The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

  With the seven of us crowded around the fire—Mia was pregnant with the twins at the time—Finn, Mia, and I took turns doing voices of different mythical reptiles. Finn did the gruff dragon with two wings and four legs, Mia, the excitable wyvern with two wings and two legs, and I took on the smarmy wyrm with no wings and no legs. All the kids stared up at us, laughing, their eyes big and wide and glowing from the dancing flames.

  Their eyes looked much like those of the Ögonen, and the warm memory suddenly went cold.

  “Do we really have to do it up here?” I asked. I didn’t exactly feel safe around the Ögonen, not since they kept giving me horrific visions of spiders. Just being up here, I felt like I could feel bugs crawling on my skin.

  “Yes,” Dagny replied firmly. “Normally, their cloaking would dampen our attempts, but if we get close enough, and we tweak a few things, we can use them to amplify your lysa. This is especially necessary because you don’t know who exactly you’re looking for.”

  “But we can do it?” I asked nervously, and as she sketched a few runic symbols on the tiles, I began to wonder if this was a mistake.

  “Lie down,” Dagny commanded. “I want the top of your head to rest against my knees.”

  I did as she said, and the cold from the tiles quickly seeped through my sweater, sending a chill down my spine. It reminded me of the times Sunniva and the Ögonen had tried to do memory recovery, and the burning agony that followed it.

  I shivered at the thought of it, and Pan noticed and draped the fleece blanket over me.

  Dagny held crystals against my temples—twin violet fluorspar crystals that I’d spent the morning tracking down in the market while Pan had gotten the sour withania root juice I drank before we climbed up here. Dagny said it would take time for me to soak it all up.

  “So,” she said, “I need you to close your eyes, like you’re going to sleep, and start imagining the setting. Once you’ve got a clear image, let me know, and then you need to project who you want to invite into the lysa.”

  “I don’t know how to do that,” I said.

  “Yes, you do. All trolls have at least a tiny bit of psychic power,” she insisted. “We can do persuasion, so we can pro-ject. Lysa is the same basic principle as persuasion, except that persuasion is a command and a lysa is a conversation.”

  “Okay.” I closed my eyes and tried to envision a setting.

  I chose the meadows in Sweden. Verdant green fields of bright wildflowers rushing up to meet the snowcapped mountain. It all felt so vast and infinite, like staring up at the starry night sky far away from the cities.

  Despite the size, and even though I’d only been there once before, it felt familiar and safe. A lot like coming home.

  “Ready,” I said finally.

  “Now just project,” Dagny said.

  I thought of her, the ethereal woman with her long wavy hair, and I tried to will her into the meadow in my mind. Slowly, the meadow grew around me, feeling more solid, more real. The grass tickled my ankles, and the sun warmed my skin. I could even smell the linnea flowers.

  But the woman remained a ghost, a mere memory of when I last saw her.

  “You need to project,” Dagny repeated emphatically.

  “Push out your thoughts,” Pan clarified. “Like you’re shouting in your mind.”

  I took a deep breath and tried again, picturing her in my mind and shouting for her. As I did, the world shimmered and bowed, and the sun seemed to shine brighter, haloed by a bright sun dog. The ground trembled underneath my feet.

  And suddenly, she was there, standing on the other side of the meadow.

  I ran toward her, excitedly yelling, “You’re here! You’re actually here!”

  “You summoned me?” The wind blew her silken hair and ruffled the feathers that dripped around her shoulders.

  “We needed more time to talk.”

  She turned, walking toward the mountains on the far side of the meadow valley, and the long flowered train of her dress dragged along the grass. “You didn’t find my message clear?”

  “Not really, no,” I admitted as I followed her. “You said I needed to stop something, but you didn’t tell me how. Or who you are.”

  “Oh, binrassi, isn’t it obvious?” she asked with a weary smile.

  “I’m sorry, but it really isn’t.” I stopped and let out a frustrated sigh. “Are you here to help me or not?”

