7. Helayna

7

HELAYNA

T he snake rolled over me. Heavy coils. Slithering scales. Panic bubbled up my throat and I screamed. "D?rr!"

I couldn't feel him touching me, though his bond fired inside me. He leaped over roots and dove beneath twisting coils, chasing after me.

I tried to push off the coil and jump to the ground even though it was far below, but I was stuck. My hair was caught. My scalp burned with pain, but my hair didn't rip out. Even as the coils rolled me tighter against the snake.

He was reeling me in by my fucking hair.

Frantic, I gripped handfuls of my hair and tried to tug it free. I rolled over, blindly feeling along the scales to where my hair was trapped. A large chunk of my hair was stuck inside one of the huge scales. I tried to pry it up, but it wouldn't budge. I gripped hanks of my own hair and tried to rip it free from my scalp. Until I couldn't see for tears and it felt like my scalp was bleeding.

But I couldn't pull free of J?rmungandr.

Goddess. I tried to make myself think calmly. My blood hadn't worked to free the wellspring. Why not? That should have worked. I was an Aima vampire queen. Blood was my power.

My head tugged closer to the snake. My hair taut. The coil rolled, spinning me around until I was dizzy. I couldn't tell if I was flat on my back or vertical. Roots snapped and crashed beneath the snake's weight. Was he dragging me up to his head? If he released his tail to eat me…

A black shadow dropped down beside me. D?rr tried to pull me free, jerking at my hair that was helplessly tangled in the snake's scale. With all his impressive strength and size, he couldn't get my hair out.

I could feel scales beneath my shoulders. I only had inches left before. Before. My mind stuttered. I didn't think my sanity would survive being trapped inside the snake again.

D?rr hovered over me. His right hand rose, his fingers blurring together into a sharp, black spear. He pried at the scale, trying to pop it up.

"It won't budge." His desperation rolled like thunder in our bond. "I'd stab him, but he'd wake for sure."

My head thumped against the snake's coil. Goddess. I could feel the hard surface beneath my head. Another roll of my hair inside… "Cut it! Cut my hair!"

The spear on the end of his hand flattened and he swiped beneath me, sawing at my hair. Myrk leaped up beside us, and Svar ran alongside. Myrk cut from one side, while D?rr worked on the other. I'd never cursed having so much thick, long hair until now, but I could feel hair freeing bit by bit.

"Almost," D?rr whispered fiercely. "Svar, be ready to catch her!"

"Aye!"

I winced as his hand-blade nicked my scalp. But I didn't care. The two blades were almost together. I jerked my head up, trying to tear the last bit free. To give them more space. D?rr gripped my throat with his left hand, trying to lift me away without choking me. I clung to his wrist with both hands and jerked myself up, screaming as my hair pulled and gave way.

With one last swipe, he cut the last strands trapped inside the snake.

We fell. Tumbling. Svar caught me, rolled me beneath him, and braced on his hands and knees above me as the snake's coil swung back toward his prize. He thudded against me as D?rr and Myrk both piled on top of us, all three of them trying to shield me.

The ground rocked beneath me. A low, rumbling roared louder. At first, I thought it was J?rmungandr, but the sound came from below.

The wellspring exploded beneath us and we shot up in a geyser of water. It should have been violent, tearing me away from my Blood, jumbling us with boulders and logs, but for all our velocity, I wasn't even jounced. The water flattened out into a sort of platform, lifting me up so I could see the landscape below.

Hills and mountains rose in the distance, gleaming faintly in my enhanced vision. The coils of J?rmungandr. I shuddered, my mind unable to comprehend how vast he was. No wonder legend said he encircled the entire earth. I looked up, somehow not surprised to see the roots shifting out of our way as we rose along the trunk of Yggdrasil. Water flowed all around us, swelling like an endless lake. I didn't need to touch the tree to feel it stirring. I felt its life sparking in my bones.

In my veins. Because my blood spread in the water, dripping from my torn scalp and my wrists. My blood hadn't broken the wellspring open, but it fed the mighty tree's roots now.

My blood flowed in Yggdrasil.

As we rose, my awareness sank deeper into the tree. Or rather, higher, soaring out along its branches. Light flashed and danced inside the tree as if the leaves were giant prisms. Other realms sparkled in the distance. Not just the nine worlds of Norse legend, but worlds so far and distant that it would take a thousand J?rmungandrs lined up and we still wouldn't reach. Far galaxies. Alternative dimensions. The tree sparked those paths, illuminating the way.

I leaned far back so I could look up the mighty trunk. A few other limbs gleamed with rainbows, but there were far more branches that were completely dark. I tried to direct my blood to flow that way and regenerate the limbs, but my blood thinned. It was too far. This branch was mine and mine alone.

