be on board with this plan of yours.”
“For now, I will tell you which direction to go,” he said mildly.
I arched an eyebrow at him. “You don’t trust that I won’t leave you behind if you tell me now? Really? Didn’t you prophesize a whole thing about me saving the world? You’d think that would make me, ya know, pretty trustworthy.”
He gave me a small smile. “You might be surprised how many heroes touched by Fate are scoundrels at heart. The Norns care little for a person’s character when they weave their threads, only the end goal. Now let us get going. You have a world to save, after all.”
Four
Grim
Huldra blood still dripped from my knives as I breeched the clearing where we’d found Mimir. Normally I’d have taken the time to care for my weapons, but the second my blade had plunged into the monster’s heart and the adrenaline of battle eased, a sense of urgency that still hadn’t released its hold gripped my lungs and pulled me back. Back to Annabel.
I quickly took in the space, prepared to sling my magic out if something had crept up on the omega while I was away—but nothing but gray grass met my eyes. Gray grass and an empty tree stump where Mimir should have been.
Despite the urgency still clawing at my lungs, I lowered my weapons with a curse. I knew exactly what had happened. No beast had taken the prophet, nor savaged the omega I’d ordered to stay put. She’d simply… left.
“Curse that woman,” I growled into the silence. She may have hated me for what I’d done, but I had hoped she would be smart enough to realize that she needed to stay close unless she wanted to experience much, much worse parts of Hel.
But apparently not.
Despite Saga, Modi, and Magni doing their best to tame the willful omega, it would seem they’d all failed spectacularly, like I’d always known they would. And the result? The result was that I got to hunt a girl capable of bearing life through the Realm of Death. Hopefully I’d find her before she was raped or torn to pieces.
The way Saga and Magni had been acting while she was off finding Loki, I very much doubted my brothers would survive it if she got herself hurt in this place. And if they died…?
Teeth clenched, I jogged off in the direction the pull from her called.
I’d moved through the forest for nearly an hour when an unmistakable roar rang through the trees.
“Odin’s beard,” I hissed just as bright light flashed between the tree trunks a few hundred yards up ahead. Another roar, angrier this time, had me sprinting toward where Annabel’s unmistakable magic ripped through the forest once again.
I arrived at the flat-bedded creek just in time to see Annabel standing in ankle-deep water as she lifted her right hand to fire another blast of magic into the body of a humongous troll on the other bank. Mimir’s head was tucked tight underneath her left arm.
The monster bellowed as her power struck his already singed chest, making the smoldering bald patch around his nipple wider. His face contracted in fury as he patted at the embers in his fur, froth dripping from his tusks.
“Dammit! Why isn’t this working?” Annabel’s voice was shrill with fear.
“Because troll skin is impenetrable to magic, you ignorant fool,” I growled, leaping forward just as the troll lunged off the bank toward the omega. My dark magic wrapped tight around its enormous body, yanking it off its trajectory and into the creek. The forest shuddered around us as it landed with a thud and a splash that sent a good amount of water cascading over both banks. It soaked me, but I didn’t pay the wetness of my clothes any mind; my focus was purely on the troll.
Abandoning one dagger, I clutched both hands around the handle of the remaining one and used all my strength and the weight of my body to thrust it between the troll’s ribs. But just as I impacted, the monster jerked and my blade dug into bone.
The troll roared, its pain granting it enough strength to shake free of my magic’s hold. Before I could reorient, a hand the size of a small boulder struck me in the side. I heard a distinct crack, followed by a lancing pain that seemed to bloom all the way through my left side. I stumbled on the slippery river rocks with a groaned curse.
The troll