Chapter 44
We plunge through the waves. A torrent of saltwater soaks my face and leathers. It’s refreshing against my heated skin. The ride is smooth as the dragon propels us swiftly across the wide expanse of sea. Odessa clings to me from behind.
“If your mother could see this,” she scoffs. A twinge of sorrow and happiness blending together in her words.
The dull ache loosens its grip on my chest. But I get the feeling that pain was not my own.
The water becomes shallow and the sea dragon jerks to the side, stopping abruptly and nearly slinging us off. It idles, for a moment, giving us time to clamber back into the water. My boots and leathers are so waterlogged they hamper my movements as I swim and then trek across the shore.
I turn back, the dragon still lingers in the shadows.
“Thank you,” I whisper, raising a hand above my head in farewell.
It disappears back under the water and doesn’t resurface.
We stride across the shore to a door cut roughly into the same stone that makes up the castle.
“Julius held me down here for a while,” she breathes, reaching for the door.
Silver scars on her arm catch the light. So many scars, in a variety of lengths. What horror she must have endured all those years. But she pushes open the door and strides through with her head held high.
Torches blaze along the walls of the circular room.
Five bodies lay upon five altars.
Odin, Danu, Tyr, Morrigan, and Badb.
They’re here.
The ceiling above the room glows with incandescent light. It ripples and swells in time with the rising and falling of their chests.
“How do we wake them?” she asks, peering at me.
I unstrap my axe from my back, peering at the manacles on their wrists and ankles.
They’re just the same as Luna’s had been.
“They should have a rune somewhere…” My voice trails away as I look closer.
On each of their brows, a sleeping rune has been marked.
Another stab of pain has me crumbling to the floor and clutching my chest. The air in my lungs burns as I groan, resting my head against the cold stone floor.
“Lena!” Odessa rushes to my side.
My breath comes out in desperate pants as I press a palm to my chest, needing the feel of the warm, familiar runes of my medallions.
“My friends.” My chest is a hollow gaping hole. “I think they’re dying.”
Sorrow lines her face as she pulls me to my feet. “We must hurry then.”
I instruct her on how we woke Luna up the last time. “Lach wiped the runes off and then she just woke up…”
Her face twists in horror. “What did they do to her?”
“I have no idea.” I shake my head and approach Odin’s side.
Using my thumb, I wipe a clear streak onto the rune marked on his forehead.
“Please,” I cry. “Please wake up.”
A flash of brilliant blue. Otherworldly and full of lightning, cracks from Odin’s eyes as they open. A strong brow, and bushy beard frame a weathered and tan face.
“Lena,” he rasps. His voice is like a thousand thundering hooves.
My heart pounds roughly against my ribs. His voice thunders with such power and command. My knees buckle— before I realize what has happened.
“Father,” I bow my head in supplication. Odessa stays standing, a smirk tugging up the corner of her lips.
“Come on, old man. We need you,” she says hastily. My mouth drops open, and choking sounds squeak out of me.
“Odessa, my dear,” he grumbles. “Remove the chains.”
He sits up slowly. A body carved from ancient, everlasting stone rises off the amethyst slab. The chains clatter against the stone as he shakes them impatiently. Odessa looks at me and gestures to him.
“You hold the axe.” She nudges me and I grimace before standing.
“Um, if you’ll just—”
“Hold still,” he offers. His eyes soften, and a tender smile curls his lips. He’s kind, and even understanding of my hesitancy.
“Yes,” I whisper, holding my axe out in front of me. He grins at it before his eyes flick back to my face.
“I’m glad it was you.”
I start at his ankles.
A mighty heave, sparks fly, and chains rattle as they fall.
He holds his hands still as I strike each one. Slinging his legs over the side, the earth quakes when his feet touch the ground. He’s tall, easily towering over anyone I’ve ever met before. Freya and Odr included.
A wooden staff appears in his hand as he strides over to the opening of the cave.
“Wake the others one at a time and send them up.” Shadows darken the lines of his weathered face. Gone is the kind face of an understanding god, and his place is utterly terrifying destruction incarnate.
He stalks from the room and a breath slips from my lips.
We reach Danu, resplendent in a sea-foam gown and golden skin. Thick black braids reach her waist, a serene smile on her lips. I look at Odessa, who smiles down at her softly, before swiping her thumb across the rune.
Chocolate brown eyes spring open. The color of fertile soil. She is earth, she is life.
“Danu,” Odessa breathes, dropping into a low curtsy.
Her eyes settle on Odessa first before sliding to me. The feel of a thousand stares couldn’t compare to the weight of hers.
