Betraying Destiny (The Omega Prophecy Book 3)

by Nora Ash

  I pushed up beside Annabel, ensuring I was a half-step ahead of her when we stepped into the clearing, my right hand resting on the hilt of the dagger on my left hip.

  Silence spread like a wave through the ravens. The ones closest to us ruffled their feathers and hissed. When I pushed forward, they reluctantly hopped a few steps backward. Low curses followed our path as the sea of black cleaved in front of us, leaving the way to the oak free.

  “Sorry,” Annabel kept muttering as we passed raven after raven, and I rolled my eyes at her genuinely apologetic tone. I’d always gotten on well with animals, but ravens? Rats of the skies, as far as I was concerned. Gossiping rats, at that. At least dead ones didn’t shit everywhere.

  When we finally stopped in front of the barren oak, one of the larger ravens on the top branches flapped its wings and took off, swooping down in a graceful spiral.

  “Away!” it squawked, and the sixteen birds on the lowest hanging branch closest to us took off with a fluttering of wings. The large one—undoubtedly their leader—landed where they’d been and peered down at us with its black, beady eyes, focusing first on me, then Annabel, and finally on Mimir in her arms.

  “Well, well. A godling, a human, and a prophet. The start of a fine pun, if I am not mistaken.” It laughed, a hideous sound. “Is that why you have come? To entertain us?”

  I didn’t miss the predatory gleam in its eye as it looked us over once more, and I curled my lip in silent warning.

  “Alas. We are not here for sport, wise one,” Mimir said smoothly. “Not today.”

  “Pity,” the bird said, its attention remaining on Annabel long enough that I put a hand on her shoulder and let a plume of my magic rise up behind her—a reminder that there was no easy prey to be had.

  The raven only laughed again, drawing goosebumps down my back. “Oh! The little human is your mate, godling? How deliciously horrible. If you are not here for sport, then I suppose that is the reason. She died tragically, and you seek a way to return her to the living?” Its tone was filled with exaggerated sympathy.

  Pecking. Always pecking.

  “The winds told another story,” another bird squeaked from high above—a female, judging by its higher pitch. It took off and glided down to the lower branch, landing effortlessly next to the other raven. “Of a human girl brought to Hel by the son of mist and shadows. Tricked to her death and stalked by the evil male determined to see the job through.”

  “And how did the wind come up with such tales?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the female.

  She clucked—an amused sound—and turned her head to stare at me. “Oh, that little tidbit the winds seem to have picked up by the side of a pond, from a poor water nymph who barely escaped the dark beast with her life. She was trying to save the human girl from her killer, but he interfered before she could.”

  The water Huldra.

  “S-She was trying to save me?” Annabel choked by my side.

  I’d only hunted for the blasted thing long enough to ensure she wouldn’t return before we’d continued on our journey, a decision I now regretted as the female raven lit up with cruel mirth.

  “Did he tell you otherwise, dear girl? Ah, a child of Loki with a tongue dipped in poisonous lies. How… predictable.”

  “We do indeed seek your wisdom for a way out of this realm,” Mimir broke in before I could spear the feathered rat with a scathing reply. “It is no secret that if one seeks an impossible answer, the only question must be to a raven.”

  A cawing echoed from the field around us and up through the mighty oak. Laughter.

  “Oh, how he flatters,” the female bird cooed, nudging the leader.

  “He can flatter as much as he pleases,” the male bird said. “There is no escape from Hel, not for the dead, or we would all have left a long time ago. Our answer to you, prophet, is the same as when Frigg herself came to plead for our help: What is dead will remain so. The only way out is on Naglfar, as a bound soldier for the Queen of Death when she sails across the sea to lay siege to the mortal shores—a fate I promise you is far, far worse than remaining here.”

  “Well, that is the thing… The girl isn’t entirely dead,” Mimir said. “She has eaten an apple from Idunn’s garden. She can leave—if we find a way for her to do so before it is too late.”

  “Ooooh,” the female crooned. “How interesting.”

