Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
DEATH
The sky ignites with a brilliance and beauty that defies this world. Moments before, the fields around Castle Syntri lay dim beneath storm-wracked clouds and swirling snow, the world reduced to howling winds, desperate screams, and the relentless clatter of the undead. Now, the darkness recedes, and a radiance too pure for twilight spills over the battlements, painting every broken stone with shimmering gold.
I stand atop a fractured parapet, the wind tugging at my cloak, ice crusting in my beard. Pain throbs in my shoulder from an earlier clash, and sweat freezes on my brow. I dare not look away from that sky, not now. I know that light. I know the shape emerging from it as intimately as I know my own breath.
It’s Hanna.
My wife.
The Queen of Tuonela.
But she doesn’t descend. Instead, she hovers high above, wreathed in halos of shifting color—pinks, oranges, ambers. Her silhouette is tall and regal, arms outstretched. I see her hair aflame with strange brilliance—chestnut and amber and blonde—and though I cannot make out her face, I imagine her eyes shining with sunlight. The cold wind softens slightly in the radius of her glow, melting the flakes into droplets. Yet, she stays distant, as if observing from a height.
A gasp echoes along the battlements, and I hear Lovia choke out her name. Soldiers pause mid-strike, undead falter mid-lunge, and even the Old Gods waver, their monstrous forms twitching uncertainly in the sudden glare. The darkness Louhi’s hordes brought with them quivers before Hanna’s arrival.
My heart pounds. Relief, joy, and a thousand unanswered questions surge through me. Weeks of fear and loss peel away at the edges of my mind as I stare into that luminous figure. Hanna is back. She returned.
Yet, this isn’t over. The battle has not ended.
We must still fight.
Thankfully, with her at our side.
Snarls and screeches rip me from my reverie. The enemy hasn’t vanished—far from it. Old Gods flail tentacles and chitinous limbs, shrieking to rally the undead ranks. Flakes of grey snow swirl on the far edge of the battlefield where Hanna’s light does not yet reach. Skeleton legions, rattling swords and spears, try to press their advance. They push back against the sudden warmth, steeling themselves with the ancient hatred that animates their bones.
I tighten my grip on my sword. We must seize this moment. “Hold the line!” I shout, voice cracking across the courtyard. “Don’t falter! The sun is with us!” It’s a phrase I never thought I’d use, but now, it feels right. Hanna is the sun, or at least touched by it. We must stand firm.
My allies respond with renewed courage. Torben lifts his staff into the sky, runes flaring brighter than before. Ilmarinen traces shapes in the air with his fingertips, creating pockets of protection here and there. Lovia leaps onto a ledge, her blade gleaming, rallying the soldiers around her. Tapio and Tellervo draw upon what remains of their power to summon roots, vines, and birds to harry the enemy flanks. Vellamo clenches her jaw and coaxes streams of water from melting snow, forming icy shards to hurl at encroaching horrors.
The Magician stands at a crooked tower’s edge, face obscured by his hood. He conjures illusions that glimmer with flecks of sunlight, tricking the enemy into stumbling into ambushes. Rasmus struggles to reload a crossbow with trembling fingers. Though he was a traitor, he now fights beside us, the fear of death etched into his face. The redhead might be good for something yet.
The Old Gods are various in form and substance, but all are colossal nightmares—some fusions of bone and chitin, barnacle-encrusted limbs and too many eyes, while others resemble giant deer with the body of a man with antlers that soar ten feet in the air. One wades through a collapsed section of wall, snapping at defenders with a beaked maw dripping black ooze. Another hovers on membranous wings above the courtyard, screeching and dropping twisted carcasses that explode into swarms of ravenous insects. I choke on the stench as I swing my sword, severing a skeletal warrior’s spine. The creature crumples at my feet before I hack apart the rest of him, disabling him for good.
Hanna remains above, silent and godly. She raises one hand, and sunbeams stab downward, piercing the gloom. Where the beams land, undead hiss and crumble into ash. A tentacled horror tries to shield its eyes, keening as parts of its flesh scorch and peel, but even this divine intervention doesn’t simply wipe the enemy away. The Old Gods are clever enough. One curls behind a toppled tower and vomits out a thick, inky cloud that dims the sunlight in a patch of the battlefield, allowing skeletons to rally within that shadow. Another creature with lobster-like claws and a carapace of petrified wood smashes into our left flank, scattering wounded soldiers. Screams rise, and I flinch, desperate to help them.
