Exiled: (Phoebe Meadows Book Three)

by Amanda Carlson

  Only when the skillfully designed sword grips came into view did I allow myself to finally exhale.

  I slung it over my shoulders and sighed.

  Once it was secure, I unsheathed the blades, doing some practice moves, getting a feel for the weight again. When I was done, I allowed myself to analyze the landscape around me. Desolate didn’t begin to describe it. There was nothing but boulders and red sand for miles. The only relief was that it wasn’t as hot as Muspelheim. But I was sure over time the temperature would ramp up. It seemed I’d managed to land in an unoccupied place.

  But, if Hel was any kind of a leader, she already knew I was here.

  I sheathed my swords and patted my belt, making sure the jewel Mersmelda had given me was still there. To my relief, it was.

  I began to walk. It was no use waiting for Fen, as he still had to go through his trial and receive his sentence. Who knew how long that would take, or if time worked the same way here?

  A misty red haze filled the air. I tried to scent anything on the wind, but all I got in return was a nose filled with sulfur-infused air. Thankfully, I had my boots on. The sand was deep and hard to tromp through. It was like I was at the beach, without the benefit of the ocean crashing blissfully beside me.

  What I wouldn’t give to trade this awful place for a nice beach vacation.

  Strange noises suddenly echoed in the air.

  They sounded suspiciously like howls.

  “Those can’t be dogs, can they?” I muttered to myself as I kept trudging. “What kind of an animal could survive here?” Who was I kidding? All sorts of horrible creatures would have no problem thriving in this place. I half expected the Jondi serpents to slither over the next ridge. Fen still owed them their freedom, so them hunting me down wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities.

  I glanced up to see two canines loping in my direction. They were coming from quite a distance. I couldn’t tell how big they were, but they were jet black with piercing red eyes. Their orbs glowed brightly, even from this far away.

  The chances they were going to be friendly were about one in ten thousand. I came to a stop and pulled out Gundren, dropping into a fighting stance, calling up my energy.

  My blades lit up instantly. Streaks of light danced along them, tinting them blue. I’d never seen a lovelier sight in my entire life. I had no idea if I could kill the creatures, but I could definitely inflict some damage before they finished me off.

  The beasts arrived a minute later, bounding up to me, growling and snarling, yellow saliva dripping from their two-inch incisors. They were big, at least the size of lions back home, but they were dwarves compared to Fen in his wolf form.

  Fen, where are you?

  “Back down!” I called. “You don’t want anything I’m dishing out.” To emphasize my point, I released a string of energy, zapping one of the beasts between the eyes.

  It howled hoarsely and pawed its injury.

  On closer inspection, they weren’t exactly dogs—or wolves, for that matter. They had a hint of reptile mixed in there someplace. Their faces were furry, but shaped more like lizards than dogs. An odd mix of canine and lizard. The only thing for sure was that they were truly beasts.

  And they weren’t happy with me.

  They ventured nearer, and I waved my swords in front of me like flamethrowers. “If you come any closer, I’ll inflict serious pain, and I promise you won’t like it.”

  Just when I was starting to feel confident that maybe I could keep these two back, I heard a chorus of new howls.

  Twenty more beasts headed our way at top speed.

  Two was one thing, a horde was much different.

  I glanced around. There was absolutely no place to run, only miles and miles of deep sand. Sand that would ensure I was running in slow motion, like in a nightmare. The beasts would catch me in seconds flat.

  Even if I could make it back to the cillar, that was a dead end. If I escaped this plane, I was only putting off the inevitable until I was caught. I would be sent right back here, or worse. There was also the question of Fen, who would be traveling here soon. I wasn’t about to leave him here alone.

  So I stood my ground as the rest of the beasts arrived, encircled me, each barking and drooling a sickly yellow substance that hung from their lower jaws.

  Disgusting.

  After a few rounds of snarling, the two beasts directly in front of me, surprisingly, sat, cocking their heads at me in a strange way. When I didn’t take the apparent hint, one barked.