  “Very interesting,” the male agreed. They both studied Annabel as if she were a new and puzzling trinket.

  “Is there a way?” Annabel asked. “I need to get back as soon as possible.”

  Mimir cleared his throat, a wordless reminder to let him do the talking.

  “Needs to get back, does she?” the leader croaked. “My, my, my. But what will she pay?”

  “Pay?” Annabel asked, her voice wavering.

  “Whispers are not free, little immortal mortal,” the female said. “What will you give in return for a way home?”

  “What… What do you want?”

  I grimaced. That was about the worst possible thing she could have said to the greedy vultures.

  “Ooooh,” the female crooned again, echoed by raspy laughter from the tree above. “An eye, my dear.”

  “Or perhaps a heart,” the male supplied.

  “A shiny trinket,” the female said.

  “A magical rose,” the male said, cawing a rough laugh.

  “You know of a way, then?” Mimir interrupted. “One which does not involve servitude to Hel?”

  “We do,” the leader said. “But not for free.”

  “All I have to offer is this.” Annabel shifted Mimir to one arm and pulled out a small metallic circle—the ring she’d placed on my finger. I bit the inside of my cheek to avoid voicing a protest. As much as I shuddered at the idea of an item of such power in the ravens’ possession, at least she wouldn’t be using it on me again if she bargained it here.

  “Oooh,” the leader of the ravens hummed. “Dwarven magic. Now that… that might be worth a whisper.” He set off, flapped his wings once, and landed on Annabel’s shoulder. His feathers mixed perfectly into those adorning her armor as he leaned forward to study the ring closer. “Give me that ring, human girl, and I will tell you of a way out of Hel.”

  “Tell us the way first, wise raven,” Mimir said before Annabel could comply, “and you will have your trinket.”

  The leader squawked. “You expect trickery and deceit, old man? I am half in mind to take insult. We have made a bargain with the girl. We will fulfill it.”

  “And once you have upheld your end, we will ours,” Mimir said mildly.

  Annabel closed her hand around the ring. “After,” she agreed, having apparently wised up to the nature of these cretins at last.

  The female raven hissed, and the male tightened its claws on Annabel’s shoulder enough to make her grimace, but he relented. “Fine. Whisper first. Then the price. But be warned that you will not leave without payment.

  “There is a boat. A small, ancient vessel perched by the sea separating Hel from the lands of the living. It can carry a living being across. If they survive the waters.”

  “No,” Annabel said. I could hear the frustration in her voice. “No there is not.”

  “No?” the female asked, voice sharp. “We offer you a whisper, and you tell us no?”

  “The boat is gone. Broken. Tell us of another way,” Annabel said, her voice turning sharp as well. Commanding.

  “We have already traded our secrets, mortal,” the leader said, and there was enough danger in his tone that I turned halfway in preparation to smack him off her shoulder and spear him with a dagger, should he decide to attack. “That you don’t believe us is not our concern. Now, the ring.”

  “Unfortunately, the girl speaks the truth,” Mimir interjected. “We saw the boat destroyed before our eyes. Our bargain was for a way out of Hel. Broken timber on a stony beach is not a way. Now, please—do you know of another path for us?”

  The oak tree whooshed
with the rustling of black feathers and hissed curses.

  “Trickery,” the female on the low branch snarled. “Twisty words. We can take your trinket, prophet. And your eyes and tongues and hearts along with it.”

  “I would advise against attempting that,” Mimir said mildly. “The little mortal has an awful lot of magic running through her. And her mate… Well, as you know, he is Loki’s offspring. It would be much safer for us all if you fulfil our bargain and we simply give you what you are owed.”

  Another whooshing hiss from the tree. And a long, pregnant silence.

  “They could ask Hel,” a raven from a few branches up called down. “The queen could grant them passage.”

  “She could. But she never has,” the leader cawed. “She would likely claim their souls for the audacity of asking.”