  She turned around and smiled more broadly at me. “That might be the first sensible thing you’ve said.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “Yes.” She stepped toward me. “I’m here to help. Do you remember what I told you?”

  “That the world will burn if I don’t stop it,” I said, but she only stared at me, so I added, “And to follow the lone white elk.”

  She cocked her head, listening to a far-off rumbling. “To stop the world from burning, you must do as I say.”

  “Okay,” I replied uncertainly.

  “Do you hear that?” Her wide, dark eyes set on the horizon, toward the increasingly thunderous sound.

  Before I could answer, she took off running toward it, and I chased after her. Over the rolling hills, I saw the antlers, and then the herd crested the hill. Hundreds of giant woolly elk with their broad velvety antlers; their massive hooves shook the earth. They curved across the land, rounding their way down into the valley, loping toward us.

  “We should get out of the way,” I said nervously.

  “No.” She smiled serenely. “We called for them.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the only way.” She stayed perfectly still, and the elk parted around us. The giant beasts trampled the earth as they flowed past us.

  And then, walking slowly and towering over the rest, was the albino woolly elk. The cinnamon-red eyes were on me as he broke away from the others, taking cautious strides toward us.

  I stepped closer, and when he lowered his head, I reached out, gently petting the coarse fur of his snout.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked softly.

  Pale, long lashes fluttered as the beast blinked at me, and then suddenly, he threw his head back and let out an ear-shattering bleat. He stumbled backward, and the rest of the herd scattered.

  The white elk fell to the ground with a final, laborious breath, and that’s when I saw the blood pouring from the underside of the animal, spilling into the ground.

  The woman started laughing, cackling really. Both of her arms were soaked with blood. In one hand she held a massive dagger, and in the other she held the giant, still-beating heart of the elk.

  “What did you do?” I screamed.

  “I got what I needed.” Her appearance shifted—her lips puffier, her eyes slightly smaller, and the hook-shaped scar appeared on her cheek.

  The woman in the gown of flowers was Illaria, Eliana’s twin sister.

  “You were the only one the albino elk would come to, so I disguised myself as Senka and invaded your mind. You fell for it much faster than I thought you would.”

  “What have you done?” I felt dazed and sick, and the sky was crumbling around us. Clouds fell like meteors and crashed into the dirt.

  Illaria just threw back her head as she laughed, and before my eyes, she disappeared into the air, letting hostile winds carry her away.

  I collapsed to my knees, next to the body of the beautiful albino elk. Tears spilled down my cheeks as I petted his snout one last time. “I’m sorry.” And then the lysa collapsed around me.

  52

  Authority

  “Calm down, Ulla,” Dagny repeated. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Illaria was there, and she stole the heart.” I pushed myself to my feet, and as I stared out from dizzying heights, all I could think of was the fear in the elk’s eyes as it bled out. “They have everything they need. They’re going to cross the bridge and open the entrance to Alfheim.”

  “How?” Dagny asked.

  Pan stood bes
ide me, and he put his hand on my arm. “What happened?”

  “Illaria was there, but she was disguised as my mother,” I said breathlessly. “I didn’t know it was her.”

  “You know what your mother looks like?” Dagny asked.

  “I don’t.” Tears were streaming down my cheeks—they had been since before I opened my eyes—and I wiped at them with trembling hands. “Illaria chose her image to mess with me. And then she ripped the beating heart from the elk, and when she vanished, she took the heart with her.”

  “How is that possible?” Dagny asked, more in awe than incredulous. “Are things in the astral plane able to transport in a tangible way to our world?” Her brow scrunched. “If the elk only existed there, the lysa could work as a conduit between the ethereal and the tangible. But that would require amplified power, more than…” She trailed off and looked to the Ögonen.

  “She used the Ögonen to manifest the astral essence into a physical body,” she finished, sounding slightly dazed. “They’re powerful enough, or at least Illaria is powerful enough with them that she was able to literally pull what she wanted out of thin air.”

  “We have to warn someone,” I said.

  “Warn them of what?” Pan asked.

