Dazed, Silla glanced about, taking in the enormous radius around her and Atli. The trail was blocked in all directions, but not asolitary boulder remained within five paces of them. And the once-sheer rock face now cratered inward.
“How did you do it?” Atli asked, staring at Silla in astonishment.
Stunned, she fell onto her arse and hugged her knees to her chest. She wanted to scream in delight. Wanted to share in this miraculous breakthrough with Rey. But he was not here, and so she grinned at Atli and said, “I don’t know.”
As Silla’s disbelief slowly faded, beneath it, she began to sense somethingother.Dark curiosity slithered through her veins as Myrkur uncurled from the base of her spine. The god of chaos was suddenly fully alert.
Yes, Eisa,the dark god purred.How did you do that?
Silla closed her eyes. Tried to will the god away. But lingering fear clung to her muscles and bones, making it impossible to shake Him free completely.
“My fear,” she forced out, to Atli. “It must have helped prime me…helped me pull the halda’s power…”
Do it again, Eisa,begged Myrkur, His keen interest spiraling through her veins.Let me taste this curious power.
Silla had not felt the god’s presence so strongly since that day in Fallgerd’s home. Unease built as Myrkur’s emotions entwined with her own. Sheneededthis bloodline power. Needed to understand it. Needed toownit.
And then she would make every being in this realm bend the knee.
Get out of my head,Silla forced toward Him.
He only laughed.Let me play with this power, and perhaps I’ll consider it.
But Silla was not the same girl she’d been in Svangormr Pass—she now understood the consequences of handing her power over to Myrkur.Never,she told him.
His laughter rattled her spine and sent fear spiking through her.We shall see,He said, before setting to prodding and scratching at the corners of her mind. Silla braced against the unnatural feel;tried to fortify her mental defenses to keep Him out. But as voices reached her from beyond the crater, her focus shifted outward.
“Over here!” someone called.
Heads popped up from above—Runný. Kálf. Several members of Atli’s retinue.
“They’re all right!” someone shouted.
“The horses?” called Atli.
“Safe!” Runný said, grinning wide. “Everyone is accounted for.”
Relief coursed through Silla’s veins as reality settled in. That could have easily gone another way—they could have been buried beneath tons of rocks, every one of them dead.
But they’d survived.
And better than that, she was certain she’d just wielded her bloodline gift.
Chapter 25
The Western Woods
Hekla was growing used to the scrape of prickles down her spine and the crawling sensations beneath her skin. In the Western Woods, it felt like the trees had eyes and the forest had a pulse. The sickness of the trees and the dead underbrush only added to the eerie feel. Yet on their group walked, for days upon days.
After their battle with the mist and its Turned beasts, Rey’s excitement about returning to Kopa was a palpable thing. And when he’d handed leadership to Hekla, the moment had felt strangely weighted—like he was handing over more than just the mission.
Now it had been several days since Rey had departed, and Hekla was still shaken from their encounter with the wolfspider. For years, she hadn’t let her discomfort with spiders keep her from doing her job. But the sheer size of that spider paired with the sound of its voice inside her skull had thoroughly flustered her. She could not afford to let it do so again.
Instead, she refocused her thoughts on the task ahead of them. Mad though it sounded, she could feel energy gathering in the forest, like the culmination of a great storm. It was too much to consider all the moving pieces at once, and so she fixed on what was directly ahead of them: a trek across the Western Woods to reach the dormant half of the Forest Maiden.
As the days wore on, Hekla grew convinced that the stories Rey had told her of the Forest Maiden were true. It was undeniable that she exerted some magic on the forest—they traveled far more quickly than what was natural, as though the woods folded in on themselves. This skill of the Forest Maiden’s was rather helpful, with the caveat that it drained her.
The Forest Maiden spent most of her time slumbering in a small sling that Thrand Long Sword insisted on carrying around his neck. His strange devotion had Hekla wondering if the Maiden had Thrand under her thrall—he did seem the kind of man to be seduced and led to an untimely death.
