rustling in the late evening wind, shadows dancing everywhere under the faint glow coming from above. The Black Heights had never looked so beautiful, even though they weren’t our Black Heights. This strange familiarity would keep getting to me, I realized. This idea that I was home, but not really home. I’d never tried to imagine hell before, but I could easily envision it now. It was this place, a beautiful lie filled with people who were desperate to see me dead. Yet it was also where I had pushed myself beyond known limits... and it was where I’d met Brandon—a secret I was eager to untangle and understand.
“Fair enough,” the Berserker sighed. “Just know that you’re in over your heads, even with Myst and me by your side. It’s not enough. It will never be enough. They’ve got at least a dozen of my brothers working for them, and Haldor isn’t even the worst of them. You wouldn’t survive an onslaught from all twelve.”
“Maybe you could teach us,” I suggested. “Or help us more.”
Brandon gave me a long, intense look. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but it made my stomach flutter. “I cannot promise anything. Not until I get Hammer back.”
“Okay. Let us help you with that,” I replied. “Do you know where they’re keeping him?”
“No.”
“Do you have a way of finding out?”
“No.”
Thayen scoffed, shaking his head slowly. “Don’t bother, Astra. I wouldn’t count on him if I were you. He has burned us once already. He could do it again.”
“I probably will,” Brandon replied. “But for now, I will assist however I can. Just understand that there are limits to what I can do.”
Unfortunately, that was as much as I’d get out of him for the time being. He unsettled me in ways I’d never experienced before. I kept trying to imagine what the absence of Hammer was doing to him. If I replaced Hammer with my mother, then the pain and the longing was too real, too much to bear. Maybe that was exactly how Brandon felt being separated from Hammer. If so, then I’d have to cut him some slack. “Can you tell us more about the Aesir?” I asked. “About your connection?”
“I believe I’ve already explained what they are,” he said.
“The spirits of animals that have crossed over,” Thayen replied. “Yeah. I get that part.”
That explanation wasn’t enough for me, though. “How is the connection made between you?” I asked. “How does it make you feel when Hammer isn’t around?”
Brandon’s fiery blue gaze darkened to a shade of indigo disrupted by white sparks. “It’s like a piece of me has been cut out and taken away. Once a Berserker bonds with his Aesir, that connection is unbreakable for all of eternity. If the Aesir is destroyed, it renders the Berserker meaningless. My existence will no longer matter if something happens to Hammer, which is why I’m doing my best to keep him safe while also stopping those doppelganger bastards from killing you.”
Thayen turned to face him. “What are they after? The clones, I mean. What’s their endgame?”
“You might find it hard to believe, but I actually don’t know,” Brandon replied. “I’ve scouted for them. I’ve done work both for them and for HQ, but I am not privy to that information. They’re shockingly well organized. Information is kept on a need-to-know basis only.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I observed the big, dark opening of the cave. Deep beyond that blackness, my mother and friends were sleeping, recovering from a difficult day. I needed them rested, and they needed me with a clear head. Fortunately, having my mother back had come with a sense of newfound clarity. My mind and heart felt lighter, though the latter had an annoying tendency to beat faster in Brandon’s presence.
For my mother and friends’ sake, however, I would keep pushing and find a way for us to move forward. That meant getting Brandon to tell us more, or to at least commit to helping us with our next mission. We would need his support in our attempt to get Isabelle, Voss, and Chantal back.
“They took Isabelle about two months ago,” I said. “Do you know anything about that? Or why her, specifically?”
Brandon shifted uncomfortably, his brow furrowed as he avoided looking me in the eyes. “I’m the one who took her.”
Thayen shot to his feet. “What?!”
“Hold on. Take a deep breath,” Brandon said, raising his hands in a defensive gesture. “It was an order from HQ. They said