And then pale shadows emerged. Out of nothing, they came. Out of the darkness. From somewhere no one could see. They grew sharper. Became real. Living. And they were coming toward them.
Hirka pressed up against the stone. She couldn’t panic. Couldn’t cry. She’d encountered the blind before. Stood face-to-face with one of them. And survived. She sat there, alive enough to hear her own heart beating. Alive enough to feel pain.
There was a rumbling beneath her. Like thunder in the mountain. Hirka glanced at Hlosnian. He was staring at the ground. His sweaty hair hung limply over his face. Hlosnian couldn’t help anyone anymore.
Men were screaming. So this wasn’t a dream. They’d seen the blind too. Urd snarled that he’d personally skewer the first person to take off, but that was a chance several of the men were apparently willing to take. They rode off on their horses as though they had the blind at their heels. Ravens screeched, circling the outer edge of the crater. Chasing one another. They darted in and out of the stones, in groups, like black flames.
What would Rime do if he were here now?
Hirka straightened her back and looked up. Three of the blind were coming toward them. They were pure muscle. They moved with pride, completely unbothered by the fact that they were naked as animals. They could have been ymlings. Well-built ymlings, mind. With white eyes. And clawed fingertips.
Urd took a couple of steps back. She wished she could take pleasure in his fear, in everything he’d thought he could control. But she only felt sorrow. Black sorrow. It poisoned his Might.
Bromfjell roared its disgust, protesting the presence of the pale ones. The first. Nábyrn. The deadborn. Urd suddenly seemed less sure of himself—had he even seen them before?
Hirka felt a change in Urd’s Might. He was hesitant, uncertain. These creatures weren’t going to save him. Nobody could save him.
The Might was snuffed out in a silent shriek. Then it grew stronger again. Hotter. Better. Familiar.
Hirka jumped up onto her knees and looked around.
Rime?
It had to be Rime! She knew this Might! It was the Might the way he used it. Only him. She wasn’t dreaming. She felt his warmth tear through her body like wildfire.
“Hlosnian!” He didn’t hear her. The ravens were shrieking too loudly, and Bromfjell was thundering. “Hlosnian!” She tried to crawl toward the old man. He had to know that Rime was here. That salvation was at hand. Hirka could see several of Urd’s men running. Where were the others? She could hear someone shouting on the outside of the crater. The sound of steel on steel. Fighting. Urd moved to the side so the blind had a clear path to her. There was nothing between them and her. Nothing. Just the Might. Yet they hesitated. Was it because of the ravens still circling above them like a living cloud? The air was charged. Ready for a storm. Something smelled like it was burning.
A shadow flew over her. For a moment she thought it was Kuro, but he wasn’t the only one who made a habit of flying over people. She shouted his name when she realized it was him. He was alive. He was here. Rime was standing between her and the nábyrn.
She jumped at the touch of cold steel on her hands. Suddenly they were free. Black shadows ran between the stones, swarming in the dark. Men were screaming. She could hear them dying. Urd shouted at them to stop running, but none did. Nobody came to help him. Or her.
Hirka fumbled desperately with the leather belt around her feet. She kicked it off at last and grabbed hold of Hlosnian. “Hlosnian! Rime is here! Kolkagga are here!” She pulled on his bindings.
Hlosnian didn’t help. He just sat there, rocking back and forth. “He forced the stone. Forced it with blood. The dragon. The dragon is waking up.”
Hirka wanted to slap him back to his senses, but it was more important to get him free. Finally she pulled him to his feet. The ground buckled beneath them, making it difficult to stay standing. The bravest among Urd’s men waved their swords around in the dark as though fighting figments of their imagination.
Kolkagga.
