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  I’d found a pair of linen pants, which Fen had likely been saving, as there were no clothing stores down here in the pit of despair. After much discussion—me declining and him insisting—he’d cut them off to fit my height, and I’d donned them. I was in the process of threading an old rope through the pant loops as a makeshift belt when Fen came into the cave.

  “The serpents say the pathway is clear. We will leave shortly.” Fen came up the stairs and gathered up his weapons, sticking them in a sheath he wore around his waist.

  I nodded. I’d awoken feeling more refreshed, but still weak. I’d spent the morning soaking in the pool. My scars had healed even more, and I was in very little pain, which was nothing short of amazing considering what damage there had been. The energy I’d taken from Fen throughout the night had certainly given me some strength, but I needed more.

  My dreams had been outrageous, as predicted. I’d dreamed of Fen and little else, tossing and turning throughout the night. Feeling his body electric next to mine this morning as I woke had almost taken me over the edge. The Valkyrie part of me wanted to devour him immediately and take everything I knew he was willing to offer. It’d taken everything I had to keep my hands to myself. I’d practically leaped from the pallet to get away. Fen hadn’t commented on my strange behavior, which was a relief, and had left me alone.

  Now as he walked over, I turned away, flustered, remembering intimate details about my brazen dreams—including but not limited to—straddling his beautiful tapered waist and having my way with him. I tried to appear busy getting ready for our journey, but there wasn’t a lot for me to do other than finish making my belt.

  I hoped he couldn’t read thoughts, because if he could, I might not be able to show my face in these caves again.

  He smiled, seemingly unfazed by my dirty mind, handing me an iron rod. Apparently, he had plenty of these lying around. I took it, but voiced my displeasure. “I want Gram, not this stick.” I shook the weapon. “It’s my dagger, and it’s time you gave it back.”

  “I’m sorry, shieldmaiden. But it’s far too precious for me to give up.”

  “Are you going to try it in the tree?” I asked curiously. That’s what I would do.

  “Of course. I would not waste this opportunity.” He’d answered me like I’d been daft to even ask.

  “What about me?” I cried. “You can’t leave! I wouldn’t survive here alone. We saw how swimmingly that went already.”

  “It’s not an issue,” he answered. “The dagger will not work, but on the rare chance it does, rest assured that I will take you with me.”

  “And how are you going do that?” I crossed my arms, huffing indignantly.

  He gave me a lopsided smile. “I reach out my hand to you, and you clasp it.”

  I dropped my arms, looking incredulous. “That’s it? That’s how you take someone with you?”

  He shrugged. “Most of the time. Sometimes the tree rejects the second traveler, but it’s rare.”

  “Then what if I’m rejected?” I wailed. “Fen, you have to let me try first! There’s no way I can survive here, and you’ve lasted for six hundred years. I wouldn’t make it a month. Please, let me go first!”

  He shook his head. “No, Valkyrie. On the off chance the tree rejects you, once I get out, I will come for you. The serpents will keep you safe until I return.”

  “The serpents!” I sputtered. “Like…like they did yesterday? I’ll be snake dinner by the time you land elsewhere.”

  “They are bound by an oath. They cannot hurt you.”

  “That’s not at all comforting!” I yelled. “This is not a ‘let’s go help Phoebe so she can eat’ trip to the tree. This is a ‘Fen trying to escape’ trip! With my dagger.”

  Fen stopped two feet from me. My eyes were directly in line with his chest, and I refused to meet his gaze. The double-crosser. “Make no mistake, Valkyrie, I will not let an opportunity like this pass me by. I’ve waited hundreds of years to be rid of this place. I will come back for you. You have my word. But there is no sense in arguing about this, as the chances the dagger will work are close to zero. We are wasting our time and our breath discussing this.” He turned abruptly and returned to gathering things and sticking them in his waist.

  I was far from mollified. “Why don’t you think the dagger will work? You told me, right when I landed, that Gram could provide passage. It’s already worked for me once. I’m living proof.”

