Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LOVIA

Sorrow chokes the air.

Not just sorrow, but anger and grief and frustration at the utmost cruelty and helplessness of it all.

Mielikki and Nyyrikki, Goddess and God of the Forest, are gone.

Brutally murdered in cold blood.

And every single step we’ve taken is fraught with enough emotion and tension to make the trees break. They bend toward us as we hurry beneath them, bowing to their Gods, grieving the loss just like us. Everything here is connected, and the forest knows how fragile life is now in the Land of the Dead.

Nothing is safe.

Louhi’s minions will come for everyone.

And I can’t help but wrestle with my own connection to her.

She’s my mother.

I’m her daughter.

How could I come from such a wretched being?

How did she not, I don’t know, eat me the moment I was born, like a viper in a den?

Did she ever love my father?

Did she ever love me or Tuonen?

What was our purpose?

What is my purpose?

The Magician reaches out and grabs my hand, giving it a squeeze. It instantly grounds me, pulling me out of my thoughts and lessening the weight in my chest.

I glance over at him, finding the stars and planets in his infinite face are still, exuding a certain calmness.

“The past is a prison, Loviatar,” he says quietly. “The future is an illusion. Be here now, even if it hurts. It hurts less than the hurricanes you’re creating in your mind. They can blow you off course.”

I give him a fleeting smile. “I can’t help it. I just don’t understand how…”

I glance ahead of us. Rasmus is walking slowly, but his movements are freer now since the Magician changed the mycelia so they’re only binding his hands at his back. I can tell he’s listening, but I don’t mind. Out of everyone here, he understands what I’m going through—or at least he should.

Ahead of him, Tapio and Tellervo lead the way out of the forest, broken, defeated, lost to their grief. Once we’re out of here, I will step up and take the lead. They shouldn’t have to shoulder this burden when they’re barely holding it together. I will lead all of us across the frozen void to the Star Swamp and Castle Synti. I will keep them safe.

I have to.

I don’t notice how hard I’m gripping the Magician’s hand until he gives mine a squeeze back.

“Sorry,” I mumble, trying to take my hand away.

He holds on tighter. “Nothing to be sorry about. I’m in awe of your strength, you know. Not just in a bone-crushing way, but your inner strength. You’re so much stronger than you know.”

I swallow hard as I step over a twisted root. “I don’t feel strong, but I will be, for them.” I nod up ahead at the rest of them.

“You already are,” he says. He looks ahead to Rasmus. “And I’m starting to see how he might play a part in all of this. You don’t have to go through what you’re feeling alone. He understands you. He is weighed down by the same thing. You are both products of a disrupter.”

“A disrupter?” I snort. “That’s what you’re calling Louhi? She’s a monster.”

A shooting star flits across his face. “From a different angle, monsters are just agitators of peace. To view something as a monster, as evil, is looking at it from a place of emotion. A very mortal, human emotion. A deity looks at things from a distance. It sees this chaos as the natural order of things.”

I can’t help but glare at him. “You know what she’s like. You saw what she did. You know what she will do. How can you view any of that from such distance?”

“Because I do. Because that is what I am,” he says matter-of-factly. “And you are looking at things from the heart because you have a heart, Lovia. A very big one. It’s time to embrace that, time to realize you’re a Goddess with love to give, one who grapples with morality. You’re utterly human in ways you can’t even imagine, and that is a blessing. It’s time to stop thinking of it as a curse.”

I shake my head. “It feels like a curse. Gods are supposed to be above that all.”

“And yet, all you need to do is look around and see that the Gods here are fallible. It’s their tie to humanity that makes this realm work the way it should. You cannot care for the souls of the dead without relating to them at the same time. Even Louhi has more humanity than you think. She may not carry the capacity for love or kindness, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist at one time. Her soul became corrupted. If you looked at the demon she came from, you’d see it was always inevitable.” He pauses. “Her human-like predisposition to ego and vanity and power will be her downfall. You’ll see—and you’ll only see it because of your own humanity.”

I’m so engrossed with what the Magician is saying, I nearly bump into Rasmus, who has stopped ahead of us. We’ve all stopped.

