Weaving Fate - Nora Ash Page 0,87

trust his words. He was the God of Mischief, or trickery and betrayal. But right then, as I looked at the absolute terror on his otherwise so divine features, I knew into the marrow of my bones that this time—this time he wasn’t acting.

He believed we were going to die.

Thirty-One

Modi

“Nidhug?” Annabel asked, butchering the word completely, yet removing none of the chill just the sound of that name caused. “You’ve mentioned him before, right? Who’s he again?”

“The Devourer,” Loki said, his face as pale as the fog surrounding us. “Your foolish mates are planning on bringing us directly into his maw.”

“I’m sorry, that’s really not an explanation,” she snapped. “Some of us aren’t all that well-versed in mythology.”

Loki turned to look at her. His eyes seemed dark as midnight as his gaze locked on her small form. “Perhaps that is the problem, human—you and your kind have forgotten what you once knew to be true. You have forsaken the old ways. Forsaken your old gods, your old fears.”

Annabel only blinked once, then turned to Bjarni. “Your dad is speaking in riddles. Could someone please tell me in plain English why this Nidhug is so bad the god of misery is shaking in his boots? What can possibly be worse than what we’ve already seen? Because I gotta tell you, that sea serpent we flew over on our way to America was kind of terrifying on an entirely new level.”

“Mischief,” Loki bit. “The God of Mischief.”

Bjarni ignored him. “Níðhöggr isn’t worse than Jörmungandr, per se. He is a monster that dwells underneath Yggdrasil, gnawing at its roots and feasting on the flesh of murderers, adulterers, and oath breakers. He is a great dragon, foretold to break free of his prison and fly across the worlds to herald Ragnarök. He is the embodiment of earthquakes, volcanos and destruction.

"And yes—we have to pass very close by the well he resides in to get to the portal. So long as he is asleep, we’ll be fine.”

Annabel swallowed thickly. “Oh. Great. Another well-dweller. At least it’s not like Ragnarök is already here and there’s every chance he’s awake and ready to rumble…”

“We do not have another choice,” I said, though I couldn’t fault the fear wavering in her voice. “It’s this portal, or nothing.”

I know,” she said, her lips flattening in a determined line. “We’ve survived so far. We’ll survive a little dragon-action, too.”

“Well. Hopefully there won’t be any dragon action,” Bjarni rumbled. He did not bother pointing out that any action involving an awake Níðhöggr would most definitely end in a gruesome death. And not for the dragon.

“You’re mad,” Loki hissed. “I’ve gone along with this nonsense so far, but enough is enough! I won’t end my life in the maws of Níðhöggr for this folly!”

Niflheim was quiet. I had only briefly accompanied my father here once when I was young, and the heavy press of the fog and chill of the air had stayed in my memories. But even then, it had not been this silent. In the absence of warmth and light, there had still been life, albeit hidden.

Hurried footfalls from the darkness, vermin and serpents slithering underfoot—we had even caught a glimpse of one of the mist-like Jotunns that inhabited this world, though it had disappeared the moment it saw us. Beasts had howled at night, sending goosebumps up my adolescent skin even as I had put on a brave front for my father. The world was cast in eeriness then as well, but it was still different now.

This time… there was nothing. Not a snake rattled the frozen grass, no beasts called out in the night. There was only deep, ominous silence and that ever-present mist clinging to our faces and threatening to cloy its way into our lungs for every breath.

Except from Loki’s muffled curses through the sock Bjarni had stuffed in his mouth when he grew tired of listening to his protests.

The journey was physically easier than the trek we had overcome in Midgard to reach the portal there. Despite the frozen ground underneath our feet, there was no snow to wade through and no heavy inclines either.

Yet as we made camp at the end of the second day, the mental drain was undeniable. I saw it in Bjarni’s drawn features and felt it in the tension in my bond to Annabel. She was stressed and anxious, the barbed hook in my chest aching worse than my own worry for the day ahead. If we had estimated correctly,