Page 71 of The Fanged One

What she truly sought. Easy. She had said it a hundred times since Otta. Find Loki. Stop the dark. Go home.

She opened her mouth to say it, and her wolf got there first.

Him, the wolf said, loud and certain. We seek him. Say it. Say HIM.

Linnea's teeth clamped shut because the truth deep down wasn't about Loki and the end of the world. It was the wolf-god at her back, the one whose hand she kept reaching for. The Loki bit was true as well, but not in the same way

"To find Loki," she said, her voice cracking. "And to get…home."

The bridge didn't sing, but it held under her feet. The gold wood took her weight with a low, strained groan. For one long, sick second, she was certain it had heard the gap between what she said and what she meant, and it was going to drop her ass into the rapids for it.

Linnea picked up her pace, her heart slamming, and she didn't let one flicker of fear pass over her face. She had a lifetime of practice at masking, and now it had been useful for something.

Tor's hand closed around her arm the moment she was over, his eyes full of fear. "What the fuck was that?"

She gave him a confused shrug. "Don't know. Maybe I should have said, 'A cheeseburger' instead." They didn't laugh but didn't push her either.

Fenris stood alone at the foot of the bridge. Across all that dark and noise, Modgud's voice carried to them.

"And you, fanged one? What do you want most?"

Fenris looked across the span, past Modgud entirely, to Linnea. His eyes found and held her gaze the way he had on a forest path the first night, when she had been certain he meant to eat her, everything in him gone quiet and watchful.

"The end of the dark," Fenris said at last.

The bridge didn't sing for him either. It held the same low groan it had given Linnea as he crossed at an unhurried walk.

Linnea only started breathing again when Fenris stepped off the bridge onto solid stone. She closed the last of the ground between them and put her arms around him, her face against his chest, and held on. His arms came around her at once, one big hand spread between her shoulder blades.

"You made it," she said into his coat, which was a stupid thing to say.

"So did you," he said softly against the top of her head.

You are both liars, her wolf snarled angrily. Linnea only held onto him tighter.

Somewhere past the dead trees, the next trial was already waiting, and Linnea doubted it would ask them for only words.

35

Linnea kept her grip on Fenris long after the bridge and its guardian had disappeared behind them. His hand around hers was the one solid thing in a country built to take you apart and wear you down. She didn't know why the bridge had struggled to hold Fenris and was too afraid to ask him. He didn't ask about hers, and neither did anyone else. Niflheim was wearing them all down, so they walked in almost silence.

The smell of wood smoke finally knocked Linnea out of her own head. It was a scent that meant food and people, and it was so wrong in this place that her boots slowed in the dirt.

"Do you guys smell that smoke, or am I stroking out?" she asked.

"It's definitely there," Ciara said, lifting her nose to the wind. "I wonder if it's another trap or a trial."

"Only one way to find out," Fenris replied and shared a look with Tor and Arne. They passed unspoken messages and shifted into a protective formation. Ciara rolled her eyes at them but didn't mention anything about overbearing alpha holes. Instead, she rested her hand on the hilt of her dagger, and Layla pulled her bow free. It made Linnea uneasy that she and Von were the only ones who needed protecting.

They are the brawn, and you guys are the brains, she reminded herself. Von certainly didn't seem to mind. They both had magic, but if this trip had taught Linnea anything it was that she needed to learn more battle spells.

They kept walking, following the smoke, and soon a hall appeared in a gap in the black pines

It was small, as halls went, low timber under a turf roof, a thread of smoke rising from the hole at its peak, and amber light leaking around the edges of an iron-banded door. After days of nothing but gray, the gold of the light was jarring in its brightness.

A wooden sign was hammered into the ground before the entrance, with words burned into it.

YOU MADE IT THIS FAR. WELL DONE, MORTALS. HAVE A NIGHT OFF.