Chapter 31
Heavy smoke stung my nostrils with a sweet, woodsy scent. It was unclear what the source was. In here, it was nothing but stone arches and columns, vaulted ceilings and empty space. No fire, no kindling, nothing to light, yet a haziness fell over the room.
As I batted my hand in front of my face, a dais seemed to rise out of the clouds of smoke. My muscles growing soft and buttery, I stumbled towards it—a twist of silk, a flash of gold.
I kicked a beaded pillow out of the way. Why was that there?
Someone offered me a hand. My chin swerved in their direction, sluggish, slow.
I blinked once, twice, my reflection awed and warped in a pair of glassy black eyes. A bird?
No, not a bird. A mask. A leather mask in the shape of a raven’s head. Their gloved palm hung in midair. Static, waiting, as if it weren’t a limb but a puppet on a string, waiting for someone to give it life.
I took another lungful of air, meant to steady myself, but it only brought in more of those heady fumes. My knees buckled. The raven caught me before I could fall.
One hand around my shoulders to keep me steady, whoever was wearing the mask led me up the small set of stairs.
Another person—also head-to-toe in black, wearing the same medieval mask—split the haze, tendrils of it skittering around them, collecting above their head like a halo.
They set an onyx bowl atop a pedestal. Smoke billowed out of it, creeping over the sides, over the dais, up my nose. Eyes watering, I bit back a cough. My chest caved and jerked.
When I slipped out of the first bird’s grasp, the second was quick to grab my arm. Both righted me and helped me to the top of the dais—a pathetic seven steps, but I might as well have been summiting a mountain. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. Couldn’t think.
Their dark robes masked their bodies, marking them as nothing but living shadows. The smoke swallowed them up, growing thicker, stronger, swirling into the cavernous hall. Cackles rent the air like lightning. A pair of ancient, arctic eyes flashed in my mind. Seeing. Taunting.
“Gaia?” I croaked. “Is that you?”
Heavy air coated my throat.
I dropped to my knees. This time, there was no one there to catch me.
My hand rushed to my mouth. The metallic lines painted onto my arms, my knuckles, every inch of my body, seemed to lift and float away. The shimmering shapes rose and twisted, spilling across the room, tamping down the thick clouds until I could take a proper inhalation.
Crisp oxygen hit my lungs. At the touch of fresh air, blades of grass sprung between my legs. The muted flicker of torchlight became folds of sunshine. And the stone arches crumbled to dust, unveiling a pure blue sky.
The spirit realm. I wasn’t sure what I’d thought it’d look like, but I hadn’t expected this. Quiet, natural. Fields of flowers and meadows. A river, a waterfall. Warm, colorful. Spring. My fear started to recede.
Pushing myself up to standing, I glanced at the ridgeline, the way the mountains cut and dipped into the horizon, the path winding up the side, then back to the valley.
A lone tree—white trunk, white leaves, sweeping white branches—fluttered in the gentle gusts of wind flowing off the canyon walls behind it.
A strong sense of knowing struck my veins, tiny hairs quivering on the back of my neck.
This was the glacier, the kingdom of the elves, except… there was no ice, no castle, no people.
Ryder had explained dimensions to me once—how realms could overlap and share features and coordinates and almost… coexist.
My eyes turned upward. That damned mountain. I grunted. I was really hoping I’d never see it again.
Huffing a piece of hair out of my face, I spun in a circle, scanning the dips and hills, the lichen-tufted rocks, the streamlets trickling through the vale like fingers.
There had to be a sign, an altar, a grove of trees, something to indicate the entrance to Gaia’s hideout, like the notched runes above my mom’s.
Fingers digging into my hips, my nose tipped towards the ground, I walked in lazy, meandering circles.
Hildur had given me zero information—no surprise there. Any details about Jarearbaeli had come from my enemies: Flóki, the Coffin Seeker…
Kistuleitarinn had warned me about the bodies. The inner caves were supposed to be the worst. Caves—she was in a cave, in the highlands. My eyes darted to the falls, to the statuesque cliffs of basalt.
Thunder broke the silence. I whipped in its direction. A mass of rocks tumbled down the mountainside, stone scraping against stone, soil sliding and skittering until they fell into a pile at the bottom. A cloud of dust puffed up into the air.
Those all-seeing, crinkled eyes cracked like a whip across my mind. The same ones from that ogress Gryla’s lair.
I bunched the silky fabric of my dress between my fingers. If the terrain shared the same footprint as the normal world, there would be a cave up there.
