Solveig faced them and gave her own salute, lowering to her knee and bowing. A vow grew in her heart—she would not let them languish here. She would tear apart Hel itself and create a new underworld if she had to.
She would become queen of this dark place if that was what it took to right this wrong.
Full of resolve, Solveig took off at a run down the gravelly hill.
The temperature dropped, and her breath came out in puffs of smoke that hovered around her head, joining the mists. She had no recollection of this place, though that wasn’t saying much.
Her last visit to Hel had been to put her father there—not even Ragnvald had known of their visit. When they had completed their mission, they did not linger to sightsee.
The descent became steeper, and she stumbled in her hurried pace, trying to keep up with the fall of gravity as she raced towards Westley.
Everything around her was tenebrous, creating an eerie sense of somethingother. Shadows swirled around her, reaching out through the mist.
Her vision became distorted as fog began to coat her skin, beckoning her deeper into the pits of Hel. Where was this place? She still couldn’t feel her bond or his presence but knew in her soul he was down there, alive.
He had to be alive.
She reached the bottom abruptly, her feet hitting ice-cold water. Fog had blocked her vision most of the way down, but the second her feet touched the surface, the mist evaporated like smoke on the wind.
The air was damp and cold, chilling her from the inside out. When the last tendril of mist was gone, she saw Westley curled into a ball on his side. He lay on a dry patch of land in the middle of this lake, and she knew it instantly from the myths of old.
Nastrond. The lake of suffering reserved for oath-breakers and murderers.
And Westley was in the centre of it, writhing in pain.
Westleywasengulfedinunbearable pain. Pain he was intimately familiar with, because these screams still haunted his nightmares.
The water taunted him, so close but so out of reach, haunting his powerless body. His parched throat screamed, but that was the least of the pain. He felt every lash Solveig had taken from Booth.
Every burn, every slice, every strike her body had endured was now unleashed on him.
There was no way out of this godsforsaken place, but he deserved it. He deserved to feel it. Though he’d witnessed it, he never truly understood what she went through until now.
The sting of the dagger—her dagger—as Booth dragged it down her face, her bones snapping, skin shredding. Over and over again without reprieve he experienced them all, lying on his side, tears running down his face.
He drowned in this eternity of pain until a whisper on the wind reached him—even in his agony, he would know that voice.
What fresh Hel was this?
Enduring her pain hadn’t been enough? Now he had to listen to her voice as well? He couldn’t do it.
“West.” His name reached him again, soft like the rustle of sheets in the night. It was another form of torture, because he didn’t deserve it. Didn’t deserve her.
Again and again, his name called out to him from her lips. He settled into the sound and let it ground him as he suffered wave after wave of pain.
“Westley Erikson, turn over and look at me, you fucking stubborn prince,” the voice barked. That was strange, usually she was nicer in his dreams.
“So help me goddess, if you do not turn over right now, I will die just so I can haunt your every waking moment.”
She already haunted his every waking moment, but he smiled anyway. Unable to resist any demand from her, he struggled to turn over.
Wait.
She wasn’t dead?
His eyes sprung open, and there she was, standing like a rising sun against the bleak backdrop of Hel. He watched for the shimmer, for a ripple of shadow, anything to show she was dead.
But she stood solid, glaring in his favourite way.
