by Nora Ash
We stopped to make camp for the night by the side of a pond that could have been beautiful, if Hel hadn’t left it devoid of color and life.
“Is it safe?” I asked as I gave the tranquil water a longing look. I wasn’t dirty, per se—I didn’t sweat in Hel, which was at least some sort of silver lining—but I still had soil and pine needles stuck to my hair and clothes from sleeping on the ground. Just the thought of a refreshing dip seemed to lift some of the heaviness weighing down my body.
“Nothing is safe in this realm,” Grim growled.
I heaved a sigh and looked to the less doom-and-gloom of my companions. “Will some monster eat me if I go for a swim, Mimir?”
“Unlikely,” he said. “The more nefarious of the water creatures tend to attack only when their prey is alone. But if you hear a violin, best come back to shore.”
“A violin?” I asked as I stripped out of my feathery leathers, focus mostly on the still water ahead.
“The Nix can be a bit of a difficult spirit. Sometimes he’ll teach you to play, sometimes he’ll lure you underwater and drown you. Seeing as we’re in Hel, it’s probably best to assume the worst and keep a wide berth,” the prophet explained.
“Oh, so he’s like the freshwater version of a siren?” Finally naked, I walked to the water’s edge and dipped my toe in. I’d expected it to be cold, but the water held no temperature at all.
“Similar,” Mimir conceded. “Though his prey is always children or women, not men. The children he lures with his music, the women with his pretty face.”
“How equal opportunity of him,” I muttered as I took a full step into the lake, “making sure it’s not just horny men trapped at sea for too long getting targeted.”
A strong, cold hand closed around my upper arm, halting me before I could take another step. I gasped as much out of shock at the chill against my flesh as the unexpectedness of the touch. I spun halfway around, only to be met by Grim’s dark stare. He stood close, way into my personal sphere, his boots kissing the edges of the lake.
“Don’t drink the water. Not so much as a mouthful,” he said.
“I wasn’t planning to,” I said.
“If you do—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll extra-die. I get it,” I said. It was meant as a snarky bite, but his nearness sucked the air out of my lungs, leaving my voice breathy and hoarse.
Standing this close to Grim was like being in the presence of a glacier large enough to have its own gravitational pull, and his grip on my arm raised goosebumps along my skin and made my bared nipples harden into points.
I hadn’t worried about stripping down in front of him—he’d been so abjectly uninterested in my body it seemed ludicrous to be bashful—but this close to him, his dark stare boring into me, I felt so utterly bared for him, so completely stripped of any and all protection. Despite the chill of his touch, something warm curled in my abdomen. I couldn’t tell if it was arousal or embarrassment.
Quite probably it was fear.
“Don’t think it will be a fast, easy death,” he sneered. Before I could think of a response, he released me and took a step back, leaving me to stagger as my body readjusted to the absence of his magnetic pull.
I didn’t look at him again; I was too tired to deal with the enigma that was Grim. That would have to wait until we were back among the living and I’d had my energy restored.
Unbidden, images of the last time my mates restored my energy came rushing back, and I bit my lip as the heat in my abdomen turned a lot less confusing. The aching sear that made my heart stutter as I remembered every kiss and caress was wholly less pleasant.
I missed them so much it felt like I was one gust of wind away from shattering. All that held me together was sheer determination and the knowledge that come tomorrow morning, I would finally have the means to return to them.
I sucked in a deep breath, forcing the memories back into the hollow pit in my chest before I refocused on the water. All I could do now was have a swim—so that was what I was going to do.
The water felt odd as it crawled up my legs with every step I took into the pond, like some unnatural mixture of silk and oil wrapping around my skin. It lacked the refreshment that usually came with being submerged, but it was still a soothing sensation.
I walked out until the water lapped at my navel, then sucked in a deep breath and dove fully under.
The gurgling sound of water rushing in my ears was more familiar, and the movement of it against my skin made it feel less alien. I opened my eyes—keeping my lips firmly shut—and took a couple of strokes out, following the silty bottom of the pond.