Gathering up my skirts, I made my way to the base of the mountain. A gravel path glittered under the sun, smooth and compact, polished, almost inviting. So different than the mess of icy debris I’d had to scale in the real world.
Wind tousled my hair, breezy and balmy.
Small rock towers lined the trail. I’d seen those in the elven kingdom, too.
As I climbed, the air turned thin, each breath stabbing and short. I glanced over my shoulder to the vale unfurling below. I was close, just a few more yards.
I rounded the corner, the hem of my gown hissing against the ground. The overhang and alcove were just where I suspected they’d be, a gaping maw cut into the crag.
On the outskirts of Hamarinn, Gryla’s lair had been abandoned. Here, it was lived in.
Cages dangled from the ceiling, the metal clinking in the breeze. An earthy scent stained the air, smoke spitting from the cauldron like a chimney.
A form—a being—hunched over the pot. Hums drifted from the shadows of their hood, light and spirited.
“Gaia?” The name tasted like sandpaper in my throat.
The humming stopped. I halted, sucking in a breath. Their shoulders stiffened beneath the emerald wool of their cloak, but they gave no response.
My pulse raged in my chest, louder than the wind.
They resumed their quiet melody, undisturbed.
“Gaia?” I tried again. When I was only met with silence, I inched forward. Tipping my chin, I attempted to catch a glimpse of their face. They twisted in the opposite direction, strands of white hair spilling out.
“None by that name here.” It was a woman’s voice, somehow both ancient and young, jarring and smooth.
“Oh.” My heart sank. “Do you know where she is?”
Dumping turquoise powder into a mortar, she spun around to the cauldron, ladling a spoonful of liquid into the vessel.
The flap of her hood dangled over the dark pits of her eyes. “They call it Jarearbaeli.”
They. “Yes.” I dared a step forward. A creature squeaked in its cage. “Can you point me in that direction?”
“You think an old witch knows the path to the angels?” Snatching a pestle off a cluttered table, she ground the tool against the bottom of the bowl.
Emotion pricked at my chest, cutting through the muscle. I breathed out, pushing the air, the pain, away from my heart. “You’re a witch, then.”
She dipped a chalky-white finger into the paste, smearing it against the wall. The… bare wall. No markings, no eyes.
“What’s your name?” While her back was still to me, I peeked into the pot. Smoke curled over the sides. A bone floated to the top.
I shot backwards as she turned and ladled more liquid, more potion—whatever it was—before returning to the wall and working the bright turquoise splatter into two distinct circles.
“Please.” I meant for it to come off strong, but desperation riddled my tone.
“Hildur did me up, tossed me in here, and gave me no other instructions. I’d love some help—” I angled my head as she dunked the tip of a thumb into a different bowl and traced two swooping black lines above the blue.
“If you have any, I’m all ears. Otherwise, I’d better be on my way. ”
“Rushing off already, eh?” The witch clicked her tongue. Another sweep of her stained fingers, another arching black line, this time below the blue. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
Smacking her palms together, she placed her hands on her hips, chin tipped up at her work. Eyes. The same eyes that flashed across my mind, the same eyes in Gr—
She whirled on me then, rotten, jagged teeth reflecting the subtle light. “Gryla hasn’t had a guest in decades.”
Gryla. A scream caught in my throat.
What was she doing here? Hiding?
Hunting?
I staggered towards the mouth of the cave, the soles of my slippers skidding over the stray pebbles.
Gryla was fast, faster than I expected. Her nails cut into my skin—she was yanking my hair so hard my scalp screamed at the pain, and my head snapped back. “It’d be rude not to stay. You came all this way. You must be hungry.”
She threw me into a chair at the end of her wobbly table, the glasses clinking and tipping over, smelly liquid pooling and fizzing on the surface of the wood.
A bowl of soup appeared in front of me, wafting putrid-smelling steam into my face.
Nails, claws, digging into my neck, she snarled, “Eat.”
The vapor tickled my nostrils, carrying the stench of charred flesh and rotten fruit.
There’d been a bone in the cauldron. It didn’t look any different than an animal’s, but…
Bile collected in the back of my throat. I pushed it down. Puking would make her angrier. Puking would make me look weak. I was not weak. Not anymore.
The elves had called Gryla a folktale. I would have said the same about mermaids, yet they were real—and Gunnar and Freyja had tricked them into letting us pass through their waters with nothing but old trinkets and empty compliments.
My pockets were empty, but I had my wits. Maybe I could outsmart the witch—trick her somehow. At least to buy some time to formulate a real plan.
“Mmm, smells delicious,” I lied. “What is this, anyway?”