by A. R. Kahler
“Of course,” she said. “This is the life you have been given. I will ensure—”
A knock at the door cut her off. I looked toward it. Maybe the nurse had heard me talking? Before I could answer it, the doorknob turned and the door swung open. Slowly.
Chris stood on the other side.
He stepped in, his gait awkward and jerky, like a marionette’s. He was in only his boxers. Despite everything, I blushed. He clearly worked out.
“Chris, what are you—?”
And then his eyes locked on to mine. His golden eyes. I stumbled back into the room, into Freyja, who caught me just in time.
“You,” I seethed. “Heru.”
Chris smiled. It wasn’t his smile. Daggers and blood.
“Relax, Shadechild,” he said. “I am not here to fight. Not yet.” The smile didn’t fade. Any wider, and I expected Chris’s lips to crack. “I bring the Endbringer only to relay a message.”
“Speak,” Freyja said. Her hand was tight on my arm. The other hand, I knew, was gripping a dagger.
“First, know that I am not done with the boy. He thinks he can control me, that I am his whipped dog. Let this be proof that he is wrong. He is mine. And he will always be mine.” Chris took a step forward. “Second, I must thank you for bringing him back to me. I learned much while he was in torment. Much about you. And much about the world.”
“One more step, and I will kill you.” Freyja’s words were ice.
Chris stopped. The god manipulating him laughed.
“Oh, how I wish I were only here to taunt you. But I bear a message. One you have been too dull to hear. You may not want to fight.” He nodded to me. “You may have found a way to control her. But the Tree will have its war. One way or another, there will be blood.”
He stepped forward again, until he was only a foot or so away. His heat was unbearable.
“Tell her, Vanir,” he whispered. “Tell her the truth in what she saw. In what you know to be true. There is a third.” He chuckled. “There is a third, and Ragnarok comes.”
Chris crumpled to the ground. A light turned out.
I dropped to my knees beside him. He was burning up. When my hand touched his forehead, he moaned.
“Freyja,” I said, looking up to her. “Freyja, what was he talking about?”
But she didn’t meet my gaze. She stared at the empty doorway, biting her lower lip. I was about to ask her again, when she opened her lips and spoke.
“I had hoped,” she whispered. “I had hoped it wasn’t true. That we had curbed the threat before it rose.” She looked at me. Her violet eyes seemed lost. “The god your professor had been sacrificing to. The one we tried to banish. He is the same as the one you saw in the River Styx. And he is trying to rise and fight.”
“But I thought . . . I thought there were only two? The Vanir and the Aesir, to fight this war and nourish the Tree. Just like you said.”
“He is not of either race. This god . . .” She trailed off, looked away. “At the end of times, the Tree creates a third. Not to nourish the world, but to destroy it. Entirely.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the Tree has deemed that it is time for humanity to end. From the ash and the blood of the old world, a new Tree will rise. And a new world. Harkened in by the god that brought the old world’s destruction.” She paused, and her next words were a whisper. “Hugin said nothing. He knew . . . he knew I would not have fought if it were to bring this about.”
“How do we stop it?” I asked.
“We don’t,” she replied. She looked at me, and her eyes were filled with tears. “There is no other way. Ragnarok is the end of everything, Kaira. And no matter what we do, no matter what we try, everything you know and love will die. The Tree wills it.”
“It wasn’t supposed to end like this,” I whispered to the ceiling.
Oliver was curled up beside me, his chest rising and falling slowly to the rhythm of his sleep. He’d been out cold for hours. Everything had been turned upside down since Jonathan had died. My roommate had already left, and no one cared that Oliver was staying the night. I nuzzled against his neck. The sex had worn him out, but I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking of Kaira, alone in the nurse’s office. Of Chris, and what he’d shown me that afternoon in the snow—the flame in his palm, the glint of gold in his eyes. I had told myself it was a trick. Some magic trick he’d gotten online.
But I hadn’t been lying. I knew something was wrong. And I knew it was never going to be all right.
We’d had this plan, you know. Go to college together. All three of us. Get an apartment off campus and paint the walls in graffiti and fill the living room with throw pillows, the cupboards with tea directly imported from T’Chai Nanni. Candles and books and art supplies everywhere. And a practice room for Oliver, of course. When we graduated, we’d move to the country a train ride away from New York or somewhere big. We’d have a mansion. Separate wings. We’d grow old there together. And our fade-out would be on the porch in our rocking chairs, drinking mimosas and reminiscing about the good old days.
Now our picturesque future was smeared.
