40. Maddy
Chapter 40
Maddy
W hen I come around, I have no idea where I am. It's cold, and I'm on my knees.
I'm woozy still, not like my normal blackouts, and have to I force myself to focus, trying to block out the rush of emotions and blind panic.
I'm in a room made of packed snow and ice. Possibly a cave? I'm tied up, and there's nothing else in here except a wooden door.
A cell. I'm in a cell.
"Thyrvi?" I whisper.
With a whoosh and a thump, my massive bear appears beside me, and relief pounds through me, causing another spell of dizziness. She spins around, paws scraping on the ice.
I want to leap up and hug her, but my body isn't responding yet, and my arms are bound.
"Thank Freya and the fates you're here. I was so worried you wouldn't be able to leave Featherblade!"
"Where are we? Where are our enemies?" She sounds confused, then her bright black eyes fix on mine and she stills.
"We must stay calm. I don't know where we are, except that we're in a cell. But the main thing is we're together."
Even though we don't have Kain.
He couldn't have come with me, even if he tried. He's bound to Featherblade. The loss of his presence makes my stomach twist.
Do what you can, ignore what you can't.
I take a slow breath. "I need a few minutes to think before Erik realizes I'm awake," I whisper.
"Think about what? They are cowardly enemies, and they need destroying."
I feel for my ropes and will my hands to freeze them. They do, and then shatter.
I stand slowly, testing my control over my limbs. Whatever Erik's snake used to sedate me, it is wearing off.
And it appears they can't stop my magic, or Thyrvi, here. Which means we're not powerless.
The memory of the blood spurting from Brynhild's neck fills my mind, and I close my eyes for a second. Then the worse memory, of Erik telling me about Sarra, takes its place.
"Oh gods. What have I done?"
I step forward and press myself into Thyrvi's side, trying to draw comfort from her huge, solid form.
"You have done nothing. That villainous gold-fae is responsible for all of this, along with his Frost Giant lover." Thyrvi pauses. "What is a lover?"
I let out a long breath and step back. "It means he's in love with her." I try to recall the snippets of conversation between the Valkyrie.
Brynhild knew the Giant as Ishild. Kain recognized her, and she had been a Valkyrie, once. Presumably, that was when Erik, and apparently Brynhild, fell in love with her.
And now she's a Frost Giant and Erik has been secretly working with her… to what? Get to me?
Why ?
I look around for my bag. It's gone.
I swear and kick out at the snow.
"I don't know if Erik wants a memory or something I took from the vault. Either way, that's why he waited until today to do this. I've either got the item he wants now, or Sarra told him about my memory magic today."
"Why are the two scum rooks that have plagued you for weeks now working as his allies?" Thyrvi asks.
"I don't know. Because they were easy recruits, I guess? They already hated me. So if his goal was to kidnap me, it wouldn't take much to get them on side."
My mind's whirling as I try to piece things together.
Could that be why Orgid and Inga have been giving me so much grief all the time that I've been at Featherblade? Did Erik ask them to harass me?
But why?
Why would he want me to be harassed if he was waiting to find out that I had memory magic or for me to get into the vault?
None of it makes sense.
There's a noise outside the cell. Thyrvi growls low in her throat. The door slowly swings open, and standing in the doorway is Orgid, a smug smile on his face.
The image of Brynhild's beautiful silver wings covered in her own blood fills my mind again on seeing him, and I bare my teeth.
"You're a piece of shit," I say. "I can't believe you killed a Valkyrie. Do you know what the gods will do to you for that?"
His smile turns into a sneer. "The gods have less power than you think they do," he says.
"I find that hard to believe."
"Believe whatever the fuck you like. Doesn't bother me," he says. "Now come on."
Ice appears over my hands as I hold them out in front of me. "Make me," I say.
Thyrvi's rumbling growl gets louder.
"You can use all the magic you like," he says to me, shaking his head. "It's not going be stronger than Erik, me, Inga, and the Frost Giants."
He's right. The fact of the matter is that I don't know where we are, or why I'm here, or how to get back to Featherblade, so there's not a lot that I can do right now.
I have to go with him, not least to find out why the fuck I'm here.
"Fine, but don't fucking touch me," I snap at him. He shrugs, turns, and walks out the cell. Thyrvi waits for me to go ahead, then takes the rear. She struggles to fit through the door, though, and after a moment's reluctance I have to send her to the darkness and bring her back.
