30. Eivind

30

EIVIND

T ime passed. I lay on my back watching the sky turn pink, lavender, and then deeper indigo. Stars twinkled in the darkening sky. No moon tonight. That seemed most appropriate.

I couldn't even bring myself to worry about being so close to the Isador nest. Whether they'd seen the wolf king brought so low by his…

My mind flinched. Shattered. Stabbed with a million shards of broken glass.

She's not my queen. Not now. Not ever.

Every muscle ached with strain as if someone had beaten me within an inch of my life and I'd run nonstop from coast to coast and back again. Ever so slowly, I sat up, my bones creaking.

A silver wolf sat a few feet away, silently watching me.

I tried to growl but it came out more like a cough. Or worse, a whimper. So I ignored him while I ran my hands over my chest and thighs, checking for injuries. Why did I hurt so fucking bad? "Come to gloat?"

"Not at all."

I jerked my head up and stared back into Xin's ghostly eyes.

"Your line's cursed, Ironheart. Fenrir will never rest until everything's destroyed."

Shuddering with dread, I dragged my gaze away. In the old myths, Fenrir ended up chained until Ragnar?k.

When he killed the gods and burned the world.

Though evidently I wasn't the one who needed to worry about burning the world. I stared at the black holes in my shirt. Blobs of gold glinted on the ground in the starlight. The grass around me was blackened. If I wasn't Aima, I might be dead after she'd blasted me with her rage.

I deserved it. I knew it. I'd fucked up, over and over and over. It was too late. I knew that too.

But what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

"I'm not descended from your line but I know enough Nordic mythology that I felt compelled to warn you," Xin said.

"Got it," I muttered, heaving myself up to my feet. Though I didn't walk away, looking around at the trees closing in, unseeing. Unfeeling. Once the forest had called me to slip through the reverent, dark spaces of wildness. A million scents whispering their secrets to me. Now, the woods were dead to me—even though everything was green and bursting with life.

"The wolf is trapped inside you," Xin said softly. "Eating you from the inside out. All you feed it is rage and hatred. When it bursts free, you may not recognize what you've become."

"It's not the wolf tearing me up, but the sunfire in my fucking shoulder," I retorted.

He tipped his head to the side, and I didn't like the shine in his eyes. As if he could see inside me like some kind of X-ray machine.

"Smoak agrees the sunfire is devouring you too."

Fucking Blood, talking about me behind my back. "Let me talk to her. She might know how to get the sunfire out of me by using hers."

A faint smile flickered over his lips but he shook his head. "Her duty to our queen prevents her from attending to your demands at this time." Then he frowned, his eyes laser focused on mine. "She says beware the trickster. Sunfires will destroy you before they allow you to harm their queen."

The trickster? That could only be Loki, the original sire of my cursed line. The god who'd possibly been behind my sister's abduction and imprisonment inside J?rmungandr. Lightly, I tapped on Helayna's bond again, though she hadn't responded to me before. She was too fucking busy setting up her new court now that she'd come into power to respond to me.

Bitterness howled mournfully deep inside me. How long had it taken me to make my way to our childhood home in Minnesota after she'd been released? How had I taken care of my house's precious queen, my own flesh and blood, missing for decades? Centuries? I wasn't even sure.

I'd left her to defend her nest with only three Blood fresh from Hvergelmir against a firestorm of sunfires desperate to reach their queen.

I'm alone in this miserable fucking world, and it's my own fucking fault.

"I'd never harm Karmen," I said aloud.

Xin's eyes narrowed. In a blink of my eyes, he shifted back into his silver wolf. Though I didn't know why his hackles rose down his back. He bared his teeth in silent warning. As if he knew I was a liar—when I didn't know myself.

"I would never betray a queen," I retorted, louder, fisting my hands at my sides. "Let alone Karmen."

Though a still, small voice whispered deep inside me. Will I?

He let out a sharp bark and then loped toward the Isador blood circle, disappearing from my view. At least he wasn't going to run me off like a rabid lone wolf encroaching on his territory.

Sighing, I turned in a slow circle, trying to feel a direction. A tug. A hint of where I should go. Karmen was gone, too far away for me to feel, though her Call still lingered like an itch in the middle of my back that I couldn't scratch. My sister pinged thousands of miles away in Iceland, still closed to me but not hiding her location. I could make my way to the coast. Find a boat.

For what purpose? Helayna couldn't help me.

The only person left who might—hard emphasis on might —speak to me was our father. I hadn't seen him in centuries. I'd been too disgusted to talk to the wolf who'd allowed my mother to keep him chained beneath the Ironheart cabin. But if anyone knew about the Fenrir curse on our line, it would be my sire, Narve Angroboda.

If he's still alive.

Clara, my sister's consiliarius, said she thought he might have gone north to Canada. As much as I despised him, I still had his scent in my memory. The wolf's senses were dull and distant, so I had to rely on my Aima nose instead. Still far better than a human's sense of smell. Once I got close enough, I should be able to pick up his trail.

Though it was going to take me fucking forever on foot. Especially from the middle of fucking Arkansas.

For a moment, I considered turning around and heading back to the Isador nest to ask for a ride somewhere. But the thought of asking anyone for help—let alone the know-it-all wolf—stuck in my craw like a shattered femur. I had two good legs to walk my ass out of these mountains. I'd steal a ride and make it back to the car I'd left at that fucking hotel.

This is your last hope, Wild Man. My inner monologue sounded annoyingly like Harris. One fucking step at a time.

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