  “She is your sister. Is she not?” the female asked, turning her focus to me. “Perhaps if you asked—”

  “No,” I bit, not letting her finish her question.

  “Ah. No familial bonds, then?” she cooed. “No sense of sibling loyalty? What a pity.”

  I didn’t deign to answer.

  “Perhaps…” the male raven started, then paused. He looked from Annabel to me. “If the winds spoke true, you brought the girl to Hel. You ended her life. Yet now, you stand side by side. Mated. Tell me, son of Loki… has love touched that frozen heart of yours?”

  A pit opened deep in my gut. I didn’t move a muscle, even as I sensed Annabel shift beside me. A flutter of something touched our bond from her side of the wall I’d erected.

  “I am not one of your whispers, raven,” I snapped. “Find your gossip elsewhere.”

  The female cawed a throaty laugh. “So prickly, this one. So scared of showing his soft, fleshy bits.”

  The male chuckled along with her. “If it has, prickly one, there may just be a way to undo what you’ve done to that poor little mate of yours.”

  “Oooh, you mean—?” the female clucked. “Yes. She could… If he loves her. She might.”

  “Have you found love in Hel, Lokisson?” the male cawed, his dark eyes twinkling. “Did you kill the only woman in any of the nine worlds who could ever defrost the ice in your chest?”

  “Stop mocking him,” Annabel snarled, shifting her shoulder and twisting sharply enough to dislodge the raven. He only cackled and gave a lazy flap of his wings, landing safely on the lowest branch next to the female.

  Annabel’s soft hand slid into mine, clutching tightly. “You don’t have to answer that,” she said quietly before she turned back to the birds. “If that is the only way that doesn’t involve Hel, then fine. Tell us who this ‘she’ is you mentioned, and where we can find her, and I will give you my ring.”

  “It might only be a way if he loves you,” the female warned, that same cruel gleam in her eyes. “Don’t return to us claiming foul play should she be unwilling to aid a man who doesn’t love the woman he has claimed.”

  “If this person is able to help us, I’ll convince her. One way or the other,” Annabel snapped. “Now tell us.”

  “So feisty,” the female laughed. “Is that the problem, Mistborn? She brings shame to you? Such a bad, willful omega. A stain on any alpha’s reputation.”

  I bared my teeth at the bird, ridiculous urges to defend my mate rushing to the surface. But I managed to keep silent. What the ravens thought of her, or me, was unimportant. Besides, they weren’t entirely wrong. As far as subservient omegas went, Annabel was a complete failure.

  There was nothing shameful about that.

  “Who?” Annabel growled. “And where?”

  “So impatient, little human,” the male raven cawed. “Very well. You seek the Goddess of Love. She resides in a glade straight west of here, singing such mournful songs the trees around her weep. Follow those tunes, and you will find her.”

  By my side, Annabel went utterly still. “Freya?” she whispered in abject horror. “Freya is here? In Hel?”

  Fifteen

  Annabel

  “How did a goddess get kidnapped to Hel, and no one knew about it?” I stomped my way through the underbrush, anger fueling my pace. “For fuck’s sake, someone must have known! Sensed it…”

  I trailed off as something dawned on me, and I spun around to face Grim.

  “Did you know? Is this another part of that grand plan your ex-ally set up to end everything that was ever good?”

  Grim only looked at me, his features stony.

  “He won’t be able to tell you if he did,” Mimir reminded me. “The binding spell he is under is ironclad. And mine too, for that matter.”

  I bared my teeth and hissed. “Is it that easy? Exiling gods and prophets to Hel, and silencing those who know about it?”

  “No,” Mimir said. “It is not easy. Very few—”

  He broke off on a gargle, as if someone had snapped his windpipe shut. I gave him a concerned look, but the choking fit was over as swiftly as it started.

  “Damned spell,” he croaked, eyes still watering.

  Whoever was behind this was powerful; I already knew that. But if few were powerful enough to kidnap a goddess—or a prophet—to Hel, then at least that narrowed down the list. Too bad I didn’t know who might fit those parameters.

