Which is why I’m here, I thought. Bruce needs to have children to continue his family name. I can’t give him that until I break the curse.
Camille dropped to her knees beside me and pulled me into her arms. “I wish you hadn’t had such a hard life. I wish you’d been able to stay in the temple—but then I wouldn’t know you and that would be my biggest regret.”
“I know,” I said, softly, patting her back. “But truly, the Kuusis were wonderful to me—oh, there were a few I’d rather not have known—but they always treated me as one of their kin. And I will never forget them. I honored them by taking their name.”
“Come—we need to move. It’s too cold to stay still and we have a long way to go.” Howl nodded gruffly, but his eyes were kind.
We started up again, and as we trudged along, the snow began to fall in earnest. Delicate flakes, filling the air like a lacework crisscrossing the path. It fell through the lattice of branches, it fell through the open spots, it fell silently and softly, piling up in gentle layers.
As we walked, a faint whistle echoed through the woodland and then I could hear them—pipes echoing in the distance. A woman’s voice called out, singing in a language I could not recognize, but it haunted me, her song, ricocheting off the trees. While I could not understand the words, I knew she sang of love lost, and trials left undone, and challenges failed.
The song began to work its way into my heart and I could only think, Why go on? Why bother trying? All things were lost in the end, death claimed us all, so why attempt to win? All victory was shallow, and the victors’ bones lay as bleached as the snow around us. Wouldn’t it be easier just to sit here, to listen to the music forever? Wouldn’t it be easier to let go of the past and forget about the future?
Stumbling to my knees, I found myself adrift in a snowbank. Bleakly, I stared up as Camille leaned over me. “Iris? Iris! Shake out of it—you have to stand up. You’ll freeze if you don’t get moving.”
“Loss, it’s all loss,” I told her, wanting to make her understand. The worm had eaten its way into my heart and I could see no more into the future. Everything felt tainted and rotten.
“Wake, wake and dance again, little sister,” Howl said, kneeling beside me. He brushed his hand across my face and I blinked at the warmth. He was so warm, so vibrant.
“How can you be—you are one of the Elemental Lords of Winter . . . You can’t be so warm and alive . . .”
“But I am. I am Aatu also known as Howl, Lord of the Pack, the Great Winter Wolf Spirit. My people live and love under the winter snows, they play and mate and feed and sing to the moon. They mourn the dead but they do not mourn the living. Come, sister, wake and remember your journey. The Singing Spirit has you in her grasp and you must push her away. Plug your ears if you have to, but do not let her seep into your heart and drag you away from us.”
The warmth of his flesh began to pulse against my skin and I took a breath. Sharp, the cold was so sharp, but it jarred me and I shook the snow from my hair. Howl pulled me to my feet and spun me around, laughing. Dizzy, I begged him to stop, but he continued the dance.
As we spun, colors began to twist around us and they turned into a carnival of sight and sound. His laughter infected me and I couldn’t help but return the mirth. And as I laughed, the shell of ice that had formed around my heart shattered and fell away.
When he stopped, holding me tight so I would not fall down, I tried to catch my breath. “Do you understand what happened, Lady Iris? Are you all right?”
I shook my head, unable to speak from the breathless dance.
“The Singing Spirit of the White Forest caught your attention. She must have felt your sorrow and fear. She is a mournful thing, a powerful spirit who plays on emotion and leads travelers astray to their deaths. Hearkening them to give up all hope, they drop into a melancholy catatonia and die of hypothermia.”
“These woods are truly cursed,” Smoky said in a low voice. “Even dragon-folk tend to avoid them. Come, we have a long way to go and there are dangers ahead.”
As I let out a long breath, shaking my head again to clear my thoughts, a low growl caught my attention. The others heard it, too, that much I could tell, and we immediately formed a circle with our backs to one another.
“Your people?” Camille asked Howl.
“No, not my people. They would never dare growl at my friends. No, I’m afraid we’re going to be facing a bloodier pack than mine.” He unsheathed a long knife with a bone fang for a blade.
