Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
HANNA
Gold.
My entire world goes from black to gold, all while it feels like I’m hurtling headfirst toward…something.
Nothing.
Everything.
There is no up or down, left or right. I’m just moving so fast, the space around me dissolves, like the world doesn’t exist and there’s only me.
For a moment, I don’t even feel the presence of the Goddess, my mother. She has either turned into gold herself or has disappeared completely. There’s just me, flying through what feels like all of time and space and the reality I’d been born into.
And then, just as quickly as it started, it stops.
I feel something solid beneath my feet before the gold of my vision starts to fade, and shapes and shadows come into view. Yet, there is no darkness here. The shadows are somehow bright and glistening, and I have that same sense I had when I first stared at my mother: that I can’t quite see what I’m looking at until I look at it from another angle.
I close my eyes, even though it gives no relief from the light. I’m about to teeter over, the ground suddenly feeling unstable, when a hand reaches out and grabs my arm to steady me. The touch is searing hot, as if I leaned on a burning stove, but it doesn’t hurt.
“It will take you time to acclimatize,” my mother says. “Take a moment. Find your balance and your footing before opening your eyes to this world. There might not be any oxygen, but I advise you to breathe deep anyway.”
No oxygen?!
My eyes fly open, lungs seizing in panic, and I immediately start to sway from the intensity, from the enormity of what I’m looking at. My mother keeps her grip on me, tsking under her breath, but all I can do is stare.
Before me is a radiant, utterly mythical landscape that looks like it was created in a fever dream. There are fields of glowing plants with shimmering petals that cast rainbows instead of shadows. Weaving between these iridescent fields are what look like vast deserts of fine golden sand sparkling intermittently. Every now and then, something blooms from the sand, cacti-like flora with luminescent leaves that open and close with the warm breeze.
Beyond are rivers of molten gold flowing through shimmering mesas and valleys. There, crystalline mountains and amber-colored forests stretch toward the sky, with tree leaves that glint like stained glass, absorbing the light and refracting it in a spectrum that fills the air like a soft aura. They stretch toward what feels like an endless horizon bathed in hues of gold, orange, and soft pinks, the light constantly shifting between a living sunrise and sunset.
“This is the sun,” I whisper. “How is this possible?”
Everything is illuminated by warm, golden light, including my own body, which, to my surprise, is no longer dressed in the damp clothes I left the Upper World in. Instead, I’m in a silk-like dress that drapes over my body like gossamer, the threads sparkling as if they’ve come alive.
It’s all the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, enough that my eyes burn like I’m about to cry.
“Hold your tears, Hanna,” my mother says, a hint of disapproval in her voice. “If you want to gain access to the powers of a God, you have to start acting less like a mortal.”
I nod, even though I don’t know how that’s possible, not here, where I feel so insignificant, like every inch of my mortality, of my humanity, has been amplified.
But despite feeling dwarfed by the grandeur of this realm, I straighten my spine and take a deep breath. Though she said there is no oxygen, air still fills my lungs, giving me strength. The atmosphere is warm and rich, carrying scents of exotic flowers and something akin to cinnamon. As I exhale, a sense of empowerment surges through me, as if the very breath I release is filled with latent magic waiting to be unleashed. Something inside my core fizzes like champagne, floating and sparkling in buoyant song.
It feels like my body is coming alive.
“There,” my mother says with a satisfied nod as she looks me over. “This is all part of the becoming. Let your inner self recognize this place. Let your divine heritage seep into your bones. This is the first part of the process.”
I close my eyes and let the radiant feeling wash over me, sinking in deep.
“What’s the second part?” I ask before opening my eyes.
She lets go of my arm and gestures for me to follow her as she walks along a path that lies in front of us, glossy and faintly yellow, as if made of shimmering citrine. I walk carefully, the gravity here making me feel buoyant. Each step we take resonates with a melodious chime, music that follows us.