  “The Älvolk have everything they need,” I said. “They’re going to cross the bridge and unleash something dark and terrible.”

  “Illaria knows that’s what will happen?” Dagny asked.

  “She showed me what will happen.” I swallowed hard, trying to calm myself. “She wants the world to burn, and she enjoys torturing her sisters.”

  Pan studied me a moment, squinting into the wind, and he nodded. “I still don’t fully understand what’s happening here, but I agree with you that we need to talk to somebody about all of this.”

  Dagny had been kneeling the whole time, but she stood up now. “I’ll call Elof.”

  “I was actually thinking we should take this up with someone with more military contacts,” Pan told her. “I mean, tell Elof too. But this sounds like something that needs more … national defense.” Something must’ve occurred to him because his expression changed abruptly. “Should I alert the human governments?”

  “Not yet,” Dagny said quickly. “It’d be a waste of time trying to convince them of something they might never believe, and if they do, there is the unfortunate likelihood that they would overreact and bomb all the kingdoms.”

  Pan sighed. “I want to argue with you but I can’t.”

  “Then we should make some calls so we can see Amalie and Ragnall,” Dagny said.

  “We should get off the roof, and then figure it out.” I hugged my arms around me, but it wasn’t the cold that drove me off the Mimirin. As I turned and walked toward the spiral staircases, I could still feel the eyes of the Ögonen on me.

  Pan used his key to let us into the Inhemsk Project offices downstairs, and we used the landlines to make calls. It took nearly an hour of scrambling and calling around, but Dagny finally managed to get Ragnall’s assistant on the phone.

  “Thank you,” she kept repeating as Pan and I expectantly watched her finish up her call. “The good news is that Ragnall’s agreed to a meeting in—” She paused to check her watch. “—in exactly thirty-nine minutes.”

  “What’s the bad news?” I asked.

  “He’s willing to meet with only Ulla,” she said.

  I leaned back. “What? Why?”

  “That seems strange, doesn’t it?” Pan stood beside me, his hands on his hips.

  “His assistant said he doesn’t want to deal with a whole gaggle of us on a Sunday morning, and that he’d previously met with Ulla.” She shrugged. “Make of it what you will.”

  “The important thing is he’s meeting with one of us soon, and I need to make it count,” I said. “What can I do to convince him to take this seriously?”

  We spent the next half hour discussing different ways to approach the topic, things to highlight, phrasing to avoid to keep me from sounding like a maniac. All the prep work we did helped little in actually helping me feel prepared, though.

  I went to the bathroom to freshen up. My makeup had smudged from all the crying, and when I reapplied my eyeliner, my hands were still shaking. I felt sick to my stomach, and I wasn’t sure I was up for any of this.

  But time was running out, and someone had to do something. If that someone had to be me, then so be it. I would get it done.

  I went up to Ragnall’s office alone, with Dagny and Pan waiting in the Inhemsk office until I came back down.

  He worked all the way up on the fourth floor, in the far southwest corner, and he always had a guard in a crimson satin uniform. While I waited for the guard to finish his security scan, I faintly heard voices from the Korva’s office. A man and a woman talking indistinctly. Dagny didn’t say anyone else would be here. Maybe Amalie or his assistant had decided to sit in.

  The guard stepped to the side. “Go on in, Ms. Tulin.”

  I mumbled thanks and opened the door. It was a long rectangle of a room, with the entrance at one end and Ragnall’s obsidian desk at the other. Windows gave a view of the ocean crashing at the cliff far below, and my footsteps echoed softly as I walked in.

  Ragnall sat in the chair at his desk, while a young woman sat on the desk itself, facing him with her back to me. Her long dark hair was woven together in multiple braids, and she wore a cloak of cobalt blue. In her hand she held a vicious-looking weapon. It was a bardiche—similar to a spear with a wooden pole, but instead of the spearhead it had a long, curved battle-axe.

  “Ah, our guests have arrived!” Ragnall said with his razor-sharp grin.