  “Yes, but you’re not me. The gods do not leave things undone. They will have made the journey impossible for me, even with the dagger.”

  I rushed up to him, my hand animated in front of me. “That’s why I should be the one to put it in the tree.” I grasped on to his forearm. “They don’t know I exist. Well, most of them don’t, so they haven’t had time to ring the alarms.” Possibly Verdandi had, but I couldn’t worry about that. “I can get it to work, then I’ll grab for you and you can hitch a ride with me.” It was a perfect, sound plan.

  Fen shook his head. “No. I will not give it up.”

  “That makes no sense!” I stomped my foot.

  He took me by the shoulders gently, his face set. He leaned down so he spoke directly at my level. “If the dagger does not work for me, it will not let me ‘hitch a ride’ either.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, thinking fast. “Then we can find another way.”

  I met his gaze, and he looked away, his hands still braced on my shoulders. “There is no other way.” Currents rushed in from his touch, infusing me with energy. It was the only reason I hadn’t stepped back. “If the tree takes you, you will not have the means to return, Valkyrie. You are too young. You have no knowledge of our worlds. Getting anyone to aid you to help me will be impossible. I’m known as a terror far and wide.”

  “Fen, I promise to come back—”

  “No.”

  “But…” He didn’t want me to leave. “That means you’re willing to keep me as your prisoner here, when I could use this journey to escape.”

  He dropped his arms, defeated. He wouldn’t meet my eyes this time. “For a time, I guess you are correct. Though, you are no prisoner.” He turned and walked away.

  “Why would you possibly want to keep me here against my will?” I called to his retreating back, my voice angry. I wasn’t done with this conversation.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “You are the first person I have had a conversation with in six hundred years. I cannot go back to the way things were. I will not survive. I will lose my mind within a fortnight. As it was, you arrived at a critical time. There will be no going back to what was.”

  I pondered that. “What do you mean by ‘critical’? Are you talking about ending your own life? Please tell me that wasn’t it.”

  “I would’ve tried, but likely not succeeded…for long. I would be forced to do the deed again and again and again, for all eternity, to find any peace.”

  “Until Ragnarok.”

  “Yes.”

  He walked down the stairs and out of the cave.

  I sat down with a thump on a crude bench, trying to process what had just happened. My brain couldn’t fathom what it would be like to live alone for six hundred years. I didn’t have the capacity to fully grasp it. Fen’s reasoning was sound—he wanted to keep me here so he didn’t lose his mind. I could understand that. I would feel the same way. But holding me here against my will, and denying me the opportunity to escape, wasn’t the answer either.

  Both of us would suffer.

  He had to know that if I escaped, I’d find my way back somehow. I’d get Ingrid to help me, or Huggie.

  But what if that didn’t work? And he was trapped here alone for another six hundred years?

  I would never forgive myself.

  I rubbed my temples.

  The only option I had was to convince him to trust me on the journey. Trust that I would come back for him. Fen said it was a long trip to the tree, so I’d
have ample time to make him see my side. I couldn’t stay here. I would eventually die. Plus, we’d have to take a trip to the tree every week so I could feed. That wasn’t going to work. The serpents hadn’t agreed to be our bodyguards for life. The demons would catch on.

  Fen wasn’t thinking clearly.

  I stood, turning in a circle, feeling discombobulated. “He’s going to have to find a way to believe in me,” I said. “Once I escape, I’ll convince everyone he’s no longer a threat. That he’s changed. Then I can free him.”

  “Valkyrie!” Fen’s voice carried through the caverns. “It’s time to go.”

  “Coming,” I called, picking up the iron rod I’d dropped. My pitiful weapon against demon kings who wielded flaming swords and giant snakes with forked tongues bigger than my entire body. If Fen disappeared through the tree and left me, this tiny weapon would be no match for any of them.

  I found Fen in the third cavern over, past the lava streams. He paced by the entrance to another tunnel. “Once we leave here,” he told me, “you must listen to me above all else. The demons fear the Jondi, so they will stay back, for the most part.”