“Trolls,” I said. “I recognize the cadence. I’ll bet you anything we’ve got troll blood following us.”
“Oh fuck.” Camille had fought trolls before.
She cleared her throat as Rozurial pulled out a blade and Smoky cracked his knuckles, his fingernails growing into long talons. I took out my Aqualine Crystal wand that I’d made, but then it hit me. My specialty was mist and snow magic, but that wasn’t going to cut it here. The creatures who lived in these climes were used to snow and ice. My spells would be useless on them.
Slowly, I put the wand away and pulled out a dagger I’d had made for the journey. I’d asked Carter, the half-demon, half-Titan researcher we knew, to enchant it with fire, and he’d put a flame on it all right.
As we waited, the growls continued, and then out of the wood stepped dark shadows against the snow.
Trolls. Just as I thought. Two of them. The only saving grace we had was that they weren’t dubba-trolls but mountain trolls instead. Dubba-trolls were two-headed and hard as hell to kill. Mountain trolls were still hard as hell to kill, but at least they only had one head per body.
“Trolls,” I whispered. “May I suggest we make quick work of them? We’ve a long way to go and the sooner they’re dead meat, the sooner we can move on.” There was no question but that we’d have to kill them. Trolls weren’t the type to respond if we asked, Pretty please, could you not bother us.
Camille began prepping what sounded suspiciously like one of her Moon magic spells and I took a healthy step away from her side. Camille’s Moon magic often backfired and it wasn’t a good idea to be too near when that happened.
Smoky let out a loud growl. “I don’t have enough room here to shift into dragon form.”
Howl shook his head. “There are only two. We can fight them. And remember: Fire will disrupt them faster than anything else.” He raised his bone knife and pulled out a bottle, sprinkling the blade with some sort of oil that smelled suspiciously like oranges. The next moment, he lit the blade and it burned brightly with a steady flame.
The trolls took a step back, staring at the flaming blade. Then they began to come at us, one from the right, one from the left, attempting to avoid Howl and his crackling sword.
“Here, we’ll see how they like my kind of toy,” Roz said, reaching inside his duster. The man carried an armory in there, reminding me of nothing quite so much as a weaponcrazed flasher or Neo from The Matrix. Only with Rozurial, a good share of the weapons he carried were magical. He did have a miniature Uzi, but kept it for special times.
Roz pulled out a little round ball that was as red as Camille’s lipstick. Oh hell, I knew what that was. Firebomb! I quickly backed up as he tugged on the wick and threw it.
The bomb landed near one of the trolls, who apparently had never seen one before and decided to pick it up. The troll, a seven-foot-tall warty gray skin-bag turned the ball over in his hand and promptly popped it in his mouth.
“Fire in the hole—literally!” Roz shouted and we all turned away to shield our eyes as an explosion rocked the area.
The troll stood there for a second, registering what happened, and then let out a scream of pain that ricocheted through woodland. It charged forward, unsteadily, arms waving like two giant sledgehammers.
“Watch out—it’s wounded and dangerous!” As I shifted to one side, trying to figure out how I could get in on the battle, Smoky raced in and sliced across its belly, his long talons eviscerating the creature. A stench of e
ntrails poured forth onto the ground, hissing on the snow like steaming slime. I covered my nose. The putrid scent was enough to make me lose breakfast as well as last night’s dinner.
Howl let loose with a long swipe from his flaming blade and cut through the side of the troll, finishing the job. The monster began to fall and he was falling my way. I scrambled to the left, just as the troll hit the ground. If I’d been any slower, he’d have squashed me flatter than a hotcake. As it was, his innards came sloshing out before him and I managed to end up with troll slime on my cape. Ewww. That was going to leave a nasty stain. The second the creature hit the ground, he began to transform into stone. Mountain trolls always turned to stone when they died.
“Gah!” I let out a long sigh. Something told me that I wasn’t about to emerge unscathed, but if troll guts were the worst of it, I’d be lucky.
