Chapter 75
Solveig sputtered, her body rejecting the influx of water as she rolled onto her side.
She coughed violently until only air remained in her lungs and she could breathe easily, even as the black tide rushed over her again and again.
Squeezing her eyes tight, she focused on her body—her lungs seemed to have suffered the worst of it, and she was tired and spent, but had no other injuries as far as she could tell.
Her body was hollow, empty and cold as she reached for her magic.
It was not there. Not even a spark.
When she couldn’t feel Westley, she lurched up in a panic, scanning her surroundings for signs of him.
Black jagged rocks of all sizes littered the shore, absorbing any light that touched them. Mist snaked between the cracks like blood spilling out of a body.
No Westley.
Hel.
She recognized it from her previous visit, though the atmosphere had changed. Solveig panicked, smacking her hands all over her body.
Am I dead?
The absence of Westley’s answer put a chill in her bones.
She couldn’t be dead. Wouldn’t she remember dying? No. She shook the dark thoughts away—she was not dead and neither was Westley. She would have felt it.
This was how Hel worked, it messed with the mind. And the living did not belong in this realm.
Laeknir’s story lingered as she recalled how easily he was deceived into thinking he was dead. He’d been convinced of his death and had accepted his untimely fate, even finding happiness in the barren wasteland.
The longer the living remained in Hel, the more they felt as if they belonged.
And it was already beginning.
She reassured herself repeatedly that she was not dead. There was no magic here save for the realm itself and its ruler, which was why she’d been cut off from her power and from Westley.
Fucking Ragnvald.
Solveig realized with a jolt of awareness that she was sitting out in the open and carefully got to her feet, a shiver running down her spine. Another quick scan of her body as her legs shook under her weight showed she was tired and empty of magic, but she was okay.
She was alive.
I got out. I survived. I’m alive.
She chanted to herself over and over as she searched for cover, her survival instincts taking over. The craggy black rocks were otherworldly—giant obsidian crystals forming triangular shelters across the desolate landscape.
A flash of white appeared and vanished just as quickly in the corner of her eye.
She placed a hand over her racing heart—another sign she was alive—as she reminded herself they were dead. As a rule, the dead were not allowed to harm the living while they visited Hel.
A spirit. Just a spirit.
Yes, they could torment the visitor, but as Solveig had proven, she could withstand that torture.
Not that she’d be thrilled to do it again so soon.
Though nearly a year had passed, a drop in the bucket of her immortal lifespan, her time in the cave was an internal scar that had barely begun to heal.
The spirit peeked out from behind a black crystal. She’d been spotted. No sense in hiding now—if Ragnvald was back, he’d know within minutes that she had entered his realm.
She prayed to all the gods, futile as it was, that he was not here.
“Hello?” she called, keeping her voice as friendly as possible. She could almost hear Westley’s snort in her head. Her, friendly. Ha.
The spirit ducked behind the rock, hiding. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She raised her hands in the air to show she meant no harm.
“Hello? My name is Solveig,” she tried again.
A small head with white eyes popped back up. Long white tendrils of smoke fell in waves, wisping around her little face. Her ears were rounded, but Solveig couldn’t tell if she’d been Vanir or mortal. She was too small to be Giant and too slender to be Dwarven.
Solveig took a few tentative steps towards the child.
“Can you help me?” she asked.
The child shook her head. There was something vaguely familiar about the girl, but Solveig couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Have you seen a Fae male wash up on shore?”
The girls stared blankly. She tried a different language, but still the spirit didn’t answer.
Maybe she should ask directions to find her father. Then she could look for Westley while heading to the cavern.
“I’m looking for a tunnel, one that goes to the centre of the realm.”
The girl’s eyes widened in fear.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to come with me. I only need to find the entrance, and I’m a little turned around.” Solveig didn’t know which side of Hel she’d ended up on. The ocean could have moved her anywhere.
“You don’t want to go there, Solveig,” the girl’s haunting voice said so quietly Solveig barely heard her.
“You’re right, little one, I do not want to go, but I must.”
The little girl’s eyes seemed to glisten with silver tears as her white eyes grew paler.
“If you go down there, you will not come out,” she said.
A Vanir witchling, a Seer.
