Shadow Empress (Night Elves Trilogy Book 3)

by C. N. Crawford

  At the top, I staggered forward, my legs rubber, lungs burning, heart hammering. I looked at my feet. The stones beneath them were smooth … worn. I focused my eyes, and hope thrilled in my heart.

  This looked like a path.

  “This must lead to the summit,” said Galin. A trickle of blood ran down from his temple. He’d really taken a battering.

  “I thought you knew the way?” I whispered.

  “I had a general idea.”

  So he had no idea where we were going.

  I knew he’d been keeping something from me. Was that it?

  Before I could properly respond, one of the trolls howled.

  “bbbBBloooogahhh!” The sound rumbled over the rocks, making the stone tremble.

  I ran along the path, trying to keep my pace up, until Galin called my name. I turned to see him resting against a boulder. Blood was streaming from his forehead now.

  “Are you okay?” I breathed.

  “Help me push.”

  I realized then that he wasn’t resting against the boulder—he was trying to push it over, to send it crashing down on the trolls on the slope below.

  It seemed we’d run out of options, and this was the best plan we had.

  I rushed over to help him, pressing my back against the boulder along with him. The chunk of rock must have weighed half a ton, but he’d gotten it partway tipped up. Planting my feet, I wedged my shoulder into the stone.

  “On three,” Galin gasped. “One, two.” He drew in a deep breath. “Three.”

  I pushed up through my legs, using everything I had, like I was Atlas trying to raise the world itself. At last, the stone teetered. The path at my feet splintered.

  Then suddenly the boulder toppled—too suddenly. For a moment, I lost my balance, arms windmilling, until Galin reached out and grabbed my waist.

  Leaning into him, I turned to watch the boulder careening down the talus slope like a massive bowling ball, dislodging smaller boulders. In an instant, the slope became a churning deluge of falling stones, one after another.

  “BBLllooggghhhAh! Blooahhggh!!!” screamed the trolls, as they were swallowed up by the landslide.

  My chest unclenched, and I stared in disbelief. It had worked. The trolls were gone. The rockslide had literally scrubbed them from the face of the earth.

  I suddenly realized that Galin’s muscular arms were wrapped around me, holding me protectively. I pushed against him, and he immediately released me. Blood still ran down the side of his face from where he’d smashed into the rock.

  “Hang on. You’re trailing blood everywhere.” I pulled the end of my shirtsleeve from my jacket. Standing on my tiptoes, I dabbed at Galin’s forehead. He grimaced, but otherwise didn’t speak.

  When I pulled my arm away, my sleeve was soaked in blood. “You really need some stitches. We could portal back now.”

  “I heal fast.” He turned away. “We need to get going. We don’t know if there are any more trolls out there.”

  Good point. He started up the path, and I followed. This time we didn’t run, but Galin kept a good pace. In front of us the massive vertical tower of stone that made up the peak of Mount Steton grew closer. At last, after a couple of switchbacks, we reached the wall.

  We stood in a little dirt clearing, looking up at the cliff. A ladder had been bolted to the rock. Covered in rust and grime, it looked like it could fall apart as we used it. It shot straight up like a set of vertical train tracks until it disappeared into the darkness.

  “You first.” Galin gestured to the ladder.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I reached for one of the rungs.

  “BLOOOaaaghhGGHHH!” The sound echoed off the stone wall.

  It was close. And worse—it sounded angry.

  With a pounding heart, I leapt onto the ladder and began to climb as fast as I could.

  Chapter 13

  Ali

  I raced up the ladder, hand over hand, pulling myself up as fast as I could. I was exhausted, but fortunately I could use my arms to take some of the strain off my legs. Fear and tiredness was making my legs shake.

  Up here, there wasn’t much to see. Directly in front of me was the cliff face—gray rock flecked with black. When I looked down over Galin, I could see the base of the cliff, and the narrow trail that had led us to this terrifying ascent.

