I’m shaking my head, refusing to let Hel’s words snake their way too deep into my mind.
“And what does this Telling tell exactly?” Shannon asks, not without a hint of sarcasm. I envy him for being able to retain the ability to be sardonic, given the circumstances.
After giving Shannon a dismissive look, Hel turns to meet my eyes. I hold his gaze. “The Telling tells us many things. You know some parts of it, don’t you, Hayden? After all, you grew up with the Telling’s first verses as your lullaby.” He starts to hum the melody I know too well. Mom’s lullaby. Of course. How fitting.
“It means nothing to me,” I lie, my voice threatening to shake. “No matter what you say, I don’t believe for a second Mom would’ve really destroyed an entire world just to fulfill some ancient prophecy. Regardless, I won’t be some tool you can use to set yourself free.”
Shannon says something to me then, but I can’t hear him through all the blood pounding in my head. I feel Hel’s presence in my mind again—the intoxicating, dark pull of oblivion. He yearns to control me, and it’s my human half that allows him to do so; it even welcomes him in. Humans … Their minds are so easy to corrupt, Elspeth said. Santiago’s terrified face flashes through my mind. I pool all my rage into one task: refusing Hel’s entry into my head and blocking his path before he can burrow in too deep.
But Hel doesn’t retreat this time. Instead, he doubles his efforts. I gasp, only partially feeling Shannon squeeze my hand in response to my shallow breathing. I lock eyes with Hel and concentrate all my intent on getting him out of my head. With perfect clarity, I remember the day of my eighteenth birthday and one of Del’s gifts, the Blu-ray of that creepy old movie we wanted to watch together. Scanners. Its ghoulish cover—a screaming man, his head about to explode—becomes my inspiration. I see sweat coating Hel’s skin. Mirroring his intensifying power, his body also appears to grow in size, turning more otherworldly with each second in our standoff.
I attempt to come off the floor but only manage to rise to my haunches, unable to stand up.
“Why are you fighting this?” I hear genuine surprise in Hel’s question. “Your mother has left you this amazing gift! Why won’t you accept it?”
“I already told you. I don’t want it!” I press on and, with an almost audible snap, Hel relinquishes his hold on my mind. Released from his compulsion, I stand up, my legs shaking. Shannon joins me. I wonder how much he knows about what just happened between me and Hel, about our mental tug-of-war. Judging from his furious expression, I bet he could feel at least some of it.
I lock eyes with Hel again. His expression guarded, he says, “And what if I told you your mother is still alive but trapped someplace and that I might know how to release her?”
His words slap me in the face.
Hel gives me a winning grin.
“My mother’s still alive somewhere?” A tiny shiver grows at the center of my heart, like a wildflower opening its petals. My mother might still be alive. The possibility fills me with hope. I can fix this, I assure myself. I can find Mom. I can put my family back together. Of course, it’s never going to be the way it was, but it’s worth trying, anyway.
Hel whispers, but I hear his words like thunder in my head. “Nibelungs are capable of compulsion, as you know. That extends to wielding control over animals—birds, in particular. Their minds are weaker than a human’s, making it possible for one of our kind to completely take over the creature’s body.”
It takes a gigantic mental effort on my part not to do something impulsive right now, like tackle Hel. He’d probably just send me flying and smack me against some hard surface, like I did with Jen Rickman in school. Shannon must feel my murderous vibe, because he comes closer to me, tense, ready to stop me. Or help me.
I keep my voice low when I ask Hel, “Where is my mother?”
“She’s been with you all along, Hayden. Ever since you returned to Promise, she’s been keeping an eye on you. As much as her limited new form allows, anyway. In fact, I can sense her nearby now. Do you feel Ella’s presence, Hayden? Like calls to like, you know.”
Somewhere outside, a raven lets out a desperate cry. I’ve heard it before, its cadence peculiar enough to burn itself into my memory. It’s the white bird that kept popping up wherever I went in Promise. The very same raven that first got my father’s attention years ago. Randy.
