Chapter 65 Danica #2
My ankle throbs with each step down the spiraling staircase, Rhyland's face burning in my mind.
Hold on, I silently plead. Just hold on.
We reach the bottom of the spire and my heart leaps—Heimdall stands before the entrance, his golden armor gleaming—ancient eyes burning with fury.
Loki's grip on my arm tightens, ice spreading, but his voice stays playful. "Heimdall! How lovely to see you. Love what you've done with the place."
"Trickster." Heimdall rumbles. "How did you breach my realm? They've been sealed."
They circle each other, Loki dragging me with him like a shield—relief floods me at the sight of Heimdall—finally, someone who can help.
"Oh, that's the best part." Loki's laugh rings off the stone walls. "When you opened the Bifrost for our dear Commander's triumphant return—I hitched a ride. Hidden in plain sight, wearing dear Baldr's face." His grin stretches wide. "You really should pay more attention to who you let in."
"Why?" Heimdall's eyes narrow. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why not?" Loki spreads his free arm wide. "Chaos is so much more fun than order. And watching Odin's precious plans crumble?" He shivers with theatrical pleasure. "Delicious."
"You will die for this transgression." Heimdall threatens. "Painfully."
Loki throws his head back and laughs. "You think you can kill me?
Please." His grip tightens on my arm. "I've already won.
I have the stone, the savior, and the poor Godborn taking a long nap.
" His eyes dance with malice. "What are you going to do, watch me leave?
That is your specialty, isn't it? Always watching, never acting. "
Heimdall's hand moves to his sword. "Not this time, Trickster."
Heimdall's eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second—a slight nod.
Light explodes from my palm, searing through Loki's frost. He howls, releasing my arm as I dive away. The sound of steel leaving its scabbard rings through the air—Heimdall's sword blazes golden as he lunges.
Loki barely gets his ice blade up in time. The clash of weapons echoes like thunder, frost meeting godly steel in a shower of sparks—the very air trembles with their power.
"Run, Danica!" Heimdall's voice booms as he drives Loki back. "Find him! I need him!"
The gods move faster than my eyes can track. Loki's laughter turns savage as he parries Heimdall's strikes, ice spreading across the floor with each step. "Always so dramatic, old friend!"
Heimdall answers with a blow that shatters Loki's ice blade. The trickster god forms two more instantly, frost crawling up his arms like armor. They clash again, the impact cracking the stone beneath their feet.
"You've grown slow in your watching," Loki taunts, spinning away from a lethal strike. His blades leave frost trails in the air as he attacks, forcing Heimdall to give ground.
"And you talk too much." Heimdall's sword blazes brighter. The following impact sends Loki staggering, ice armor cracking.
"GO!" Heimdall roars at me, his green eyes fierce. "Now!"
I turn and run, their battle shaking the very foundations of the Nexus behind me. The last thing I hear is Loki's wild laughter and the deafening crash of godly powers colliding.
Hold on, Rhyland. I'm coming.
I burst through the doors into biting wind. Erik, Bryn, and Gullfax wait at the bottom of the steps, weapons ready.
"Dani!" Bryn rushes forward, gripping my shoulders. "Are you alright? Heimdall—"
"Loki," I gasp, lungs burning. "It was Loki the whole time. He has the stone, and Rhyland—" My voice cracks. "He's got Rhyland somewhere. Drowning. I can't feel him, can't sense him anywhere—"
"Wait." Erik's silver eyes flash. "You can't sense him at all? No bond?"
I shake my head, throat tight. "Nothing. Just... emptiness."
"Valor's Watch." Bryn's voice turns hard. "It's the only place in Zephyria that could block a mate bond. The wards must be up."
God damn it. I want to scream at myself for not realizing sooner. Of course that's where Loki would hide him—the one place I couldn't sense him.
"Did Loki say anything else?" Bryn's voice cuts through my panic. "Any details, any hints?"
I force my mind back to our chambers, sifting through his taunts. "He said"—my voice catches. "He said Rhyland was taking a swim. That chains make swimming difficult." The memory makes me want to throw up. "He was laughing about it."
