Chapter 40
The fire danced, hot and wild, leaping towards the sky. Hildur, once a great ruler, was now nothing more than ashes, a whispered tale in the night.
I wiped my cheek, red from the wind, burning from the tears. Where did the elves go when they died?
Did they become the voices of the earth, or the echoes in the mountains, or the twisting strips of green and pink that streaked the sky?
Did they take the dried lupine, the muslin cloth, the branded weapons, all the offerings at their pyres with them into the next life?
Heat from the white-hot flames melted the layer of frost covering the ground. A slosh of mud and snow splashed the bottom of my dress. My hands twisted in the diamond-flecked sapphire fabric.
I’d have shown up in my crusty leathers and unbrushed hair, but Hildur was always one for tradition. So, when Gaia and I returned, I reluctantly took a bath then let Helga curl, cut, clothe, and scold me—No weapons at a funeral, River!—so I could honor the Queen of the Huldufólk one last time.
I righted the thin strap that’d slipped off my shoulder, the tiniest movement stabbing and aching.
My breaths felt like they’d never catch up, each exhale a punch to my rib cage.
The smoke probably didn’t help.
But I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t, despite the service being done and over and the majority of guests now gathered inside the Great Hall, picking at a feast for a Harvest Festival that’d never come—one thing Flóki hadn’t lied to me about.
He hadn’t gotten a pyre, and I didn’t dare ask what the alternative was.
Wind ran its hands through the soft waves of my hair.
A shadow flickered over a broken battlement, the fire casting the lean silhouette of a grieving straggler behind me—beside me.
Emerald-satin fabric brushed against my arm.
My gaze floated to the mountain that towered over the castle, the snow casting its rugged canvas in a shimmer of white. Two striking blue specks flickered along the ridgeline. My breath caught in my throat.
“Gryla,” Freyja growled.
Those curious glacial eyes wavered.
Then they grew smaller, into pinpricks, until they disappeared completely, and I was left wondering if the ogress had really been there at all.
“What will happen to her?” I asked.
“The bargain’s done. She’s free. And if she knows what’s good for her…” Freyja continued, pitching her voice up, “she’ll mind her own damn business!”
The words echoed off the mountain face.
Spine straight, shoulders still, angel senses prickling, I waited for Gryla’s answer—an avalanche, a snarl in the night. When those didn’t come, I said, “Aren’t you worried about your castle? Without her magic, it’s no longer hidden from your enemies.”
“We can’t hide forever.” Freyja curled her hands into fists. “With our Galdur restored, we are more than capable of protecting ískastali without her help. I will make sure of it.”
“Do you think she’ll just…” Goosebumps dressed my arms like a second set of sleeves. “Let everything go?”
“My mom is dead,” she said, but this time, she didn’t fight the grief that’d been sneaking into her tone. “Gryla would be wise to let this feud die with the queen instead of taking it out on her subjects. Regardless… We’ll be monitoring her movements.”
“Freyja.” Her name ripped out of my throat with a cry. “I’m so sorry.”
The princess—the queen—nodded.
“Me too,” she whispered.
Embers popped, stray tinder igniting in a fiery blaze. For a while, it was only the fire that spoke, spitting and whistling in a rhythmic crackle.
“My mother used to tell me when an elf dies, their spirit becomes part of the realm. That we’d be able to hear them on the breeze, feel them in the soil, see them in the stars.”
Lungs aching, I held a sob tight in my chest.
“But,” Freyja continued, her voice breaking, “I don’t hear her, River. I don’t feel her. The sky looks the same.” She turned to me then, cheeks smattered with tears. “Where did she go?”
Biting down on my lip, I shook my head. “I wish I knew.”
“This crown.” Icy metal looped around her wrist, the silver reflecting the dance of the flames. “It’s too heavy. It doesn’t fit my head. I don’t want it. I don’t want this. I can’t do this.”
Part of me wished I had the energy to hype her up, but the truth was, I knew the feeling all too well. Thrust into someone else’s shoes that would never quite fit—that would always feel too big, too bold. Unearned.
Words were failing me, so, instead, I tilted my head and rested it on her shoulder, taking her hand in mine. She squeezed back, her chest caving, shaking, and we watched the wood burn while the Northern Lights twirled above.
A falling star shot across the vast sea of midnight.
“The elves used to worship them—the stars. The brightest ones in the sky were said to be gods.” She sniffled. “Have you decided what to ask of them?”
“What do you mean?”
“You enacted elven law. You survived the brutal games of the Terrordome. By right, you are granted a pardon, a mercy, or a wish.”
My head shot up. “But I didn’t defeat the jelmadag.”
“I don’t think the jelmadag was the real opponent,” she said quietly.
Flóki. His stiff body, blood pooling out beneath him, the sword rigid and right.
“I thought that was just it,” I said, cutting off my own thoughts. “A game. Are the old gods even real?”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
I stared at the fire. The smoke billowed, the flames seeming to snap hotter, wilder with the racing of my heart. Sweat tickled the hairline at the base of my neck. A presence weighed on the night. Powerful, ancient, watching with prying eyes, listening with meticulous ears.
