darkness to see a curvy girl who didn’t look much older than seventeen in mortal years, twirling her cherry-red hair as if she was bored. “Did I pass?”
“I think we’re good,” I whispered to Henrik. “I can see now. And I can totally take her if it comes to it.”
The girl’s bulbous nose scrunched up. “That was rude,”
“Sorry. But like he said, we’re having a lousy day.” I stepped around Henrik and held out my hand. “I’m Brynn. This is Henrik. You’re Hyro?”
“Yep.”
Henrik stepped to my side and lowered his sword to shake her hand. “Hei Hyro. Huh. Your name rhymes with pyro. Your parents must have a wicked sense of humor.”
Hyro blinked at him.
“You know,” Henrik explained. “Because you’re a fire giant. Pyro… Hyro…”
“Real original.” Hyro rolled her eyes. She tilted her head back and exhaled violently, shooting a stream of flame out of her nose. Henrik and I both ducked, but the flame shot well over our heads, lighting a sconce hanging on the rocky wall. She repeated the movement three more times, until a flaming wall sconce lit each corner of the tiny room. Hyro leaned back against the grey wall of the cave, her arms wrapped around her waist, with one black boot crossed over her ankle in a pose that screamed defiant teenager way more than it screamed formidable fire giant. “I thought you might want to be able to see stuff,” Hyro offered by way of explanation.
“Thanks.” Henrik rubbed his free hand over the back of his neck. “Wait. If you’re a fire giant, why are you so… well… short?”
I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow, and he rubbed his side. “Ow, Brynn!”
“Sorry about him. He doesn’t get out much.”
“No, he’s right.” Hyro pushed herself off the wall so she stood at her full height. “I’m four feet, eight inches. I don’t exactly fit the mold.”
“Maybe not,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t give the foreigner an excuse to be rude.” I shot Henrik the stink eye, and he had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Sorry, Hyro. Last rude thing out of my mouth. Scout’s honor.” Henrik held up his fingers in a webbed trio, and the laugh escaped my mouth before I could stop it.
“That’s Star Trek, you nitwit. Boy scouts do this.” I held up three fingers and Henrik mirrored the gesture, the serious expression never leaving his face.
“Right then. Scout’s honor.” He held the pose, then broke into a grin. “Love that about you, Brynnie. I learn something new every day.” He reached out to cuff my shoulder, pushing my perfekt control toward its breaking point.
Hyro studied her fingernails. “So, what do you need from me? Forse’s message said you needed info on the girl I saw this morning. What else?”
“Honestly, anything you can tell us about, well, anything would help.” I tucked my dagger into my boot and motioned for Henrik to sheathe his sword. “We don’t know who took Freya, where they took her, or what they’re planning to do with her. If you’ve seen any unusual activity around here, anything at all, it could help point us to our next destination.”
Hyro twirled a lock of her crimson hair. “Anythi
ng, huh?”
“Anything,” Henrik confirmed.
“Okay. I might have a few things for you. But first, did you bring what Forse promised?” Hyro looked from Henrik to me.
“Uh, we brought the rubies, yeah.” Henrik rubbed the back of his neck again.
Hyro wrapped a strand of hair around her pinky. “So? Where are they?”
“They’re, um… they’re back at the castle.” The words tumbled out of my mouth. “We accidentally dropped in closer than we meant to, and the guards got real aggressive and charged at us, and before we knew what was happening we… we…”
“We threw the rubies at them and ran.” Henrik shrugged. “In hindsight, it wasn’t our brightest idea. We’re usually a lot smarter.”
Hyro’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You threw Asgardian rubies at the palace guards? Seriously?”
My hands landed firmly on my hips. “Like I said, they were chasing us. Chasing us. Since when did they get so fast, anyway? I swear when I was here before, they moved at, like, a quarter of that speed.”
“Freaky, right? Things are totally different here since the volcano erupted,” Hyro said.
“The volcano?” Henrik wrinkled his brow. “That thing’s been dormant for centuries.”
“Exactly.” Hyro’s glare softened. Now she looked wistful, almost sad. “There were reports of a dark magic trace around the base, so a handful of the guards went to check it out. Rumor is, by the time they reached the mountain the magic was so thick they could barely see two feet in front of them. I guess they pushed forward, because their communication devices were working up until right before the explosion, and at least one of them described what he saw. Thick black smoke circled the bottom of the volcano, much denser than anything we’d seen in that area before. It looked a lot like this, actually.” As if to demonstrate, Hyro made her lips into an O and let out a breath. A dense mist swirled from her mouth, heavy as the morning fog on a cold day, and blacker than the remains of the elderwoods just outside the cave.
“Have you been doing that long?” I shifted my weight as a fresh wave of pain coursed through my injured leg. Why isn’t it healing faster?
“Since the explosion.” Hyro looked uncomfortable. “It just started after the dust settled.”
Henrik stepped so he stood slightly in front of me. I appreciated the chivalry, but I didn’t need protecting.
“Stand down, Hotshot. I was just telling you how bad it was at the volcano.” Hyro studied the scraggly ends of her hair.
I nodded at Henrik. “So then what happened?”
She shrugged. “Nobody knows. One second they were talking about black smoke, and the heavy dark magic readings they picked up on their readers; the next, the volcano exploded and they were gone.”
“You mean you lost communication with them?” Henrik prompted.