I watch Hel’s alien face change from dreamy to sad. As my hearts speeds up in terror at my mother’s fate, I sense a rapid movement of air around me. It’s all happening so fast, I’m only half aware of Hel’s bony, long fingers wrapping around my arms, his razor-sharp nails digging into my skin, and I pass out.
46
THE BALANCE
I’m back in the vortex, its nothingness pulling and pushing at the matter that makes up my body while I drift through space-time. A soft, melodic voice soothes my rapid heartbeat. “It’s okay, Hayden, my love.” The voice is so familiar, it makes me want to give in to the tears building in my eyes. Even ten years on, I recognize my mother’s voice. “Do not feel sad,” she goes on. “I haven’t done anything I didn’t want to do.” Mom’s voice is the only thing that keeps me aware, that reminds me I am real. “But, Hayden, you need to listen to me now.” Mom’s voice rises, fighting its way in through the fog around me. I struggle to focus my eyes. To regain control. I can’t see him, but I become viscerally aware of Shannon close by. The way his body heat makes my blood sing whenever he’s near … its influence can’t be ignored.
“Where am I?” I ask. “Mom?”
All is quiet until a flash of lightning illuminates my dreary world. I wait for the roar of thunder, but it never comes. Abnormal. Defying the rules of the natural world. Another lightning bolt strikes, then another, the flashes of blinding light morphing into the flapping wings of a white bird. A raven.
Hovering over me. Watching me.
I open my eyes wider and focus on this blur of white before me. The bird is moving in slow motion, as if suspended in thickened air and having to fight for each movement with its powerful wings. “We haven’t got much time, Hayden.” I hear Mom’s voice in my head. “Hel’s in your mind right now. He thinks he’s overpowered you, but you have to fight it. Fight it! You need to get out of here before Elspeth breaks in. She’s strong—very strong—but you’re strong also. Fight!” Another flash of light burns my retinas, and I cry out in pain. I feel the burn under my skin. It’ll consume me if I don’t take control.
I hear the raven’s cackle as I open my mouth to scream. But instead of my voice, I hear a thunderous roar that’s as otherworldly as they come. My body changes, rearranges itself, and something shifts inside my head, allowing me to see what’s going on in my own mind: It’s a forest on fire, and Hel’s the one controlling the blaze. I see Hel’s presence everywhere, his pollution. But now that I know he’s here, I can burn him out.
I regain my focus, drawing on Mom’s lingering presence around me, and raise a wall of fire so tall, it dwarfs the trees. Too certain of his victory, Hel doesn’t see me coming. I use that to my advantage and sneak up on him, hitting him with everything I’ve got, Nibelung and human.
He senses me then, feels my growing presence. I can hear him chant in the rapid guttural words of the ancient language from my dreams. Dark words that fling curses my way, but bounce off me on contact with my power. I block Hel’s path when he attempts to retreat. There’s nowhere to hide. He’s trapped in my head, all exits cut off. I’m the puppetmaster now. I prepare for the final assault, my will gathering around me like a mantle. “Go to hell, Hel!” I hit him with everything I have, but he’s already weak, and my tsunami wave of compulsion is overkill. I blast him out of my head and in the next moment find myself back in his lair. Shannon, who also passed out, comes to his senses next to me.
I hear a raven’s cry outside. For whatever reason, my mother can’t enter here, but she could transmit her thoughts into my head. “I’m coming, Mom, I promise,” I murmur, catching an odd
glance from Shannon.
I scan the space around me and see Hel’s tall frame crumpled on the floor. His shape wavers, but he stays corporeal. His chest is rising and falling, but otherwise he’s totally out of it. “What did you do?” Shannon sounds impressed as he regards me with a new kind of admiration.
“Hel used his Niflheim compulsion on us,” I say, “but I turned it right back on him.”
Shannon hovers over Hel’s immobile body. “I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time. He can wake up at any moment.”
“Let’s go find Del,” I say.
Together, we search Hel’s headquarters, and it’s Shannon who first notices the silver-thread curtain billowing in the wind. Maybe it wasn’t even here a blink ago and only revealed itself to us now that Hel’s been knocked unconscious.