“This is the end of our realm,” Tapio says in a deep, broken voice. He and Tellervo stand at the edge of the forest, staring forward at the landscape unfurling in front of us. The towering trees abruptly give way to thin birch and aspen, to low shrubs of thorns and berries. Frost blankets the hard ground, lacing the grass like icing sugar until it turns white with snow in the distance. The air is colder here, our breath rising in the air. Without the protection of the forest, I already feel painfully exposed.

Tapio turns around and eyes us, his lashes wet. “I hate to leave this place. I think perhaps it would be easier to die here, to become one with my wife and son.”

“No, Father,” Tellervo pleads, grabbing his burlap cloak in such a way that reminds me of a little girl terrified to lose the one person she has left. “Don’t speak like that. We must move on. Please.”

After we discovered their bodies, we buried them, said a ceremony. We took our time even though we knew time was of the essence. The forest responded in kind by swallowing their forms, making them one with the root system and all living things, enabling them to live on forever in some ways.

Still, deep down, we all know the truth, that their souls are forever lost to the void of Oblivion. It’s something I try not to think about—how extra fragile we are now, how we’re all one wrong step closer to that eternal agony.

Tapio sighs, a tear falling freely from his eye. I curse the Creator for giving us Gods such human-like emotions. I don’t care if it’s supposed to be the very thing we can use against Louhi. I’d give anything to be like the Magician, to have such distance from the things we’re going through and the things we must do.

I don’t want to feel anything, especially not this.

“All right,” he says to his daughter, giving her shoulder an affection squeeze. “We continue. It’s not as if the forest isn’t compromised anyway.”

He raises a hand to the trees and looks at them with such gravity, it makes my chest ache. “We will return to you soon, after we avenge Mielikki and Nyyrikki’s deaths. Take care of the creatures, big and small, of the living beings from sprout to cedar.”

We all take a moment of silence, respecting the forest and their Gods. The birds and squirrel that lived in Tapio’s beard reluctantly leave, heading to the trees, chittering sadly as they go.

I let go of the Magician’s hand and walk over to the Forest Gods.

“Let me guide you the rest of the way,” I say gently, though I make sure they notice my sword at my side. “You have done so much for us already.”

He nods, conceding with ease.

I motion for the Magician to join me, but he shakes his head. “I’ll stay back here, keep an eye on any trouble from behind.” I know he means to keep Rasmus in line as well.

As much as I feel stronger and less alone with the Magician by my side, I know it’s time for me to lead. I can’t wallow in the fear of it all. If there’s no one else left in my family, then I have to step into my role as Goddess and do the things my father and brother can’t. I’m sure as hell not leaving that task to my mother.

I start walking with purpose, keeping my pace quick. The further away from the forest we get, the more exposed I feel. Every now and then, I glance behind me at the trees, and I swear I see glowing eyes watching us through the leaves, though I can’t tell if they’re from the creatures and fairies themselves, wishing our safe return, or something malevolent.

Eventually, the grass disappears and becomes hard ground, and then snow crunches under our boots. The shrubs grow more stunted as we move on, the red of the snowberries standing out against the white, but this is a good thing. Yes, we’re more exposed, but when you can’t see around the bushes, it only makes you paranoid that something is lurking behind them, waiting to pounce.

After a while, snow starts to fall from the sky, and I can’t help but think of my father. If he’s here, do his moods still control the weather? What does it mean? Snow is a fairly neutral emotion; I suppose that’s better than a thunderstorm.

We trudge on. The further north we go, the thicker the snow gets, gathering on my eyelashes. Every now and then, I look back at the others—Tapio’s beard is thick with snow, Tellervo’s antlers icicles. Rasmus is shivering, his mortality on full display. Only the Magician seems unbothered, gliding along with ease.

Eventually, we come to a stand of thin trees, the only semblance of a forest in these frozen parts. I decide to skirt around them instead of cutting through, not trusting what could be lurking amidst the spindly trunks, when, suddenly, I hear a wail.

Not just a wail—a blood-curdling scream of anguish.