As we walk, ethereal beings flit among the towering amber trees flanking the side of the path, their forms translucent and ever-shifting like dancing flames. They pay us no heed, consumed by their own mysterious activities as they weave patterns in the air with trails of light. I reach out to touch a luminescent thread, and it wraps around my fingers before dissipating into a shower of golden sparks.
I laugh, and even that sound is melodic. This is like one hell of a mushroom trip, except without any of the I’m-going-to-die anxiety. It’s ironic, because you’d think being on the fucking sun , of all places, might fill one with dread, but now that I’m here, I only feel wonder and belonging.
We continue along the path as it skirts the edge of the forest, taking us under towering crystal peaks that shine from the inside, until we come across a ridge of golden quartz, the interior sparkling with metallic lines. As we get closer, I see an archway in the ridged surface, carved from a single enormous opal, its surface reflecting the hues of the landscape in a mesmerizing display.
“Just through here,” my mother says as she disappears beneath it. I quickly follow, entering a vast chamber where the walls seem to pulsate with an inner light, casting intricate shadows that twist and writhe like living things.
At the center of the chamber stands a pool of liquid fire, its surface undulating with molten energy that beckons me closer. My mother gazes at me expectantly, her eyes ablaze with a mixture of pride and something more inscrutable. I can feel the power thrumming beneath my skin, a primal energy that seems to resonate with the very fabric of this surreal world and vice versa.
“This is the Crucible of Awakening,” my mother’s voice rings with authority, cutting through the ambient hum. “Here, you will undergo a cleansing to claim your birthright as a Goddess.”
I step closer to the pool of liquid fire, the heat radiating from it gently blowing back my hair. As I peer into its depths, I see visions swirling atop the molten surface—visions of my past, present, and potential futures all converging in a kaleidoscopic dance of light and shadow. I try to pick out each one, but they move so fast, I’m only left with the essence of the memory, something slippery and transparent.
“You must embrace your true self, Hanna,” she says, her words echoing against the chamber walls. “Only by facing your life and confronting your deepest fears and desires, of what it truly means to be human, will you unlock the full extent of your powers.”
I take a deep breath, steeling myself for what is to come. With a sense of determination burning in my chest, I raise my hands towards the pool. The surface ripples and distorts, as if responding to my touch, and I feel a surge of energy coursing through me, culminating in my fingertips.
In that moment, I let go of everything holding me back—my doubts, my insecurities, my mortal limitations. I surrender myself to the flames, and in doing so, they rise from the pool, reaching for my fingers.
For a second, I’m filled with the deepest fear of all: the fear of dying, an acute sense of my mortality that has me about to pull away and run as far as I can.
But the fire leaps onto my hands, as if sentient, as if sensing my fear, and climbs up my arms. I open my mouth to scream, to move, but something equally as fiery rises inside me, overpowering the human instinct to avoid death.
Instead, I allow the fire to consume me, to transform me into something new, something ancient and powerful. Then, as the flames envelop me, I feel a searing pain unlike anything I have ever experienced. It is as if every atom of my being is being torn apart and reassembled in a violent cacophony of light and sound. I scream, though whether in agony or ecstasy, I can’t tell. The world blurs and distorts around me, shifting and twisting in ways that defy comprehension. I am no longer sure where my body ends and the fire begins, the boundaries between us merging and melding into a single entity.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, the pain subsides, leaving me gasping for breath as I collapse to my knees beside the now-calm pool of liquid fire. My entire being feels as if it is vibrating with a newfound power, a raw energy that pulses beneath my skin like there’s some other being living inside me.
What the hell just happened to me?
“Get up, Hanna.” My mother’s voice rings through the throbbing sound in my head. “You’re all right. You’re better than all right.”
I exhale and slowly rise to my feet, feeling taller and stronger than I have ever been. The world around me seems sharper, more vivid, as if a veil has been lifted from my eyes. I look down at my hands and find they are no longer mine; no, they are adorned with intricate patterns of glowing runes that seem to writhe and shift of their own accord, much like the dress I’m wearing.