Black shadows, almost impossible to see. Something flashed on the ground. Someone had dropped a sword. Hirka flung her body toward it. The Might made it frighteningly easy. She could reach farther than her own height. Pain tore through her body, but this Might was Rime’s, so she could handle it. She could pick it apart and put it aside. It was so strong. And it played tricks on her, because for a moment, she was sure that she heard Tein shouting. Maybe you went crazy if the Might was strong enough? A new terror filled her. This stream would not be stopped. The Might would rip her apart. Destroy her. Rend her body into tiny pieces.
Urd backed toward her. She squeezed the sword, in case he came closer. The ravens were starting to get aggressive. They were shrieking like crazy, circling, diving.
“The tailless one! Take the tailless one!” But Urd’s voice didn’t carry. He grabbed his neck and fell to his knees.
Rime swung his sword at the boldest of the blind, but they were too quick, disappearing before the blade could do any damage. He drew on more of the Might. Hirka wanted him to stop. She couldn’t take any more. Didn’t have the capacity.
Tein and Ynge came running over the edge of the crater, dwarfed by the enormous stones in the foreground. Where had they come from? They were supposed to be on the battlefield, fighting the war against Mannfalla. Did that mean she was seeing things? The world had been turned on its head again. She had died. None of this was real.
Rime drew upon the Might, danced around the blind and sliced one of them in two. The figure fell apart and toppled into the moss before the blood started to flow. The other two backed up against the stones, wraithlike, teeth bared. They, too, feared death, like everyone else—ymlings and emblings alike.
Hirka clutched the sword in her hand. Urd was on his knees in front of her, tugging at the gold collar. It came loose and blood poured from his throat. It looked black in the darkness. Urd retched. The beak in his throat moved. It crawled out from the open wound, as though it was trying to get away from him. The stench of rotten flesh filled the air.
Hirka stood as though bewitched. She didn’t want to stare, but the sight was too unbelievable for her to look away. The beak lay motionless on the ground. Urd turned toward her. “Take her!” He screamed as though drowning, as though he were fighting to keep his head above water. Hirka raised the sword and walked toward him. He crawled away from her like a wounded animal. Wild-eyed, on all fours. Hirka heard her own words in her head.
You can’t just kill people!
He managed to clamber to his feet, and she swung the sword. His tail was left on the ground, twitching. Urd screamed in pain.
“You’ve forgotten something,” she seethed, and the Might carried her voice above the surrounding chaos. “They’re here to collect the tailless one.” As she backed away from Urd, she met the milky-white gaze of one of the blind. She raised two fingers to her throat, like the one at the waterfall had done.
“Hirka?” Rime’s voice. But she couldn’t look at him now. She stared into the blindling’s eyes and threw the sword on the ground. Urd reached for it, but the blind got hold of him first. Dug their claws into his shoulders, dragged him backward between the stones, and disappeared. She heard his shouts long after they were gone from this world. Screams from nothingness. From nowhere.
Hlosnian clambered to his feet. “Run! Run, you fools!”
Bromfjell roared beneath them. Thunder from stone. Then the ground ruptured and a column of fire exploded toward the heavens.
THE DRAGON AWAKES
The Might carried her like she wasn’t even touching the ground, though she could feel her feet moving. Around her, the mountain spewed fire. It threw up blood, just like Urd had done. Burning red. Leaping skyward. Cracks opened in the ground in several places.
In the name of the Seer, what have we done?
She felt someone tugging at her. Why were they trying to stop her from looking? Somewhere deep down she knew she couldn’t stay where she was. Not here, in
the circle, in the middle of the crater. But that realization wasn’t getting through. It belonged to another time, another place. Right now, she had to look. The fire was like a waterfall flowing in the wrong direction. An unbelievable force pushing up into the black sky, where it dispersed like glowing rain.
So this was what the end of the world looked like. And the beginning of the world.
The Might burned within her, ripping through her veins, through her muscles and her legs. The fire in the mountain was the fire in her. Perhaps they were one. This was home. She was the mountain. She was the dragon in Bromfjell. She saw the fire that had birthed them all, that would end them all.