The greyness of Hel seemed less disturbing underwater. It was more like swimming at night under the moon. I reached out and touched the leaves of a trailing plant reaching toward the surface. It moved gently under my fingertips, its surface soft and pleasant, if a bit slimy.
I kicked, moving farther along the lake floor, and picked up a gleaming stone to inspect it. It too was smooth under my fingers, but the shell I picked up next had some texture. A crustacean poked out from the shell, probably in response to being hauled free of the sand, and clacked its miniscule claws threateningly at me.
I let out a bubble of surprised laughter, and it dawned on me that as scary as Hel was, it also had its beautiful sides, if you took the time to search for them—an odd thing for a realm that seemed so tightly twined with terror and misery.
The air in my lungs turned heavy, so I put the creature back on the bottom of the lake and kicked against the sand. The water caressed me as I shot up through it, parting as I broke the surface and gasped in a few deep breaths.
I swirled around to reorient myself, my eyes landing on the shore where we’d made camp. Mimir was still on the stone where I’d placed him, overlooking the lake, and Grim…
My heart skipped a beat as my gaze locked with his.
He was crouching on the shore by the water where I’d left him, staring at me. Even from this distance I could see the darkness in his eyes. Hate? Was it hate he felt when he looked at me like that?
Goosebumps crawled up my arms and down my back, and I turned my attention away from him, swimming farther out to the center of the pond. I was pretty sure he did, in fact, hate me. He seemed entirely unremorseful for killing me, and he acted like my presence was a barely tolerable burden. If not for his loyalty to his brothers and the knowledge that if I perished in Hel before he’d broken the connection between us, they would die too, I was certain he’d have ensured I joined the siphon of souls doomed to serve Hel herself.
And once he severed that connection, he would leave me to rot here. No regrets. No empathy.
I forced the shudder that followed that train of thought away and dove back underneath the surface.
The pond was deeper in the middle, and many more aquatic plants obscured the bottom than had closer to shore. I swam through them, enjoying their whispered caresses along my body. Even as I finally dove deep enough to spot the sandy floor, plenty of light still filtered through from the gray skies above. That was probably why, when I swam past a large rock formation, I had no trouble seeing the exact features of the creature lurking there.
I shrieked, but the water swallowed the sound and turned my scream into bubbles. The vaguely female-looking beast flicked her tail and rushed up toward me, slapping a scaly hand across my mouth and nose and another around the back of my head before I could do anything else.
“Mmmph!” I flailed wildly, trying to shove her off me, but despite her slim frame, she was freakishly strong. On instinct I reached for my magic, but found the place inside me where it usually resided barren.
The creature shook me hard by her grip on my head, snapping my focus back to her. When my frantic gaze connected with her glossy and freakishly large eyes, she shook her head at me.
“Mmph!” I protested behind her hand—a noise that became significantly higher-pitcher when she opened her mouth full of long, sharp teeth and moved it toward m
ine.
“Mmmmmm!”
A muted boom cut off my attempted scream, echoing through the water around us and sending ripples through the otherwise still water. The creature before me turned her head with a snap—and a second later an invisible force exploded between us, sending us flying in opposite directions.
My shoulder slammed into the rock she’d hidden behind, and I yelled out in pain—and swallowed a mouthful of lake water as a result.
The effect was immediate. A leaden sensation crept down my esophagus and lungs like poisonous sludge. Grim’s warning flashed belatedly before my mind’s eye, and I tried to hack and spit, but it only resulted in more water rushing into my mouth.
Shit, shit, shit! I kicked desperately against the sand, blind to anything but getting to the surface to expel the poison from my body, but my muscles refused to obey. Slowly the unnatural weight spread to them, constricting my movements with every second that passed.
Before I could finish the thought of what would happen if I didn’t get to the surface soon, the water rippled around me again, and suddenly Grim was there.