My mother stands before me, her eyes alight with pride. “You have done it,” she says softly. “You have embraced your true self—your divine self—and unlocked the Goddess within you.”
That was easy , I can’t help but think, but even the joke quickly slips away, a sense of gravity replacing it.
I look at her, feeling a surge of gratitude and love welling up within me. “Thank you, Mother,” I whisper, though the words feel inadequate to express the depth of what I’m feeling. It’s as if she saved me from a different future, one that was heading toward certain doom.
In fact, in this moment, I feel as if I’ve split away from my former self.
She smiles warmly at me before gesturing towards the archway we entered through. “It is time for you to return to Tuonela, my daughter of the sun. You have a destiny to fulfill and a world that needs you.”
I frown, unsure of what she’s saying. “What do you mean, return to Tuonela?”
Her posture stiffens as her gaze cools. “Your destiny, Hanna. You can’t have forgotten already. You haven’t been here long enough.”
I still don’t understand. Tuonela? I shake my head. It sounds familiar but the more I try to think about the word and what it means, the more the meaning slips away from me. It’s like I can’t quite remember.
“My destiny is here, Mother, to become one with the sun, with the power of the universe, just like you.”
“Tuonela,” she says in a hard voice, as if I’m supposed to know what that means. Her eyes blaze with fire now, and I don’t know why she’s so angry. “The Underworld. You have to reunite with Tuoni. He’s on his way. You must join with him and defeat Louhi, or the realm of the dead will be lost forever. You know this, Hanna. You just saw everything you were and are and will be in the pool.”
I swallow uneasily as fragments come back, like fossils barely visible beneath the sand. “Right,” I say slowly. Now, the visions and memories come back, like ghosts. I remember Tuoni. The God of Death. My husband. Which makes me the Goddess of Death. But how can I be that when I am the Goddess of the Sun? How can I worry about what happens in a world that’s buried so far beneath this one?
My mother looks away, grumbling under her breath. “This is not supposed to happen this way. Your father was here for ages before he started to lose his connection to the earth.”
“What are you talking about? My father?” I picture him, gray hair and a beard, and my heart pinches with sadness. I realize I have lost him a few times over, but the moment I stop thinking about him, the pain goes away.
She grabs my hand and leads me out of the cave, back into the gold light. I can’t help but laugh as fiery butterflies land on my arms and in my hair, singing softly to me.
“Perhaps you weren’t ready,” my mother says, more to herself. “Maybe Vellamo was right. But what choice did I have? Leave you in Tuonela? You had no hope of defeating Louhi otherwise. Rangaista and the Old Gods would see to that.”
“You seem troubled,” I say, watching as a butterfly crawls to the ends of my hair, which flow around me like molten copper.
She exhales before giving her head a shake. “It doesn’t matter what I seem. I need to get you back to the Underworld in time. I didn’t think the power here would affect you so quickly, but the longer you’re here, the more trouble you’ll have connecting to your previous life. Gaining the powers of a God means gaining distance from your humanity, but you were wanted and chosen because of your humanity, Hanna. Your mortality is your morality, your connection to Earth and those you love. That’s supposed to temper your powers. We are frightening, terrible beings without morality to rein us in.”
“But you’re not human,” I tell her. “And you don’t seem frightening or terrible. You say you to want to help others, right?”
“I do so out of a sense of duty but I don’t have a heart, Hanna,” she says. “I am too distant out here to feel deeply for beings beneath me. I am used to only being the observer. The most I can get involved is through you. I know what must be done and that you’re the only one who can do it. But if you’re already starting to forget who and what you are, that’s going to be a problem.”
“So you’re sending me away from this wonderful place, from my home, so I can fight for someone else?”
Why would she do that when I only just got here?
“So you can fight for everyone you love and hold dear. So you can fight for the world itself. Life and death have always been in perfect balance, and with Louhi rewriting what it means to die, turning it into a place of perpetual hell, life will no longer have the meaning it should. Life will not be worth living if the afterlife is worse than dying.”