The panic I feel when she's not with me, even though it's only for a second, is gut-wrenching, and once more I send a prayer of thanks up that she was able to leave Featherblade and come here with me, even though I'm not a Valkyrie.
I focus my thoughts as I walk, trying to keep the spiraling panic at bay.
I have to get back to Featherblade. That's the most important thing. Kain is there. And I have to finish my training, and get my wings, or I risk losing Thyrvi forever.
There's no way these assholes are going take her from me.
I will get back to Featherblade and I will become a Valkyrie, I chant in my head.
We're walking along a snowy, earth-packed tunnel, the same as the cell. There's no refinement or decoration anywhere, and I assume the tunnel has been bored through a mountain, because the incline is steady and steep in an upward direction.
Brynhild is dead. The thought creeps though the chant.
Featherblade was on fire when you left.
Everything has changed. This isn't just about you now.
I hiss a curse into the silence and force the fears down.
I will get my wings, and I will become a Valkyrie! I will get back to Kain!
"Scared, are you? Well, at least whatever happens to you here, it won't be as bad as what's happened to your friend," Orgid says.
My heart skips. "Shut up, asshole."
"You'll be lucky if you come out of this even half as fucked up as she is now."
My stomach twists, guilt assailing me, but now that I'm in Orgid's presence it fuels the fire in my gut like kindling. Rage roars through me.
"Don't fucking speak about her."
"It's your fault. You brought her the feather. Before that, she was just a little bit delirious. Now she's like…" He pauses, turns, and pulls a face at me, hunching his shoulders and tucking his arms in, parodying a monster.
Before I can react with the full force of the anger burning through me, Thyrvi leans around me and swipes at Orgid. He didn't see it coming any more than I did, so the blow lands hard, and he bounces off the snowy wall, clipping his ear on the way.
Blood spurts from the wound, and I smile at him as he spits and swears, standing up.
"You're not a nice person, Orgid," I say as a snake coils out of his shirt and up the side of his face. The wound on his ear heals as he glares at me.
"I'd rather be me than you any day of the week," he says, and then pulls my own move on me, his fist snapping out so fast I don't see it coming.
His knuckles meet my cheek and pain explodes beneath my eye. I manage not to stumble. My face freezes where the pain is, and it lessens fast.
We glare at each other a moment, then Orgid whirls, stomping along the tunnel again.
I wait, putting some distance between us, then follow him, resuming my chant.
After about ten minutes, bright daylight pierces the darkness ahead. A bitter wind whips across my skin, carrying the sharp scent of snow. The cold feels amazing, and I draw it in, letting it fortify me.
I strongly suspect we are in the Frost Giant realm, and when we emerge from the tunnel, I am sure of it.
We are on a vast ledge, carved deep into the mountain's face. The space stretches at least sixty feet deep and twice that in width, its ceiling lost in shadows of ice-crusted stone. Massive wooden furniture dominates the space—tables hewn from entire tree trunks, chairs that could seat three full-grown Giants—everything carved with intricate patterns.
More than ten Frost Giants occupy the ledge, their massive forms moving with surprising grace for their size. They all look like the one Thyrvi killed in the Battleyard, nothing like the monstrously beautiful Ishild. Some sharpen weapons large enough to cleave a house, while others eat at a table that could serve as a dance floor in the Ice Court.
The ledge branches off into several tunnels, but Orgid moves past them all, heading toward the far side, where the ledge opens to a view that steals my breath. Endless peaks of white stretch into a horizon painted in every shade of blue I've ever seen. The vista is so vast that I struggle to process it.
The Frost Giants pause as we pass, their simple eyes following us. One Giant tests the edge of an axe blade bigger than I am tall, while another strings sinew onto a bow that could launch tree trunks. Thyrvi bares her teeth at them all, undaunted by their size. I channel her courage and walk with my head held high, even though my heart is hammering against my ribs.
We are seriously outnumbered and outpowered. And trapped on the side of a mountain in different realm.
We pass between two throne-like chairs, and there, tucked against the back wall, stands a section sized for fae—a table and a series of chairs, as well as a chest filled with furs.
A fae-sized figure emerges from a fourth tunnel behind the table, flanked by three more.
That's too many. I was expecting just Erik and Inga.
When the figures emerge into the light, all the air leaves my lungs.
I should have known. I should have suspected.
"Hello, daughter," says my mother.