I rush down broken steps, joining a knot of defenders wrestling with the snarling mass of horned skulls and scythe-like arms. The thing flails wildly, cutting down a soldier before I slam my sword into its side, feeling bone give way beneath the blade. The creature howls, and a shaft of light from Hanna lances it in the back, causing it to shrivel. I glance up, wanting to meet her gaze, to thank her, but she’s too far, her face lost in the glare.
On the eastern parapet, Lovia fights two horrors at once. One resembles a monstrous serpent wreathed in leech-like growths that snap at her ankles while the other stands like a hunched giant made of bone shards. She ducks under a spiked limb, counters with a clean slash, and then calls for archers. Arrows whiz by, followed by bullets, many helped by Torben’s magic. The serpent squeals as arrowheads puncture its hide, green ichor spraying across the stones.
Tapio staggers, panting. His attempt to grow entangling roots falters as an Old God’s scream shatters the delicate magic. Tellervo hurls a spear of spectral ivy that crackles with emerald energy, impaling a skeletal champion who’d been rallying troops. Vellamo summons a spinning vortex of meltwater that topples another cluster of undead. Imarinen’s wards deflect a volley of cursed arrows spat by an Old God that resembles a giant tick, its abdomen festooned with skulls. The tick-thing scuttles along a wall, toward Hanna’s light. When a sunbeam sears off two of its legs, it screeches and leaps down among us. Soldiers scatter, and I lunge forward, sword raised, shouting for a shield wall from Ilmarinen.
But it’s Rasmus who surprises me, darting forward and hooking the tick-thing with his pole. The Magician sends a mirage of fire dancing along its flank, making it think it’s aflame. Distracted, the horror flails at empty air, giving me time to drive my blade into a gap in its chitin, foul blood spilling out. The monster collapses under our combined assault, twitching until another shaft of sunlight from above reduces it to char.
Despite these victories, the battle rages on. The enemy is legion, and not all can be felled by a single beam of light. Some Old Gods burrow beneath the rubble, emerging behind our lines. One enormous, centipede-like horror clambers onto a rooftop and vomits a torrent of maggots that strip flesh from a soldier’s arm before rifles drive it back. I grimace at the brutality of it all. Even with Hanna’s help, this is no effortless bout. Every inch is paid for in blood and sweat.
The courtyard turns into a swirling chaos of shrieks, roars, and clangs. Skeleton warriors fight with unnatural tenacity, their shattered limbs still crawling after us. I watch in horror as a headless torso drags itself toward a wounded guard until Lovia crushes it beneath her boot. Thick smoke from burning monsters clouds the air, stinging my eyes. Still, Hanna floats far above, raining down shafts of solar fury whenever an Old God gathers enough strength to threaten us anew.
I just don’t understand why she doesn’t come closer. I long to see her face clearly, to hear her voice, to feel her presence beside me as we once fought side by side, like we were fated to. I mean, it is her, isn’t it? Or has the Sun changed her? Is she preserving her strength by staying aloft? My questions find no answers in this frenzy.
A roar shakes the battlements. One of the mightiest Old Gods—a towering behemoth of bone, antlers, and horns—lumbers toward the main gate. Its hollow eyes glow green, and it raises massive claws to tear down what remains of our defenses. Soldiers cry out in dismay. If that horror breaches the gate fully, we’re done for.
“Focus on that one!” I bellow.
Hanna responds with a column of light so bright, I must shield my eyes. The beam hisses as it strikes the behemoth’s crown of skulls, cracking them open. The creature howls, staggering, and I race forward, sword raised high. Lovia joins me, blade gleaming. We attack its flank, carving into a joint.
With one final heave, I drive my sword deep into the creature’s chest cavity. The smell of rot and old bones engulfs me. Lovia slashes its tendon, causing it to collapse in a heap of debris and dust. Before it can recover, Hanna’s light intensifies, reducing the behemoth to a pile of ash drifting on the breeze.
A ragged cheer goes up. Is this it? Are we winning?
Have we won?
The undead army, leaderless and battered, begins to falter. Without the Old Gods to push them forward, skeletons mill in confusion. Some attempt to retreat, clattering away towards the south, while others simply collapse into inert heaps. Flying horrors, once so bold, spiral away, wings tattered by sunbeams.