And that’s when it clicked—she was a witchling of the Southern Wilds.
Her heart clenched, remembering the young one alive and laughing in her training lessons, joining her mother on guard duty, though she was small. She didn’t deserve to end up here.
Why was she here? Solveig didn’t want to ask but she needed to know.
“Is your mother with you?”
The witchling seemed to know what Solveig was really asking.
“We all are.”
No.
Emotion swelled within her, and though she’d not had it back long, she missed the power it would have fuelled, the revenge she could have wielded for this witchling’s sake. For all her people.
It was her fault. She’d failed them.
The little Vanir witchling held out her hand. “I will show you the way,” she said sadly.
Now that the girl was talking, Solveig had to try one more time.
“Before we go, can you tell me, have you seen a Fae male wash ashore? Alive?”
The witchling looked confused at first, and then her face broke into a wide smile. Solveig was delighted to see it until it turned feral.
“Don’t worry, General, we got him for you.”
Solveig did not like the sound of her dark and foreboding tone.
She followed the witchling, keeping her eyes open for more spirits. Some white and translucent like the young one in front of her and others solid, looking always alive but with a faint shimmer to them marking them as dead.
Last time she was here, there were no spirits—only solid beings. It must have something to do with whatever magic Ragnvald was wielding.
The more she thought of it, the more she was sure she was right. The wispy spirits were those that should have made it to Valhalla but had been directed here instead.
She saw more familiar faces and soon, a crowd of white spirits lined her path—the faces of her fallen people, the Southern Wilds coming to greet her. Her cold heart swelled with too many emotions, grief and guilt at the forefront.
The anger she’d expected from them was nowhere to be found. Did they not know she’d failed them?
As one, by some unspoken signal, they all raised their fists to their chest, a salute. One she did not deserve.
She tried to make eye contact with as many as she could, honouring each of their sacrifices. Though she searched the throngs of spirits for Signe, Idunn, and Veda, she could not find them. It was foolish to hold hope in her heart that they’d made it to Valhalla.
If Ragnvald wouldn’t loosen his grip for witchlings, he certainly wouldn’t for her shieldmaidens.
Which begged the question, where were they? Did he trap them in the pits of Hel?
“Why are you here?” she whispered to no one in particular. It seemed that the witchling who led her was the spokesperson.
“They want to honour you,” she said quietly without looking back.
“I don’t deserve them.”
“And that is why you do.”
So much wisdom for one so young, but Solveig could not agree. There was much the witchling didn’t know—much Solveig had to atone for.
She didn’t think she could take any more when the witchling changed her course abruptly, turning down an abandoned path, stopping at the top of a steep hill that led into thick mists.
“He is down there,” the witchling said. Without another word, she turned and joined her people.
Solveig faced them and gave her own salute, lowering to her knee and bowing. A vow grew in her heart—she would not let them languish here. She would tear apart Hel itself and create a new underworld if she had to.
She would become queen of this dark place if that was what it took to right this wrong.
Full of resolve, Solveig took off at a run down the gravelly hill.
The temperature dropped, and her breath came out in puffs of smoke that hovered around her head, joining the mists. She had no recollection of this place, though that wasn’t saying much.
Her last visit to Hel had been to put her father there—not even Ragnvald had known of their visit. When they had completed their mission, they did not linger to sightsee.
The descent became steeper, and she stumbled in her hurried pace, trying to keep up with the fall of gravity as she raced towards Westley.
Everything around her was tenebrous, creating an eerie sense of something other. Shadows swirled around her, reaching out through the mist.
Her vision became distorted as fog began to coat her skin, beckoning her deeper into the pits of Hel. Where was this place? She still couldn’t feel her bond or his presence but knew in her soul he was down there, alive.
He had to be alive.
She reached the bottom abruptly, her feet hitting ice-cold water. Fog had blocked her vision most of the way down, but the second her feet touched the surface, the mist evaporated like smoke on the wind.
The air was damp and cold, chilling her from the inside out. When the last tendril of mist was gone, she saw Westley curled into a ball on his side. He lay on a dry patch of land in the middle of this lake, and she knew it instantly from the myths of old.
Nastrond. The lake of suffering reserved for oath-breakers and murderers.
And Westley was in the centre of it, writhing in pain.