"The Twilight Eyrie," Bryn says quickly. "There's a lake there, deeper than any in the realm. If he wanted to make sure Rhyland couldn't—"
I don't wait for her to finish. Power surges through me as I thrust my hand out, tearing reality apart. The portal crackles with light, opening onto the snow-covered compound of Valor's Watch.
"Move!" I'm already running through, Erik, Bryn, and Gullfax behind me.
Hold on, babe. I silently plead. Just hold on.
The emptiness in my chest turns to ice as realization hits. With the wards blocking our bond, there's no way for him to draw strength from me. No way to know I'm coming. Just endless darkness and burning lungs as water fills them over and over, his immortal body refusing to die even as it suffers.
My hands shake as my stomach twists into knots. Every second we waste is another moment of that torture.
The wards hit like a wall, magic draining from my body instantly—feels like a piece of my soul is ripped away.
Bryn's at the guard's throat in a heartbeat, cold steel kissing his skin. "Lower the wards!" She screams. "NOW!"
The guard's eyes bulge, Adam's apple bobbing against her blade. "I—I can't just—"
She presses harder, drawing a bead of blood. "I said, lower the fucking wards!"
"Okay!" He stumbles back, hands raised. "Okay, just don't—"
He scrambles to the gate mechanism, Bryn's glare burning into his back. Ancient gears groan as the wards power down.
Power floods back as the wards drop, but with it comes agony.
My knees buckle—hitting the ground, ice biting into my skin. Every nerve screams with phantom pain—freezing water in my lungs, chains biting into my wrists, the unbearable pressure of the deep. I can't breathe, can't think.
"Dani!" Erik's hands grip my shoulders. "Dani, look at me."
I force my eyes open, meeting silver.
"Breathe." His voice is low, steady. "This isn't your pain. Breathe through it."
I drag in a shuddering breath, then another. The agony recedes like a fading nightmare, but the soul-deep ache remains. The despair. The loneliness.
"Rhyland?" I reach through our bond. "Babe, I'm here. I'm coming."
Silence answers. Just more cold. More dark.
"Lightborn." Gullfax stomps next to me, his voice cracks through the haze. "All of you, on. Now!"
"Erik—" The word barely leaves my mouth before his hands lock around my waist, launching me onto Gullfax's back. Bryn lands behind me, Erik a heartbeat later.
Gullfax surges forward before Erik's even settled. "I'll get us there faster," Gullfax promises, hooves thundering over ice and snow. "Hold on."
The world blurs as we race against time, the bond screaming in my head.
Gullfax gallops through the air as we race toward the Twilight Eyrie. The ancient structure looms against the mountainside, a foreboding silhouette against the gray sky. My heart pounds in time with his hoofbeats, the bond pulling tighter every second.
We crest the final peak and my breath catches. There, nestled in a valley of shadows, lies the frozen lake. Its surface is a mirror of dark ice, reflecting the eyrie's twisted spires.
Gullfax descends in a blur, my stomach lurching as we plummet. The lake rushes up to meet us.
We hit the ground hard. I'm off Gullfax's back before he's fully stopped, ignoring the searing pain as my ankle twists on the impact. I stumble, catching myself on numb hands, and force myself forward.
The ice beckons, a siren's call. I sprint across the frozen surface, my reflection fracturing beneath my feet. He's here. I can feel him, the bond pulling me forward like a lifeline. Almost there. Almost—
"LIGHTBORN, STOP!"
Gullfax's mental shout slams into me a second before the ice cracks. Fissures spider-web out from my feet, the surface groaning.
"Dani, don't move." Erik's command cuts through the air like steel.
The ice splinters. Gullfax's hooves strike air like solid ground, each step precise as he gallops across nothing to reach me. His teeth catch the hood of my coat just as the surface gives way, yanking me back to shore while dark water surges through the cracks.
"Let me go!" I thrash in Gullfax's grip, feet kicking uselessly. "He's down there, I have to—"
"The temperature will kill you in two minutes." Erik strips his weapons with military efficiency, each movement calculated despite the urgency in his voice. "I can withstand the cold. I'm faster. Tell me exactly where you sense him."
"There." I point to where the bond pulls strongest, voice cracking. "Right there, thirty feet out."