People shouted around her, through the fog of the Might, but the only one she could hear was Rime. He shouted without words. There was no distance between them that required words anymore. The Might had burned all obstacles and she could read him without needing to see him. Knew where he was, knew what he wanted.
The stones stood bathed in red light, through autumn, winter, and spring. An immovable circle around the fire. Silent witnesses to the mountain’s incomprehensible rage. The ravens screeched around them. Kolkagga gathered around the stones, which offered the only protection from the embers. One of them was supporting Hlosnian. The blind were gone. Urd was gone.
“Here! Here!” Hlosnian shouted, puffing like bellows. “Between the stones!”
He’s right. That’s the only way out, Rime said from within her.
Red rain fell over the stones. The embers gathered and started flowing in streams between them. The ground was going to fall out from under them. Bromfjell was going to explode. Someone screamed. Rime grabbed her, and she saw him. He’d torn off his black hood. His face was shiny with sweat. She smiled at him. He looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
They were all in such a tearing hurry. Hirka wasn’t. She spotted her bag and smiled. The last time she’d insisted on having it with her, it had stopped an arrow that otherwise would have hit her. She grabbed it and ran toward the edge of the crater with everyone else. It felt like she was barely moving—everything was so slow. Hlosnian pointed at two of the stones. Rime had a good grip on her hand, so she had no other choice but to follow him. Everyone else was following him too: Hlosnian, the ravens, Kolkagga. Even Tein and two others from Ravnhov. Now that the dragon had awoken and the mountain was after them.
Rime was holding Hirka in one hand and Urd’s tail in the other. All that remained of Urd Vanfarinn. Together they ran between the stones.
Everything ceased to exist. Everything fell silent. Hirka’s stomach lurched.
Hirka and Rime ran into an empty space where everything ceased to exist. A space that moved around them at an incredible speed. Bare. Without color. Without light. Without the Might, she realized in a panic. This had to be Slokna. A place where everything slept. No. There wasn’t even anything that could sleep here.
Wait, there! Flashes of light. Openings in the endless darkness. Stone.
Hirka reached out for them so they wouldn’t disappear, so the darkness wouldn’t extinguish them. They were pulled toward the stones. The smell of fire lingered in their nostrils. They walked between the tall stones and suddenly all sound came flooding back.
The first thing she heard was people shouting. Again. Stone shattering. Something collapsing. The all-consuming Might was there long before she realized where she was. Long before the walls of the Rite Hall appeared around the panic-stricken crowd within. Rime stepped into the room. She followed him, so full of the Might that her feet were hypersensitive, like distended cushions against the ground. Her entire body pulsated. Was that why they were running? Could they see that she was about to rupture?
But she wasn’t what ruptured. It was the room. Hirka looked back at the gaping hole they’d just come from. An open wound in the wall. What had they done? In the name of the Seer …
Rime walked around the curved wall. His feet weren’t touching the floor. He was walking on air. Walking on the Might. The wall started to crack. Tumbling down where he walked. The Might raged around him. Small mother-of-pearl tiles came loose and flew across the room. People screamed around them. Ducked and protected their heads with their arms.
It was raining tiles and stone. They came loose from the walls around Rime. From the ceiling above him, drifting past him as if on an oil slick. Slowly. Until he’d passed and they could fall normally. It was as if time stood still around him and no one else. The air crackled. It rained white and gold.
Images on the wall became indistinct. Fell apart. Old sculptures started to crumble. Colors ran. Only the solid stone pillars remained standing. They emerged where limestone and tiles were torn away by an energy Hirka almost couldn’t bear.
They were huge. They were many. Hidden in the walls for a thousand years. They had found the stone circle of Blindból. The lost gateways. They had never been hidden in the mountains behind Eisvaldr. They were here. In the Rite Hall. Beneath the red dome.
