Grim quickly knelt next to me, but his eyes were on the water where Taran had disappeared. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Hurry! Can you get to Taran?”
He didn’t even hesitate. He stood and ran toward the water. The redheaded elf, already livid, lifted his arm, and moonlight reflected off the long dagger in his hand. He drew back to throw it at Grim. I scrambled to my feet and jumped him, grabbing his arm to throw off his aim. He shook me off, I hit the ground again, then looked up to see him aim.
Josh tore loose from the elf holding him, lunged toward the elf with the knife. Before I could get up to help, one of the other elves reached out, plucked him from the air, and in a blink had snapped his right leg above the knee and dropped him.
Josh bellowed in pain and I got to my hands and knees to go to him, but the redheaded elf drew back his foot and kicked Josh in the head. Hard.
Josh didn’t move after that.
I crouched there, stunned, unable to comprehend what had just happened, waiting for him to move. I couldn’t hear the sound of the birds above us or the water sloshing against the shore. There was only my own blood, rushing in my ears as this horrific, hot pain filled my chest.
I stared at Josh, lying there so still, and fury and pain like nothing I’d never felt burned through me until I was on my feet and screaming as I ran at the first elf who’d hurt him and dropped him on the ground. “Like he was nothing!” I yelled as I launched myself at him. “You dropped him like he was nothing!” Moonlight glittered on his black eyes as they went wide, but I didn’t get to him in time.
Vrunlin intercepted, holding on as I screamed and fought. I wanted to rip them limb from limb. My fear for Taran and Josh...my fury, built until I felt a swirling in my throat. I knew then, knew that I had more untapped power, and just as I was about to see what I could do, a roar sounded.
This one made everything around us go quiet. Even the birds. We turned toward the water just as a crack of thunder boomed so loud, the ground rumbled and shook. It rolled just under the surface like an earthquake.
Grim made a horrible noise of pain as he pulled Taran from the water, his eyes on his twin.
Taran let go of him and stood there, breathing hard. His head was down as he looked at the elves, the glow of his eyes as bright as the ones from the spirit wolves. Another rumble of thunder rolled over the earth and Vrunlin’s grip on my arms tightened. I could actually feel fear coming off him.
Grim ran and fell to his knees next to his brother. His hand hovered over Josh’s back and the devastation that swept over his face ripped my heart completely from my chest. Sobbing, I tried to struggle free, then Taran made that sound again—that deep, rumbling roar—and as I watched, his eyes began to glow even brighter.
Then his hammer did.
He wasn’t wearing the mesh glove that might have helped in the fight against the giants before, and I didn’t think it was going to matter. Fury slashed across his face and he ran at us.
Vrunlin, still holding on to me with a death grip, relocated us so suddenly, it felt as if the cold air actually moved through my wet, freezing body. But he didn’t stop—not until we were away from the others.
Others he apparently didn’t care about, because he didn’t move to help as Taran raged and swung his hammer. He went berserk. The elves—even with their speed—couldn’t get away as he swung his hammer into one after another. He turned back and forth, slashing and beating at their bodies and heads in a dance of power that stole my breath. He let loose another of those ground-vibrating roars and the spirit wolves responded with howls. The ravens added their voices to the symphony.
Vrunlin’s arms tightened around me as he took a step back.
Taran stopped moving, facing the only remaining elf besides Vrunlin. The one with long red hair—the one who’d kicked Josh. Before Taran could lift his hammer again, that elf snatched Grim off the ground and held his knife to Grim’s throat.
“Let him go,” Taran said, and it wasn’t just Taran speaking. A deeper, harsher voice layered over his.
All the hair on my body stood on end as Taran’s power began to radiate from him, spilling over the ground and into the air.
Someone began to laugh, and even Grim looked as Loki joined us.
“So much drama!” Loki snorted. “I love it.” The trickster god walked my mother’s body right in between Taran and the elf holding Grim, who sagged over the creature’s arm, his gaze locked back on Josh. “Black salt! The girl is smarter than I realized. Black salt and her blood. It’s the only reason you are still alive to wave your silly little hammer. Her other spells slowed me down a time or two, but this one was good. She saved your life.”