His brother apparently decided that it was time to charge and he came rampaging into the fray. Camille let loose with a bolt from the Moon Mother and it bounced against the troll’s head, leaving a smoldering patch of skin that sizzled like bacon on the grill. Troll #2 shrieked and slammed his fist down, hitting the ground right in front of her. The shock wave sent her flying back and she landed in a thick bank of snow.
Smoky lost it, going ballistic and raking his claws along the creature’s arm as Howl flanked the other side with his flaming sword. Rozurial pulled out a vial and sent it flying onto the troll’s clothing. A moment later, the furs the troll was wearing went up in a blaze, popping and hissing as the fire spread. The troll stumbled back but then wavered and suddenly headed my way.
I screamed and ran. If I jumped left, I’d end up jumping over the side of the trail into a deep gulch, and I wasn’t sure just how far down it went. A jump to the right and I’d slam into a tree. I raced back down the mountain with the blazing troll lurching behind me, bellowing from the pain of his wounds as the flames fanned higher.
Smoky zipped ahead of the creature and caught me up in his arms. When we reached a part of the path with a turnout, he veered to the side until we were out of the troll’s trajectory. The creature kept on track, downhill along the path, flailing against the flames and increasing their fury with every swipe.
Rozurial took aim with a handheld crossbow and the arrow flew true, piercing the behemoth’s back. Within seconds, the troll dropped to his knees, then fell forward, dead.
I glanced at Roz. “What was on that arrow?”
“Fast-acting poison,” he answered. “I don’t often use it, but I always keep some around.” He flashed me a soft smile and I understood: As dangerous as the trolls were, even though we’d had no choice but to fight, Roz didn’t like seeing creatures in pain. He’d put the troll out of his misery as soon as possible.
He knelt beside the gigantic body, watching as it solidified into stone. “Good, now no creature will be tempted to eat the flesh. That poison travels through the body and can be absorbed through an open wound or by eating the dead meat.”
He stood and, together with Smoky, we walked back to where Camille and Howl were standing. Howl doused his blade in the snow and then slid it back in the sheath again. Smoky’s talons shortened back into nails. We all stood, staring at the stone bodies.
“Well, that was excitement we could do without,” Camille said. She glanced at me. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not sitting very well that there wasn’t much I could do to them, because all my magic is snow-and ice-based. Even my wand is focused on the northern energies and up here, so many creatures have a resistance against the magic of their environment. I have this dagger, it’s got a touch of fire in it, but against trolls? Not so strong. I seriously need to expand my repertoire.”
“Come,” Howl said. “There’s time enough for talking on the way. We must be out of this forest by nightfall or we risk bringing the glowing Skalla down on us. They journey through the White Forest at night seeking their victims.”
“What are they?” Camille shivered. “The name alone sounds nasty.”
“They are . . . skulls. But not actual skulls. They are the spirits of those murdered in the forest and they feed on travelers. They do not rest, nor can they be laid to rest as long as their remains lie hidden within this woodland.” Howl gazed back at me. “You know the Skalla.”
I nodded slowly. “They were well known in the temple. The wood here is old, it has absorbed the energy of many wars, and the energy from the Skirts of Hel filters down through the ground from the glacier on high. Some say a great mouth to the Netherworld exists in the heart of the forest.”
“A mouth to the Netherworld . . . Do you think it might have something to do with Vikkommin?” Camille asked. “Since he lives in shadow now, could it be feeding him?”
I frowned. I’d never thought about that. “He didn’t create it, if that’s what you mean. The rip to the Netherworld was rumored to be there when I first came to the temple. Whenever a party traveled from the portals to the temple, there were always rumors of run-ins with the creatures if they crossed the forest at night. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t have played a part in what happened to him.”
“Did the temple tell you exactly what happened to Vikkommin?” Roz hung toward the back, guarding our rear.