I peer over the broken wall. The enemy is in disarray.
But we have survived.
The courtyard, once hellish, now lies strewn with broken bones and steaming ichor. Soldiers stumble and cough, some crying tears of relief. Tapio and Tellervo sink to their knees, exhausted. Vellamo presses a hand to her chest, breathing hard. Ilmarinen wipes sweat and soot from his brow while Torben slumps against a parapet, staff rattling on the stones. The Magician folds his arms, galaxies swirling faintly, as if pondering the odds of what just transpired. Rasmus, chest heaving, looks at me in stunned disbelief.
I turn my gaze upward, heart pounding. Hanna still floats there, lined by fading brilliance. The fierce glow begins to dim slightly, letting me see more of her form. She descends, not swiftly like a joyous return, but slowly, deliberately, as though considering whether to grace us with her presence. I wait, hands trembling, longing to touch her.
Lovia and I move closer together, father and daughter standing atop a shattered tower. The light that guided our salvation now seems distant and uncertain. Hanna’s feet touch down on a high parapet bathed in half-light, and the sunbeams retract, leaving faint halos around her shoulders. Her hair, once dark, now shifts with hues of gold and red, like embers at dawn. Her eyes—oh Gods, her eyes—are not the warm brown I recall, but pale, molten copper.
I swallow, stepping forward. “Hanna,” I say quietly, voice breaking. “You came for us.”
She tilts her head, studying me with an odd detachment, as if I am something curious rather than familiar. Lovia’s breath catches. Even the cries of the wounded and the grieving seem to fade, as if waiting for her response.
Hanna’s gaze sweeps over the courtyard, taking in the wounded, the dead, the lingering beams of sunlight. Her expression is blank, eyes distant. She offers no smile, no word of comfort.
Nothing.
I force a step forward, pain in my muscles a reminder of all we’ve done to reach this moment. “Hanna,” I repeat, softer this time. “Please. Join me.”
For a long moment, she does not respond. Then, her lips part, and I expect a flood of relief or apology, an explanation for her strange magic and long absence. Instead, she speaks a single word in a language I do not recognize—harsh and clipped, like sparks struck from flint. The sound scrapes over my heart like a blade.
My chest tightens with dread.
“Hanna?” Lovia says. “Are you alright? It’s us.”
Hanna regards us both as though we’re strangers and she’s where she doesn’t belong. Her posture is regal, spine straight, but there’s no sign of love in her face, no flicker of recognition. The final rays of her conjured sunlight fade from the stones, leaving only the dim, natural twilight and distant fires burning in heaps of slain horrors.
A chill runs through me. Could the sun’s power have changed her beyond recognition? Did her trials in the celestial realms strip her memory?
Her compassion?
But no, that can’t be. She saved us. That’s compassion.
She knows we’re worth saving.
Doesn’t she?
The silence stretches, and my allies shift uneasily below. The Magician tilts his head, as if unsurprised by this terrible twist. Torben’s knuckles whiten around his staff as he stares at his daughter.
“Hanna? It’s me, your dad,” he says.
Hanna lifts a hand toward him, and I instinctively brace myself, unsure if it’s a gesture of greeting or a threat. She utters another low phrase in that unknown tongue, and her eyes flick to my sword, then to Lovia’s blade, then across the corpses of the slain Old Gods. Her gaze returns to me, staring as if I am some puzzle to be solved.
My heart plunges. After everything—our desperate stand, the miracle of her return, the light that saved us—the woman I knew does not look back at me. She does not run into my arms. She does not weep with joy or whisper my name. Instead, she stands apart, distant as the sun itself, and I realize we may have won the battle but lost something far more precious.
A sharp wind stirs the ashes below. Around us, soldiers and Gods alike wait, breath held, for her next move. I try once more: “Hanna, please. It’s me. It’s Tuoni. Your husband. Your king.”
No flicker of recognition. Her eyes narrow slightly, as though irritated by my words. She takes a step back, foot scraping stone, and spreads her arms. A subtle glow sparks at her fingertips.
My heart turns to ice. She doesn’t know us. She doesn’t remember.
Or worse—she chooses not to.
Before I can utter another plea, Hanna’s gaze hardens, and I see a gleam of alien light behind her eyes. Everyone tenses, weapons raised with uncertainty. I stand there, sword slack in my hand, my voice locked in my throat.
“You must be Death,” she says.