Lightning ripped across the dark, revealing a sky filled with ravens. Thousands of screaming birds, their black wings beating under the angry, black clouds spilling higher into the sky. Rumbles of thunder, one after the other, shook the earth. Loki lifted my mother’s arm and the icy arrow on the crossbow glittered in the scant light.
But all Taran did was bark out a laugh that didn’t sound like his own. “We’ve all had enough, Loki.” He lifted his arm and lightning streaked down from the sky and snapped at my mother’s body. She scrambled out of the way, shock making her eyes glitter wide. Taran lifted his free hand and the grin on his face made me suck in a breath. Confidence and power emanated from him, made him seem larger than life. The entire debris-filled area lit up as he pulled—and that’s what it looked like—another bolt of lightning down from the sky. This time, he flung it at my mother so hard, the feathered coat caught on fire. She, he, frantically patted at the smoldering feathers, then stood.
“This isn’t over,” she ground out through clenched teeth just as she bent her legs, ready to take off.
I yelled, hoping to catch my mother’s attention. I’d seen my mother kneeling on that pier when I’d been in the water. My mother had been fighting Loki’s possession—she had tried to go in that water after me.
But before she took off into the sky, the elf holding Grim let go of him and wrapped around her as they both shot up.
The sound of shattering glass was loud enough to war with the clap and rumble of thunder.
I stood, stunned, breathing so hard, my pants sounded harsh in the sudden return of eerie silence. Then I fell to my hands and knees. I looked up, over my shoulder, to find Vrunlin watching Taran as his long, creepy hand came toward me. I cringed, but he only patted my head and bent down to whisper, “I will live to see you again—to see all of you girls together. So fascinating you turned out to be.” He disappeared, reappeared to drop my bag on the ground next to me. “You will need that device inside to call for help.” And with that, he spun around and took off.
Taran’s hammer hit the ground next to me and I let out a startled sound when he picked me up and crushed me to his chest. He didn’t seem at all worried about his strength and I smiled, so happy that he’d let that go. I knew his cold, wet clothes didn’t feel any better pressed against him. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d never be warm again. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the cold actually hurt. Down deep in the bones hurt. Like when I’d been in the water.
“Oh gods, Taran. I’m so sorry about Josh. I’m so, so sorry.” I started crying and I didn’t care about it, not with this, not when such a wonderful person had been just broken and kicked and...
“He’s not dead!” Grim yelled. He lay down in the snow next to his brother, their faces inches apart.
Taran and I ran to kneel beside them. I winced when I saw the bloody gash in the side of Josh’s head. “Are you sure?” I whispered.
Grim nodded, then sat up. “We have to get him help. Now!” He stood, ready to run, and I reached out, clasped his hand.
“We have a way to call for help.” I pulled the walkie-talkie out of my bag and handed it to Taran. He contacted his father, then h
ad to admit that he hadn’t called when we’d found the twins. We hadn’t actually had time. Amusement warred with my relief over finding out that Josh was still alive. The amusement came from Taran having to placate his dad. Taran, who’d just offed five elves with nothing more than a hammer, then pulled lightning from the sky. He was still trying to explain as he walked a few steps away from us, his voice rising as he argued with his dad. While he talked, he gathered pieces of broken wood and piled them next to us.
I figured out what he was doing and started to help, but Grim spoke quietly and I knelt back beside him.
“I never thought I’d like to hear those two yelling at each other,” Grim said as he held his brother’s hand between both of his. “Hey, hrafnasueltir,” he murmured softly. “Time to wake up and show me you’re still in there.” He blew on his brother’s fingers, rubbed his palms gently over his brother’s skin to warm him before looking back at me. “Taran and his dad arguing feels like something normal. I’m so scared Josh will die. He’s barely hanging on.”
“He’s going to be fine. I know it.” Hrafnasueltir meant raven starver or coward. I knew Grim thought his brother was anything but a coward, so the insult, to me, felt like the something normal he’d talked about.
“You can predict that?” He scooted closer to his brother.
I shook my head, so miserably cold I tried to huddle in on myself. “My sister Kat is the one who does the future. I just feel that he’ll be fine. He’s a fighter. He jumped right in front of that elf’s knife for you.”
“I want to try to warm more of him, but I’m so afraid to touch or move him.” Grim’s voice broke. “His leg is so bad. The angle it’s bent is all wrong. It looks like his femur was snapped in half.”