“Remove these chains,” she spits. Fury coats every word. A raging hurricane.
I nod quickly, raising my axe, but she holds out a hand, halting me.
“Lena?” she asks, her voice missing the violent edge it held before.
“Yes,” I breathe. She reaches out gently, stroking my chin. It feels like the sun’s caress. A shiver crawls down my spine, and I shudder.
“I was calling for you. And you heard me,” she whispers.
I nod again, biting my lip.
“Set me free, child,” she orders. Her gaze hardens again.
After her chains are broken, she floats from the room as if carried by an invisible wind.
I look at Odessa as she leaves and we both shudder with relief.
The next god is Tyr.
Massive heaps of muscle, greenish tattoos all along his body offset his fiery red hair. If you ever tried to picture the god of war, it would be him. Light red stubble coats the harsh line of his jaw and full chin. Like the blood of a million men reduced to tiny specks upon his face.
He’s terrifying and yet beautiful.
I remove his rune.
Green eyes flecked with gold pierce my soul.
He says nothing as he rises, staring us down. There’s no malice towards us, or kindness. We’re as insignificant to him as a blade of grass.
Pain cracks my chest wide open again and I tremble, wrapping an arm around myself to hold it together.
His eyes slide from Odessa to me, narrowing slightly on his rune upon my flesh.
“War,” he breathes. The sound is like two mountains colliding. My flesh erupts with goosebumps.
One arm is chained to the slab, but the other is missing. Like Tane. I fight back tears that threaten to fall and step up to remove the shackles around his ankles.
He slides off the table, and the earthquakes again. A broadsword the size of a tree trunk appears in his hand as he breaches the door.
Two more. Just two more.
My feet falter as I make my way to the Morrigan.
Raven black hair, and pointed features. She looks just like the carving in the mountain cave.
Odessa swipes her fingertips gently over the rune, but as she bends closer to the Morrigan, the similarities become undeniable. They could be twins.
Dark blue eyes the color of sapphires blink open. A lethal smile spears across her face.
“It is time,” she breathes.
I remove the manacles from her and she hops off the table. Long black hair ripples like silk. The body of a goddess stretches before me as she raises her hands up to the sky. Onyx wings appear, and she grins over a shoulder at me.
“Thank you, girls.”
I nod, but she’s already charging for the doorway as her armor unfurls around her like the petals of a flower.
My chest heaves as I take a deep breath. Just one more.
We approach Badb. Odessa stares at me from across the amethyst slab. Hope mingling with sadness in her gaze.
“It’s not too late,” she whispers. Wiping the rune off of Badb’s forehead.
Dazzling golden and emerald eyes flash open. I gasp.
“You thought I would curse you?” Her words come out raspy, but the humor in them is undeniable. “Never, my darling.”
A breath whooshes from my chest and I smile for what feels like the first time in my life.
“Free me and I will make this right,” she purrs.
Raising my axe again and again, I remove her restraints. She clambers off the table. She’s much smaller than the others and there’s a familiarity about her I just can’t place.
Badb gazes at the four other amethyst slabs.
“They got all of us, did they?”
Odessa nods. “You’re the last to be freed.”
Badb turns towards us, resting her hands on her hips.
“That’s what happens when you grow complacent. Let’s see if there’s anyone left to kill, shall we?”
She reaches out towards us with both hands. Hesitantly, we take them.
I blink. And we’re gone.
Hurtling through space and time.
We appear outside of the castle walls, standing on the outside of the wall.
My worst nightmares pale in comparison.
The mists are coated in a light sheen of crimson. Bodies lay everywhere.
No longer is the ocean a brilliant turquoise, but a dark purple as it laps against the black stone wall.
Odin stands a few paces away and where he points his staff bodies of demons and giants fall.
Their skin turns to ash and flecks away in a gust of wind.
Eira and Balthasar are on either side of the gate, cutting down throngs of demons.
Tyr casts flames of lightning from his sword as he cuts through giant after giant. Their bodies thundering loudly as they fall to the ground like a great felled tree.
Morrigan soars through the air. Death incarnate.
Her black wings devour the watery moonlight as she slices through a dragon.
Her sword skewers an onyx-scaled beast right through the top of its head and she rides its carcass down, cackling as it crashes into the waves.
She springs back into the sky, soaring through the darkened mists for her next kill.
Danu waves her arms around in twirling motions, the magic she casts spears out disintegrating everything in its path.
Badb grumbles beside us. “Looks like they’ve handled it then.”
