Chapter 37
We landed in a valley blanketed in moss, ancient layers of rock and lichen scattering at the beat of the jelmadag’s wings.
I slipped off the creature’s side, landing on an onyx sandbank.
My muscles flinched at the impact. Frigid wind ripped off the rugged slopes, some of the peaks so high they kissed the circling dark clouds.
The air pulsed with power, feral and raw.
“Tórsmork,” the demon offered. “Land of the Gods.”
Solid name. The mountains themselves were so breathtaking it was almost holy. Shallow grooves meandered through the vale, carrying the runoff from the ice caps.
Crouching on the damp bank, I peered into a glistening stream.
My haggard reflection stared back. Mouth tight, lip split, brow bones bruised—murderous.
I cupped my hands in the bone-chilling water, unable to stand the look of myself.
I splashed my face, scrubbing at the dirt smattering my cheeks, picking out the dried blood beneath my fingernails.
Just like the blood of Flóki.
I shot backwards, tripping over my feet, my chest tightening, nearly cutting off my breath. I was exactly what the Coffin Seeker had claimed I was. A murderer, a kindred spirit in death—
Do not be so hard on yourself. The jelmadag let out a steamy exhale. We all do what we need to do.
“I’m just like them.” I bit back a sob. The grief had sunk its teeth into me, and now that it had latched on, it’d soon tear me to shreds, the sharp ache of it clawing at my heart, my stomach. “My instinct was to kill.”
“Your instinct was to protect.” A black tongue darted out, lapping up a shiny beetle. “You would be wise not to confuse the two.”
“I suppose,” I grumbled.
Turning to face the demon, I spotted a gaping hole in the mountainside. The mouth of a cave, etchings in the stone—indecipherable, at this distance, aside from the obvious circle with the four-pointed star in the center. The Empyrean symbol for earth.
I tossed my chin in its direction. “That it, then?”
“Tórsmork, Land of the Gods and Throne of the Earth.”
Jarearbaeli. Gaia’s lair—more like tomb, after what Kistuleitarinn had done. Pretty sure I caught the pale glint of a femur from where I was standing.
Wiping my hands on my thighs, I walked around the jelmadag’s midnight silhouette, the soil squishing beneath my tread.
“I dare not go any closer,” he said.
Halting, I tossed over my shoulder, “What will you do?”
“Go home.” Home. Even the wildest of beasts had a place where they belonged, a place they dreamed of. “But first, a farm. I’m hungry.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Will you fight for them?” I asked, Flóki’s evil grin still at the forefront of my thoughts. “Despite what happened in the arena?”
“I will do what I am ordered to do, Angel of Water,” he replied diplomatically.
“Got it.” My shoulders fell. “Well… thank you for not eating me, and not taking me to them.”
He nodded. “I only returned a favor.”
Bearing his weight on his knees, he brought his belly to the ground, positioning himself to spring.
“Wait.” My hand shot forward, as if I could stop him from leaving. “What’s your name?”
“I am a jelmadag, lesser demon of Chthonia, bound and born to serve the Scale of Six.”
“No, not what you are. Who you are. Your name. What people call you.”
“I—that—” Words had never been a struggle for this beast. “That is not part of my identity.”
I blinked. “You don’t have a name?”
All dozen eyes blinked back. Snowcapped mountains twinkled in their reflections, and the threads of a conversation I’d had spun together in my mind: Gunnar in his blue uniform, something undeserving twinkling in his eyes…
a jumble of words spoken on an icy cliffside.
People care about you. You’re what we call a Skaert Ljós.
God, I should have been nicer. Someone that makes things better. A bright light.
“Ljós.” It rolled off the tongue. “That’s your name. I’ll record it in that book I found about you.” I tilted my head. “I don’t know if it’s fate or coincidence that it was your page lying open on that table in the archives, but I’m glad it was.”
Darkness streaked before his snout, a crack of its flaming tail. “Meeting you has been… the most pleasurable experience I’ve had in one hundred years.”
Cheeks tightening on a smile, I sucked in a ragged breath and stepped back, giving Ljós some runway.
Wings shuddered and spread. Patches of feathers flittered off, dusting the ground. Warm gusts blew the loose moss and sand and the shorter layers of my hair out of my face as his paws left the earth.
And just like that, the demon left, becoming nothing more than a shadow floating through the sky.
Fingers wringing against my sweaty palms, I strode towards Jarearbaeli, ready to meet the ghostly double of myself.
It couldn’t be worse than who I’d already become.