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“Instead, you have a half mortal girl,” I say. “I know. It isn’t fair. It’s not fair in the slightest. I didn’t even think it was possible for anyone to die here while Tuoni was outside of the realm, but I am devastated to hear that’s not the case.”
“You thought no one could die here?”
“Because no one can die in the Upper World, so as long as he’s on that side.”
Her brows raise. “Oh,” she says, wiping her tears away with her thumb. “That might explain why I haven’t seen Lovia or Tuonen with the ferry. They usually cross the sea several times a day.”
“Have you seen them at all?”
She shakes her head. “No. I haven’t seen anyone, just these damn Bone Stragglers. I killed every one of them that crossed my path.”
“With your bare hands?”
She gives me a weak smile and pulls out a pearl knife from between her breasts, tucked away in her bodice. “Not quite.”
I slowly get to my feet, the cold starting to set in. Bell and Madra are at the water’s edge, elbows on the shore, watching and listening. I look around, but I can’t see where Ahto’s body would be.
“I didn’t want to burn him in case Tuoni could bring him back to life,” she says quietly, picking up on my thoughts. “I didn’t want to bury him in case he was raised like the Old Gods were. I tied rocks to his feet and brought him out to the middle of the sea. That’s the best place for him.”
I nod. I’m cold, soaking wet, and I have no idea what our next move is, but I feel I need to try and take some of that burden from Vellamo. She may be a goddess, but she is grieving her husband, which means I need to take the reins. We can’t just sit here forever.
“Did you want to have a service for him?” I ask her delicately.
She squints at me. “A service?”
“A funeral. A ritual. To say a few words.”
She shakes her head and slips her knife back into her bodice. “No. I have said words and will continue to say words each dayfor the rest of my life. If I see your husband again, perhaps then we will share our words with the rest of the family, but not now.” She straightens up, towering over me. I’m a tall girl myself, but her posture and stature puts her well over six feet. “Now, we must avenge him.”
I can’t help but grin at that. It might look a little maniacal.
“I was hoping you would say that,” I tell her with an appreciative nod. “Okay, so what do we need to do? Most importantly, if you killed the Old Gods, how were you able to do it?”
“It happened so fast,” she says, adjusting the crown on her head. A tiny sea cucumber pokes out from a crevice in the coral, then retreats. “My sea serpent ripped them all in half. That’s how we killed them.”
“Can your sea serpents come on land at all?”
“No, but there are things in this land that listen to us, to the New Gods. Things as powerful as a sea serpent.”
“Things like what?”
“Giants, for one.”
“Like Vippunen?”
She scoffs. “No. Much smaller, but still giants. They live in the deep moss pockets between the Star Swamp and the Hiisi Forest, along the coast of the Outer Sea. They keep to themselves, but they will rip apart anyone when provoked.”
“When provoked, or when asked to?”
She lifts her shoulder in a delicate shrug. “Guess we’ll find out.”
“What about us?” Bell asks from the water.
“What about you?” Vellamo says, crossing her arms. “If you think I’m going to take you with me, I don’t have any room left in my bodice.”
“But we have to be able to dosomething,” Bell says.
“Yeah,” Madra chimes in. “All my sisters of the sea want to help. Use us.”