  It was trying to get my attention.

  “What do you want?” I asked. The other stood and began to walk away. When I didn’t follow, it stopped and barked like I was a complete idiot. “I’m supposed to follow you?”

  It gave me a decisive bark, spraying saliva. Gross.

  It took off again and, this time, I followed.

  The remaining beasts surrounded me, still growling and snapping, but none of them touched me.

  I could live with that.

  We walked for a long time. As we moved farther ahead, rocks and boulders began to crop up more frequently. On occasion, we were forced to cross a sludgy stream full of black goo. It didn’t resemble water in any way. Nothing green or fragrant grew here. There was no beauty whatsoever.

  It was similar to Muspelheim, yet different. It was redder and grittier, less hot, but the topography was no less formidable.

  The leader of the pack stopped abruptly at the top of the crest.

  I was forced to halt my progress or run into it. All around me, the beasts lifted their heads. A couple beats later, they howled in unison. It was reminiscent of a wolf howl, but it was strangled and off-key. A wolf pack sounded eerily beautiful and perfectly harmonized. This sounded like a pack of seals hooting their displeasure at being interrupted during a sunny nap on the rocks.

  I stepped to the side to look over the ridge. “Wow,” I exclaimed. I hadn’t been expecting anything like that.

  In the distance sat a gigantic fortress made of what looked to be some kind of porous lava rock. It was a deep red and had an imposing, unusual shape. Instead of turrets, there were several conical outcroppings that appeared to have been made from wet sand spiraled like soft-serve ice cream, then hardened. The fortress was beautiful in its own right—I’d never seen anything like it.

  Beast calls began to echo up from below. On the horizon, in the distance, I could make out a large river with steam rising off it. I squinted harder. Were those flames?

  The leader began to make its way down the slope. The pack followed, including me. It was steep and slippery. I had to catch myself from tumbling ass over end numerous times. “Is it too much to ask to have streets and paved sidewalks in this place?” I murmured. One of the beasts nipped at me. “Hey, back off. I still have my swords, and I’m not afraid to use them.” I’d kept Gundren out and at the ready the entire time.

  We finally arrived at the bottom and were met by a new pack. One of the beasts in this group was bigger than all the others by at least a head. It gave a commanding bark, and all the others stepped back, clearing the way so I could move forward unimpeded.

  Once I made my way to it, it began to pace toward the castle. It stopped fifty feet in front of it. The fortress had no windows that I could detect, which made the whole effect seem strange. The conical towers where impossibly high, spiraling up to the carmine sky, seemingly without end. They were easily seven or eight stories, but it was hard to know for sure.

  In front sat a pair of gigantic doors. They were made out of a black material I couldn’t name—possibly rock of some kind. They looked formidable, like an army of soldiers could try for a year to pry them open and still not get through. As a nice finishing touch, a sculpture that looked ridiculously like Medusa’s head—complete with a nest of snakes—was mounted in the middle of each door.

  The beasts behind me nudged me forward as one of the doors slowly began to open.

  Keeping Gundren out was my instinct, but I wasn’t
sure going in armed was the best idea. The beasts nudged me from behind again when I hadn’t made a move to step through the opening. “Hey, no need to push,” I muttered as I sheathed my swords, deciding to err on the side of caution, not wanting Hel to think I was looking for a fight right from the start. The door hadn’t opened fully, but there was room to sneak through. Snarls erupted behind me. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”

  I slipped through the crack and found myself in a vast room.

  The ceilings were high, darting at odd angles, providing a surreal effect, almost like I’d just walked into the pages of a comic book or an Escher painting. There wasn’t a speck of furniture or anything else to make it homey or welcoming. It was just wide open. Torches hung from the walls, providing just enough light to see, but not enough to do any thorough examining.

  The beasts tumbled in after me. The group led me through the first room, which was cavernous, then we headed down a long, arched hallway with crisscrossing trusses carved out of rock.

