Finaan
Chapter fourteen
He's a Mess
Idon’t try to hold back the smile that splits my cheeks as I watch Wregen walk away.
He’s a mess, and I’m starting to understand why.
The mate bond connects me to him and Wrath, even without accepting it.
My magic can’t read their power the way it can with others, but I still feel their conflict.
I sense echoes of the hunger that drove Wrath to do horrific things centuries ago.
It’s easier to sympathize with Wregen knowing his reasons for choosing Hel and binding themselves to her chaos and evil.
He’s still a bastard, and after three centuries, that won’t change. He’ll drag me to Helheim if he can. If I refuse to fuck him, he’ll eventually take what he thinks is his due.
Well, he’ll try. I won’t make it easy.
Still, I might hate him a little less.
“Why is he so mean?” the squirrel yells, sitting atop Ruxi like he belongs there.
The dragon sniffs at me and tosses their nose back, a clear invitation to join Ratatoskr if I’d like.
“I’ve only ever ridden Panta,” I tell them with a grimace I intend to be a smile, but which I’m sure comes out as a strange twist of the lips. “I know you’re her draikani, and she’d probably want me to ride you, but I’m not ready yet.”
Ruxi sniffs again and I sense the deep compassion that Panta must adore.
My dragon’s a do-gooder—always trying to fix things or other beings, even those that want to be broken.
Sometimes opposites attract, but sometimes your perfect mate shares the traits that make you special.
I can already tell that Ruxi and Panta are more alike than different.
It settles my soul a bit more to realize how deeply loved Panta has been while we’ve been apart.
“Will you carry me?” Svend asks in a soft voice. I’ve heard him subservient too many times, but this tone carries a respect he’s never expressed toward Wregen.
The purple beast watches him for a few moments before dropping their chin, their gaze holding mine the whole time.
They’re allowing this for me, I realize.
I still don’t know why, but I do like Svend.
He needs friends if he’s ever going to break free of Wregen, and I suspect that Ruxi will be a devoted ally.
“But,” the little rodent squeals as Svend climbs up to sit behind him, “why is he so mean?”
“What should we call you?” I ask instead of answering his question. He’ll figure Wregen out, or he won’t, but I’ve wasted enough time thinking about him and Wrath. Turning to follow the sound of the asshole’s steps, I start walking, trusting the others to follow.
“I’ve told you my name,” the squirrel responds with a haughty sniff. “Ratatoskr.”
“That’s a mouthful,” I point out. “Surely you have a nickname. If you’ve been scampering up and down the tree of life for thousands of years, someone must have called you something else.”
He snorts, an oddly elfish sound. But this isn’t the snort laugh I hear so often among other elves.
This is disbelief, tinged with the smallest speck of sadness.
“I had little company in the time I served the gods,” he says in a voice that’s so much smaller than any he’s used before, it draws a tear to my eye.
“Hraesvelgr and Níehoggr were my only companions and they wanted only to hear the news I carried them from the other.”
“Neither called you anything except Ratatoskr?” I demand. He’s hiding something. I’m not sure what, but if he’s going to travel with us, he can’t keep secrets about the gods and their vassals.
The squirrel is quiet for a long time, trickles of internal conflict whispering from him.
Finally, he puffs out another breath—which I already recognize as the “tell” that he’s struggling with something emotionally—and whispers, “Rat. Hraesvelgr called me rat, declaring me too foul and dirty for even him to eat. Níehoggr never called me anything. He gave me the words to relay to Hraesvelgr. Nothing more.”
“You didn’t like it?” I whisper, not quite sure if I want to push him in something that caused so much pain.
He hears me though, spewing a reply full of anger. “I didn’t care what they called me, and I was glad to be ignored. They’re vicious beasts, both of them, and I’m lucky I survived their attention.”
“Can I call you Ratty?” I wonder, trying to drag his thoughts away from the beasts he spent thousands of years scurrying between.
“Would you want to be called Ratty?” he mutters, almost under his breath.
“Rata?” I suggest, putting the emphasis on the last syllable. It sounds majestic, and I like it.
“Rata,” he repeats, his tone speculative. “Rata,” he murmurs, almost to himself.
“It’s heroic,” I add, “perfect for a squirrel who devoted his life to serving the gods.”
I almost can feel him sitting up straighter on Ruxi’s back.
