My eyesight immediately sharpens, and I’m aware of the luminous glow emanating from our skin. Gallium’s eyes are now alternating between shades of blue and green and even purple. The same way my own eyes must be shining with power.
Gallium and I both inherited our mother’s silver hair and took the name of her House, as was our peoples’ custom. Although we inherited our father’s pale-green eyes, the way our eye color changes when we have access to our power seems to be unique to us—and Asha. Her eyes do the same.
An impossible calm fills me. A control that I was barely clinging to before now comes easily.
I reach for my medallions next. Each toolbox contains three of them. They’re strips of metal about an inch wide and five inches long.
They can be transformed instantly into weapons. Our parents wore their medallions on their biceps or forearms or even as jewelry. But always, the medallions were in contact with their skin. Once we put the medallions away from our bodies, they become dormant.
To wake them, we must tap them with our hammers.
I do that softly now, listening to the gorgeous chime each one makes as it wakes up. Followed by the melody of Gallium’s medallions also waking up.
He positions his medallions onto his left forearm, one above the other, before rolling his sleeve back down.
I do the same.
Then we slip our hammers into the inner pockets of our fur coats. They’re a little lumpy, but it will have to do.
Of course, now we will both have to work hard to constrain and conceal the mental and physical strength that our tools give us.
My eyesight is enhanced, and so is my hearing. Along with the whisper of the breeze in the distance, I’m finally able to make out the sides of the corridor we’re passing through.
Now I can see what Thaden was looking at.
This is no ordinary path.
Chapter 4
Runes are carved in the walls in a snaking line all the way along the corridor as far as I can see.
My voice is breathless. “What is this place?”
Even Gallium looks surprised, but then, the runes weren’t visible from the entrance, and I’m not sure exactly when the carvings started.
“These are Einherjar runes,” Thaden says, moving closer to my side and reaching past my shoulder to point to the particularly ornate carvings on the wall directly beside me.
The scent of his fiery skin fills my chest, seeming stronger than before as he brushes his fingertips across the runes.
“Einherjar?” I ask carefully, glancing at Gallium, but he shakes his head. He hasn’t heard that word before, either.
“They are a brutal people who now live in the far north,” Thaden says softly. “They believe in the gods—in titans and Valkyries and jotnar.”
“Jotnar?” I ask.
“Plural for the jotunn.” Thaden gives me a smile that speaks to danger. “Giants of ice and fire and rock.”
He releases me from his gaze to press his palm fully against the next rune before running his fingertips lightly across the ones beside it. “The Vandawolf was born into an Einherjar clan.”
My eyes fly wide. “What?”
Thaden glances at me, nodding before returning his attention to the wall. “When Milena was torturing me, she told me what she knew of him. She met his father—and him—when he was a small child. He had a younger brother. They lived high in the mountains to the west of the Cursed City, hidden from the Blacksmiths and other humans. Somehow, Malak must have found out about them. She didn’t know how.”
Thaden’s hand flexes against the wall before he takes a sharp breath and steps back, swiftly changing the subject. “According to the story inscribed on this wall, this corridor belonged to a god: the World Serpent.” He trails his hand along the runes, seeming to read as he goes. “The World Serpent unfolded from around the world, descended from what was calledthe Earth Sea—that’s the sky—and chose this place to hibernate and transform. When it awoke, it emerged from this cocoon in the form of a human male whose power was inked into his body in the shapes of black serpents.”
Thaden reaches the end of that line of runes and then turns to arch an eyebrow at me. “If you can believe it.”
I purse my lips. “You can read their runes.”