We head straight into the opening. When I touch the ethereal fabric of the curtain, the material dissipates, turning into swirls of fog. It smells of an empty place, of staleness. The walls around us seem to vibrate as they go transparent in places. “This place is dying,” Shannon comments, touching the shelf running the length of the wall, his fingers coming back smudged with gooey blackness. “We must’ve tipped off the balance by coming here. We need to hurry.”
I see Del. In the short time that she’s been trapped here, she’s uncannily become a part of this place. She’s still beautiful but muted and deathly bluish. She lies atop a high rock slab made of white marble. Her arms are folded on her chest, her eyes closed, lips bent in a haunting twist. She’s breathing, but the movement of her chest is erratic, and she’s whimpering in her sleep, like she’s having a nightmare. I notice that her mutilated hand, the one that will forever miss a pinkie, is wrapped in a bandage.
I go to her, grabbing her uninjured hand. “Del! Wake up!” She stirs, but her eyes remain shut.
Working together with Shannon, we manage to slide Del from her altarlike pedestal. Shannon weaves his hands around her shoulders to keep her up while I gently slap her cheeks. Del’s eyelashes tremble, eyelids opening halfway. I exhale in relief when I glimpse the familiar dark hazel of her eyes. Turning her head sluggishly, she glances around before meeting my eyes. She cries out and then fights against Shannon’s hold.
I keep saying her name until she stops her frenetic movement and zeroes in on the sound of my voice. “Where am I?” she asks, her voice hoarse.
“In a place that’s about to collapse in on itself,” I reply, seeing the motion of space all around me as this world between worlds begins to self-destruct. “And we really need to get going!”
“Can you walk?” Shannon asks her when she stops shaking. Del nods. My heart shrinks at the sight of silent tears traveling down her smooth skin.
“She cut off my finger,” Del lets out in disbelief. “That crazy woman!”
“I know,” I say, feeling terrible. “But we’ll deal with her later, I promise. Right now, we’re alive and we need to go.” Del nods at my words, her lips assuming the stubborn expression I know and love. With caution, Shannon lets go of Del, leaving her swaying on her feet.
The three of us leave Hel’s lair and dive into the shimmering fog without looking back. Our faceless escort is nowhere to be seen. Something becomes obvious: Without the Nibelungs, we can’t find our way back through the fog. “Are you there?” I call out to the warriors who led us here earlier. My question meets poignant silence. I can swear they are nearby, their presence emitting cold. They’re just choosing to ignore me. Before I try again, that familiar otherworldly chorus returns.
We have fulfilled our part of the bargain. Now it is your turn.
“What’s the point of you taking me to Del if I can’t send her back to the human world?”
The fate of the human no longer concerns us.
I exchange a pointed look with Shannon, while Del remains slack in his grip. “Well, it concerns me,” I say, while thinking through my options. I suspect the Nibelungs trapped in here know I have no intention of saving them, but I also bet they are too weak to actually do anything to me. Of course, they can just leave us stranded. The air becomes thinner, and soon the three of us are gasping for breath. “We can go back and you can compel Hel to tell us how to get out of here,” Shannon proposes, but judging from his voice and expression, he doubts it’ll work.
Desperate, I study the fog around me, trying to see the outlines of the warriors, but the thickening matter is absolute. Before I can offer the Nibelungs more false promises, I hear a flutter of wings above. I tip my head up and stare into the fog, looking for movement. “Mom?” I whisper.
And she descends, slowly, like a ghost of a bird. White against white.
“Is that a white raven?” Del asks weakly.
The bird doesn’t come close, but from its movement in the air above us, I can detect the direction it’s telling us to go. “Come on,” I say. “I think I know the way.”
“We’re following a bird now?” Shannon deadpans.
“Can you think of a better option?” I ask him, unable to share the heartbreaking revelation that Randy’s mind is being hijacked by my mother’s will. To make this reality even sadder, something tells me the bird’s time is limited, too. Even the way the creature holds itself in the air is erratic, like it’s a chore to flap its wings. It’s running on the empty fumes of determination.
