The path to the lake is littered with white stone—or things that look like white stone. I always look straight ahead, never to the right or to the left, so as not to acknowledge them. My breath comes out in small pants. I needed privacy for us, but I forgot how much it affected me, being here.
“Wait.” Rey stops in front of me and looks around. “Aric, these aren’t rocks. They’re—”
“Bones,” I finish for her. “We call it Hollowood. It’s where the majority of the fallen are buried or where the majority of the fallen…fell.”
She puts a hand on my arm. I jerk it back on instinct. “The Giants Odin killed.”
“Yep. You’re surrounded by them. Giants who never got a proper burial, frozen instead in the ground for an eternity. They gave their very bodies to this world, and nobody will ever know the sacrifice.”
“People rarely do in war,” Rey acknowledges. “I’m sorry. I know it means nothing, but I’m sorry.”
“One day, he’ll pay for his crimes.” I push lightly past her. “And if you’re standing by his side, no matter how much I like your smile, you will, too.”
Harsh, but then again, so is the reminder of the buried aroundme.
I brought her here to discuss our plans, but that goal feels secondary now, subdued by the charged energy of this place. We say nothing as we hike along progressively rockier terrain to the edge of the water, where it stretches like a sheet of black glass, as still as the stones rimming the path.
Rey pauses once we get there, staring out at the inky depths. I lean against a smooth, cool wall of black stone and watch her. “I really want to know why the common theme is water in all these places,” she says.
“Because water is life,” I reply. “It moves through everything. It carves mountains, shapes the earth, grinds even the strongest metals to dust.” I shrug. “The Gods feared the Giants for that very power, the power of the ice, water, life itself.”
She smiles up at me. “It makes sense.”
I like her like this.
Disarmed.
I want to trust her. And then I remember the bodies. Can anyone with Odin’s blood truly be trusted?
My mind goes back to Reeve’s texts.
The air feels cooler, damp with the mist of a small waterfall trickling down the rock beside me. The water spills into a narrow stream that runs beneath our feet before vanishing into the lake. Rey steps carefully across, running a hand through the spray as she presses her body up against the stone.
She lets out a gasp. “It’s beautiful here.”
“I think—” My voice cracks. “It’s as close to home as I’ll ever feel.”
She glances up at me then with such a look of understanding, of peace, that it takes my breath away.
And when the wind picks up, twirling her hair around her face, the scent of the earth, heady and strong, slams into me, along with the word.“Lie.”
In that moment, I don’t think. I reach out and take her hand.
She doesn’t look at me. We just stand there together. Hand in hand. And I think this may be the most perfect, peaceful moment of my entire life.
Until the moment is broken when heat slams into my palm. The cry coming from Rey tells me she must have felt it, too.
My gaze catches on a light shining from the rock in front of us, an unnatural glow emanating from the waterfall. My heart starts beating double-time as I move a little closer.
“What…what is that?” Rey asks, her voice quiet, reverent.
Carved into the slick rock, half hidden by the rushing water, glows a jagged rune.
Chapter Fifty
Rey
My pulse stutters, half from the way he’s looking at me, half because I already know this is likely to change everything. That moment just now was intense. New. I liked it…