  “The most part?”

  “They might launch a firefight.”

  “What exactly is a firefight?”

  “They will shoot flaming arrows at us, among other things.” His face remained impassive.

  What other things? I didn’t want to know. “I will follow your lead.”

  “Good.” He turned and walked into the narrow tunnel, and I trailed behind. “The serpents are at the entrance. They have positioned scouts along the way. They communicate by vibration, so we should have ample warning beforehand. If things go awry, you must take shelter, possibly in the folds of one of the serpents.”

  I stopped walking.

  Hell to the no. I wasn’t cozying up to one of those giant snakes! Much less getting into its folds. “Fen, you can’t be serious—”

  “I am. You will die if you don’t do as I say. I will be fighting. I cannot protect you at the same time.” He raised an eyebrow, as if to say, Look what happened last time.

  “We’ll see,” I hedged as I began to walk again. “I’m not promising anything. Those things are beyond creepy.” I stopped just in time to prevent myself from crashing into Fen’s broad back.

  He’d come to a halt abruptly at what looked like the opening to outside.

  I peered around his shoulder.

  We were situated high up on a precipice, the valley spread out below us. The entire realm was layered in varying shades of reds and oranges, covered in dark shadows. There was no orb in the sky. It looked like Earth an hour after sunset, except redder and more brutal. “It feels like we’re on another planet,” I murmured. I’d seen outside before, but not like this. Being on the ground in the hands of the demons had been a much different experience than seeing miles out into this vista. “The heat hits you immediately.”

  “Yes, it is oppressive,” Fen agreed.

  There was movement to the right as we stepped out. A massive serpent was positioned there. It spoke to Fen. “We are ready. Remain closssse.” It began to slither down the path in front of us.

  We followed.

  I clutched my iron rod with all my might. At the bottom of the hill, six more serpents lingered. They all looked vaguely the same—each had dark scales the size of two of my hands put together, hauntingly violet eyes, huge forked tongues. Some were taller, some shorter, but in essence they were all the same.

  One slinked forward.

  I was fairly sure it was the same one that had harassed me in the cave. Only because this one had a small divot missing from the side of its head, something I’d noticed earlier. It must be their leader. “The coasssst is clear. We will sssset a vigoroussss pace. You must keep up. It issss not sssssafe to linger.”

  “I know that, Jondi. We will keep up. Worry about the demons, not us,” Fen told the snake in short, clipped tones.

  Three snakes took the lead, then Fen and me, then three snakes behind. It was a motley crew by anyone’s standards.

  We’d gone about a mile when tremors hit underneath my feet. All the snakes froze immediately. Fen shoved me behind him as he scanned the desolate area surrounding us for a threat.

  I couldn’t sense or see anything.

  “That was a Jondi signal,” Fen whispered to me. “The serpents will interpret it and let us know.”

  Once the vibrations died down, the snake leader slithered up to us. “They have sssspotted a group of demonssss to the north. They are clossssing in quickly. They are armed with fire. We must double our time to outrun them.”

  I was already tired. The heat was more than oppressive—it was hateful. I was sapped of energy.

  “We will ride on your backs,” Fen announced.

  Say…what?

  “That will cosssst you more.” The snake grinned in an ugly way, its mouth turning up at the ends in a cruel, macabre grimace.

  “You forget yourself, Jondi. Part of our bargain is for you to get us to the tree safely, whatever it takes,” Fen retorted. “And if carrying us as passengers is what it takes, then so it shall be.”

  While they argued about the particulars, I scanned the horizon. I spotted movement up ahead and pulled on Fen’s arm. He ignored me. I yanked it down, and words tumbled out of my mouth. “Something is up ahead, and it doesn’t look friendly.”

  18

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  Fen’s head wrenched toward where I was gesturing, and he yelled, “Did you not send scouts up ahead?” He turned to a towering serpent. “If you are double-crossing me, our bargain ends now. In death.”