  As we moved closer, I spotted flames at the end.

  I braced myself. I was about to come face-to-face with Hel, who clearly wasn’t worried about anyone storming her realm. The beasts, even though fairly monstrous, hadn’t caused me any harm. Things must run like clockwork around here. She had no need for an undead army to protect her castle when there were very few visitors.

  My conversation with Mersmelda floated through my head. All I had to do was convince Hel that Baldur wasn’t the one for her, that she was gorgeous and a great ruler, and she should choose Vali instead.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  The end of the hallway led into the new, cavernous room, and I gaped. The flames I’d seen were coming from a river—as in on top of the water. The beasts stopped abruptly. I bumped into a couple of them and received snaps and growls in return. “All you have to do is give me fair warning before you stop, and this won’t happen.”

  I had no idea why we’d stopped.

  Then I heard it.

  It was a summons in the form of a whistle. The beasts’ ears perked up, and they trotted forward, forcing me to comply. I steeled myself, ready for anything. My hands itched as energy crackled off my fingertips.

  We emerged from around the corner.

  Oh. I wasn’t ready for that.

  There wasn’t enough time in the world to prepare me for that.

  17

  __________________________

  ____________

  Hel was a monster. I’d never encountered anything like her before. She made Verdandi look nice and normal, and that was saying quite a bit.

  Although, Skuld without her glamour—it might be a tie.

  Half of Hel’s body was dead and decayed, her skull showing with some creepy hair hanging off of it. The other half appeared completely normal, covered in pink, healthy flesh. One of her arms was bone, the hand skeletal. The bone wasn’t bleached white, either. It was dark gray with holes in it, like it was still in the process of rotting. One of her eyes had an actual eyelid and a working iris. The other was dead black in a backdrop of dirty cream.

  I couldn’t see her legs because they were covered by a long black dress, but by the way she strolled toward me, in kind of a rolling maneuver, I suspected she had more than two legs.

  The fact that nobody, including Mersmelda, had warned me that she was this hideous left me at a huge disadvantage. I stood there gaping instead of following through with my awesome plan to heap praise upon her.

  How was I going to convince her that she was normal and beautiful when she was so clearly the opposite?

  “You can shut your mouth now,” she drawled. Her voice was surprisingly pleasing. It was on the high side, but not overly so. Long jet-black hair covered her good side, hanging limply past one shoulder.

  I snapped my mouth shut, flustered. My eyes darted everywhere but straight at her. “I’m sorry…please accept my apology,” I stammered. “I was just caught a little off guard. See…no one told me what to expect when I got here…” I trailed off.

  I was killing it.

  “You are my first,” she said, ignoring my inane banter. “That in and of itself is fairly impressive, but for you to be this young and beautiful is something else entirely.”

  I forced myself to meet her gaze. The good half of her lips curved up in a smile, while the dead side didn’t move. Because it was just teeth, no lips. It looked so wrong. I tried to compose myself and act like this was a normal conversation. “Your first what?”

  “Living guest.” She crossed her arms, bone over flesh. “You must be blessed by the gods.”

  I chuckled, trying to appear lighthearted instead of aghast. “I don’t think so. If I were, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Hel didn’t say anything as she maneuvered closer, her beasts yelping and stumbling over themselves to get out of her way. She circled me slowly, inspecting everything, her hands now clasped behind her. “Maybe you’re not blessed by the gods, but someone has your favor,” she said casually. “I’ve never received a Valkyrie in my lair, dead or otherwise. It could be that you are impervious to things here based on your immortality. It’s hard to know for sure.”

  This was a strange conversation.

  Hel clearly wasn’t wary of me, so she didn’t think I came here to kill her.

  “I bet you’re wondering why I’m here.” I forced myself to sound hopeful. I had to get back on the right footing with her.

  “Not really.” She came to a stop in front of me. “You were likely sent here as punishment, which means you’re at my mercy. I may do whatever I want with you, as I am the supreme ruler of this place. I bow to no one, especially gods, so I care not why you’re here, only that you are.”

