don’t sense a soul in you.”
Slowly, her head turned so that a massive yellow eye fixed on me. A long pink tongue, thick as a tree trunk, flicked out. “But I smell warm flesh. You have brought me a living elf?”
“I have,” I said slowly, my entire body tensing.
“I haven’t tasted fresh blood since Loki and Thor last sailed these waters. I accept your offering.”
“The elf is not an offering.”
Nidhogg’s tongue flicked out again, and a deep hiss shook the boat. “She is not? Why bring her to me, then?”
“She’s a warrior, and she is helping me on my journey.”
Another hiss, followed by another. The Naglfar tossed and bounced. It took me a moment to realize the wyrm was laughing.
“A lich has help from another? A compatriot? No, no. Do not think I am so gullible. A lich serves only himself. A lich does nothing without a purpose for himself. If you told me she was your mistress, I might believe you.”
The wyrm drew in another great breath. Her giant yellow eye remained fixed on me, glistening with red seawater.
“Oh, I see.” She breathed out in a low hiss. “I see now. That’s a complicated position you’ve found yourself in, isn’t it, lich?”
“What is she talking about?” whispered Ali.
I shrugged, pretending that I didn’t know, though I was pretty sure the beast had sensed the pair of souls within Ali.
My voice boomed over the sea as I said, “I am here for the wand.”
The serpent paused. Her yellow eye studied me. “The wand?”
“Loki’s wand, the Levateinn. You have it.”
Slowly, the giant wyrm’s head moved. “I have no such thing. I defeated Loki nearly a thousand years ago. The god is long dead.”
“That’s not possible,” I said. The spell I’d conducted had been very clear. The wyrm had the wand. There was nowhere else it could be.
Nidhogg gave a great, thundering laugh. “I remember it like it was yesterday. Loki, the fool, tried to fight me. He lost, of course. Not even a god is a match for me. I ate him in one bite.” Her head moved closer, her shadow once again falling over the bow of the ship. “Give me the elf now. My stomach churns with hunger. I haven’t had fresh meat in a thousand years.”
Doubt flickered within me. Had my spell, the one through which I’d divined this was where the wand was, been wrong?
I’d never been wrong before.
“No,” I said. “My magic was—”
But before I could finish speaking, the beast struck. The hull shattered beneath my feet as the serpent’s jaw tore through it. Pain erupted in my stomach, and I looked down to see a venomous fang protruding from the center of my gut.
Chapter 52
Ali
For an impossibly long moment, which couldn’t have been much more than a second or two, Marroc struggled in Nidhogg’s maw. Then the wyrm’s jaws slammed shut, and Marroc and half of the Naglfar disappeared into its mouth.
I screamed as a wave slammed into me. I slid toward the sanguineous sea, fingers scraping along the hull. For a moment my mind was blank with panic before I remembered Skalei.
With a shout, I called the blade to me, then drove it into the side of the boat. The dagger punched through the hull and, like a mountain climber’s axe, arrested my descent.
I looked around. The front half of the boat was missing, and the stern, where I hung, was slowly lifting into the air. Beneath my feet, red seawater bubbled and churned as the ship sank.
The wyrm’s voice boomed from somewhere in the darkness. “Where are you, elf?”
I clung to the hilt of the dagger, hardly daring to breathe. I peered over my shoulder. I couldn’t see Nidhogg’s head anymore, but the sea writhed with her massive coils.
I tried to think of a plan. A way out. But all I could think of was Marroc. I’d just seen him impaled and devoured, and I wanted to cry. Surely that would kill even a lich.
My heart ached, and the boat shuddered, sinking fast. There wasn’t time to think about Marroc. I needed a plan. A life raft.
The boat lurched. The sea of blood rushed up until it was only inches from my feet.
“There you are,” said Nidhogg.
The wyrm’s massive head hovered over me. Her tongue flicked out, nearly a meter in diameter and split at the end like a snake’s.
“What do you want?” I cried out.
“You. Two souls for the price of one.” The serpent’s tongue brushed my cheek, slimy and cold.
I yanked