Chapter 12

CHAPTER TWELVE

LOVIA

I freeze, raising my hand to tell the others to stop and quiet.

The wail came from inside the thin woods.

I glance nervously behind me, wondering what we should do.

I’m about to ask Tapio if he can communicate with the flora outside the Hiisi Forest when he says, “Wait.”

“What is it?” I whisper harshly as he slowly walks toward me, his snow-crusted brows drawn together. “What could have made such a sound?”

It was so raw, I still hear it echoing in my mind.

“I’m not sure,” he says with a shake of his head. “It’s just something I recognize, that I feel. I don’t think it’s any foe of ours.”

I look back at the woods. The spaces between the trees seems to have grown darker. Then, the wail sounds again, loud, powerful, and pitiful.

“I recognize the sorrow,” Tapio says. “Someone is mourning. We know our enemies could never feel such emotion.”

“Who are you!?” Tellervo suddenly yells into the trees, causing ice pheasants to fly from the canopy, their wings beating like drums as they head north.

All of us freeze.

“Shhh,” Tapio chides her, his eyes blazing with fear.

“But you just said—” she protests.

“I didn’t say I was certain,” he argues.

“What’s done is done,” the Magician says from the back. “Call again.”

I clear my throat. “Who is in there?” I call out, cupping my hands over my mouth. “My name is Loviatar, Goddess of the Dead. I am passing through, searching for my father. You sound like you’re in distress.”

My words seem to be swallowed by the snow as silence falls around us.

“Maybe we scared her,” Tellervo whispers.

“Maybe you scared her,” Rasmus chides her. “If it is a her, that is.”

I keep a steady eye on the woods, my ears straining for any sound.

“Should we go in or…?” I ask. I know I’m supposed to lead, but a good leader doesn’t do anything without consulting their group. Anyway, I’m not sure what we should do, though I don’t want them to know that.

“There,” Tapio says in a hush. “Look.”

I squint my eyes at the trees and realize he must have better eyesight than I do, because it takes a few seconds for me to spot something moving between the white trunks—something blue, tall, and glistening.

Wearing a coral crown broken in places.

“Vellamo!” I cry out. I nearly drop the sword in surprise and start sprinting toward the Goddess of the Sea.

She pauses at the edge of the thicket, and her gaze contains so much sadness, it stops me in my tracks.

“What happened?” I whisper.

She puts her hand to her chest, licking her lips, trying to find the words. I have a feeling she might just collapse into the snow with grief.

Then, she looks over my shoulder at the rest of them, her gaze growing hard when she spots Rasmus, and some sort of dignity returns to her posture. She stands up straight and swallows hard. I take in the sight of her, pearls missing from her grown, her blue seaweed gown torn in places, perpetually wet. She has been through battle.

The short sword in one hand and the pearl-crusted knife sticking between her cleavage is more than proof of that.

“Ahto is dead,” she says bluntly.

Yesterday, I would have said it was impossible to kill a God, but after seeing what happened to Tapio’s family, I know that’s no longer true.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. Ahto was my uncle, and though I didn’t know him well, given his predisposition to the sea, I know my father had deep affection for him. This will certainly hurt.

Vellamo nods and eyes Tapio and Tellervo. “You have lost loved ones too.”

“Mielikki and Nyyrikki,” Tapio says, his voice breaking. “They were killed by the Old Gods.”

“The same for Ahto and so many of my kind,” Vellamo says with a deep sigh. “I am very sorry for your loss. Did you witness it?”

Tellervo shakes her head. “We came across them. Perhaps it was a blessing we didn’t see it happen. If we had, I can promise you, we would have killed them.”

“They aren’t easy to kill,” Vellamo says tiredly. “I had my sea serpents to aid me, and even then, we couldn’t save him. I’ve never felt so powerless before…”

She trails off and looks away, her eyes glistening. It’s hard to see such a stoic, powerful woman feel like this, another fellow God I need to be strong for, and yet I feel like strength is being leached from me by the minute.

Then, she looks at me and holds my gaze for a moment, as if reminding me to be strong. I square my shoulders in response.

“Have you seen Hanna?” she asks.

I blink at her in surprise. “No. We don’t know where she is—or my father, for that matter.”

“Ah,” she says, slowly walking toward us. “Then I at least have some good news for you. Your father is stuck in the Upper World.”

“Still?” I exclaim. “That’s not good news.”

“Perhaps not, but he should be finding a way back with Torben any time now.”

I glance over at Rasmus, who visibly stiffens at the mention of his father.

“And Hanna was here,” Vellamo goes on. “My mermaids pulled her from a portal at the bottom of the sea. She made it through when the others didn’t.”

“So where is she?” Rasmus asks, looking around nervously.

“P?iv?t?r took Hanna to the sun realm to claim her powers,” she says simply.

“ She did what now ?” I ask.

“The sun?” Rasmus says in disbelief. “What powers? Hanna is mortal.”

Vellamo glares at him, her gaze sharp enough to cut glass. “You,” she spits, her voice steel. “Your presence here insults me. Why are you even still alive?”

“We have our reasons,” I explain, though I still wonder what they are. “What do you mean, Hanna is on the sun ? What powers?”

“Hanna is P?iv?t?r’s daughter.”

“Who is P?iv?t?r again?” Rasmus asks, bewildered.

