Chapter Forty-Nine
Aric
Rey’s quiet as we leave the arts building together.
We talked in class about finishing up our Ice Caves paper, but both of us knew it was really about making a real plan to find Mjolnir.
Neither of us brings up the sleepwalking.
I’m pretty sure if we did, I would explode on the spot, and it wouldn’t be because of any runes.
My phone suddenly goes off. I look down at the screen.
Reeve: watch ur back
Reeve: dont think with ur dick
Reeve: sigurds always watching
My phone pings again.
Seriously?
Reeve: dont underestimate him, thats a mistake neither of us can afford to make
Reeve: but seriously dont think with ur dick
I curse under my breath. I know he’s not wrong, but I don’t want to believe she’s capable of fully betraying me in the end. Or that if she is, at least then so am I. Right now, the focus needs to be on unlocking the last two runes. Everything else can wait.
Because I’m tired of feeling numb, I’m tired of feeling like I don’t know my true self, and I’m tired of feeling weak against an untouchable enemy. It’s time to rise from the ashes of my parents. The reign of the Gods—the reign of Odin—must end. Rey has to know that, even if she won’t admit it.
“Something wrong?” Rey asks.
“All good,” I lie and shove my phone back in my pocket as we make our way toward the student parking lot.
I click the locks on my SUV and, without speaking, Rey climbs into the passenger seat.
She waits until I pull out of the Endir gates to ask, “Where are we going?”
“Someplace where we can plan our next steps.”
“Oh. Right.”
Where did she think we were going? On a date?
I glance at her sharply. Is she blushing? Shit, did I say that out loud?
“It would be my first.” She blushes harder. “No, I mean, not like my first, not that sort of first.”
My smile is practically frozen to my face. “A date virgin or a virgin virgin, Rey?”
“Shut up, I’m not that sheltered. I’ve had my share of hookups despite my dad locking me away.
But the only people I ran around with were kids whose parents worked for my father, meaning most either wanted to kidnap me for ransom and force me into marriage”—she stares me down, ouch—“or see what it would feel like to be with the great Odin’s daughter.
It’s not like anybody ever gave me flowers.
Ugh, can we not talk about this? I think I’m rambling now. ”
I refuse to tell her it’s cute. “You are, but I kind of like seeing all the little chinks in your armor. I have a mental checklist of all your weaknesses just in case. I’ll be sure to add ‘dates where all the guy has to do is bring a flower.’”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’m easily impressed.”
I finally pull onto the road leading up to the back side of the lake. The forest gets nice and thick as we near an abandoned piece of land.
When I pull off the county road to the wrought iron gates, Rey whistles. “Well, that looks daunting.”
“It’s supposed to.”
Sigurd owns all this land. He doesn’t tolerate trespassers.
I park the Defender. Rey gets out of the car, tossing her computer bag into the back seat.
As she approaches the tall gates, she glances sharply at me, then leans in and examines the carvings on the decorative finials.
Her eyes widen as she takes in the length of balusters, each metal bar bearing a protective rune. “The whole fence is warded?”
“When Sigurd wants something sealed off, he doesn’t fuck around.
If anyone from the university wandered this way, they’d get a strong urge to turn the hell around and not come back.
” Feels weirdly nice to talk about this openly with someone.
When I touch the gate, the wrought iron shudders and groans, but it opens for me. “This way.”
She hesitates for a second, then follows.
The path to the lake is littered with white stone—or things that look like white stone. I always look straight ahead, never to the right or to the left, so as not to acknowledge them. My breath comes out in small pants. I needed privacy for us, but I forgot how much it affected me, being here.
“Wait.” Rey stops in front of me and looks around. “Aric, these aren’t rocks. They’re—”
“Bones,” I finish for her. “We call it Hollowood. It’s where the majority of the fallen are buried or where the majority of the fallen…fell.”
She puts a hand on my arm. I jerk it back on instinct. “The Giants Odin killed.”
“Yep. You’re surrounded by them. Giants who never got a proper burial, frozen instead in the ground for an eternity. They gave their very bodies to this world, and nobody will ever know the sacrifice.”
“People rarely do in war,” Rey acknowledges. “I’m sorry. I know it means nothing, but I’m sorry.”
“One day, he’ll pay for his crimes.” I push lightly past her. “And if you’re standing by his side, no matter how much I like your smile, you will, too.”
Harsh, but then again, so is the reminder of the buried around me.
I brought her here to discuss our plans, but that goal feels secondary now, subdued by the charged energy of this place. We say nothing as we hike along progressively rockier terrain to the edge of the water, where it stretches like a sheet of black glass, as still as the stones rimming the path.
Rey pauses once we get there, staring out at the inky depths. I lean against a smooth, cool wall of black stone and watch her. “I really want to know why the common theme is water in all these places,” she says.
“Because water is life,” I reply. “It moves through everything. It carves mountains, shapes the earth, grinds even the strongest metals to dust.” I shrug. “The Gods feared the Giants for that very power, the power of the ice, water, life itself.”
She smiles up at me. “It makes sense.”
I like her like this.
Disarmed.
I want to trust her. And then I remember the bodies. Can anyone with Odin’s blood truly be trusted?
My mind goes back to Reeve’s texts.
The air feels cooler, damp with the mist of a small waterfall trickling down the rock beside me.
The water spills into a narrow stream that runs beneath our feet before vanishing into the lake.
Rey steps carefully across, running a hand through the spray as she presses her body up against the stone.
She lets out a gasp. “It’s beautiful here.”
“I think—” My voice cracks. “It’s as close to home as I’ll ever feel.”
She glances up at me then with such a look of understanding, of peace, that it takes my breath away.
And when the wind picks up, twirling her hair around her face, the scent of the earth, heady and strong, slams into me, along with the word. “Lie.”
In that moment, I don’t think. I reach out and take her hand.
She doesn’t look at me. We just stand there together. Hand in hand. And I think this may be the most perfect, peaceful moment of my entire life.
Until the moment is broken when heat slams into my palm. The cry coming from Rey tells me she must have felt it, too.
My gaze catches on a light shining from the rock in front of us, an unnatural glow emanating from the waterfall. My heart starts beating double-time as I move a little closer.
“What…what is that?” Rey asks, her voice quiet, reverent.
Carved into the slick rock, half hidden by the rushing water, glows a jagged rune.