  The ladder itself was horrifying. If someone had asked me what a ladder of the gods would look like, I would have said strong and beautiful, silver metal carved with runes, steps that could support any weight. In my wildest dreams, I would never have imagined the rickety rusted crap I currently clung to.

  It appeared to have been constructed by a blacksmith with a drinking problem. The rungs creaked with nearly every step. In some places the bolts and pitons that held the ladder to the rock had entirely rusted away. With every movement, it swayed, and it took nearly all my resolve to prevent myself from simply clamping my arms to its sides and freezing in place.

  I glanced down to see how Galin was doing, and spotted movement at the bottom of the cliff. A shadowy mass that clarified into gray skin on a massive hulking frame, tiny red eyes that blazed with hatred. A troll had found us.

  “Troll,” I whispered.

  “Keep going.”

  “Obviously.”

  Just as the word was out of my mouth, the troll reached for the ladder. I felt the iron rungs tremble, and I clung on for dear life as it ripped the first fifty feet of rungs clear off the cliff face.

  “Blooaaarugghh!” The beast screamed in frustration.

  My muscles tensed.

  “Keep climbing!” Galin shouted.

  But fear shot through my nerves. “Galin! Have you ever seen a troll jump?”

  At exactly that moment, the troll did exactly what I’d predicted. With a grunt, it rocketed upwards until it slammed into the cliff with a tremendous crash. Dust and bits of rock sprayed everywhere, the entire wall shaking.

  When the dust cleared. I saw the troll clinging to the cliff face, massive fingers digging into the rock. Its red, beady eyes stared up at us from twenty feet below.

  “Bloooooarrghh!” it howled. Pure rage that rumbled through my bones.

  Stone cracked as it jerked one hand from the cliff face. Then, levering itself upwards, it jabbed the hand back into the rock. Slowly it began to climb, literally carving handholds.

  “Go, Ali!” shouted Galin.

  I didn’t need more encouragement. With a thundering heart, I rushed up the ladder, moving my hands as fast as I could. Still, I heard the troll crunching its fingers into the rock. I glanced down. The giant fucker was slowly gaining on us.

  “We’re going to have to fight it.”

  “Just keep going,” shouted Galin.

  I climbed another ten feet. Looked down again. Galin hung from one of the iron bars with one hand, the other frantically scribing kaun, the rune for fire.

  “No!” I shouted. The troll was a creature of rock and stone; magma ran in its veins. The fire spell wouldn’t damage it. But before I could tell Galin to stop, he sent an enormous arc of flame into the troll’s face.

  The fire consumed the beast, blazing like an enormous torch in the dark. Heat from the flames scalded my skin. We were in an inferno, the air scorched in all directions. Fucking hell—was I on fire? I couldn’t breathe.

  Galin flicked his wrist, and the flames went out. I found myself clinging to a burning hot ladder.

  “Ow!” I shifted from one hand to another until the ladder started to cool.

  Below, the troll still clung to the cliff. The top of its granite head and shoulders were blackened with soot. It didn’t move. Had I been wrong about the fire?

  Then it pulled its chin up from its chest. Its eyes flashed open, glowing like freshly poured ingots. It grinned, revealing a row of jagged obsidian teeth. The bastard was fine.

  “Bloooaaarrrghhh!” it roared.

  “Climb, Galin!” I shouted. “Fire doesn’t work.”

  The troll lu
nged upwards, snatching at Galin, but it was too slow. The beast’s fingers raked the rock where Galin’s feet had been a moment earlier.

  Galin began to climb again. Below us, the troll seemed to gather itself. I flew up the rungs of the iron ladder, fast as lightning.

  “Watch out!” Galin shouted.

  I glanced down, just in time to see the massive body of the troll slam into rock next to Galin, and only a few feet away from me. I yanked myself up and out of its reach, but it didn’t seem interested in me.

  When I looked down again, the troll was positioned just next to him. Galin was effectively cut off.

  “Go, Ali!” he shouted at me. “I’ll be fine.”

  I didn’t move.

  The troll grunted excitedly, then jerked one of its stony hands free of the rock. It reached for Galin.