“They never really knew.” I’d been over and over the story with Smoky and Camille, but maybe there was something I was missing. “His body was ripped to shreds—essentially turned inside out like I . . . I did with the guards at Stacia’s first safe house. But his spirit was somehow embedded in a great shadow and the two merged. I know Vikkommin can’t leave, not in body, for the shadow is corporeal and tied to this area, but he can travel on the astral.”
“Camille, what do you know about shadow forms? Has Morio taught you anything?” Roz asked.
“Yes, actually.” She frowned. “There are many forms of shadow, but most are created from astral entities rather than from spirits of Fae or mortals. There are some shadows, though, that have no consciousness. Maybe whatever happened to Vikkommin stuck him inside one of those?” Turning to me, she asked, “Have you ever gotten the sense that there’s somebody else there with Vikkommin?”
Her breath came in little puffs. The temperature wasn’t going to rise any higher, even though we were still at midmorning. I shivered and glanced at the sky. Snow was on the horizon—I could feel it in my bones and sure enough, before I could answer, a thin layer of flakes began to fall, drifting softly toward the ground.
I shook my head. “No, that I can say for certain. He’s gone mad over the centuries, but it’s him and him alone.”
“Then I’d say that’s what happened. Whatever ripped him out of his body, thrust him into one of the empty shadow forms. Sort of like a hermit crab, pulling on some other crab’s shell.”
“He didn’t do this himself, did he?” Smoky spoke up.
“Why would he do something like that?” Camille gave him a shake of the head. “That makes no sense. But perhaps . . . were others among the Priestess-hood jealous of you? Maybe a woman in love with him herself? Or someone who wanted the position of High Priestess? Could this have been a frame-up so that you’d be, at best, kicked out of the temple? At worst, you’d be killed, and either way, their path would be clear?”
“The Elders thought of that. They queried everyone under truth spells. Once pledged to Undutar, if you tell a falsehood, it can be detected. We can see through illusion.” As much as I wanted to hope for that, I knew it wasn’t the answer. Not unless somebody had managed to pull off a deception against the entire Elder Council.
She paused to stare at the sky. “We’re in for a storm. Even I can feel it. How much farther do we have to go till we come out of the forest?”
“This path will lead us out by early afternoon. We’re on the narrow end of the woodland and will come to the Skirts of Hel by nightfall.” Howl pushed ahead, walking faster. “We have to make haste, however. The snow threatens a thick fall and the going will be rough.”
&n
bsp; “Is there an inn on the other side? Or lodging of any sort? We’ll be coming out near nightfall, and the weather is bound to be rough this evening.” Roz pulled his fur cape tighter around his shoulders.
Howl smiled so softly I could barely see it in the flurry of flakes. “You’ll be spending the night in one of my caves, with my Pack family.” Falling silent, he once again took up the march.
FOUR
BY EARLY AFTERNOON, I WAS RIDING ON Smoky’s shoulders—the snow had begun falling so thick that it piled up a good two feet in four hours. Camille was struggling, Roz helping her slog her way along, and Howl looked nervous. We had another ninety minutes, by my reckoning, before emerging from the forest, but the snow was growing heavier and my weather sense was telling me it would get worse before it got better.
“We haven’t seen the worst of it yet,” I said from atop Smoky’s shoulder.
“I fear you are right,” he answered. “The winter storms have started in earnest. The Northlands are a dangerous place once autumn begins to depart. If need be, I can transform and fly you out, but it would be difficult with the trees so thick here.”
The White Forest had gotten denser, conifers packing together to create a picture-perfect snowscape, except for the fact that we were in the middle of it and likely to be snowed in by the time we found our way to the exit.
“Vikkommin used to come here a lot,” I said softly. “He spent a lot of time in the forest, working with the snow elementals that make their home here.”
“He did, did he?” Camille’s breath was ragged and even with her unicorn cloak and the elfin cape, her teeth were chattering. “And did the temple approve?”
I shook my head. “Not so much. They didn’t like us spending much time away unless we were on a vision quest or an official mission.” Closing my eyes against the pervasive snowflakes, I remembered back to the first vision quest I’d been on. And how it had led me to Vikkommin.
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