52

Aina

“We’re so close,” I pant, straining towards the river’s far edge. An echo of magic still surges through me, making me shiver along with the cold. “Siiri, we can still make it.” I hold tight to her hand, pulling her to the other side of the narrow rock island. “Come on, we can make it—”

“Aina, wait. Listen.”

From deep in the shadows of Tuonela, an ominous sound begins to grow. All the fine hairs on my neck rise. It’s a rattling, humming, roaring sound. “Siiri...” I reach for her hand. “What’s happening?”

“Surma has summoned our doom,” she says, her voice flat.

“Our doom?”

The roaring grows louder by the second—screeching metal, groaning wood, the pounding of hammer to anvil, the awesome roar of a crashing waterfall. All around us, the black water laps higher, threatening to swallow our little rock island and us with it.

“You remember the songs of Lemmink?inen?” Siiri calls over the cacophony of the roar.

“Yes, but—the wave hits the water, surely,” I reply. “We are on land.”

“No, Aina look .” She points down with a tattooed hand.

The stone island on which we stand is jagged and grooved, as if the rock has been cut away in long, narrow slices, hacked by a great many blades.

“Ohgods.” I look up, meeting Siiri’s gaze. We both know what’s coming. It’s Tuonela’s last and greatest defense. The river swallows up all the swords and axes of the mighty who have fallen in battle, all the hunters’ iron-tipped arrows, even the sharp tips of sewing needles. The river takes them all and makes them into a wave of inescapable death. “It cut Lemmink?inen into a thousand pieces,” I shout over the din. “His mother had to sew his body back together.”

Siiri presses her forehead to mine. “I’m sorry—Aina, I’m so sorry. I tried. Gods know I tried, and I failed you again. I did everything—”

“It’s all right.”

“I failed you,” Siiri says again.

I try to block out the crashing wave. “Siiri, look at me,” I say, cupping her face. “Look at me!”

Slowly, Siiri lifts her chin.

“Look in my eyes.” My gaze is steady and clear, for I have no more tears to shed for Tuonela. The goddess of righteous death wants to keep fighting. She wants to burn the metal in that wave to ash. Whatever magic remains in me, I will use it. I will keep fighting.

The wave bears down on our little island, surging taller than the tallest tree. “Don’t look at the wave, look at me,” I command, cupping Siiri’s face with both hands, pulling her closer. “Look only at me now. It’s only us two here. It’s always been us. It’s always been you .”

She wraps her tattooed hands around my wrists, holding me fast.

“Together in the end,” I shout. “There is no Aina without Siiri. Go, and I will follow.”

She nods, pressing her forehead to mine once more. “Go, and I will follow.”

My last words bloom in my chest, bringing me no small amount of peace. I speak them into this moment of our shared death. “I love you, Siiri.”

She melts against me. “Oh, Aina. Gods hear me, I love you.”

Just as the wave peaks, a blinding flash of light sends both of us reeling. I scream, throat burning, as we’re blasted apart by the heat. Rolling to my side, I push up shakily to my knees. The jagged rock cuts into me, but I don’t care. I stare up in awe. A massive wall of flame has just appeared in the dark sky. It snakes around our island, cutting us off from the wave’s promise of crushing death.

Siiri scrambles to her feet, her freckled cheeks blooming pink with the heat of the fiery wall as she turns to me, wide-eyed. “Is this more of your magic?” she calls out, her voice nearly swallowed by the roar of the flames.

If it is, I don’t know how I’m doing it.

“Oh gods,” Siiri cries. “Aina!”

I follow the point of her outstretched hand again, tracing the fire to its source. There, at the black water’s edge, stands the god of death.