Chapter 6 Svenn
The snow falls thick and heavy outside, turning the world into a blur of white. Rhianelle's footprints are already filling in. I don't need tracks to find her. I could find her in perfect darkness, in any storm. Her heartbeat calls to me like a beacon.
She stands in a clearing just beyond the cottage with her face tilted to the sky. Snow catches in her hair and on her eyelashes.
A smile curves her delicate lips.
But it's sad, that smile.
"Rhianelle?"
She doesn't startle.
"I'm sorry," she says softly.
The attack comes from nowhere.
Shadow chains erupt from the snow-covered ground, wrapping around my ankles, wrists, and throat. The Rhunhraefn binds me with familiar cruelty. Dark tendrils burn like ice against my skin. I'm dragged to my knees, forced down into the snow.
This is it, then.
The Rhunhraefn has always been hungry for control. It finally got to her. Perhaps it showed her visions of what I could become and convinced her. The thought comes with surprising calm.
I've accepted it, haven't I?
That should Rhianelle one day be consumed by the Rhunhraefn and the curse take her completely, I would still serve her faithfully. If she decides that I'm a threat that needs to be eliminated, I would let her do what must be done.
I won't fight her.
The chains tighten, cutting off my air. My vision starts to darken at the edges. I keep my eyes on her, memorizing the way snow clings to her silver hair.
If this is the last thing I see, at least it's beautiful.
Then the chains shatter.
The shadow bindings that have held me for thousands of years dissolve into nothing, fragments of darkness scattering on the wind. I'm left gasping in the snow, free air rushing into my lungs.
Free.
The word doesn't make sense. Lilith designed the Rhunhraefn to be eternal and unbreakable, a curse that would bind its victims until the end of time itself.
And yet.
I stare at my wrists where the chains were moments ago.
Nothing. There's not even a mark. The weight that has pressed against my mind for millennia, the invisible leash that jerked me to heel at my mistress's whim is gone. Severed.
I look up at Rhianelle and my breath catches.
She stands wreathed in silver light. Her hair floats around her face as though underwater. Power radiates from her in waves. She looks like a goddess.
Materializing around her are figures in tattered red dresses, fabric torn and stained with age. They wear animal masks, crude things carved from wood and bone.
The curse bearers.
Twisted souls bound to the Rhunhraefn, witches who served as unwilling instruments of evil for centuries.
They writhe and hiss, all of them caught in the same web of suffering that held me.
Rhianelle raises her hand. "You who were bound, be free. The curse is broken."
Her voice carries the weight of absolution. "Go and find your peace."
Most of them flee immediately. They become wisps of shadow before dissolving into starlight.
The wind takes them gently. A few curse bearers whisper their thanks to Rhianelle and hold her hand.
Others simply disappear with no expression at all, too broken to understand that freedom has finally come.
But not all go willingly.
Some linger, stubbornly clinging to their chains. The one wearing the boar mask claws at her wrist.
Rhianelle takes a step back and the air changes. Each flake of snow ceases falling and hangs frozen in mid-air. It's as if the world itself has paused.
Ribbons of black writhe up from the earth. They sparkle with forbidden runes and the ground beneath us pulses with ancient power.
I know this power. I lived beneath something like it for centuries. This is not mere spells or curses.
This is dominion.
The authority of something that existed before gods walked the earth.
It's here for the disobedient.
"Rhianelle?" My voice cracks.
But it's not her.
Something else looks back at me through her eyes.
A presence vast and ancient, wearing her flesh like a borrowed coat.
Behind her, visible only through my Strigon sight, stands a skeletal figure wreathed in shadows.
His bones are pale as moonlight, his eye sockets empty save for twin points of cold fire.
Tattered robes hang from his frame, embroidered with ancient runes and symbols.
"Be still." The being speaks and the earth trembles.
"I am Guardian of the Threshold," he says through her mouth. "Keeper of the Hollow."
He is one of the Un, the forgotten gods that Rhianelle serves. The one who stands watch at the gates of damnation.
His terrible gaze fixes on the remaining curse bearers. "You were mistaken to ignore the little one's mercy."
He raises Rhianelle's hand and opens a wound in the earth.
The ground cracks and splits into a wide fissure. From it rises something that should not exist in the mortal plane.
The Gates of Hel.