His dark hair floated around his pale face like black seaweed, but I didn’t have time to appreciate what a handsome merman he made. Without pause he wrapped both arms around my waist and pushed off from the sand, sending us shooting upward with rocket speed.
The second my head was free of the surface, I tried to suck in a lungful of oxygen, but my airways were full of water, and all I managed was a desperate rattle.
Grim didn’t pause to help me. Still with an arm around my torso, he buoyed me against his body and began swimming toward shore with long, sure strokes.
“Ghkkr!” I choked, trying desperately to alert him to my impending death.
“Hold your fucking breath!” he snarled without ever breaking his pace.
Easier said than done. My lungs burned and my vision swam, black dots dancing at the edges.
Before I could pass out, he threw me onto a hard surface and rolled me onto my stomach. Cold iron bands wrapped around my body, followed by something rock-hard punching right into my sternum.
My body reacted without my conscious choice—lake water sprayed out of my nose and mouth as I vomited violently. Another brutal punch had me retching again before I could so much as attempt to heave for breath.
Everything was agony and burning, desperate panic. I wanted to scream, or cry, or both, but I didn’t have the air.
Another hard press against my sternum made me rattle, but it was less violent this time. No more water came out, but no air came in either.
The iron bands around my torso released me, and then I was tossed onto my back.
Through my streaming eyes I saw Grim fall to his knees by my side and bend over me, pinching my nose shut. Soft, cold lips pressed against mine, and then… sweet, cool air rushed into my lungs, raising my chest. And again. And again.
My airways opened, and I coughed into Grim’s mouth.
He pulled back just enough to give me space to breathe, but left his hand resting against my breastbone.
I heaved in a deep lungful and groaned with relief when air filled them.
“Breathe, Annabel,” he said, his voice raspy and deep as he too inhaled. “Breathe.”
I stared up at him as my body obeyed his command, and that same sensation I’d had the first time I met him welled up—of recognition and a sucking undertow threatening to pull me under.
My dad had said those exact same words to me when he’d pulled me out of a frozen lake when I was a kid: “Breathe, Annabel. Breathe.”
I’d seen Grim then too, when I plummeted through the ice and fought against the freezing water pulling me down. Grim. He’d been there, as vividly as anything. Or his eyes had been there, to be exact—an image of one amber and one icy blue eye, watching me.
I didn’t know why the memory suddenly rushed back—perhaps it was the echo of my then-near-death experience now, the similarities in nearly drowning again—but I was sure.
“Grim—” I rasped, not sure what I was going to say, what I was going to ask.
The sound of my voice, weak as it was, made Grim jerk, his eyes moving from mine down to where his hand was resting against my chest. With another jerk, he pulled it away and sat all the way up on his knees to push his wet hair out of his eyes.
“I told you not to swallow any water,” he growled. Angry. Curt.
“Am I going to die?” I croaked. “I swallowed… a lot.”
“We got it all out. You’re breathing. Talking. You wouldn’t be if we didn’t.”
Only then did it dawn on me that he’d… Heimliched me? The rock that’d been punched against my sternum must have been his fists.
I rubbed my sore ribs. “Thank you. You… How did you know I was in trouble?”
“You let out a lot of bubbles, plum,” Mimir said, distinctly unconcerned. “You were either in need of saving, or on cutting down on the cabbage. And since you haven’t eaten since arriving in Hel…”
“Well… thank you,” I repeated, ignoring the prophet.
“I told you there is no safe place here,” Grim said, nostrils pulling up ever so slightly into his usual sneer. “Maybe now you’ll listen?”
“What was that thing?” I asked, choosing not to make any promises I couldn’t keep.
“A Sjörå, a type of Huldra who lives in lakes and ponds.” Grim flattened his lips into a line as he looked back over his shoulder at the once-again still water. “They don’t normally attack women.”
“Remind me what a Huldra is again?” I forced my muscles into action so I could sit up, grateful that they obeyed me this time, albeit with some protest.
“They dwell in the wilds and delight in luring men and boys into trouble,” Mimir said mildly.