  As I walked toward the desk, the young woman looked back at me, and I froze. She only appeared a few times in my recovered memories, but I recognized her instantly.

  It was Tuva, the head of the thrimavolk, who had held me prisoner along with the sadistic Noomi. They were the exact ones I had been trying to prevent from being able to cross the bridge.

  And she was with the man I had gone to for help in stopping her.

  Ragnall rose to his feet, rebuttoning his suit jacket. “I see you still remember my daughter, Tuva Ragnasdottir.”

  “D-daughter?” I stammered.

  “Her memory is resilient, but she’s not great with words,” another voice said with a short cackle of a laugh.

  I’d been so stunned to see Tuva I hadn’t noticed Illaria standing by the window.

  53

  Benevolent

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. I’d meant it to come out angrier, but the shock left my voice breathless and weak.

  Illaria had been leaning against the glass, and her hair nearly matched the overcast sky—a steely gray. She smiled at me, and it had the disarming effect of making her look like an evil doll. Her bottom lip was fuller than the top, giving her wicked smile a pouty twist, and her big eyes were framed by long lashes.

  When she stepped away from the window, coming toward me, her hair changed color to match the interior of Ragnall’s office—first shifting to the rich brown of the Tralla leather chairs before landing on inky black to match the obsidian slab of Ragnall’s massive desk.

  “I already got what I wanted, or did you already forget that?” she asked coyly.

  My mind flashed back to her arms covered in blood, and the pain in the big red eyes as the albino elk died before me.

  “Fuck you,” I growled, for real now, because my rage brought my strength back with it.

  I lunged at Illaria, but she jumped out of the way like a damn grasshopper, and I slammed into the desk. It was hard enough that it went flying backward, and Ragnall dove out of the way in time to avoid being pinned against the wall.

  Tuva wasn’t quite as quick and agile as Illaria, but she still jumped up and landed on the desk with ease, riding it like a surfboard until it crashed into the wall.

  I wheeled around and ran at Illaria, but Tuva jumped off the desk and landed on my back. In an instant, she had
the stick end of the bardiche against my throat, pressed so hard I could barely breathe.

  “Ulla, there’s no need for this.” Ragnall rounded us so he stood in front of me, and he was smoothing out his suit. “I meant for this to be a pleasant conversation.”

  “What the hell is going on?” I croaked out around Tuva’s weapon.

  I tried to push the stick back, and it started to give—I had to be stronger than her—but then she kneed me in the back, so hard I felt a white-hot pain shoot from my back and through my entire abdomen. I fell forward on my hands and knees, gasping for breath.

  “We haven’t even been properly introduced yet,” he said.

  I took a deep breath and fought back the angry tears stinging my eyes. I lifted my head slowly, and when Tuva didn’t strike me with the stick, I sat back on my heels so I could look up at Ragnall.

  “You know me as the Korva of the Mimirin Talo,” he said with his dreadful smile. “But for a very long time, I have been the chieftain of the Älvolk. I am your father’s boss and mentor.”

  Apparently, they really did believe that Indu Mattison was my father. Since I suspected that was something that might help keep me alive, I decided that now wouldn’t be the best time to correct them.

  “That makes you sort of like my uncle then?” I asked.

  Tuva struck me in the side of the head with her stick, so fast and so hard I barely had time to register what happened. Everything flashed white, and I was dimly aware of Ragnall laughing, a bombastic sound that echoed off the stone walls. I blinked and looked up at him, and when I put my hand to my head, my fingers came back wet with blood.

  “You’re funny. You didn’t get that from your father.” Ragnall wagged his finger at me. “Indu’s loyal, ambitious, and impressively devout, but he’s never had much of a sense of humor.”

  “Did you invite me here to reminisce about my dear ol’ dad?” I asked him.

  His smile instantly fell, and he gazed down at me beneath his harsh black eyebrows. “No, I did not invite you here. You begged for an audience through your lackeys, and I allowed you to come up. You wanted this, but you are only here because of my benevolence. I want you to remember that.”