“I prefer Ratty,” Svend interjects before Rata can say anything. “I mean, you are a rodent, and I’m sure Wregen would like that better too.”
“We couldn’t give one little shit what Wregen likes, could we, Rata?” I don’t turn to look at Svend, starting to appreciate the “weasel” nickname Wregen gave him more and more. “You can call him Ratty if you like,” I tell the large rodent. “You’ll regret it, though.”
I hear his sharp inhale but ignore it. I doubt I’ll need to demonstrate, but I will if I must. Somebody has to break Svend’s unholy obsession with the asshole shifter trying to lead us back to Helheim, and there aren’t any options in this cave.
It’ll have to be me—and soon—but I’ll deal with that later. Or tomorrow. Maybe the next day.
We walk for a long time, the sounds of footsteps in front of and behind me my only company.
Occasionally, I stumble over a rock, but my eyes have shifted in a way I never expected.
They’re finding light where there is none, giving me vague outlines of the caves we’re walking through.
It’s as if I already possess Wrath’s gifts, even though I haven’t embraced the bond.
And maybe that’s it. I can grasp echoes of their emotions.
It would make sense for me to be able to harness some of their magic too.
Wrath’s eyesight is better than mine, if Wregen’s sure steps and steady pace are any indication.
I just need a scrap of my sight to follow him without tripping over every rock, and running into every wall, along the way.
The roar pulls me out of my reverie about vision, sending a chill down my spine as I wonder what Wregen found, and whether he’ll leave part of its corpse to disgust us as we pass by.
But when he bellows again, frustration rumbling through every note, I feel a rush of panic shooting through our bond.
The chill that rolls along my spine this time is a shard of ice, slicing its way down my back.
Wregen’s terrified, and I have to fight the tremble in my hands that this triggers.
I focus on the bond, trying to find some idea of what he and Wrath have encountered, but it’s too shallow to give me anything except their panic at whatever waits for us ahead.
Inching my way forward, I let images of the worst possibilities emerge in my thoughts.
Telling myself that I’m preparing to meet whatever awaits us around the corner, I focus on each, examining their strengths and weaknesses.
Mostly strengths, because anything that can frighten Wregen can’t have many weaknesses.
Jormungandr’s not likely. He carried us here alive and could have abandoned us in the sea’s depths, never to be seen again.
His brothers, though, would be terrifying if they gathered together.
Unlike the serpent or his sister Hel, who’s shaped like an elf or human, most of Loki’s offspring are wolves.
Enormous wolves. Fenrir is said to be larger than any horse, nearly as big as the elephants that roam Midgard’s warmer lands. The others aren’t much smaller.
Still, it doesn’t sound right. Loki’s sons wouldn’t turn on their sister like that. Wregen’s important to Hel. I can’t imagine they’d threaten him.
Rata is here, tossed from his service to Yggdrasill. What if Níehoggr got separated from the tree too? Even Wrath might be terrified of that enormous dragon. And he’s a malevolent creature, devoting centuries to destroying the tree of life, if he can.
Wouldn’t Rata sense him, though? After thousands of years of carrying messages to and from the beast, the squirrel should know when he’s nearby.
I slow as I near the corner, stretching out my senses one more time to find some insight into what Wregen fears.
Again, though, raw panic alone pulses back at me.
With no weapon—because the fuckers stole me in the middle of the night—I feel naked.
So I stuff as many rocks as I can into my pockets, and then gesture Ruxi forward.
I couldn’t possibly have expected what I find.
The cavern opens up in front of us, a vast space that somehow has more light than the tunnels we’ve been trudging through.
And in the center, as if on display, Wregen is sunk into the ground.
It looks like the earth opened up, sucked in half of him, and then wrapped itself around his torso.
And maybe that’s exactly what happened. I’d be a fool to underestimate the power of the magic rippling through this system.
“Get me the fuck out of here,” he barks, his eyes the brightest sparks of light in this enormous cave.
I sense, more than see, Svend starting to climb down from Ruxi but spin my head to glare at him. “Don’t you dare,” I warn. Because we’d be fools to give up this opportunity to wring some answers and compliance out of Wregen.
“But … he may die,” Svend whispers, a catch in his voice with the last word.
“Then he’ll die.” There’s no catch in my voice. The knot that formed in my stomach when I saw him may disagree, but all of us would be better off if his journey ended here.