Go home. Re-enroll in public school. Get the rest of our credits that way. Graduate. And pray all the colleges we applied to would still accept us, even if we hadn’t graduated from the esteemed Islington.
All I could think of now was the guest bed at Kaira’s. The scent of the patchouli incense her mom used, the breakfasts of Earl Grey and toast. What the fuck were we supposed to do? I couldn’t go home. And I couldn’t move in with her. Even if I could, Oliver wouldn’t be able to join. He was from Florida; Kaira lived in Ohio. It wouldn’t work.
Nothing was going to work.
Tears blurred the corners of my eyes.
Everything had turned to shit. And it wasn’t even just the school. Kaira had seemed . . . different. Everything Chris had said ran through my brain. He was worried she was . . . I don’t know, possessed or something. Seeing them there, together, though . . . it made me think that maybe he was the one who had fallen prey to something darker.
What the hell was I even talking about? I didn’t believe in that shit.
Not really.
Not anymore.
Except you do.
Gently, I pushed myself out from under Oliver’s arm and tiptoed to the bathroom. I didn’t turn on the light. The nightlight was enough.
I couldn’t breathe. It felt like all those years ago, when I’d tried to kill myself with that plastic bag.
When I had killed myself with that plastic bag.
I’d felt my heart stop.
I’d seen the light. Or something.
And then I was back in my room, and the bag was no more. Just the memory of my suffocating lungs to haunt my dreams.
My lungs burned as I gripped the edge of the sink.
I wasn’t currently having a panic attack, though. I knew how those felt.
This was just waking life. That made it worse.
This wasn’t supposed to go this way. We were supposed to be happy. Together. All of us.
“I wish we could go back to the way we were,” I whispered to my pale reflection.
You can.
The voice came from nowhere. From inside. I knew that voice.
It was the voice that had told me it wasn’t yet my time.
My reflection blurred in the effervescent light. Became a figure robed in pale white, a feathered hood pulled over its head.
Draw a circle, he whispered into my limbs. Draw a circle, and we can fix everything.
First, and always, my deepest thanks to my fabulous agent Laurie McLean at Fuse Literary. She has been my knight in shining armor every step of the way. Without her knowledge and encouragement, this book would still just be a scribbled page in a forgotten notebook.
Next, to my editors extraordinaire, Michael Strother and Nicole Ellul—and the entire Simon Pulse team—for turning this story into a true work of art.
To my mo
ther, for helping me leave the nest before I knew what it meant to fly; I couldn’t have done any of this without you. To my father, for inspiring my love of books and adventure. And to my brother, for showing me what dedication truly looks like.
To Will Taylor, for helping me fine-tune both this book and my life. And being the sparkly unicorn to my . . . opposite of a sparkly unicorn. At least in terms of writing.
To Interlochen Arts Academy, for giving me a boarding school experience worth writing about.
To my Seattle writing team—Danielle Dreger, Kristin Halbrook, and Danny Marks—for keeping me on track. Or at least caffeinating me.
To my LA writing family—Kirsten Hubbard and Sarah Enni—for keeping my world alive with dust and stars.
To David Levithan, for being the most amazing friend, confidante, and travel conspirator.
And finally, to you, my dear readers, for being a constant source of inspiration.
© Kindra Nikole Photography
Alex is many things, but first and foremost, he’s a Sagittarius.
Originally from small-town Iowa, he sent himself to arts boarding school to study writing at age sixteen. This school may or may not resemble Islington. He hasn’t stopped moving since. In the past few years he’s taught circus training in Amsterdam and Madrid, gotten madly lost in the Scottish wilderness, drummed with Norse shamans, roughed it in the foothills of New England, and received his masters in creative writing from Glasgow University. And that’s the abbreviated list.
When Alex isn’t writing or climbing things or studying some esoteric lore, he’s probably outside with a coffee in hand, trying to find a new adventure. Follow his travels at arkahler.com or on Twitter @ARKahler.
SIMON PULSE
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Also by A. R. Kahler
Ravenborn, Book One: Shades of Darkness
The Immortal Circus trilogy
The Pale Queen trilogy
Love Is in the Air
Coming soon:
The Runebinder Chronicles
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SIMON PULSE
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First Simon Pulse hardcover edition March 2017
Text copyright © 2017 by A. R. Kahler
Jacket illustration copyright © 2017 by Stina Persson
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Jacket designed by Regina Flath
Interior designed by Steve Scott
The text of this book was set in Janson.
This book has been cataloged with the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4814-3260-3 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-3262-7 (eBook)