Randy leads us back to the cliffside where we entered this world. When we attempt to climb the rocky formation leading to the cave, that weak gravity effect I experienced earlier takes place, and we half float, half walk up the rocky wall, our feet barely touching the surface. After carefully helping Del through the cave opening, Shannon reaches for my hand, and I take it, his fingers firm on mine, like a promise.
I take a wrong step and slip on the wet rock, but Shannon’s hold prevents me from falling. He pulls me close and, as we embrace, our eyes meet and don’t let go. I feel the soft trace of drizzle on my face. When our lips touch briefly, the warmth of the kiss travels through me. I open my eyes and watch as the world before us becomes consumed by a faint flame, its movement slow but deliberate.
This world is ending, and I hope the Nibelungs end with it.
“Thanks for coming after me,” I say to Shannon.
He smiles lightly. “I’d follow you anywhere, I think.”
“Whatever happened to your I’m-going-to-keep-my-distance plan?”
“It had to be revised after all the facts were taken into consideration.”
I snort at that. He sounds like me.
My mood darkens suddenly when I remember what comes next: our return to Promise, potentially to face Elspeth and Gabriel. “We better go.” I step away from Shannon even though I don’t want to. “Be ready to fight or run, depending on what awaits us on the other side.”
Our time’s almost up. The wave of destruction that’s consuming this world is near. I swear I can hear the panicked mental chatter of the faceless knights that are trapped here. I feel their pain, their anger. But the alternative to their suffering is more suffering, and I can’t allow that.
I ask Shannon to go first, but he lingers on the edge of the opening, looking uncertain. “I’m not going to do anything stupid. I promise,” I say. Hesitant, he nods. I watch him disappear into the gaping hole underneath our feet.
My heart starts to beat faster as I stand up tall to take in the blurry landscape one last time. This bleak world is vanishing before my very eyes.
With a loud flutter, Randy lands on the ground at my feet. The bird’s eyes are trained on me. I try to see beyond them, to find any evidence of my mother’s presence in the bird’s expression. The raven cocks its head side to side and stares back, eyes unblinking.
“Staying here, or coming with?” I ask.
In response, Randy lets out a strange noise, not quite a cackle but not human speech, either.
I find Gabriel’s amulet in my pocket and send it flying in a wide arc. Once the trinket vanishes into the fog, I turn my back on this world of mist and jump into the black
opening.
47
RETURN
Thunder is cracking over and over again as the wind screams murder, tearing the clouds into shreds. Spat out from the fog, I land beside the chasm in the Black Clearing. The moment my feet touch the ground, a particularly beastly burst of wind slams into me, nearly knocking me down. It’s sleeting. This is nothing compared to the brick-size hailstones that bombarded the Manor earlier today, but it’s still nasty enough to bite into my exposed skin. I rub my forehead where a particularly pointy ice pellet landed.
I scan the clearing and find Del seated on the ground, not far from me. Shannon’s next to her, talking to her as she looks around. Aside from the two of them, the clearing looks empty.
Still sensing the aftershocks of the miniearthquake we must’ve caused by jumping between worlds, I approach Shannon and Del. Shannon’s eyes meet mine, and he allows a brief smile to grace his lips. I return it before asking Del, “How are you doing?”
“Let’s see. I’ve been hypnotized and kidnapped by a guy I kind of liked, then mind-controlled into attacking my best friend before getting sucked into a giant whirlpool. Oh and also, not to sound like a broken record, but … Elspeth cut off my finger.” There are tears in her voice, but there’s also defiance.
I get down on my knees and pull Del into a fierce hug, moving carefully around her bandaged hand. “I’m so sorry,” I exhale into her hair.
“It’s not your fault,” she says.
“Of course it’s my fault!” I say, my volume rising. “I brought you here. I kept things from you. I put you in danger.”
She shakes her head. Stubborn Del. “I chose to come here with you, and I ignored you when you tried to tell me Santiago was bad news.…”
“Not to interrupt the teary reunion, but we have some unfinished business here.” Elspeth’s voice rings high over the sudden rush of blood in my head, even drowning out the chatter of rain. To my perception, she simply blinked into existence next to me, likely some kind of Nibelungen illusion keeping her shielded from view till now.
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