Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

N ow I have a decision to make.

Do I take him inside? Or carry him away?

I shake my head in uncertainty. "How can this be what he needs?"

As I speak, my senses prickle.

The scent of a predator reaches me.

Distant growls waft across the air.

I take a defensive step back. "There's something else in here with us and it isn't a bunny rabbit."

My pack stiffens behind me. I hear their quick inhales and their shuffles. I don't want to take my eye off the environment in front of me, but I know they'll be taking up attack positions outside the door at my back.

Just then, a large, gray wolf burst from the trees that circle the clearing on the right, racing directly toward me.

Its fur is dark gray, its eyes are amber, and I'm struck with a startling clarity: it isn't a wolf shifter.

It's a natural wolf.

Which only makes it more dangerous. A shifter could at least be reasoned with.

I brace, ready to grab the keeper and push him behind me, my left hand reaching for the doorframe as I prepare to shove him back into the corridor and slam the door shut.

At the last moment, the wolf comes to a halt, leaps to the side, and turns in the other direction. Its hind legs bunch, as if it's about to pounce on something behind it, a confusing change of focus.

A heartbeat later, another wolf sprints into the clearing, this one pure white with bright, blue eyes.

It leaps at the gray wolf, but its claws aren't extended. It's a playful lunge, and they both tumble through the snow before tussling again.

Then they return to their feet, briefly nudging each other in an act the wolf in me recognizes as an expression of family bonds. At that, they pad away together toward the trees they first ran from.

Their heads are raised, their eyes bright and focused on the same point ahead of them. Focused on something I can't see, but they don't seem alarmed by it. They hurry eagerly toward it and then?—

They're gone.

Vanished into thin air.

I can't stop my whisper. "What the fuck?"

I'm preparing to turn to Halle for an explanation when sudden movement makes me jolt back to the clearing.

The gray wolf races from the trees again, running forward before stopping in the middle of the clearing to turn around again.

Just like it did before.

My eyes widen when the white wolf darts from the trees to pounce on the gray wolf. They tussle, right themselves, nudge each other, and pad toward the trees and then?—

They're gone again.

I spin to Halle. "What is this?"

Her face is pale. "Veda." She speaks cautiously. "When you created your cottage and your forest and all that… it was from your dreams, wasn't it?"

I nod. I'm not surprised she knows that because the keeper had leaned in and said as much to me at the time, reminding me that I should have guarded my dreams. She would have overheard him.

"And, just to confirm, it wasn't actually a place you had visited," she continues. "Was it?"

"Of course not," I say. Given what Jonah said about the original cottage and orchard, they no longer exist—they haven't existed at all in my lifetime."

Halle angles herself through the narrow gap between me and the door. Her feet sink into the snow and she gives a violent shiver. "This place, too, must be from the keeper's dreams. A place long ago destroyed."

She turns to me just as the wolves reappear behind her, playing in the snow without any awareness of our presence. Then they flicker and disappear again.

Halle gestures to them. "His dreams are breaking apart. Just like he is."

"I can't take him inside there," I say, still squinting at the brightness.

Goosebumps rise on my skin, and the breeze lifting off the snow chills me to the bone.

Jonah's voice sounds behind me. "You must take him inside," he says. "Look."

He points at the keeper's chest.

The blood has stopped flowing so freely from his wounds and his breathing is a little stronger. Just a little. But noticeably so.

Anarchy and her brothers are also nodding. "We are dark elves of the House of Dark Dreams. Sometimes, the most dangerous dream is the one that brings you clarity."

"Okay," I whisper. "But—" I can't stop my shudder. "It's fr-freezing."

Jonah squeezes past me, ignoring Halle's disgruntled glare.

"That's a longhouse," he says, gesturing at the building. "It's Einherjar architecture. Given its detail, I'm certain there will be coats and furs inside. I will bring them."

I remember that he mentioned protecting the Valkyries' followers—humans who called themselves ‘Einherjar'—so I hope he's right.

Without waiting for permission, Jonah hurries across the snowy landscape and disappears inside the structure before coming back with his arms full of furs. He hands me a coat that's an eerily good fit before handing out the others.

Halle doesn't wait for hers, pushing through the snow and nearly sinking to her ankles. Other than grunting with effort as she plows across the clearing, she doesn't seem to notice the cold, trudging forward resolutely toward the cabin door on the far left, closer to the side of the mountain.

Even with the warm coat, I'm relieved to make it across the clearing and into the longhouse. Also, because it's easier for me to see inside the dimly lit space.

The inside space is long and rectangular, with a set of stairs at the far end. They lead up to a loft that sits around three sides, and it looks like there are multiple internal access points to the turrets I noticed on the roof.

Most importantly, there's a firepit in the center of the floor immediately ahead.

I hurry toward it. "Jonah? Fire, please?"

While Jonah sets about creating a warm blaze—which I force my eyes to tolerate, given its warmth—Orlan lowers the keeper onto the fur beside the hearth.

I kneel there, too, bundling up a second fur to place under Emil's head.

Orlan's voice is quiet as he steps back. "I'm sorry I can't do anything about his wounds. I'm not a healer. My specialties are transportation and weaponry. But I know enough about injuries to say that those are self-sustaining. Even if I could heal him, his wounds would break apart again."

"I understand," I say. "Thank you for bringing him here."

With a nod, Orlan moves away to join the hellhound on the far side of the room.

My pack gathers around the hearth after finding more fur rugs rolled up on the far side of the room, which they then lay around the fireplace to sit on. Anarchy hands me two of the furs to wrap around the keeper.

I'm torn between trying to make him warm—despite the fact that it seems nothing will do so—and needing to keep an eye on his wounds.

Even so, I do what I can, tucking the two rugs around him up to his chin while telling myself I can check his injuries from time to time.

Halle, too, settles close, although she finds her own corner of a fur to sit on.

Once again, Jonah has taken up a position farthest away from Halle, leaning against the wall on the far side, where he's half-encased in shadows.

I expect my pack to demand information, but Halle gets in first. "What happened?" she asks. And in the next breath, she grumbles, "And why would you drag the keeper into Veritas instead of me?"

I cast a glance her way. "Because I actually believe that you will tell me the truth. Without needing that room. The keeper would not."

She unfolds her arms. "Well. That's…" She splutters a little. "That's nice to hear, but you could have made that clear earlier. I don't offer my help very often, and I was a little insulted that you threw it back in my face."

I arch my eyebrows at her. "You would have thought it was strange if I trusted you too easily."

She gives that a moment's thought and then shrugs. "True."

I return my attention to the keeper and now my shoulders slump.

"I don't know what to do," I say.

I look up at my pack.

Anarchy prompts me. "Maybe if you tell us what happened?"

I sift through the information I gleaned while I was in Veritas and decide it's best if I recount it in a few simple statements, even if they're baffling. "He didn't tether my mother's magic. He did rip out her heart, but she was already dying. He can't achieve his own vengeance because those responsible for his pain are already dead, although their magic lives on. His name was taken from him. He is my enemy because his purpose is to constrain a power that my mother passed on to me. And he is…"

Now I stumble over the most baffling thing of all.

"Veritas insisted that he is light, not darkness."

Everyone around me wears creased foreheads, casting confused glances at each other.

Except for Halle.

And maybe Jonah, who has stepped back into the shadows at the side of the room.

"I believe I can fill in some gaps for you," Halle says. "If you're willing to answer some questions along the way?"

I don't see how I have a choice at this point.

I came to the Underworld because the keeper brought me here. My father is out there, no doubt looking for me, and now the keeper is barely alive.

"I am willing," I say. "Please tell me what you know."