Somehow, I knew Josh would never walk right again. That just like in the stories about Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr, he would stay lame the rest of his life.
Taran came back. He dropped the walkie talkie on the ground, then looked up and around as if scanning the sky for something.
I looked, too. Miles away lightning streaked the sky.
Taran held up his hand, spread his fingers wide, then closed them. He pulled the lightning our direction before flinging it at the pile of wood. It flamed so hard and fast Grim threw himself over his brother.
“Sorry,” Taran muttered. “I’ll get better.” He smiled at Grim then sat beside me. “I think as long as we avoid his leg and his head, we can lie against Josh to try to warm him. The fire will help.” His smile, tired and wobbly, made my heart ache. “He’d probably prefer your body up against him,” he said to me.
“Somehow I don’t think he cares who does it right now.” We huddled around Josh until gradually warmth began to creep through the layers of wet clothes. We watched the ravens circle us in the sky.
“I saw the wolves,” Grim said. “After all these years, all the times the three of us sneaked out of the house and came down here—getting grounded nine times out of ten because Taran’s dad has an annoying sixth sense—I finally saw them. Josh did, too.”
“They led me to Taran when he first went under.” I groped for Taran’s hand, hating the memory of how I’d felt when I’d thought he’d drowned.
“Taran, Coral didn’t give up once. She kept going back under that cold, dark water for you.” Grim’s head popped up from the other side of Josh. “Wait, you are still Taran, right? I was kind of out of it, but I heard someone else talking from your body.”
“I’m me.” Taran threaded our fingers together. He still held his hammer in his other hand, and I had a feeling it would be a while before he felt safe enough to let it out of his sight. “But I can feel him now.”
I turned until I could see his face. He was plastered to my right side. Josh against my left.
“He’s quiet for now,” Taran said as sirens broke through the cries of ravens. “But he’s there, and I can sense some of what he’s feeling.”
“What’s he feeling?” I asked softly.
“Worry. He’s knows this isn’t over. That we aren’t done.”
“We’re not.” I looked back up at the sky as the sound of a helicopter joined the sirens. “I can feel my sister right now. My younger sister, Kat. She’s terrified, but she’s also still pissed, so I think she’s okay. I don’t know for how long. I think we have to go where she is. Mist told me I’d be with my sisters in a place where there is fire and music on the lake. Kat went to Yellowstone.”
Grim groaned. “I know what place she meant. One or maybe more of the lakes there are famous for some mysterious music. Some campers say it sounds like voices—but it’s supposed to be really creepy.”
The searchlight on the helicopter found us. Taran sat up, started waving his arms. “We have to go after Loki.” He stopped waving as the helicopter landed and men poured out of it. He turned and looked at Grim, then his gaze locked with mine. “The fire part of what you said scares me, but we have no choice. I’m sure my dad will get us there fast.”
I nodded because he was right. We had no choice and I was pretty sure that I needed to be with my sisters for whatever else was supposed to happen. No, I was more than pretty sure—I felt it in my bones. Felt that my part in Ragnarok was bigger than it had been so far.
Taran stood and helped me to my feet so we could get out of the way as the paramedics circled Josh. “You know what, Coral? I’m kind of nervous about meeting your sisters.”
“Why?”
“Because I just met your parents and they tried to kill me.”
Chuckling, I hugged him. “Kat can be kind of a pain.”
“Don’t worry,” he said softly. “I can handle her. And together, we can handle whatever else is coming.
He kept his arm tight around me and I felt both determination and fear coming off him. I knew he understood the enormity of what we still had to face. I did. Dread over what was coming kept me silent as we watched the paramedics take care of Josh. There would be more giants. More elves. And probably a lot more of Loki’s insanity. But that wouldn’t be the worst of it.
Yellowstone National Park sat on top of the world’s most dangerous volcano.
And we were heading there.
* * * * *
The portents of Ragnarok:
three years of winter, roaring seas that lash
the land and an all-consuming fire.
The destruction of the world.
Don’t miss the climactic showdown in
FORESWORN!
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Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named Leila.
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Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila’s own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth—sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you’re looking for is to get lost along the way.
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ISBN-13: 9781459254787
Forecast
Copyright © 2014 by Rinda Elliott
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