They're crafted from iron and bone twisted together. Thorns longer than swords protrude from every surface. Screaming faces press against the bars from the inside, mouths open in eternal torment.
Beyond the narrow gaps, I glimpse the Hollow.
It's an abyss of suffering so absolute it turns my stomach. Rivers of flame cut through landscapes of char and ruin. Trees made of bone reach toward a sky of ash and smoke.
The guardian raises Rhianelle's hand in invitation and the curse bearers are pulled toward the gates.
"You fucking whore!" the boar curses, clawing at the snow.
"Wait, we didn't mean it!" the vulture shrieks, her nails leaving bloody furrows in the earth as Hel’s gravity pulls them inexorably forward.
One by one, they're dragged through the gates and into the Hollow beyond.
That's when I see her.
Lilith.
The enchantress has been summoned from whatever hiding place she's been rotting in since her death. She looks exactly as she did a thousand years ago when she cursed me.
"Hello, Andras." She speaks my name like a victory, like she still owns it.
She is smiling, until she sees the gates. Her smug expression shatters into pure terror.
"No!" She drops to her knees in the snow, her hands clasped in supplication. "Please, Keeper of Hel. I beg you. Mercy!"
Mal looks down at her with indifference. His hollow gaze shows neither anger nor satisfaction.
"Mercy is for those who show mercy," he says simply. "You showed none."
He reaches down with Rhianelle's hand and seizes Lilith by her golden hair. She kicks and thrashes, clawing at his hand with desperate strength.
"This is not how I end!" Lilith screams. "I was wronged! I deserved justice for what was done to me!"
"You will receive it," says a child's voice.
I hadn't noticed her before. The small figure perched on Mal's shoulder like a bird.
She's tiny, with silver hair that falls past her shoulders. Those lilac eyes remind me of my wife's. In fact, she looks exactly like Rhianelle must have looked as a child. But there's a weight of eons that no six-year-old should carry in her expression.
This is another Un, wearing the face of a younger Rhianelle.
"I was wronged first! What I did was justice!" Lilith's voice breaks. "I don't deserve this!"
The child tilts her head, considering Lilith with detached interest. "You will receive exactly what you deserve."
The Keeper drags Lilith toward the gates. She fights every step, her screams turning incoherent. Her terrified eyes sweep across the clearing.
They land on me.
"Andras!" She reaches out with one hand while the other struggles against the god's grip. "Help me! Please! After everything, you can't just watch me burn!"
I stare at her, this creature who damned me for a thousand years. This fucking witch who turned me into a weapon, a slave, a thing to be used and discarded. Who broke me into pieces and scattered those pieces across centuries of suffering.
The Keeper reaches the threshold of the gates and holds Lilith suspended there for a moment. She sees what waits beyond and the eternity she faces dawns on her.
Just as the god is about to hurl her through, he pauses and turns.
He looks directly at me. The weight of his gaze is crushing. This is what it means to be seen by a god. To have something eternal and infinite turn its full attention upon you.
The child on his shoulder focuses on me as well.
Her lilac eyes are so like Rhianelle's and yet so utterly different. They study me intensely. I force myself to meet her gaze.
She smiles.
It's not a kind smile.
"You're not suited for Rhianelle,” she says flatly.
I've thought it myself a thousand times, but hearing it spoken aloud by a goddess makes it feel like the truth.
“She is bright and pure," the child says softly. "And you? You're broken. Rotten at the core."
She points at the gates, where souls writhe in agony beyond the bars.
"You should go with them," she says simply. "The Hollow has room for monsters like you."
The Keeper nods slowly, still holding Lilith at the threshold. "You've killed thousands, drained them dry and made rivers of blood. The child speaks truth, vampire. You belong with the damned."
I do not deny it.
"I'm not going anywhere. She needs me. I belong with her," I say instead.
"You think yourself worthy of our chosen?" the little goddess asks, tilting her head.
"No," I admit quietly. "But Rhianelle loves me."
The child narrows her eyes. "Sometimes Rhianelle doesn't know what's good for her. Like that time she tried to befriend the shadowcat in Astefar. Nearly lost her hand. Right, Mal?"
The Keeper nods once and shoves Lilith through the gates. Her screams cut off abruptly as the Hollow claims her. He turns to me fully and I realize my mistake.
This god is not going to give me a chance to prove my worth. He's simply going to throw me into the Hollow after Lilith.