  The snake appeared furious. It slithered up to another one of its brethren and began to hiss at it in a language I couldn’t come close to understanding.

  Immediately, two snakes took off in the direction I’d seen movement.

  Fen pulled me aside. “The Jondi are notorious for ill dealing. We must be on our guard.”

  “Then why would you choose to trust them in the first place?” I had trouble keeping my voice lowered.

  “Because I had no other choice. We must get you to the sacred tree. There are too many demons on this plane—literally thousands—and they are all mind-controlled by Surtr. They are not strong on their own, but if enough swarm at once out in the open, they have the potential to overpower us. The serpents are the only other creatures that inhabit this plane, and they have a long-standing truce with the demons. If Surtr attacks the snakes, he runs the risk of breaking their alliance, which will cause him hundreds of years of aggravation and a possible eventual extinction of his race.”

  “If the snakes can help you, why have you waited this long to form an alliance with them?”

  Fen’s face darkened. “I had a previous alliance with them long ago, when I was new here. In the end, the deal turned disastrous. They tried to take me prisoner instead of honoring the deal we had agreed upon. They intended to ransom me for their release.”

  Why would anyone think Fen wouldn’t retaliate? “Exactly how disastrous are we talking?”

  “When they crossed me, I decimated them. I left a few females and some young males alive and told them to remember what had happened that day and to pass the story on. If I ever came calling again, they were to honor our dealings or face my wrath. I have not needed them until now. These serpents remember.” He gestured to where the snakes were congregated, still hissing and huffing. “They will think twice before crossing me, but I must remain vigilant.”

  “What’s in it for them? Why are they helping us?” I asked.

  “They crave freedom. This is not their realm of origin. They were cast here, as I was, and seek their homeland above all else.”

  That was an interesting tidbit. “Which realm are they from?”

  “Jotunheim, land of the giants. Their natural habitat is mountainous and green, nothing like this wasteland here.” He swept his arm out. “This landscape pains t
hem as much as it does us.”

  “Wow,” I said. “They must have done something really bad to be sent here.”

  Fen shrugged. “Not really. Mimir, the seer who guards the sacred well on Jotunheim, foresaw an uprising between the serpents and the giants. To ensure it never happened, the giants cast them here.”

  I couldn’t even begin to understand the logic of these worlds. It all seemed counterintuitive. “That goes against the whole destiny thing you keep bringing up. If the snakes are supposed to rise up, won’t it happen eventually anyway? Even if they are cast here?”

  “Likely,” he replied. “But as I’ve explained before, that is how we do things. If we get word of a threat, we eliminate it, much like humans. It’s intrinsic to our nature.”

  I pondered that. Without the serpents’ help, we wouldn’t be able to get to the tree. “Maybe the snakes are meant for another purpose—” I was cut off as the Jondi leader slithered over to us.

  “We sssstay here until we get word.”

  Fen stalked forward. “If this is a trap, you will find your death in my jaws.”

  “It issss no trap. Jusssst an overssssight. The threat ahead is likely a few demon sssscouts. They will be taken care of momentarily. I ssssent other troops to take care of the north. When word comessss back, we will carry on.”

  The snake wound its huge head toward me, and I cringed back. It smiled and hissed before moving off to join the others.

  A few moments later, vibrations ran underfoot. The leader seemed satisfied and ordered us to move on. We started again, this time with one snake in front, Fen and me, and two in the back. There were some shouts up ahead, and then silence. The two other serpents rejoined us without comment.

  Apparently, both threats had been eliminated. For now.

  We walked for a few hours, talking only sporadically, the heat oppressive and the topography changing little. It was how I imagined the Sahara Desert to be, but hotter and yuckier. As we passed crater after crater, I glanced in, imagining fire-breathing dragons nesting at the bottom. I was certain this would be their habitat if they existed. I decided to ask Fen once I caught up. “Do dragons exist in these realms?” I asked.