  Galin was frantically scribing, but he needed to move.

  “Galin!” I screamed.

  Vertigo tightened my grip as I looked straight down the cliff face. The bottom was at least five hundred feet below me. Apart from the little clearing at the base of the ladder, it was all jagged rock and stone. If I fell, I’d die.

  Fighting against the vertigo, I released one of my feet. With one foot on a rung, one hand clinging to the iron, I leaned out as far as I could.

  Below me a portal crackled into existence, just as the troll grabbed Galin.

  “Jump, Ali!” Galin shouted. He was still clinging onto the ladder with his incredible strength, but how long would that last?

  My heart was a wild beast, my body electrified with fear. If I jumped I might save myself, leaping into somewhere safe. But if I left Galin, the troll would either beat him to death or throw him from the cliff face. He’d be smashed to pieces on the rocks.

  No, I’m not going to leave you behind. He was still clinging to the ladder, and there was a chance I could still save him.

  Frantically, I started to scribe.

  “Go, Ali!” Galin’s voice sounded distant, muffled. Hanging over the five hundred-foot drop, I focused on tracing each rune, enunciating the words of the spell. Feeling … I didn’t remember what I was supposed to feel. I simply acted. I let the emotion flow from me.

  At last, I finished the spell. Looked down. Nothing happened.

  Then, the air began to shimmer, the familiar crackling hiss of static. I focused on expanding the portal. Two inches, three.

  I could see the static now, the ring of the portal growing beneath me.

  The troll grunted, beady eyes staring at the black circle.

  I threw everything I had at the portal, snapping it open two feet wide. Not big enough to travel through, but that didn’t matter. As it widened, it sliced into the troll’s neck like the blade of a guillotine. For a second the troll’s eyes widened in surprise, then the light in them started to fade. Its head pitched forward, falling into the portal.

  Simultaneously, the creature’s body seemed to deflate, and its grip on Galin’s arm released. Molten rock spurted from the severed stump of its neck like a miniature volcano. With a final crunch of stone, it fell free. It tumbled down the cliff, spraying its burning ichor, until it slammed into the ground with a resounding thump.

  Galin still gripped the ladder beneath me. “You did it!”

  “Yes,” I gasped, now clinging to the ladder with both hands. I felt completely drained, like I’d just run a marathon, my body vibrating with fatigue. The only thing stopping me from throwing up right now was that I’d be puking all over Galin. Was this what he experienced every time he cast a spell?

  Galin’s eyes shone in the darkness. “That was absolutely brilliant.”

  My head was spinning. “Galin. We’re five hundred feet from the ground and I feel like I might faint.”

  “Oh, right. Of course. The first time you always give too much. It takes practice. You need to give emotion to the spell, but also regulate the amount.” Galin nodded along as he spoke. “You’ll get better at modulating your magic. Now you just have to practice.”

  “Right,” I said slowly. “But I’m going to wait to think about all that until I get to the top. Because I really might hurl.” Fighting the nausea, I began to climb the ladder.

  One hand over another, one rung at a time—all the while pondering how I’d generated the emotion to create the spell.

  Galin had said a portal spell required love.

  But how exactly could that be? Our mating bond had been severed, and I didn’t love anyone at all.

  Chapter 14

  Galin

  I followed Ali up the ladder, unable to believe what I’d seen her do. It was one thing to try to do magic, to make the air shimmer a little, but Ali had done real magic. She’d created a portal using only her emotions as the source of power.

  Most sorcerers practiced for months if not years before they were able to create a spell like that. And she’d cleverly used it to kill a troll. Gods, if she practiced I was certain she had the potential to be a great sorceress.

  Ali moved slowly, but I didn’t push her. I knew how tired she must feel. A novice sorcerer didn’t know how to regulate their emotions during a spell. They simply gave everything they had.

  After my first spell—ages ago—I could barely walk for a week. So even though I wanted to congratulate her, I kept quiet, and let her take her time as she climbed.

