I can’t help my smile.If he’s yelling, he can’t be dead.
She’s trying to save your very unworthy hide,Azar snaps.Just like the rest of us.You did just what they said—it’s your fault all these awful little buggers are being released into the world.Demented, fricasseed blessed, all of them trying to eat whatever they can find, including us.
They were calling for Gullveig,Hyperion says, groaning.Not me.
But he’s getting to his feet again, and Coral’s not quite as grey.
Liz only went in there to save you.You should be thanking her.Azar sounds ticked.
You need lessons in slicing,Hyperion says.That was the slowest, most agonizing way I have ever seen anyone cut anything.
“You felt that?”I shudder.“It was pretty bad.I’m sorry.”
Coral’s sitting up, thankfully, and she rubs her eyes and looks around.“Liz!”she shouts.“Your arm.”
It’s still blackened, which isn’t ideal.It does—mostly—work, so that’s promising.“It’s not my best look.”
I’m sorry about that.
Azar’s roasting a whole flock of flying vanir, but they’re starting to reroute.When they spring from the lava, they fly up and out, circumventing Azar and Asteria and the whole lot of them.
“They’re fleeing,” I say.
It’s a good thing,Azar says.I’m not sure why, but I’m terribly tired.
“The volcano does that to you.”I feel a little weak-kneed right now, too.
“How many are there?”Coral’s watching, wide-eyed, as they stream past in an almost never-ending line.
“Thousands,” I say.“Hundreds of thousands?I can’t tell.”
“We need to get out of here,” Coral says.“But we can barely move.”
“Australia,” I say, turning.“Hyperion, can you get there?Could you portal?”
He blinks, turning a little more and getting his feet underneath him.
There isn’t really room for him to stand, not under the shield Azar’s holding over us.I hate to remove it, but we’re going to have to, soon.I’m not sure how much longer Azar can hold it, for one, but for another, Hyperion definitely can’t portal through from inside this tiny area.
I think so,he says.But if their offer was a lie...if it’s a trap...
As weak as he is?They’d kill him for sure.It’s a gamble, but staying here feels like a war of attrition that we’ll lose.“What do you think?”I glance at Azar, still fighting all the straggling vanir who become distracted and break away.
I think it’s a rational risk.I’ll follow as soon as I can break away.
“I’m not leaving you,” I say.“No way.”
Azar looks at my arm and flinches.You’re injured.You’ll go now.
“I’ll stay by your side, with my shining rock, and my two earth-blessed swords, and you’ll stop arguing with me.”
He rolls his eyes, but he listens.Mostly.
Asteria, Jade, and a dozen other blessed go through with Hyperion as an honor guard of sorts, and it takes a solid half hour for Azar and me to break away from the fleeing vanir—and even then at least two hundred of them follow us back to Selfoss.Luckily, there are lots of angry blessed there willing to help us dispatch them.
It’s too bad we’re so tired.
It would be a great time to try and deal with all the vanir.After spending millennia trapped in a volcano, they’re at their weakest point, presumably.A few hundred earth dragons pursue the fleeing column, attacking, ripping, and rending the vanir as they flee, but there are too many of them.