Erik nods once, silver eyes sharp with focus. "Stay here. Do not follow." He meets my gaze, and I see the fear behind his stoic mask for a split second. "I'll bring him back."
Bryn's arms wrap around me as I collapse into the snow. Shielding me from the biting wind.
"He'll find him," she whispers, but I barely hear her through the phantom sensations flooding our bond. Cold. So cold. The pressure crushing his chest, chains biting into flesh, the endless dark...
I clutch Bryn's arm as another wave hits, my throat raw from crying. Through tear-blurred vision, I watch Erik's form slice through the water where I pointed, disappearing beneath the fractured ice.
Minutes crawl by like hours. Bryn suddenly tenses, a sharp gasp escaping her lips.
"Bryn?"
"I can—" Her voice catches. "The cold, the pressure. Erik's... I can feel everything he's—"
My heart skips. Even through my pain, joy flickers—they've bonded. Finally.
"Send it back," I grip her hand. "Your strength, your warmth. He needs to feel you. He needs to know you're waiting." My voice breaks. "That's what the bond is for—to share everything—pain, love, power. Let him draw from you."
Bryn's eyes close, her breathing steady despite the tears freezing on her cheeks. Her focus shifts inward, channeling everything she is through their new connection.
We cling to each other in the snow, two mates waiting for our other halves to surface from the depths.
Minutes stretch into eternity. Each second without Rhyland's heartbeat next to mine is agony, the bond screaming with his pain. Bryn's grip on my hand turns bruising, her fear pulsing with mine.
Just as I'm about to break, to dive into the water myself—the surface explodes.
Erik surges through the shattered ice, a limp form cradled against his chest. Water cascades off them as he powers through the broken surface, silver hair slicked back, face set in grim determination.
"Oh my god." I scramble across the ice, boots slipping as I race toward them.
Erik heaves Rhyland's body onto the frozen shore. My world narrows to a pinpoint of horror.
His skin is corpse-blue, his lips purple-black and cold. Frost crystals glitter in his eyelashes and hair. Iron chains, rimed with ice, bite into the raw flesh of his wrists and ankles. His chest is still—too still.
"No, no, no..." The words fall from my lips like prayers as I drop beside him. His skin shouldn't be this color—this terrible, lifeless blue. What if I'm too late? What if those chains were enchanted, designed to trap his soul and body?
Erik shatters the icy restraints with a feral snarl, metal fragments scattering across the snow. I see the runes etched into each broken link—ancient symbols of binding, drowning, and eternal suffering.
My hands hover over Rhyland's still chest for one terrible heartbeat. What if this doesn't work? What if Loki made sure I'd find nothing but an empty shell?
No. I refuse to accept that.
I lock my fingers together and slam my weight down onto his sternum. "Come on, babe," I choke out, arms burning with the effort. "You promised me forever, remember? This isn't forever."
Each compression feels like pushing against stone. The cold radiating from his body seeps into my bones, but I keep counting. Keep pushing. Keep fighting.
What if he's already been taken somewhere I can't follow?
"I swear to god," I grit through tears, "if you die on me, I will follow you to Valhalla just to kick your ass."
Thirty compressions. Tilt his head back. His lips are blue-black beneath mine as I breathe for him. Once. Twice.
Nothing.
Start again.
"Please," I beg, no longer caring who hears the desperation in my voice. "Please, Rhyland. Come back to me."
The bond is a gossamer thread now, barely there. My arms shake with exhaustion, but I push through it. I won't lose him—not to Loki, not to anyone.
"That's it," I hiss, feeling something shift beneath my hands. "Fight, damn it!"
Rhyland's body convulses suddenly, back arching off the ground. He rolls violently to his side, expelling ice water in gut-wrenching heaves. Each breath tears from his lungs, echoing across the frozen lake.
"I'm here," I soothe, hands steady on his shuddering back. "I'm right here, babe."
His eyes find mine—ocean-blue rimmed with red, wild with pain and desperation. One trembling hand reaches for me, and I'm there in an instant, crushed against his freezing body.
"Angel," he rasps, the word barely audible through chattering teeth.
I break. Tears stream down my face as I cling to him, sobbing against his chest. His arms tighten around me, each violent shiver running through us both as he buries his face in my hair.