“Nope. Gone. The explosion must have buried them.” Hyro leaned back against the cave wall. She rested her head on the stone and stared up at the ceiling. “A second team went out to the site once the lava had cooled, but by the time they got there, there wasn’t a trace of team one. No footprints, no bones, not even any weapons. Maybe the lava melted them down, or maybe they were just too buried to track. And when the second team came back, they were like super soldiers. They ran at four times their top training speed. They saw a good ten meters farther than they tested on their last optical exams. Their fire breathing had twice the power mine has now, and at least three times the heat. It was insane. When Surtr caught wind of what had happened to team two, he sent every member of his guard out to the site, hoping they’d return all hopped up on the juice, too. Now every member of the royal guard can run, fire breathe, and fight with the strength of… well…” Hyro met my eyes, “an Asgardian.”
“Did something happen to them at the volcano? Did they run into anyone? Did someone turn them into what they are now?” I asked.
“Not that we know of. Each team was in communication with the base officer the entire time. Nobody mentioned seeing any strangers.”
“What about the dark magic? Did any of the teams ever identify the source?” Henrik pressed.
Hyro toed the ground with her boot. “Nope. The official report said it was coming from a residence in the town at the foot of the volcano—that the owners had opened a portal to Helheim, and the energy of the ikkedød—Hel’s freaky dead guards—set off the volcano. And maybe there was a portal, and maybe the ikkedød did have something to do with the explosion. But I know the owners of the house didn’t have anything to do with opening any portals.”
“How do you know that, Hyro?” I asked gently.
When Hyro finally looked up, tears brimmed in her eyes. “Because my parents owned that house. And they’d never invite Hel—or her minions—into our home. They were good giants.”
I ignored the irony of the words. With the possible exception of the crying teenager in front of me, there was no such thing as a good fire giant. None that I’d met, anyway.
“You said they were good.” Henrik wore the uncomfortable look all guys wear around crying females. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah.” Hyro wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “The entire village was buried under the lava. My parents are dead. I would be too, if I hadn’t been out hiking that day.”
“Oh, Hyro. I’m so sorry.” I stepped forward and pulled her into my arms. For a minute, I ignored the fact that Hyro was a stranger, a fire giant, and in all likelihood, an enemy to Asgard. Right then she was just a girl who’d lost people she loved more than anything in all the realms.
I could certainly relate to that.
“It’s okay.” Hyro squirmed her way out of my embrace and offered a small smile. “It was a few months ago. It hurts less every day.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I murmured words I’d spoken a thousand times before. After a beat, I looked up at Henrik in alarm. “This happened a few months ago? Did you hear anything about it?”
He shook his head with a frown. “No. That’s really strange. We should have picked up on an atmospheric shift like that. If Ull didn’t see a change in the winter weather patterns, then Tyr should have noticed the increase in soldier strength. Or Freya should have felt the heartbreak of everyone who lost their loved ones. Or…”
“Great Odin.” I tugged at my ponytail. “So many levels of our security should have picked up on this. How did we miss it?”
“Surtr went to a lot of trouble to cover it up,” Hyro offered. “There were no messages sent; he censored all the outgoing communications to make sure nobody let it out. And I don’t know how your weather and heartbreak trackers work, but the rumor was he had one of our wizards cloak the entire region. Don’t feel too bad about not seeing it—he didn’t want you to.”
“Guess that explains it,” Henrik murmured, at the same time as I hissed at him, “Fire giants have wizards?”
Förbaskat.
“Hyro, you look way too young to be living on your own. Who’s taking care of you?” I asked.
“I am.” Hyro gave a sad smile, and my heart tugged. She shook her head. “Don’t worry about me—I miss my parents, yeah. But the censors thought I was home that day. They tallied me in the lost count. I’m off the grid now, so I get to do whatever I want.”
“Including helping Asgardians?” Henrik raised one eyebrow. “Why would you do that? And don’t say it’s for the rubies. We both know you could have asked a lot more of Forse, and he’d have sent it. We really will pay you back, I swear.”
“I know you will. I can tell you’re good guys.” Hyro stared at her toes. “Surtr blamed my family for what happened. Somebody caused that explosion—maybe even opened a portal to Helheim. But it sure wasn’t my parents.”
“Then who did?” I mused.
“No idea.” Hyro shrugged. “Do you want to hear about your friend?”
Henrik and I exchanged a glance. We could come back to the volcano talk later, when we were alone. Right now, Freya was our top pri
ority.
I took a deep breath and nodded at Hyro, knowing her next words could mean the difference between peace and chaos across the cosmos. “Tell us what you know.”
CHAPTER TEN
HYRO HELD HER HAND up to her face. Her chipped purple fingernails looked dirty in the light. In that moment, I resolved to send her two dozen rubies. Three dozen, maybe. It had to be a living nightmare to exist off the grid in a realm filled with fire breathing giants.
“’Kay.” She glanced up. “This morning I saw dragons flying over the grove.”
“Dragons in Muspelheim?” Henrik’s back stiffened.
“Weird, right? I haven’t seen them here since I was little, so I got curious. I lost the first ones, but another group came in behind them, then another. There were enough that I was able to follow their trail all the way to the volcano.”
“Did they see you?” I asked. Fire giants and dragons were allies, I guessed because of the whole fire element thing. But I didn’t know how far that friendship went. Or what it would cost Hyro if she ratted them out.
“Nope. My traveling cloak matches the soot in that area. Their eyes are bad enough they’d think I was just part of the dirt from that distance.”
Fair enough.
“So what did they do once they got to the volcano?” I winced as my leg throbbed anew. Heal, already.
“They circled it for a good five minutes, and then I got this really creepy feeling up and down my back, and I started to feel sick.” Hyro rubbed her abdomen, as if she was reliving it.
“Dark magic,” Henrik muttered to me. I nodded. Whenever I was exposed, I felt the exact same way.
“What happened next?” I prodded.
“There was this flash of light, and this purple haze formed around the top of the volcano. I contacted Forse as soon as I could, and told him a portal had opened.”
Henrik nodded. “What happened after the haze formed?”