  This wasn’t going as planned.

  I wasn’t sure if this was the time or place to tell her Fen was on his way. It might be better if he surprised her. If I told her, she would grill me, and I didn’t have the answers, and that could lead to pain and agony on my part.

  Abruptly, she turned, heading into the room.

  This one was impossibly bigger than the last one, going on as far as the eye could see. Its huge, meandering river had been intermittently erupting into flames as we’d chatted.

  I took off after her. She made her way toward the banks of the river. Each time a patch burst into flames, it was preceded by a loud whooshing noise. It took everything I had not to jump back like a scared kitten until I figured out the warning sound.

  Hel didn’t glance back, which was a relief. Another whooshing sounded to my right. I looked. Through the fire, a pair of eyes stared at me. “Oh my goodness!” I cried. “Is there a person in those flames?”

  Was I walking next to the River Styx?

  Hel paused. “This is the river Gjoll. That up ahead”—she gestured with her bone arm—“is the bridge Gjallarbru. Once the dead cross over, they must traverse the bridge, and once they do, they receive their fate from me.”

  Okay, so not the River Styx.

  Still, it was a river of death. “So, every time there’s a burst of flame, it means someone has died?”

  “That is correct.” She narrowed her eyes. Well, she narrowed one eye. It was hard to narrow the other one, as it didn’t have any flesh around the socket. “He who has been born and raised in Asgard knows these things. Who are you?” She wheeled around, heading back to me. Her voice held accusation with an undertone of malice.

  I had to finesse this the correct way. “My name is Phoebe Meadows,” I said. “I’m a very new Valkyrie, and I wasn’t raised on Asgard. I was raised on Midgard.”

  She raised her head and took an obvious sniff, half her nose wrinkling. “You are a demigod.” It was a statement. “Why were you raised on Midgard?”

  “Um, it’s a long story, but,” I said, “my father is Odin.”

  Hel’s face changed, and I immediately regretted revealing that information so soon. “Odin? But he would know better than to send you here.” Her eyes flicked toward the river as another b
urst of flames erupted. “He is no friend of mine, nor my father’s.” Did that mean she had other friends? “Does he wish you harm?”

  “Oh, he didn’t send me here, and if it makes a difference, I only learned he was my father a very short time ago,” I babbled. “We’ve only met once in person. See, my mother is a Valkyrie, and they weren’t supposed to be together. After I was born, she was sent to Svartalfheim, and I was sent to Midgard. It’s a mess, but there it is.”

  “If Odin didn’t send you here, who did?” Hel was shrewd, cutting to the quick. My lame attempt at steering the conversation had no effect on her.

  Another whooshing sound came from my right. This time, I used it as a distraction, because I didn’t want to tell her Baldur’s mother had sentenced me. I needed to see what was going on with the god of light first. “This is so amazing.” I motioned toward the flames and affected fake awe as I wandered closer to the stream. “I can’t believe the dead show up here like this.”

  “If you fall in, there’s no retrieving you.” She seemed bored telling me that fact. “You’re alive. For now. But you won’t stay that way if you don’t take care.”

  For now?

  “Good to know,” I replied smoothly, taking a step back. I squinted at the ball of flames floating by. There was a distinct shape inside, not just eyes. I glanced up to find Hel regarding me quizzically. Her face was impassive, but I was relieved to see that I wasn’t in any immediate danger. At least not that I could detect.

  She didn’t press me further about who sent me here. Instead, she began to roll away.

  What was under those skirts? And did I honestly want to know?

  The beasts had accompanied us, but only ten. The others had disappeared without fanfare. Hel went left, away from the river. Two thrones situated on a dais came into view. They overlooked the short bridge that spanned the river.

  There wasn’t much else to see.

  A crude table sat off to the side, clearly unused. There were a few knickknacks spread here and there, such as a broken chalice and a chest of some kind.