48. Maddy
Chapter 48
Maddy
" T hyrvi, get us the fuck out of this cage, now," I say quickly as I help Freydis to her feet.
Thyrvi swipes at the woven bars, her claws splitting them apart instantly.
"And before you reprimand me for letting Thyrvi kill him, I put him out when he was on fire once," I say to my sister. "I gave him a chance. But watching you like that…"
She's shaking, but her wide eyes harden. "I'd have thrown him off the mountain myself," she snarls.
I look at her in surprise.
"You had to watch me for a couple hours, Maddy. I had to watch you for a whole day. That fae had evil in him. Yggdrasil is better off without anybody who gets that much pleasure from causing others pain."
"I couldn't agree more," I say as I press myself gratefully into Thyrvi's side. "His friend with the giant, flaming bear might be harder to get rid of, though, and they were like siblings. She's not going to go easy on us."
"Even more reason to get out of here, now," Freydis says.
"We can't leave without the tiara."
Freydis tugs my arm. "Really?"
"Yes! We need to know why they want it. And there are other things in that bag I need." That Kain needs, I think. If we come out of this alive, then he'll never forgive me for losing the other half of his helm.
We search the area quickly, but I don't remember seeing the bag since Mother dropped it in the snowy tunnel. Does she have it? Or did she think it was unimportant and left it there?
Freydis looks out over the ledge and sucks in air. "I can see a lot of movement down there," she says. "Do you think that clanging is an alarm?"
"Or a call to war," I say, joining her. "The Giants seemed to know what to do when it went off."
Frost Giants are lined up in formation, the size of ants from here. Wooden objects that I guess are trebuchets are being rolled along the snowy ground.
"Look," my sister says, pointing straight down the mountainside. Where the slope is less steep, only fifty feet or so above the valley, I see another ledge jutting out. "I've been there with Mother. That's where they'll command the Giants from." As we watch, I swear I see the shining blue hair of Ishild flash on the ledge.
"They aren't all mindless grunts," Freydis tells me. "I've been here a few times now, and although Ishild is the commander in this part of the realm, there are a number as smart and beautiful as she is. They seem to be in charge of groups of the grunts."
That lines up with what I read about the Frost Giants in Brynhild's lessons. Before I can answer, I see a dark, swooping spot appear in the against the backdrop of bleak gray sky.
I hold my breath, squinting.
Another one joins it.
And then another.
"Please, please, please, let that be the Valkyrie," I pray aloud.
Hope buzzes through my body like electricity when I see a burst of light far, far below.
It's a portal.
They found us.
"Where's Orgid?"
The unexpected voice startles us both, and we leap to our feet.
Thyrvi bounds between us and Inga, snarling.
"I have no staff, Maddy!" Freydis hisses at me.
Ice shards whirl around my hands.
"He fell," I call to Inga. She's approaching us slowly, her bear behind her, but her footsteps halt at my words.
"What?"
"He fell," I say again, louder.
"You killed him."
"Thyrvi killed him."
"I hate you," she snarls.
Her shoulders hunch and Brunnin's fur burns and flickers brighter as the creature growls in its chest.
Thyrvi rumbles an answering challenge.
But before any fight can ensue, Freydis runs, sprinting to our left.
I follow her as fast as my feet can carry me. With a roar, Thyrvi bats the battered wooden cage at Inga, causing her to pull up as she starts to follow us, then races along behind us.
"Why do we flee?" Thyrvi bellows indignantly in my mind as we run.
"We need to find the tiara and Freydis' staff, and they might be in these tunnels!"
We lose Inga fast. Between the ice walls I put up to deflect her, and Freydis' rudimentary knowledge of the mountain, we have the advantage.
But we have no luck finding the bag.
"If Mother took it with her, then they may have it on the command ledge," Freydis says. She swallows nervously. "What happens when they fix it?"
"They can't," I say. "I have the firestone."
She lets out a sigh of relief. "Maybe, if they're distracted by whatever is happening in the valley, we can get it back without fighting?"
"It's worth a try. Here, you look after this." I hand her the firestone. I'm more likely to be taken captive or to have to fight than she is, and besides, she's always been more careful than me.
When we finally find the ledge, I tell Thyrvi I have to vanish her. "You're too easy to spot. I swear I'll return you the second there's fighting."
"Oh, there will be fighting," she says, pawing at the ground, eyes glinting with promised violence.
I glance at my sister, and wonder if she is feeling the same strange thrill that I am. The fear is there, for sure, but so is the desire to finish this.
To punish those who have hurt us.
To win.
Thyrvi begins a gruesome tirade about the amount of blood she'll be spilling, and I let her go for a full minute before hugging her huge chest, then vanishing her.
When we sneak out onto the ledge, it is a totally different shape to the higher one. It's narrower, and much longer, wrapping around the mountain and giving a perfect view of the valley below. Piles of crates offer numerous places to hide, though I can't see anybody.
Carefully, we creep to the edge of the ledge.