I spin in place. Ramses, Cynane, Boudicca, Leif…our troops.
Everyone is here. Swinging, cutting, shielding.
Our troops made it.
I look back through the stone door that has been ripped off its chains, the crumbling bridge beyond it, and to the castle.
But did they make it in time?
Lachlan.
My chest caves in as I sprint back towards the castle.
Please be alive.
Please.
Please.
My feet slam against the stone bridge, the soaked leathers hindering my movements. Splinters are all that’s left of the oak doors as I cross the threshold. Wood is scattered over the checkered marble floor.
Wood and…
Bodies. There are bodies everywhere.
“Lachlan!” I scream. My voice echoes around me.
The silence is still heavy.
I see Mina first, her small body tucked into Harald’s side.
Dead.
Tears stream down my face.
A fist clenches my heart—my lungs.
The very life inside of me feels like it’s being ripped out through my throat. And it does not go easily.
Burning, screaming, clawing.
Evander and Luna are hand in hand, their bodies side by side. A swarm of demons lay around them.
I puke, the bile pours out of my mouth and splashes to the floor.
Mathilda lies on top of Tane, as if she crawled to him.
Piominko lies surrounded by the mottled corpses of at least a dozen demons.
Freya is still alive. Her wounds seep blood as she pushes up onto her elbow. Odr presses his hand against the wound, staunching the blood flow. His gaze is hollow. The magic in the land is slowly stitching her back together, but her eyes are empty as she looks up at me.
“He fought the longest,” she whispers.
My knees crack loudly as I fall to the ground. The pain lurches up my thighs and spine, but doesn’t compare to the inferno splitting me in two.
Lachlan.
He lies motionless on his stomach. With one arm outstretched towards the hallway, I fled down.
“No,” I scream, clawing and scrambling my way across the floor to him. “No. No. No. Lachlan!”
His eyes are still open. But there is no life there.
No charismatic smile tugging on his lips, or a sparkle in his eyes, as if he’s about to tease me.
He’s gone.
I wail. Throwing myself on top of him, I cling to him.
“You promised we’d go together.” My voice cracks. “You said I wouldn’t have to do any of this alone.”
My tears fall rapidly, mixing with the crimson puddle on the floor.
The world around me falls away.
It’s me and him.
I grip his still-warm face in my hands as my tears fall upon his skin.
I don’t know how long I sit here. In the ruin of all, that was my life and my future.
Footsteps scuff against the marble.
I feel the warmth of Eira and Balthasar as they stand behind me, but before me…
Five ethereal beings.
I snarl at them as they close in. A gust of wind erupts from me. Keeping them from coming even closer.
No one can touch him. Or look at him.
He’s mine. In this life and the next.
I will die here beside him. One sailing.
“Lena,” a powerful male voice fills my head. Odin’s voice.
“We have a gift for you, child,” Badb speaks next.
Their words bounce around in the emptiness of my mind.
Pain. All I know is pain.
“For your sacrifice,” Morrigan murmurs.
“You chose the right fate. The world over your own suffering. And for that loyalty, we’ll bring them back,” Danu finishes.
A mate’s whispered plea, for their fate is forged by loyalty’s key.
The wind dies.
She waves her hands over the room. Resplendent light floats down from above, landing on their chests.
A golden orb floats down as if carried on a butterfly’s wings and lands on Lachlan’s chest. The golden light seeps into his skin, filling his lungs with breath. His chest rises.
And my falls.
A sob wracks my entire body as his eyes blink open.
“I told ye, I’d find ya again.”
Green, the color of a magical forest of evergreen life, blazes brightly as he stares at me.
A golden thread wraps around his finger and mine, tying us together. Forever.
Mates.
He is my mate.
My friends rise.
Mathilda holds Tane as they share a deep kiss. Tears streaming down both of their faces.
Harald wraps his arms around Mina as they stare into each other’s eyes. Piominko looks on with a weary smile before his gaze swings to Freya and Odr as they stand side by side.
“We could bring all but two back,” Odin’s voice carries across the joy.
My eyes fall on the still bodies of Evander and Luna.
A knowing smile tugs at the Morrigan’s lips. “But do not fret. It was their choice.”
Confusion scrunches up my nose as I tilt my head to the side.
“Luna’s sister resides in the Otherworld. And her mate chose to stay with her.”
Lachlan chuckles and the sound is so arresting. I squeeze him tighter to me.
His arms wrap around me, holding me as tightly. “I love ye,” he whispers.
I kiss his face, and then kiss it again. “I love you, too.”