“She’s the Goddess of the Sun,” Tapio says gruffly. “And it would do you good to keep your questions to yourself. My patience for your existence is running low.”

I can’t help but shake my head. “I thought…I thought her mother lived in, like, America somewhere. Some mortal. Her father is Torben the Shaman.”

“It’s a long story,” Vellamo says. “One that explains how this Salainen has come into play, how she took Hanna’s place at Shadow’s End. For now, though, all you need to know is that Hanna has divine heritage. She’s even seen her powers begin to take flight here. But she can’t become who she needs to be unless she goes to the sun to grow her powers from the source.”

“So that means she’s coming back,” I say, “with powers that might help us fight.” The Magician had already said as much—yet another time I wish he could have just come out and said what he knew. Cryptic bastard.

“That is the idea,” she says carefully.

“You sound unsure,” Tapio says.

“Because there is a risk to all of this, of course,” she says. “And frankly, I didn’t think Hanna was ready. I’m willing to be proven wrong, of course. I want to be proven wrong.”

“What’s the risk?” Tellervo asks.

“Losing her humanity,” Vellamo says. “To gain the powers of a God, there is a tradeoff. I fear Hanna might not remember exactly who she is after a taste of immortality.”

“So she’s immortal now?” Rasmus says. He’s practically whining, and that’s when I realize what his problem is: he’s jealous of her. That’s all this has ever been; perhaps it’s why he willingly kidnapped her to begin with all those months ago, why he was eager to turn against her and do his mother’s bidding. Hanna not only has their father’s love, but now, her mother is a bona fide Goddess.

“I don’t think she’s fully immortal,” Vellamo says. “But even so, I don’t know how her transformation will affect her humanity.”

“As long as it can help us,” Tapio says. “As long as she can help us get our revenge.”

Vellamo raises her chin, her eyes sparking with determination. “We’re going to get our revenge, with Hanna’s help or not. This is why I was heading towards north. I want to find the Keskelli and see if they will join our side. Do you happen to have influence on them, Tapio?”

“The Keskelli? I’ve never even encountered one. They are trolls, are they not? My connection is only to flora and fauna. Anything sentient or close to human is beyond my reach.”

“Then you’re heading in the right direction,” I tell Vellamo, brushing the snow off my shoulders. “The Keskelli are found outside the Star Swamp, and that’s where we’re headed anyway.”

“Why are you going there?” she asks.

“Because Castle Synti is the last place Louhi would think to find us. Besides, she’s taken over my home. It’s only fair I take over hers.”

“I see your logic,” she says. “It’s petty. I like it.” She places her sword in her other hand. “Lead the way, Daughter of Death.”

I nearly tell her she should be the one leading us, but from the steadfast gleam in her eyes, I swallow down my humility and fear and nod.

I start walking again, flanked by Vellamo, the Forest Gods behind us, then Rasmus and the Magician. We march for what seems like forever, past strands of forest, where Tapio communicates with the undead deer who tell us they haven’t seen any Old Gods ahead. We go through more thickets of bushes, stopping to snack on the plump, frozen berries to gain enough energy to continue. Rasmus seems to need the sustenance most of all, as the only one of us who is completely mortal. He might have my mother’s demon blood, but it doesn’t do him much good.

After that, we continue until the bushes fade to straggly sticks, their leaves, berries, and bark stripped by hungry reindeer, which we pass along with grouse and a curious fox or two, who poke their heads out of their burrow in the snow, and then after a while, it’s just the frozen void, a landscape of undulating snow and ice.

Until it abruptly ends at the top of a ridge that gently slopes down toward the Star Swamp.

“There she is,” I say under my breath. Before us is a frozen wasteland, a bog pockmarked with black holes. Usually, you can see the stars shining in them, similar to the Magician’s face, but they’ve been covered with snow. The only way you know the pools are there is because of the way they indent the landscape.

“Strange,” Vellamo says. “I’ve never seen them frozen over.”

She’s right. I haven’t seen them like this before either.

Rasmus sniffs the air. “There’s magic being used. I can smell it. There’s a spell keeping the pools frozen.”

“But why?” Tellervo asks.

“So we can cross safely,” the Magician tells us. “So others can’t fall into Oblivion.”

I glance at him, feeling hope for the first time. “You mean to tell me someone is trying to protect us?”

“Us, or perhaps just themselves,” he says with a shrug. “Either way, this is a good sign. Maybe we’ll find our allies at Castle Synti in the end.”

I stare at him for a moment, wishing I could read him better. There’s something about his way that makes me think there’s something wonderful ahead. I guess I’m just too cynical at this point to believe him.

I keep my hope in check. “Well, let’s hurry then before the magic gives out. Everyone, stay away from the pools, just in case. I don’t want to test the theory if we don’t have to.”

We hurry down the slope and then walk single file, picking our way between the pools, the bog mercifully hard beneath our feet. All of us feel the urgency now, the need to keep going as fast as we can, until, eventually, the icy facade of Castle Synti rises into view atop a small crest.

At first, I think the place is completely abandoned, but as we get closer, I see movement in the snow. As my eyes adjust, I realize I’m looking at people—hundreds of people, humans, dressed in puffy white-and-black uniforms.

With guns.

“What the fuck?” Rasmus says. “Who the hell are they?”

And that’s when I see someone march out of the front doors and stop at the end of the platform, an extremely tall, commanding figure dressed all in black.

My father.

The God of Death.