Greed and power, vengeance and darkness pulsed in my veins.
There were no limits, something whispered, straight to my soul—I could do anything I wanted, be anything I wanted. A queen. A god. A legend. A ruler of the realm. Endless control.
“River,” Freyja called. Not my name, but an order.
“Yeah?” A wall of flames filled my vision. “Oh, shit!” I was exactly one step away from being engulfed by the fire, as if I were a simple, mindless moth being drawn to the zapper.
How had I not realized I’d been walking towards it?
Wobbling on my chunky heels, I stumbled back to Freyja’s side. The blood rushed to my head. A tightness seized my chest.
Taking a deep inhale, I glanced over my shoulder. The castle loomed a brilliant icy blue in the night. I’d lived through the fight, made it to Jarearbaeli, found Gaia, broken out of my cage.
I got what I wanted. There was nothing else to ask for. My attention snagged on the tower in the thin layer of clouds, glass turret sparkling in the moonlight.
But there were plenty of other souls far less fortunate, still trapped by these ruthless laws, waiting to taste the cool glacial air.
On a silent prayer, I wished for freedom, for life, a soul released from its grate. A nymph and her volcano, reunited with her fiery kin. The power to walk this land once more.
A fierce gust of wind batted the flames, tossing loose snow, the ash, my hair.
And then it was gone, it was done, and somehow, I knew, Eldi had finally left that godforsaken hearth.
“Your Highness,” a guy sang from an outer corridor. Familiar, but too far away for me to fully catch or care. “Your court awaits you.”
Freyja rolled her eyes, and suddenly she was herself again, the cool exterior slotting back into place over the frightened, mourning girl. “Best be getting back.”
She didn’t ask what I wished for. She didn’t say anything about the gust of wind or the inexplicable trance she’d caught me in. She just gathered her green and lilac skirts and trudged towards the castle, the crown a bejeweled burden on her head.
“And what about you, angel?” that same person called, a tease of a smile in his voice. “You going to stay out here all night?”
Whirling around, I caught hints of the dark blue suit, the twists of his hair, the cut of his bright smile in the faint light. “Gunnar!”
Lifting the hem of my gown, I clambered over the slick courtyard, heels sinking into the ground, dress soaking up the slush. He met me halfway, scooping me up into his arms, twirling me beneath the constellations, burning brighter than ever.
Gently putting me down, he cupped my shoulders. “I am so happy you’re not dead.”
I thanked him with a playful smack to his chest, which probably hurt my fingers more than it affected him.
“Same,” I said, and I meant it. “But I’m even happier I met you—all of you. Thank you for everything.”
“It was my honor.” Arm bent at the waist, he swept into an exaggerated bow. “Have you tired of our elven hospitality?”
“Can’t get enough of it. In fact, I’m permanently taking up residence.”
Brows furrowed, he looked at me beneath lowered lashes. “Really?”
“No,” I laughed. “Olivia, Gaia, and I have a flight back to California tomorrow.”
“Gaia? That’s going to be rough. Last I saw her she was going shot-for-shot of Brennivín with some of the Eyes.”
“Great, wonderful.” I shook my head. “She is… both everything and nothing like what I was expecting. If that makes sense.”
Gunnar bit the inside of his cheek. “I know someone else who’s on that flight…”
Spine stiffening, I clipped out, “Oh, are you and Ryder buddies now?”
“Not quite. But after you left, he stayed and helped clean up the…” He cleared his throat, emotion seizing his words. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Aftermath,” he finished.
Ah, so Ryder decided to finally be a decent human? It didn’t even make a dent in all the evil he had already done, but I had to admit, my chest felt a little lighter knowing he’d made the right decision, that he hadn’t turned on them—on me—like a part of me worried he would.
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, hoping to settle the slew of emotions swirling inside me, “it’s about damn time he cleaned up his own mess.”
Something burned in Gunnar’s stare, something I wasn’t sure I was ready to address. “I saw the way you two looked at each other in that arena.”
“Like we wanted to kill each other?” A shudder raked its way through me.
Folding his lips, he dipped his chin. “Like you were meant for each other.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “Gunnar, I—”
“River, you don’t need to explain. I’m in Iceland, you’re in Cali.
It was fun getting to know you. When I say it was an honor, I truly mean it.
” Shifting to an arm length’s away, he took me in, probably for the last time, like he was committing me to memory.
So many unsaid things lay in that small shake of his head, in the twinkle in his eyes. “Maybe in another life.”
Heart begging to say something but throat too raw to speak, I nodded.
Another step back. More distance, more space, and then he was two arms’ length away.
I’d miss him. Miss his laugh, miss his warmth—miss what we could have been.
The electric spark that danced between us was sometimes the only thing that got me through some of my hardest days here. But he was right. He deserved someone with no strings attached.
This wasn’t the right time for us.
“Now get in there.” Gunnar nodded to the castle. “He’s waiting for you.”