  “I don’t suppose either of you will be able to name everyone who might be strong enough for this bullshit?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid not, plum,” Mimir said. “But perhaps Freya can help. We should keep moving. The sooner we get to her, the better.”

  Grim didn’t speak to me for the rest of our journey through the woods that day. I wondered if he was quietly brooding over what the ravens had said—that he had doomed his own mate to Hel, and that loving me might be the only way to save me. That unbreakable wall separating our bond was proof my newest mate struggled with intimacy and soft emotions. I wondered if he felt regret now. And I wondered if he did—love me, that is.

  If he’d even know.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the darkhaired alpha. His focus was on scanning our surroundings, but every once in a while I felt his eyes rest on me, heat trailing up my spine in response.

  It was easy for me, relatively speaking. I’d been through this four times before, and with Grim—that extra layer of being his soulmate had made it effortless to give in to the tug on my heart from my new bond. I knew what love felt like.

  It was a lot less likely that he did.

  As if sensing my attention, my broody mate shifted his focus to me. Pleasant warmth spread through my chest when our eyes met, and I gave him a half-smile. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t there yet. Freya would help us. And hopefully, we could help her in return.

  Grim didn’t return my smile, but the intensity in his eyes deepened as he took me in for another heartbeat. Then he returned his attention to the woods surrounding us.

  I too turned my focus to the path ahead, something akin to relief fluttering in my chest. Soon we would be back in Asgard. Soon the aching hollows in my soul would spring back alive, and together, we would find out who was behind this whole nightmare and put a stop to them.

  We traveled through the woodlands for three days without coming across weeping trees or goddesses of love.

  Every night when we made camp, Grim would light a fire even though it brought us no warmth, and then instruct me to practice refining my powers. Despite his silence during our travels—and his less-than-enthusiastic approach to the role of teacher—once I proclaimed I didn’t have it in me to light another branch on fire or drill yet another hole through whatever hapless rock was nearby, he would come to my side, strip me bare, and let me teach him about love. Or refuel my powers, as he called it. But I knew, in those intensely intimate minutes when the wall he’d put between us came crashing down and our souls merged, that being with me was anything but an objectionable task to him.

  Sometimes he was gentle, sometimes rough, but his mind always, always sang my name with such reverence before his knot forced my mind back to
the present, and our souls separated even as our bodies locked together.

  Every morning when I woke up, even though Grim was always awake and crouched by the fire, my skin was still chilled from where he’d held me through the night.

  On the third day—sometime in the afternoon, as far as I could judge—our journey west came to an abrupt halt as a deep, wide ravine opened up in front of us like a gaping wound.

  I peered down the steep cliff. Far, far below, I could make out gray crowns of trees covering the bottom of it, interrupted by large, sharp-looking rock formations. On the other side of the canyon, the woods continued.

  “Uh… I don’t remember the ravens mentioning anything about a ravine,” I pointed out, frowning at Grim as he took in the steep fall.

  “They likely wouldn’t have thought much of it,” Mimir said. “They’d just fly over.”

  “So we’re not lost? Just screwed?” I reined in my frustration and turned to look up and down the deep scar. Neither direction showed where it might close. “I assume there’s not some easy magic trick to getting down this side and then up that one?”

  “No,” Grim said, his eyes narrowing as he too looked first left, then right. “Without a bird’s costume, we are not crossing.”

  I remembered the feathered costumes Freya had given him and Bjarni when we first came to Asgard. They’d sure come in handy now.

  “So… we go around,” I sighed. “But which way is faster?”

  “South,” Grim said. “We go south.”

  “I wouldn’t advise that,” a hoarse, creaking voice said from somewhere behind us.

  I jolted, nearly losing my footing on the edge of the ravine, but Grim grabbed me by the shoulder and yanked me back and behind him. His daggers were in his hands in the blink of an eye.

  “Show yourself!” he growled. Darkness welled up around him, partly blocking my view of the forest.