“Yes. Let’s. It’ll be faster if I carry you.”
He lifts me again and starts walking through the dark and eerily still grass. The silence of this place doesn’t encourage conversation, but I can’t help it. I have so many questions.
“Who are you, Styx? I mean, really.”
He gives me a sidelong look. “Are you sure you don’t mean what?”
When I don’t say anything he sighs. “When you said ‘alien beastie’ before, you weren’t far off. I come from another place—”
“A different planet?” I interrupt.
“Well, yes. But not just a different world, a different place entirely.”
“A pocket universe.”
“If you like.” His lips twist sardonically. “Though if anything, yours is the pocket universe. Mine is much, much older.”
“What is it like?”
He frowns. “I can’t describe it in terms that would mean anything to you, but this”—he nods at the landscape surrounding us—“is a very small taste of what it is like there.”
“And your people? Are they all like you?”
“Just like most living beings, magical or otherwise, our appearance, powers and talents take different shapes. But all of my people can affect what you call the weather, manipulating the natural energy of the world around us, whatever that may be. We don’t just manipulate it, we consume it. My people crave energy, in any and every form.”
“So death is the particular energy you crave?”
“I don’t eat death, I eat life.”
This makes me frown. “Like witches.”
He looks down at me. “In a way, yes. I’ve always wondered about that.”
“But I can’t send someone here the way you do. When I consume a soul, it’s just . . . gone.”
He nods. “My guess is since your lives are far more finite than my kind, you don’t have the power to convert the soul the way I do, though you do so in your own way.”
“From life to magic,” I breathe in a flash of understanding.
He nods again.
“But why the lake then?” I say slowly, still sorting things out. “Why did you become Mishipeshu?”
“I love water.” Again he indicates the landscape around us. “It was rare on our original world. Plus, when there is a large enough volume in one place, it is a way to silence the cravings for a while, to drown them.”
In front of us a huge shadow forms out of nowhere. It’s a monstrous giant with fire for eyes.
Sweat drips down an oddly formed body that reminds me of a badly illustrated book of Greek myths I had as a child. He’s even wearing the required loincloth and carrying a club the size of a school bus in one hand. He lifts it above his head, opening his mouth. His teeth are jagged and broken. A half-rotted skull is hanging off of one.
“Go away, Ymir,” Styx says calmly.
The giant pauses midroar, his eyes widening as they take in the man holding me. Just like when we were in Asgaard, Styx’s Fenrir form is visible, a shadow stalking behind us, a beast on a leash. With one startled yelp, the giant deflates like a balloon with a pinprick. Seconds later, he scampers away, out of sight, through the tall purple grass.
I let out a relieved squeak.
Styx looks down at me, then laughs softly. “Carly, he couldn’t have hurt you even if I weren’t with you. Ymir just likes to scare people. It gets pretty boring down here for creatures who are used to physical bodies. They have to adjust to being spirit and that is not easy.”
I consider his words, pondering something I’ve never really pondered before: the reality of death.
“Persephone never said anything about this place,” I say a few minutes later.
“That’s because your sister was never here,” he mutters, looking around. Shadows are trying to form again, just like with the giant Ymir, but wherever his gaze falls, they die away.
“Come again? Seph did die.”
“In a matter of speaking,” he says dryly.
“Hey.” I poke his chest. “My sister beat death. She beat you.”
“It’s not a competition, sweetheart. But . . .” Styx sighs. “Persephone didn’t really beat me.”
Twisting in his arms, I raise an eyebrow.
“Seph was a rebirth. She was never in Hel,” he explains somewhat impatiently. “She’s the queen of spring, by your mother’s own prophecy and magical design.”
“Yeah. And that’s why she beat death.” I can’t resist rubbing it in a little. It seems to be getting to him.
He rolls his eyes. “No, it was Persephone’s brand of magic combined with Frost’s binding spell that allowed her soul to be reborn into her own body, but only because it never truly left the mortal plane in the first place.”
I frown. “Like reincarnation?”
He frowns back. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but let’s say yes. Seph was a ghost, Carly. Ghosts are nothing more than trapped souls. They fight, refusing to be eaten. Only FTC souls are strong enough to do this.” He meets my eyes, letting it sink in that the man I love tried to eat my sister’s soul. And failed. After a beat, he continues. “Add in the tangled way her soul was tied to Frost’s by every means magical and you have a very unique circumstance. The entire time she was dead, Seph was actually tethered to life. Without those tethers, and Oriane using Frost’s blood to kick-start her spell—”
“What about Jack?” I interrupt, trying to sort this out. “Seph brought him back to life.”
He shakes his head. “No, she didn’t.”
“Come again?”
“Frost wasn’t really dead either. Your sister yanked him back to his body just in time—not that he wasn’t fighting me every step of the way, too.” He mutters something under his breath about stubborn assholes.
I stare at him, trying to absorb the depth of this double life he’s been leading. He was always one step ahead of the rest of us. Knowing what happened as it happened. Even . . . Georg?
No. I can’t ask that. I won’t.
Instead, I change the subject. “Why don’t you want Odin to have the Eitr? You said your people gave it to him in the first place.”
“My people decided Odin was no longer worthy of such power. They took it away a long time ago. That’s what the war was about. He wanted to start over, tear it all down except for himself and his son. A clean slate. My people aren’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but even they drew the line at mass genocide just because their pet decided he wanted another shot at the Etch A Sketch of life. He went after all of us who had taken up residence in his realms.”
“Couldn’t your people have just crushed his resistance?”
“Perhaps if we were willing to go all out, but we weren’t. You must understand, Carly, it wasn’t like Odin announced his intentions. He made it seem as if we were the ones who wanted to destroy all that he’d built. And there are far, far more of you than there are of us. My whole race wouldn’t even fill one of your football stadiums. Plus, after a certain loss of life, it was deemed an unacceptable risk. We would cut our losses and leave. We retreated over the bridge we’d created from our world to yours. We’d already destroyed the ones to Odin’s other realms. Loki helped with that.” He frowns. “Only Earth tethered us to your plane. But a thief snuck through just as we were preparing to leave. They got away with the Eitr and I chased them back over the bridge.
“I won. But the Eitr fell into the sea during our battle. We couldn’t risk leaving it behind. Someone had to stay to see that Odin never found it again.”
“You.”
“Yes. It took me a very long time to locate the Eitr. But that’s another thing I am good at.”
“Finding things?”
“Hunting.”
The look in his eyes makes the back of my neck prickle. “So you kept him from realizing his dream.”
“Yes.” But the rage in Odin’s face keeps coming back to me. It seemed so very personal.
After a beat, I say, “He hates you an awful l
ot.”
“It’s a mutual thing.”
I hesitate but only for an instant. My instincts are rarely wrong. “It must have been hard on him, losing his son in the war.”
“Baldr made his choice. He was even worse than Odin.” His lips tighten. “He was the thief that knocked the Eitr out of my hands on the bridge.”
I suck in a slow breath. I knew it. “So you killed him, killed him? You didn’t just eat his soul?”
“I did both.” He sighs. “It was war. I killed a lot of people.”
“And all over the Eitr?” I finger the bottle that’s still in my pocket.
Styx nods shortly.
“So why not just destroy it then?”
He sighs again. “It’s the substance of creation. You can’t just throw it into a trash compactor. By myself, even I wasn’t capable of that.”
“So you were protecting it.”
“Yes, until someone stole it from me, ages ago.” Golden eyes flick to mine. “I’m beginning to think that someone was your mother.”
Oh.
“She and I need to have a chat, Carly.”
Oh. When I don’t say anything to that, his jaw tightens. But really, what can I say?
It’s entirely possible that he’s right. Besides, I also have some questions for my mother. Like why she sent me into Asgaard to effectively start a war. I lay my head on Styx’s shoulder, tired of talking. There will be plenty of that soon enough.
I get a brief glimpse of gates rising high in front of us, like spiky grey-and-black lace, then Styx is stepping through them. In the next heartbeat, we’re back on Trolltunga as if the whole trip to Asgaard and the side jaunt to Hel never happened.
But it did.
And now a god wants to kill me and my family.
Again. It’s almost like something in the universe is trying to wipe out witches, to erase a cosmic mistake.
I’m not going to let that happen.
I don’t know how, but together my sisters and I will figure it out. Hopefully my mother will be right there with us, but for the first time in my entire life, I am not sure where her loyalties lie.
At the look on my face, Styx lets me slide to my feet without another word.
The entire hike back down the mountain is a quiet one. It’s nearly sundown and the jaw-dropping scenery is backlit by a fiery sky, but to me it looks like everything is covered in blood.
The blood of war.
16
It’s only when we’re back in the hotel that I resume our conversation. I saw the way she looked at me in Odin’s court, then again when we got back to the mountain. That spark of hope I was holding on to is fading fast. I knew she’d have to face the reality of who I am.
It may be possible to love a monster. But I’m not sure it’s possible to love death. As the truth sinks in, she’ll start to think about things. People she’s lost. Or will lose. I can see it happening already. All of that will continually slice at the connection between us until eventually there is nothing left.
A slow death.
How very fucking fitting.
I should have walked away when I had the chance. It’s too late now.
“Odin will never leave you alone now, you realize that. I can protect myself, but you . . .” I curse and stab a hand through my hair. “How the fuck did you do that, Carly?”
“Do what?” Carly isn’t looking at me, and her reply is soft and calm and a bit weary.
“You know what. You tried to eat his fucking soul.”
“It’s what witches do. If anyone should understand, apparently it’s you.” She gives me an arch look.
“But you didn’t touch him. Witches have to touch their victims.”
“Not this one.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since I was six years old.” The tone of her voice gives me pause. Having seen Carly’s soul, I know she endured trauma at a young age. Fleeing her father, losing her sisters and having a part-time, time-hopping mother. I didn’t see anything else, other than a depth of love for life that sucked me in immediately. Now I wonder. Did that depth come from knowing what it was like to take a life, to end one before you were even old enough to understand what living was?
“Carly—”
She cuts me off with a wave of her hand. “I don’t want to talk about it, not right now. I want to know what made you follow me into Asgaard. Did you think I couldn’t handle myself?”