The other branches needed their queens, and they weren't mine to heal.

Staring up at the dead branches, my heart ached with despair. There were so many branches that were dark without their queens. Hundreds of branches, lost and silent. I had no idea if it'd even be possible to spark those branches back to life. Every drop of blood in my body would be a drop in the bucket.

So many. Yggdrasil was never meant to be so dark and still.

I dropped my head forward and wiped my tears away. Something brushed my cheek, startling me, until I realized it was short curls tickling my face. I couldn't remember having such short hair. My hair had never been cut until now.

That sacrifice had broken open the wellspring. Not my blood.

I felt a deep resonance inside me, confirming the truth. The power to return water to Hel had been in my hair. Exactly why J?rmungandr had been so determined to devour it, and indirectly, me. He hadn't wanted my blood at all.

Unlike my Blood. My three dark alfar stared at me, frozen in the rising flood. I could see them clearly, and I wasn't afraid. How could I be? They'd done nothing but put their own bodies at risk to protect me. Sparkling onyx and obsidian, they glittered like glass, reflecting the rainbows off their slick, shiny hides.

D?rr's face was twisted with grief. Realization gleamed in his midnight eyes. He couldn't move, but he was aware that we were rising. We were leaving his realm and returning to mine.

He fully expected me to leave them behind and never return.

Silly gargoyle.

Water shot us out into blue sky. A place of green grass and sunshine, though the grass was buried beneath snow and the air was crisp and cold. Lying on my back on a pile of relatively dry needles, I looked up at the pine tree I'd grown as a child in a matter of years. Home. I pushed up on my elbows and looked out across a frozen lake. I remembered this place.

In the middle of a large lake in Minnesota, my grandmother had forged her nest on a tree-covered island. But none of the trees had grown as tall as mine.

In the summertime, boats would dot the water. Houses lined the far shore, but our island was large enough that it was quiet, even in the busy party season. My brother and I had sat on the dock, dangling our feet in the water and giggling about what the humans would do if they knew our vampire island existed.

My brother. My twin. Eivind.

We'd always had a deep connection. He immediately flooded my mind. :Helayna! Blessed be, goddess be praised. I've looked everywhere for you.:

I clung to him in my mind. :Loki took me to Hvergelmir and gave me to J?rmungandr. How long have I been gone?:

He hesitated. In our bond, I felt his chin on the top of my head, his arms around me, the same way he'd held me when our mother had died. :Over two hundred years.:

Shock splintered through me. So long? I hadn't been trapped inside J?rmungandr for a hundred years, or I'd never have kept my sanity. :Time must flow differently in Hvergelmir. Goddess, I can't believe so many years passed. Where are you?:

:I've been all over the country searching for any hint of you. The Isador queen said that she saw you trapped in darkness with a giant snake. So I never expected to see you on this side of the tree again.:

Could it be the same queen who'd visited me in the darkness? It wouldn't surprise me. :She told me to call my Blood, and I did. They helped free me.:

I turned my head and allowed my brother to see through my eyes. My three Blood crouched around me as massive stone statues.

Unmoving.

Biting back a cry, I went to D?rr and cupped his giant face between my hands. I knew it was him, though his gargoyle features were even heavier and more misshapen than his dark alfar form. :Come back to me.:

He stared back at me, unblinking. Frozen.

:It's the sunlight,: Eivind whispered reverently in our bond. :Dark alfar. Of course. Well done, Helle.:

It'd been forever since he'd called me that. Blinking back tears, I leaned against my stone Blood, willing him to awaken. : They can never see the sun?:

Eivind started to pull away. I felt his pack howling around him, calling their wolf king back to run the forests. :Not in this form. I'll head north to see you, but it'll take me a week or two at least.:

:Take your time,: I replied numbly. :I'll see you soon, Wolfie.: My nickname for him.

His words echoed in my head. Not in this form.

So I needed to change their form. Their dark alfar aspect would probably fare even worse in full sunlight. I didn't want to only have them with me at night. I wanted them to walk the island with me. I wanted to show them all the wonders of my world. They deserved so much more than a life of only endless night.

I refused to consider a limited existence for them. Not these men who'd risked so much to save me. I didn't think a kiss would waken a gargoyle, but even if it did, I didn't want him to be forced to walk around as a stone statue.

My blood may not have helped burst forth the wellspring, but it was my best bet for helping my gargoyles live and breathe once more. I punctured the pad of my thumb on my fang and rubbed my blood on his cold lips.

:Wake, my alpha. Your queen has need of you.: