The Ever After

by Amanda Hocking

  “But it’s just us going to fight the Älvolk?” I asked. “Nobody else is coming to help?”

  “The Trylle and Skojare kingdoms are sending troops, but they take time to mobilize,” Pan explained. “The other tribes haven’t officially said one way or the other if they’ll join.”

  “What about Bryn?” I asked. I had talked to her on the phone a few days ago, telling her all about the situation, and she said she’d get help, but I hadn’t heard from her since.

  Dagny shook her head. “I haven’t talked to her.”

  “Ulla!” Eliana shouted as she burst in through the large front doors. She was grinning widely, and her shimmering blue hair hung down in a pair of braids, swinging past her shoulders. “There you are!”

  I stood up as she ran over, preparing for her to hug me for the tenth time today. “I’ve just been here.”

  “Everyone’s meeting at the bar at Grand Bottenviken Hotel,” she said, and instead of going for a hug, she grabbed my hand. “Come on. You have to go too.”

  “Why? Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “No, they’re meeting for fun!” Eliana laughed. “Sumi called it the last drink before we die.”

  I frowned. “That doesn’t sound fun.” She laughed again, and I let her pull me away, with Pan and Dagny following more slowly behind us.

  The last time I had been in Isarna, it was during the summer midnight sun. Now the sun set before eight P.M., and we walked to the hotel in the dim twilight with the roads lit by lampposts.

  “I’ve felt a lot better since I’ve been here,” she said as we walked. “Like I can breathe easier and think more clearly. My memories haven’t been coming back at all, but I’m happier here, I think.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Dagny asked.

  “Patrik said maybe because the air is cleaner,” Eliana said.

  “Hmm.” Dagny didn’t sound entirely convinced, and she looked around at the blue shops and fluffy pine trees that lined the road.

  The Grand Bottenviken Hotel was up ahead. It was a charming lodge that attempted to marry the Skojare and Trylle communities in its design, with cornflower blue shiplap and flowering vines winding over it.

  When we’d been here before, it hadn’t exactly been deserted, but business was slow. Now it was packed.

  Off to the right of the nautically themed lobby, the hotel had a restaurant with a bar. It was a long rectangle of a room with green and gray gädda fish mounted behind the bar. One wall was a large picture window, framed with blue stained glass, that had a view of the dark bay. A bench ran all the way down the interior wall, allegedly made from the wood of an old Skojare Viking ship, with tables and chairs, and the rest of the room was all pub tables and bar stools.

  I managed to find a spot on the bench with Eliana beside me, and Dagny sat down across from us while Pan went to get us some drinks at the bar. I knew most everyone in the bar, or at least recognized them from the Öhaus briefing. Patrik and Finn were noticeably absent, but I suspected Finn was video chatting with the kids before going to bed.

  That was probably what I should be doing, and I would—soon. But with everything that was about to happen, I wanted to spend some time hanging out with my friends, because I didn’t know if I’d be able to do it again.

  Eliana linked her arm through mine and rested her head on my shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re here. Jem and Sumi don’t talk to me about everything.”

  “Are they here?” Dagny asked.

  “Yep,” Eliana said.

  Across the room, I spotted Jem. He was laughing at something Knut said, his dark eyes twinkling and his long dark waves flowing free. Sumi wasn’t too far from him, sipping a drink and leaning against the window. She surveyed the crowd with a look that reminded me of an especially snobby lioness, and when she locked eyes with me, she stalked over to join us.

  “Oh no, she’s coming over,” Eliana complained.

  Sumi stopped at the table but she didn’t sit down. “I thought you might sleep through this too.”

  “Hey, it’s been a long … summer,” I said, and the truth of the statement hit me all at once. “It seriously has been one long-ass summer.”

  “The good news is that it’s going to end with a bang,” she said with a wry smile.

  “You strike me as the brutally honest type.” Dagny looked up at Sumi, who just shrugged in response. “What do you think our chances of surviving tomorrow are?”

  “Well, the Älvolk and the thrimavolk have been training for this exact scenario for generations, and if a large enough etanadrak gets through, it could easily take out half our fighters.” Sumi took another drink. “But this is the only chance we have to stop them so … we must fight tomorrow. Tonight we drink and pray that the gods fight with us.”

  Then she drained her glass. “I should get another.”

  “Ugh,” Eliana groaned after Sumi left. “She’s always like that.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Dagny said, watching Sumi walk away. “Maybe I should get a drink.”

  She got up and went after Sumi, while Eliana remained glued to me. Pan joined us a moment later, taking Dagny’s seat and setting cranberry juice in front of me.

  “Did I miss anything?” he asked.

  “Sumi told us we’re all doomed,” I said with a crooked smile, and he nearly choked on the drink he was taking.

  “You,” someone said, and I looked over to see Sunniva Kroner pointing at me. “You, I know.” I hadn’t talked to her since she recovered my memories in Förening.

  “Hey,” I said. “How are you?”

  She shrugged and sat down in the chair next to Pan. “Fine except I don’t know anybody here. It’s weird having your last hurrah with strangers.”

  “You know Ulla, and you met me,” Eliana said brightly. “And that’s Pan. We’re not strangers.”

  “Fair enough,” Sunniva replied with a slight smile.

  “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m surprised to see you here,” I said.

  She lowered her gaze, and her long, slender fingers absently toyed with a napkin on the table. “Aural healing isn’t the only thing I can do. I also have something else known as auditory precognition.”

  “You can hear the future?” Pan asked uncertainly.

  “Not all the time, but yes, sometimes I hear snippets of the future. I can’t control what or when or anything about it,” Sunniva explained. “What I’ve been hearing the last few days is fire and the earth rumbling.” She licked her lips and then looked up at me. “And I hear you, shouting my name.”

  “I’m shouting for you?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I’m supposed to be here. That you need me here for something. So here I am.”

  “Thank you for being here,” I said. “I don’t know what I’ll need you for yet, but we’re happy for all the help we have.”

  Eliana changed the subject after that, suddenly quizzing Sunniva about the color of everyone’s auras. Dagny had silvery white (“she’s all honesty and hard work”), Eliana’s was a vibrant lavender (“a confused hopeful daydreamer”), Pan’s was cheery green (“except for when he’s around Ulla, then it goes all pink”), and mine was still murky orange and bright yellow (“your optimism is trying to push through the damage that’s been done”).

  Pan and I stayed down there a half hour longer, chatting with our friends old and new, and then we slid away up to our room.

  We hadn’t been up there long, maybe fifteen minutes. I had only just changed into my pajamas, and Pan was brushing his teeth in the bathroom, when someone knocked at the hotel room door.

  “Hi, sorry for bothering you,” Sunniva said. “But I was talking to Eliana and … Can I just come in? I think I need to do something for you.”

  59

  Summer Bird

  “You’re sure this isn’t dangerous?” Pan asked again. He stood to the side of the room, his arms folded, as he watched Sunniva and me with
trepidation.

  Sunniva knelt at the headboard of the bed, and I lay on my back with my head at her knees.

  “I never said that,” she reminded him. “I said that since the Älvolk aren’t blocking this particular memory, it shouldn’t be difficult or painful recovering it.”

  When Sunniva had gotten here, she’d told us about the conversation she’d had with Eliana. Eliana was telling Sunniva all about how we were sisters but neither of us could remember our parents.

  “For different reasons, obviously,” Eliana had elaborated. “Mine because the Älvolk messed with my mind so my memories are all bappers. But Ulla’s is because she was only a baby when she was taken away.”

  As soon as Eliana said that, Sunniva explained, she’d had another of her auditory precognitions. The fire and rumbling and me shouting her name was only one of them.