“What? Of course not! I saw the Eitr, and it’s a damn good thing I did follow you. Gods, I can’t believe you almost killed Odin.”
She folds her arms over her chest. “If you hadn’t crashed the party, maybe Odin would never have known who you are.”
And she wouldn’t have had to face who I am either. Not completely.
“Those bells were an alarm set for you, weren’t they?” she continues, her gaze direct and disconcertingly sharp. This is not vague, sweet Carly. This is the Carly I’ve only gotten a few peeks at over the past year, the flash of steel under the softness.
“In a manner of speaking. Since I wasn’t invited, I had to enter Asgaard through Hel. He must have set a fucking alarm.”
“How long has it been since you’ve actually entered the underworld?”
“Over a millennia.” I still eat the souls; I just don’t guide them across the way I used to. I spit them at Hel, and she lets them through the gates. You might say the whole death operation has been downsized since the war.
“You should’ve waited for me to come out.” She sets her backpack on the bed, rolling her shoulders tiredly. My rage cools enough that I see how white and strained she looks, her freckles standing out starkly, her eyes huge. When I reach for her, though, she holds up a warning hand.
I stare at it in confusion for a moment. Carly doesn’t want me to touch her? For six months, she’s done nothing but try to get me to touch her.
Obviously, things have changed.
I swallow hard. “And let you hand over the Eitr? Did you have any idea what it was or what it can do? What did your mother tell you about it anyway?”
“I don’t think I would’ve handed it over, actually. And yes, I knew it was the Eitr, though no, I wasn’t real clear on what it did or why exactly Odin wanted it. Because to answer your last question, not much. As always.” She sinks to the bed, jaw clenched, and it hits me. Carly isn’t acting like this because of me. Her trust in her mother has finally been shaken.
“Baby.” I sit next to her on the bed. She shifts away. For the second time since we came here, I realize how much it hurts to have someone you love avoid your touch. How it seems to slice you wide open, leaving your insides exposed and your blood cold.
Fuck, I have been such a cruel bastard.
I swallow hard and keep my hands to myself. “What did she tell you?”
After a few beats, Carly answers, but she’s not looking at me. She’s staring straight ahead at the wall, as if she’s not really talking to me, but still working things out in her own head. “She said the Eitr had been lost a long time ago and it was time to return it to its proper owner.”
My hands tighten into fists on my thighs as I struggle not to interrupt her. But Carly gives me a sidelong look anyway.
“What?”
“Lost. Your mother is a piece of work.”
She frowns. “How do you know it was her who took it from you? What about the Vasilisas? That’s who Ana got it from, you know.”
My hands tighten into fists. I wondered how the thief managed to hide the Eitr from me for so long. Firebird magic. It acts as a dampener for other forms of energy. “They couldn’t have had it for more than a few centuries. The Eitr disappeared well before their time.”
She throws up her hands. “Why would she take it, Styx? Why would she steal the Eitr, hide it for centuries, all to have me hand it over to Odin?”
“I have no idea.” But I certainly intend to find out.
She extends the bottle in her hand. “So just take the damn th
ing if it’s so important. Go hide it in the underworld or something.”
My fingers curl around the familiar edges. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, for the gods’ sakes, why not?”
“If the Eitr were released in Hel, it would mean the end of worlds.” I shudder once, feeling the tug of the substance inside. “You can’t create life in the midst of death. It’s the flip side of two coins again. You’d cause . . . Think of a magical black hole.” I sigh at her blank look. “Maybe I should start from the beginning.”
“That would be refreshing.” I flinch at the bitterness lacing her tone. Carly is never bitter, even when she has every right to be. My shoulders tighten as I try to find the words.
“My people gave Odin the Eitr. Kind of like a toy for a precocious child. A science kit, let’s say.”
“Is that what we are to you? An experiment?” She stares at me. “Is that what death is to you? Something you play at, like some D&D campaign? You’re no better than Odin!”
I close my eyes, trying to not to let her see how much that hurts. But of course she knows. Her hand on mine makes me open them again. “I’m sorry. That was so unfair. I know you’re not like that . . . like him. I’m just— This is all—”
“I know.” I squeeze her hand. “But I don’t play at death, Carly, and I don’t control it. Other than one bruin duke, it’s been a very, very long time since I’ve even been the cause of it.”
She stares at me. “When you told me before that you were not a god, that wasn’t exactly true, was it?”
“It wasn’t exactly a lie either,” I murmur.
“No. I suppose you wouldn’t see it that way.” She looks thoughtful. “You’re more like the god of gods.”
“That’s fair enough.” The next question is a hard one, but I need to know. “Does it matter what I am?” Waiting for her answer has my stomach in knots. Tight, slippery, cold ones.
Her lips twist. “You can’t quite trust that my love is for real, can you?”
“Carly—”
“No, you silly monster,” she says softly, laying a hand over my lips. “It’s never mattered.”
When I reach for her this time, there is no resistance. I bury my face in her hair and just breathe. I believe her. I really do.
Magpies & Moonshine (Toil and Trouble Book 6) Page 9
