Finaan
Chapter twenty-six
Your Master
“Are you sure this is the way?”
By the gods, Svend is driving me insane. He’s asked this question a dozen times every day for the last ten days, and the answer’s been the same every time.
Nobody’s sure of the way. We’re all stumbling around in the dark.
We’ve been wandering through these caves for two weeks.
At least, I think it’s two weeks. With no sun to guide us, we’re eating and sleeping when our bodies demand.
We count a new day whenever we wake up and start traveling again.
Rata swears his internal clock is measuring the time, but he’s not the most honest squirrel I’ve ever met. And he’s a bit of a troublemaker.
Still, we’re gods-damned lucky to have him, and that the gods, or fate, or whatever fickle beings guide our steps, have provided so many edible plants along the way.
Our supplies have dwindled, but Rata knows what will kill us and what won’t.
He won’t let us forget, reminding us with every meal how lucky we are that he deigns to travel with us.
We don’t feel particularly lucky as we force down the moss and fungi that stanches our hunger. It’s better than starving, though.
The water healed Ruxi after I tortured the poor dragon by digging that enormous arrow out of their ass.
We got them into the water in time to give them the magic they needed to survive a wound that really should have been lethal.
I still have no idea how they found the strength, the will, to carry us all to safety. But they did.
They’re so fucking amazing. It warms my heart to know the fates gave Panta such a worthy draikani.
They also gave her Wrath—perhaps the balance everything in nature needs, because nobody can have a simple, joyful life. That serpent complicates everything, but I’m trying not to think about Wregen and his monster. We’ll deal with them and our impossible mating bonds when we find Helheim.
Ruxi and Rata are doing their best, but the path to that dark place is well-hidden, and we’ve yet to chase it down. Twice, we thought we were close. Ruxi and I felt our bonds flare, telling us the asshole and his serpent live. Both times, though, the cavern led us away and we lost our connection.
Panta told us to chase him. It feels like a fool’s errand, but we trust her with our lives.
So it’s killing us that we’re going to abandon our search and go after her instead.
We need to talk to her, learn what she’s learned since Ruxi left.
And, in all honesty, Ruxi needs their draikana.
They’re different since the attack. It’ll do all of us good.
“Are you listening, Finaan?” Svend demands in his whiny tone.
“We’re all listening,” Rata declares, scampering next to the elf, occasionally weaving through his feet as he walks. It’s annoying, but he stopped doing it to me after I stepped on him one-too-many times. Svend still tries to avoid him, so Rata fucks with his feet.
He stays away from Ruxi’s claws. He hasn’t lived this long by doing stupid shit like that.
“Then why isn’t she answering?” Svend huffs, spinning his head to glare at me. “Your dragon told you to follow our master…”
“Your master,” I bark, knowing he’d repeat this ridiculous claim, because he refuses to stop. “I wish you’d try to let him go,” I add in a softer voice. “He’s not your master, either.”
“But he is,” Svend says, as he does whenever I push back. It doesn’t matter, though. This isn’t going to change. “We’re to follow my master,” he mumbles. “You said your dragon’s command was clear.”
“We tried. We need to go see Panta, learn what she knows. We’ll go after him. The fates want it and we are their humble servants,” I add, somehow managing to keep the sarcasm from my voice.
It’s like they’re making it up as they go.
As a child, I believed the Norns had been writing our stories for millennia, all to serve some greater good they alone could discern, controlling even the fates of the gods.
But then I ended up in Helheim, and learned nobody had a single say about Hel’s fate.
And those bitches paired me with Wregen and Wrath.
Now, I trust them even less than I trust the gods.
If they’re using Panta to manipulate me and the others, I want to know about it.
“You’re leading us farther away from our master.”
“Your master,” I repeat, almost a reflex now. “It can’t be helped. The route to Helheim is impossible to find. If the dragons are getting some insight about fate’s plans from the Norns, we need to learn what Panta knows.”
Svend’s quiet after that, and we trudge along in a heavy silence, other than the plodding of our feet. Ruxi leads, their vision alone capable of piercing the blackness in the cave, and we follow the sounds they make, even with their light steps.
Everything feels heavy, not just the stillness and dead air around us.