  “I think I’m supposed to help you remember your mom,” Sunniva had finally told us. “I know you can’t remember being a baby, but your brain was still there, recording everything. It’s hidden away by natural barriers, your mind’s own processes, and that is much, much easier to circumvent than the Älvolk’s magick.”

  That’s how I ended up on the bed with Sunniva, with Pan pacing apprehensively. The process was different this time, because Sunniva wasn’t using her abilities to repair the damage the Älvolk had done, but rather to make a connection between latent memories and my conscious mind.

  She put her index fingers on my temples and stared down at me. Her black hair was pulled into a thick braid, and her dark eyes were framed by long lashes. Multiple pairs of sparkling earrings were in her ears, and I stared at them instead of meeting her intense gaze.

  “Stop that,” Sunniva commanded.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Averting your gaze. I need to look into your eyes.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, and looked up at her.

  “Should I run a cold bath?” Pan asked.

  “You can do whatever you want as long as you stay quiet, okay, buddy?” Sunniva asked, not bothering to mask her annoyance at all.

  “Sorry,” he said sulkily, and I heard him sit back in the chair, while I stared up at Sunniva the way she commanded.

  Her eyes were nearly black, with inky lines spiraling through her irises. And as she looked at me, I swear they started to move. Pulsing subtly but hypnotically, and it was like a black ocean rushing for me.

  Then I was gasping. My throat felt raw from crying. The darkness around me finally broke with a painfully bright light, but all the shapes were blurry. Then a blob of amber came toward me, breaking up the monotony of gray.

  “Shh,” a woman’s voice cooed, and instinctively, I knew it was her. My mother.

  Her face came into view, and she was close enough I could see her more clearly, though she still had a warped quality to her, like I was looking through a foggy pool up at her.

  She looked just as she had in my lysa, when Illaria had taken her form. Her hair was very long and wavy, and she wore it with a waterfall braid woven through it. Her dark eyes were large and bright, and they were almost hyper vivid.

  “Hush, my binrassi,” my mother said. Her voice was low but warm and sweet, like summer tea sweetened with honey and milk. But there was a nervous undercurrent to it, and I noticed the panic in her eyes.

  A door cracked open, and she cast a fearful look back over her shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat, then she whispered, “My love. I didn’t think you’d be able to get away.”

  “I had to make time.” The man’s voice was low; I felt it rumbling through me like bass. He sounded pained, but there was a softness underneath that felt familiar and safe. “I couldn’t let my daughter leave without saying goodbye.”

  And then he was there, towering over us. My father, Thor Elak, seemed just as large as he had in his portrait hanging in the Omte palace. He was broad and burly and at least a foot taller than Senka. His eyes were wide and kind, and they were the same color as mine.

  He reached down, gently stroking my cheek, and he smiled sadly as he said, “Goodbye, my Princess Violetta.”

  “What if Indu sees you here?” my mother asked, and put her hand on his thick biceps.

  “He didn’t. I made sure of it.” He spoke to her, but his attention was focused on me. When I squeezed his finger, tears formed in his eyes.

  “Are you sure this is the right thing?” Senka sounded desperate now.

  Thor turned to her and put his meaty hands warmly on her shoulders. He bent down, so he was closer to her eye level. “Senka, we’ve gone over this. I love you, and I love the baby, but we can’t be a family right now. It’s not safe for her.”

  “If we wait longer, until she’s old enough to make the trip back to Alfheim—” She was pleading with him but he cut her off.

  “Indu will realize she’s not his daughter,” my father said calmly but firmly. “She has my eyes, Senka, and she’s a strong Omte baby. He’s going to know, and he’s going to kill her.”

  “You’re strong and you’re King!” Senka argued. “You can stop him.”

  “I can stop him, but I can’t stop all of them,” he said. “And Helge won’t approve sending any more troops. I need to go back to Fulaträsk and get my kingdom to loosen the purse strings. But you and the baby need to be safe first.”

  She looked up at him and put her hand to his face. “But is sending Violetta away safe?”