“Why are all these nature-lurkers so gender-biased? And what happened with this one? Was she just progressive for her kind?” I muttered, rubbing at my ribs again.
“I’m going to ask her when I find her,” Grim said, the venom in his voice tensing my spine even though it wasn’t aimed at me this time. He turned back to me, mouth open as if he were going to speak again, but his eyes landed on my still-peaked nipples and no sound came out.
Heat scorched my cheeks, my body’s response to his attention as immediate as it was embarrassing.
If Grim noticed, he didn’t show it. Without a word he got to his feet, turned to the lake, and shrugged out of his already soaked tunic before he waded into the water. He dove under the surface, and I sat there in silent shock over the fact that Grim Lokisson, despite all evidence to the contrary, might have at least a single drop of hot blood in his otherwise frosty body.
“Well, that was comforting,” Mimir said from his perch on the rock. “I was beginning to worry that Verdandi chose the wrong life-thread to weave as your fifth. Don’t ever tell her I said that, of course. She takes it personally when someone questions her work.”
“Huh?” I turned my head to face him, finally managing to shake the shock of Grim’s gaze.
“That grumpy godling was as alert as a guard dog while you were swimming. He came to your rescue the second he realized you were in trouble,” Mimir said with a smile.
“So? He doesn’t want his brothers to die—and if I kick it in Hel…” With a grimace, I pushed away the thought of my mates dying and rolled up on my knees to fumble for my clothes.
Mimir chuckled. “I’m sure that’s what he wants you to think, plum. He might even have convinced himself of as much. I may have been relieved of the burdensome desires that come with having a body, but the Mistborn has not been so lucky. The heart doesn’t always agree with the mind, hmm?”
“I’m not sure Grim has a heart,” I said as I pulled my pants from the pile of clothes. Instant guilt gnawed at my gut and I bit my lip, my fingers hesitating around the waistband of my leather trousers. After what he’d shared with me, it was painfully obvious that Grim loved his brothers very much. No one capable of the devotion he had for them co
uld be called heartless, even if he had no care for any other living creature in the nine worlds, me included.
“Ah, the drama of youthful romance,” Mimir sighed.
“Drama of romance? I think you mean drama-of-getting-murdered-by-your-supposed-fated-mate,” I bit. “Besides, I don’t think you can call Grim youthful. What is he, a thousand years old?”
Mimir only chuckled again at my irritation. “For a god, he is barely a babe. And you, dear one, you are so delightfully human. So full of emotions. Passion. It’s all very dramatic.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying the show,” I growled, refocusing on my pants. But when I went to put them on, my palms slid over something hard underneath the leather. Frowning, I dug into the pocket and stilled when my fingertips touched metal. A ring.
Or, more precisely, the ring I’d plucked off Loki’s finger, freeing his powers from Odin’s magic-suppressing trap. I’d forgotten all about it since landing in Hel.
Loki had been completely helpless until I’d removed it.
“Mimir… how are you going to stop Grim from following us to whatever is going to get us back to Asgard?” I asked. “His magic is… very strong.”
“Best you don’t ask too many questions,” the prophet said, arcing a meaningful eyebrow at me. “You do not possess great control over your facial features, pretty plum. Nor that soft, human heart of yours.”
“Are you going to hurt him?” I asked, frowning at the twinge in my chest at the thought. Determinedly, I pushed the idiotic emotion away. Perhaps Mimir was right about that stupid, soft heart of mine. It wasn’t like Grim had had any hesitance about killing me. Whatever had to be done to escape this place, I’d do.
“He’ll survive,” Mimir said mildly. “As you said, he’s strong.”
It felt like hours before Grim returned to our small camp. He was dripping wet, and judging by his drawn features, in a foul mood.
“Did you catch the sj… the water Huldra?” I asked, looking up at him from my seat by the fire.
“No.” Without so much as looking at me, the alpha undid his weapons belt, letting it fall to the ground with a thud before he began working his trousers down his hips.