Maybe it’s because Ruxi’s so quiet. Even Svend and Rata are more subdued as we abandon our search for the one place none of us wants to go.
Or maybe it’s me. I’m not sure when or how it happened, but Wregen got under my skin. Wrath somehow burrowed even deeper.
Our time in my room in álfheimr keeps pushing its way into my thoughts: Wregen’s dry humor, how comfortable we were together.
His changing expressions filter through my mind, the gradual shift in how he saw me.
I was a body he wanted to fuck—to own—for a long time, not the female who would make him whole.
I’m not sure if he’d admit it, but we can’t hide our emotions from each other. I know how he changed. The Wregen who forced Svend to carry me away from Vanatia isn’t the male I swam with in the lake, who purred in my ears before Balin’s attack. I felt his conflict, almost as sharply as my own.
I can’t forgive him for the things he did—coercing my body to betray me twice—but I also can’t deny that he unleashes a hungry, achy part of me, utterly primal.
Thank the gods he never went further than that, potentially triggering a bond connection even without my consent.
Wregen had Svend at his command. I’d have been helpless if he used his sleep gift on me.
Maybe he did, and I didn’t even realize it.
I don’t think so, though. I’d know. I’d feel it in the morning, and I haven’t.
He wants to fuck me, but more than that, he wants my agreement. Wregen craves a willing mate. So he gave me a choice, in that at least. It wasn’t easy for him, but he can control the monster she created.
Wregen’s belonged to Hel for centuries. He made no secret where his allegiance lies. And maybe I’m lying to myself, but it feels like his commitment to her changed. I felt it waver when I was in his arms.
It’s not nearly enough, but he’s not completely heartless.
Not that it matters. He’s bound to Hel, and I can’t let him take me back there.
Ruxi’s click yanks me from my thoughts, and we all freeze. Slowing my breaths, I stretch out my senses, searching for whatever startled them. My hearing isn’t good enough to find something over the scraps of noises we’re making, but this might work, if my heart stops pounding in my ears.
At least the trembling fingers I’m trying to calm don’t make a sound.
It takes a few seconds to pin it down, and I’m not sure what I’m hearing.
It’s as if a ship’s sail is being dragged across stone, gently scraping it clean, dislodging a few pebbles or rocks along the way.
There’s a rhythm to it, though not the random vacillation of cloth.
It sounds alive. And enormous. And restless.
The angry grunt takes everyone by surprise, and Rata’s startled squeak echoes around us.
The low growl that follows sends a chill down my spine, replacing every bit of heat my body has managed to store with ice, brittle and frail.
Ruxi spins their head to look at me—bright eyes the only light in this dark place—and then turns back around and starts moving forward.
“Shouldn’t we discuss this?” I hiss as the dragon stalks away.
They don’t pause, though, their steady steps an unsettling contrast to the shards of fear rattling inside me.
“Should we … follow?” Svend whispers.
A tremble in the final word gives me odd comfort. I’m glad I’m not the only one terrified of whatever waits around the corner.
But Panta’s draikani isn’t afraid, and they’re our guide. If they can walk alone toward the mystery monster, we can pull our shit together and join them.
“We should,” I tell him—grateful my voice doesn’t warble like his did—then stride forward.
The cave meanders a bit, and I realize as I turn a third corner that something ahead of us casts light.
I’m not sure if it’s a random tunnel to the world above, one of Yggdrasill’s roots, or something else.
But my eyes, devoid of any stimulus for too long, crave the images I’m going to offer them.
My steps accelerate before I’ve even thought about it.
After a few seconds, I’m jogging, catching up with Ruxi as they make the final turn.
I can’t hold back the gasp or the flicker in my heart when I see what writhes, trapped, in front of us.
It’s as visible as it would be on a sunny day because the rock beneath it glows. A bright light emanates from the stone directly below its massive form, gradually receding the further away it gets. It’s as if the beast’s touch creates light, dimmer where its contact is less frequent.
Wrath erupts in my mind, their similarities jarring.
They’re close to the same size, this monster perhaps a bit smaller, but it has neither wings nor limbs.
Shaped like an enormous worm, it slithers and slides across the stone.
Their hides are nearly identical, other than the color.
Where Wregen’s beast is dark, this creature is light, and it glows from the illumination it seems to have created.