The words are starting to sink in. I feel their weight, even though I have to fight the urge to shrug them off.
Tuoni.
My father.
Lovia.
I remember them.
I just don’t…feel them.
“What should I do?” I ask.
“You must hold onto their memories,” she says. “And the memories will hold onto you. But you must find a balance. The more you hold on, the more your powers might wane. Hopefully, when we get you back, you’ll be able to do some damage to Louhi without losing your connection to the others.”
“And if that doesn’t happen?” I ask. “What’s more important? Do I sacrifice my humanity to save the Underworld? Or is holding on to love worth the loss?”
She gives me a grim smile. “That will be your choice to make, Hanna. I can’t make that choice for you. But we will have to get you back before that opportunity is taken away entirely.”
My mother quickly leads me through the golden realm, across drifting fields of shimmering blossoms and spectral vines that sway in the warm breeze. The sky seems to shift between dawn and dusk with each step we take, creating a dizzying pattern of halos and glimmers, as if the world itself is breathing in light. The edges of my vision pulse, and I have to focus, to anchor my thoughts. Each time I try to recall Tuoni—his handsome face, his rough voice, the touch of his bare hands—I feel it slip farther away, as if I’m trying to clutch smoke.
“I can’t feel them,” I say, voice tight, as we approach a formation of opalescent stones arranged in a crescent. “I remember them, but it’s hollow. I’m trying to hold on, but it’s like…unwrapping a present to find an empty box.”
My mother stops in front of a great cleft in the ground from which fire whirls upward, bright tongues of flame twisting into a luminous archway. Within the blaze, I see flickers of distant shapes—crooked silhouettes, faint outlines of twisting roots and darkened halls that shimmer and fade. It must be Tuonela beckoning me, reminding me I have something to fight for.
“Your humanity is both your weakness and your strength,” my mother says, turning to me, her eyes glinting like molten gold. “You must decide what matters more: the power you’ve gained here, or the love and compassion that forged you into who you are.”
I can barely hear her over the roar of the flames. Heat presses against my skin, prickling like hot needles. My new powers thrum inside me, anxious, as if eager to test themselves in battle. But what’s the point of power if it isolates me, if I cannot feel what drives me to protect those I love?
I step forward, the soles of my bare feet warm against the shimmering ground. The air feels thinner now, charged with strange energy. The butterflies that followed us earlier now keep their distance, hovering at the edges of the glowing meadow, their wings refracting light into delicate prisms.
“Once you cross this threshold,” my mother says, lifting her chin, “you will find yourself in your old realm. You will face Louhi’s corruption, the unraveling of Tuonela. You must remember why you fight, Hanna. You must remember who you are. The longer you hesitate, the less of your mortal self you will retain.”
I tighten my jaw, heart fluttering in my chest. I think of Lovia, of her fierce grin. I think of my father, the warmth of his laughter. I think of Tuoni, how he once anchored me to a world I thought I understood. The man I love. Their faces flicker behind my eyelids, distant stars threatening to wink out. Still, I refuse to let them vanish entirely.
“It’s time,” my mother says, no softness in her tone. She steps aside, and I face the fiery portal alone. It roars hungrily, an elemental maw ready to devour me, transform me, or both. The heat from it makes my eyes water, blurring the dreamlike landscape. I take a breath, and the essence of this place fills my lungs with something vibrant and alive. Magic, perhaps, or eternity condensed. It may not be oxygen, but it fuels me with strength just the same.
I lift my hand and place it into the flames, expecting pain. Instead, the fire swirls around my wrist like silk, and my heart clenches. In a few steps, I’ll be gone from this radiant world, returning to what must now feel like shadow and ash. Will I lose this sense of limitless potential?
Can I carry it with me?
My mother watches, silent and stern. The sky above shifts from gold to bronze, as if the world itself is urging me onward. I inhale one last time, trying to memorize the scent of cinnamon and flowers and the strange, comforting hum of this realm.
I step forward. The flames part. My vision flares bright.
And I move into the fire.