  But—considering she had told me she felt nothing for me at all—I did have one burning question.

  Who the fuck did she love?

  Swegde? But Swegde seemed completely devoid of fun.

  I pulled myself up higher, realizing that I was also completely devoid of fun. At least, I was now.

  And maybe Swegde didn’t say things like, “I don’t want your weakness to slow me down,” and, “You are a selfish wretch.” Maybe he had that going for him.

  As we neared the top, daylight began to filter in from the east. The rising sun warmed the air. A gentle breeze toyed with my hair. My muscles ached, and the wound in my forehead throbbed painfully, but we were almost there. I could see the top now. At most, two hundred feet to go.

  Just a little farther. Once we were at the peak, I could create a portal. From there, we could go back to the temple in Vanaheim and eat some breakfast before coming back again.

  And there it was again—that feeling of being hungry. Starving, even. That strange sense of caring about something. It had been a long time since I’d felt that.

  One hand up, lift a foot to the next rung. Repeat with the opposite hand and foot. I kept one eye on Ali. If she slipped, I was ready to catch her.

  The rising sun now warmed my back. A bird called—the sharp cry of a hawk.

  Above me, Ali climbed over the last rung of the ladder and disappeared from view. Relief washed over me when I realized she’d made it, that she was safe.

  “Do you see the Bifrost?” I called out as I hurried after her. Twenty more rungs, ten, five. At last, I dragged myself onto the peak of Mount Steton. I crawled forward, then slowly stood. My arms ached, even my fingers were tired from gripping the rungs of the ladder.

  I rolled my shoulders, then surveyed the scene. Ali stood nearby, her silver hair alight with fire in the rising sun. In that moment, I realized how much I would hate saying goodbye to her when I left for Hel again.

  Where cold ashes lay before, an ember in my chest was burning again.

  Deeply inconvenient.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Exhausted.”

  I nodded. “Same.”

  “So what are we looking for?” asked Ali, peering about in the morning light.

  “I’m not sure.” The Bifrost was the road of the gods. Before Ragnarok it had been described as a shimmering path or rainbow bridge, leading from Midgard to Asgard.

  I scanned the mountaintop. There was nothing like that up here. Just a lot of flat rock and debris surrounded by precipitous cliffs.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Ali asked.

  “You saw the ladder
.”

  She raised a quizzical eyebrow. “It didn’t exactly look like it was made by a god.”

  Good point. I frowned, closing my eyes as I racked my brain. Was the Bifrost hidden by magic? If so, I would need to know the magic word to reveal it. I wished I’d had time to do more research before coming here.

  “Wait!” Ali called out. “Look at that.”

  I opened my eyes to see her pointing towards the edge of the cliff opposite the ladder. There was nothing there. Just empty sky. Then, the air shimmered slightly. Was there something after all?

  “Do you see it?” asked Ali.

  “Yes.” I walked towards the cliff’s edge. There definitely was something there—faint, like an oil film on water, only much more translucent. I squinted, and that helped bring it into better focus.

  Nearly transparent, and hard to keep in focus, like an afterimage from staring at the sun, but nevertheless it was clearly the shape of a bridge. It arced into the sky.

  I reached out to touch it, but my fingers only passed through air.

  “I can see it, but I can’t feel anything,” said Ali.

  “Same here. Maybe because it was destroyed in Ragnarok.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  I tried to touch it again, the remnants of magic raising the hair on my arms.

  “Yes, I believe I could. It’s actually quite a lot like the wall spell I created.”

  Gilded in the sunlight, she nodded. “The one to trap the Night Elves.”

  “Unfortunately there’s a problem. It took me months to design that spell. To fix this”—I gestured to the mirage—“would take years.”

  She dropped her head into her hands. “So we need a new plan.”

  Chapter 15

  Ali

  I stared at Galin, my mind whirling. Was that what he was keeping from me—that he didn’t really know the route across the Bifrost bridge? That he’d possibly lead me up here, past trolls and explosions, for nothing?

  No. I thought there was more. “What else are you not telling me?”