Rime walked up the steps to the platform at the back of the hall, up toward the Council. Hirka followed him as if in a trance. Unable to do anything else. Paralyzed by the Might. The men and women of the Council had gotten up. Some of them shouted for the guardsmen, who were trying to ensure people got out without trampling each other. Hirka could see every drop of sweat on their foreheads. Every glance they threw at the ceiling, praying it wouldn’t collapse.
Hirka spotted Vetle. Ramoja and the other raveners. The Might read them like an open book. They were ripe with purpose and clearly not here for the same reason as everyone else. The people in Mannfalla were here for the final day of the Rite, all starched skirts and fine shawls, here to celebrate and to dance. The raveners were dotted among the crowd. The raveners were here to put an end to an era. They just hadn’t begun, and now they never would.
Hirka thought back on her own Rite with a weary smile. People had scattered in every direction then as well. Some tried to get to the north exits, others the east. Some wanted to stay put and see what was happening. Some cried out for the Seer.
Rime approached the Council. There were only ten of them. Ilume was dead. Urd was dead. And the Rite Hall was falling apart. Eir stood with her hand over her mouth, staring up at the stones looming over them. The world’s most powerful men and women had never known what the hall was hiding. They stared at Rime.
Rime had lost control. Hirka had to get through to him, stop him. The Might was going to destroy her. He was giving her everything he had. He’d forgotten her. Forgotten everything. Everything apart from the ten people standing in front of him. Beneath him. The air around him was so saturated that his feet weren’t touching the ground.
His eyes burned white. He was everything that had ever lived, everything that did live, and everything that would ever live. He was the Might. And he flowed through Hirka. Her skin thrummed, pulsated. Her mind crackled like it was full of sparks. Her veins wanted to press their way out of her arms. She clung to reality.
Rime threw Urd’s tail on the floor. It uncoiled and blood seeped from the end before it lay still. Eir and the bearded councillor, Jarladin, were standing closest. They both backed away. The others came closer to see what it was. When they realized, they looked away in disgust. None of them said anything. They stared at Rime, waiting for an explanation as to why he had desecrated the hall.
Tell them who you are!
“I am Rime An-Elderin!” Rime’s voice carried through the hall. It came as if from an immense empty space contained within him. Echoing inside. People stopped what they were doing. Some eyed the cracks in what remained of the walls warily, but their fear gave way to curiosity. “I am son of Gesa, daughter of Ilume of House An-Elderin. I am here to claim my seat on the Council.”
Eir took a step toward him. “What have you done, Rime …” Her voice was a whisper. It was drowned out by his voice, which was carried by the Might. But she tried. Cautiously. As if standing before a madman. “In the name of the Seer—”
“Stop th
e lies, Eir. You’ve failed. Urd is dead. Devoured by the deadborn he brought here. The enemy was among you every single day, but you didn’t see it. You did nothing. I’m here to lay claim to my seat.”
Hirka clenched her teeth. The Might flowed with his words. Every S tore at her muscles. Every T struck her bones and reverberated through her entire body. He was drowning everything out. She didn’t have room to breathe. She could see everything. Hear everything with an intense clarity that forced itself on her. She wanted to scream. But it was Rime who screamed.
“Give me the seat, or give me the Seer!”
Hirka could hear hundreds of whispering voices in the hall. Just like when she’d stood before them herself. As a child of Odin. Some of them had shields. She’d seen two of the men standing closest to them in Ravnhov. They looked at each other and tried to suppress smiles. As if Rime hadn’t just mocked the Raven, and as if Hirka wasn’t dying.
But she was dying for Rime. It was worth it. He needed her now. He’d lost touch with the world. He’d become something else. The councillors were mere shadows compared to him. He hung there, every feature accentuated as if he were carved from stone. More defined than reality itself. She feared him now. Feared what he was doing. What he was capable of doing.
She’d dreamed that the Council would fall. That they would pay. For Father. For the days she spent in the vaults. For the lies and for the wounds on her back. Now that they only had moments left, she was terrified of the consequences.
“Where is the Seer?” Rime asked.
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