  “Orra is my most trusted guard, and she’s practically family,” he said. “She’ll take the baby far, far away, and she won’t leave her until she knows she’s safe. You’ll stay here to placate Indu until I can return with the troops.”

  Her lips quivered. “What if he doesn’t let the twins go? He has Illaria with him always.”

  “When I come back with the troops, I’ll make sure we get the girls to safety,” Thor promised her. “And once everyone is free and safe, I will be able to end my engagement with Bodil, and then we’ll get the baby, and we’ll be together as a real family—me, you, Illaria, Eliana, and Violetta.”

  They kissed then, even with Senka crying. “I am trusting you that this is true.”

  “I’ll never stop trying to reunite with you,” he said. “I love you more than I love myself, my kingdom, my world.”

  She smiled up at him. “I love you, my summer bird.”

  “And I you, my morning flower.”

  I started fussing, and they both looked at me. My mother picked me up, and she held me in her arms with tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Orra will be here soon to get the baby,” my father said, putting an arm around her.

  “I know.” Senka sniffled. “This is probably the last time the three of us will be together.”

  “For a while,” Thor agreed in his warm rumble. “But not forever. Not for long. I’ll get the army we need to properly deal with the Älvolk. Then I will come for you, and we will get the girls and live freely, happily ever after.”

  As I looked up at my parents, embracing each other as they held me, a fat spider dropped down from the ceiling. It landed in Senka’s hair, and I started crying; wailing actually.

  “Shhh,” my mother said, but the spider was still there, crawling in her hair.

  “Hush, little one,” my father said, and put his big hand on my head, trying to comfort me.

  But still I cried, watching the spider climb from her hair and onto his shoulder.

  “Maybe she knows.” Senka’s voice was soft and thick. “She knows we’re sending her away.” She looked at Thor, frantic. “I could take her to Alfheim. There’s a way that you can cross the bridge. Indu is looking for an enchanted recipe. It will allow anyone who eats it to enter Alfheim. It may take some time, but you could find it, and you could eat it and join us.”

  “I would join you tomorrow if I could,” Thor said. “But is the land where you’ve slain monsters with poisoned arrows, the place you already fled from with your young daughters after their father was killed, is that where you wan
t to bring our infant?”

  “She won’t be a baby, not by the time it’s safe for her to cross the bridge.” Senka was crying again, and the fat spider crawled off my father’s arm. I could see the fangs as it came toward me.

  “We will find a way to be together,” he promised her again. “But now Violetta must go into hiding. Orra is here.”

  And then, somehow oblivious to the spider biting into my cheek, my mother fiercely said, “My love, you must remember—only together can we slay the monsters that chase us.”

  The door opened, and Orra Fågel slipped into the room. She was nearly as tall as Thor, with ruddy cheeks and honest golden eyes.

  “Are you ready, my lord?” she asked him.

  “No, but there isn’t more time, is there?” Senka asked through her tears.

  “No, there isn’t,” Orra said, her voice firm but sympathetic.

  “Here.” Thor pulled a weapon from his waistband—a wolfram dagger with a bronze hilt and the Omte sigil of vultures. “This is the weapon of a warrior. Use it to protect my daughter and protect yourself.”

  “I will,” she promised him. She sheathed the weapon, and then she took me from my mother and fled with me into the night.

  60

  En Masse

  In the darkened room, Pan held me in his arms, even though I had stopped crying a while ago. After Sunniva had finished helping me with the memory, I was a blubbery mess.

  For the first time in my life, I saw my parents, and I felt how much they loved me. How much hope they had for the future. They truly believed we’d all be together again.

  But I knew how their story ended. Orra left with me, and they never saw me again. My father died twelve years later, and my mother returned to Alfheim, where she stayed until she died. I didn’t know if they ever even saw each other again.

  “How are you doing?” Pan asked, when I’d been silent for a while. He stroked my hair back from my face, and I rested my head on his chest.