bondage.”
“No,” said the shade. “If we release her, what will prevent you from simply reneging on your offer?”
He might be dead, but he wasn’t stupid.
My mind raced as I frantically tried to piece together how to fix this. I wished I’d never brought her here. “I will take her place in Hel.”
“You are already dead.”
I pointed to Ali’s unconscious form. “She is only a Night Elf, while I am so much more than that. Once I have Levateinn in my possession, I’ll become a mortal god. I will be able to raise Hela and bring down the walls that surround your kingdom.”
Lies, of course.
I was worried I was laying it on a little thick, but all the shades watched intently, their eyes glowing with excitement. This was what they wanted, and their desire clouded their judgment.
I raised my palm to my mouth, biting into the skin so it broke. Then I squeezed it hard, and hot, steaming ichor dripped on the floor. “There is my oblation. When I succeed in securing Loki’s wand, my bondage will be complete. My soul will be yours until Hela is raised. Is that good enough?”
All the shades spoke in unison. “Yes.”
Chapter 46
Ali
I opened my eyes, and my head throbbed.
Marroc crouched over me, his blue eyes flickering. He looked worried. “Are you okay?”
I sat up, rubbing my temples. But the problem wasn’t my body. The problem was that I’d failed.
I felt like my ribs were hollowed out with sadness. So much for the North Star nonsense. All this time, I had thought that what I needed to do was kill Galin. That if the sorcerer was dead, the Night Elves would go free. Turned out, he was already dead, and my people were still stuck in the disease-ridden caves. Why had Marroc seemed so certain I needed to come here and get the ring? And why had the Shadow Lords sent me after it, for that matter?
The shades always told the truth, and they’d told me my mission had been a complete waste. That I’d failed.
The disappointment pierced me. “They said Galin is dead. That means there was no point to any of this. The whole purpose of getting the ring was so I could find him and kill him. I didn’t know how the ring would lead to him, but it seems it would never work anyway.”
The shades hovered around us, quiet but watching intently. It almost seemed as though they enjoyed my suffering, which made me even angrier. Marroc leaned close and whispered in my ear. “I can bring him back to life, and he can tell you how to lift the curse himself.”
A chill rippled over my skin. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Once we steal Loki’s wand, I will be able to raise the dead—Galin included. And you will get what your heart has always desired, Ali.”
Now that he could speak, I could hear the sensual timbre of his voice, and the little hint of sharp steel underneath it. His physical beauty was distracting enough. But his voice? That was a whole new matter altogether.
“You always seem very certain of yourself,” I said. “Too certain.”
“I have had hundreds of years to think this over before I even met you,” he murmured. “The wand can raise the dead. Is that not the purpose of this mission? Raising the dead? Me included.”
I turned to the shades. “Is that true? Can he raise Galin?”
“The lich speaks truth,” said the shade softly. “If you help him, Galin can be raised. We can all get what we want.”
So, he was speaking the truth.
But I knew there was a lot he wasn’t telling me. Even if he now had the power of speech.
The shades kept close to us all the way from Hela’s tomb, leading us through mud and darkness, across fields of black muck shrouded in mist, until finally they stopped at a massive sinkhole.
It reminded me a bit of a children’s toy—the one with the plastic funnel and marbles that circle until they fall through the hole in the bottom. Only here, the marbles had been replaced by black sludge, and the hole at the bottom smelled of death.
A sinkhole we had to enter.
“The entrance to the Nastrand,” the lead shade whispered.
The specter immediately started downward, gliding over the path. We moved more slowly. The sides of the sinkhole were so slick and so steep that one slip would send us sliding all the way to the bottom.
We trod carefully, avoiding the heaviest streams of muck and