Please, don’t let us be too late.
We plunge through the waves. A torrent of saltwater soaks my face and leathers. It’s refreshing against my heated skin. The ride is smooth as the dragon propels us swiftly across the wide expanse of sea. Odessa clings to me from behind.
“If your mother could see this,” she scoffs. A twinge of sorrow and happiness blending together in her words.
The dull ache loosens its grip on my chest. But I get the feeling that pain was not my own.
The water becomes shallow and the sea dragon jerks to the side, stopping abruptly and nearly slinging us off. It idles, for a moment, giving us time to clamber back into the water. My boots and leathers are so waterlogged they hamper my movements as I swim and then trek across the shore.
I turn back, the dragon still lingers in the shadows.
“Thank you,” I whisper, raising a hand above my head in farewell.
It disappears back under the water and doesn’t resurface.
We stride across the shore to a door cut roughly into the same stone that makes up the castle.
“Julius held me down here for a while,” she breathes, reaching for the door.
Silver scars on her arm catch the light. So many scars, in a variety of lengths. What horror she must have endured all those years. But she pushes open the door and strides through with her head held high.
Torches blaze along the walls of the circular room.
Five bodies lay upon five altars.
Odin, Danu, Tyr, Morrigan, and Badb.
They’re here.
The ceiling above the room glows with incandescent light. It ripples and swells in time with the rising and falling of their chests.
“How do we wake them?” she asks, peering at me.
I unstrap my axe from my back, peering at the manacles on their wrists and ankles.
They’re just the same as Luna’s had been.
“They should have a rune somewhere…” My voice trails away as I look closer.
On each of their brows, a sleeping rune has been marked.
Another stab of pain has me crumbling to the floor and clutching my chest. The air in my lungs burns as I groan, resting my head against the cold stone floor.
“Lena!” Odessa rushes to my side.
My breath comes out in desperate pants as I press a palm to my chest, needing the feel of the warm, familiar runes of my medallions.
“My friends.” My chest is a hollow gaping hole. “I think they’re dying.”
Sorrow lines her face as she pulls me to my feet. “We must hurry then.”
I instruct her on how we woke Luna up the last time. “Lach wiped the runes off and then she just woke up…”
Her face twists in horror. “What did they do to her?”
“I have no idea.” I shake my head and approach Odin’s side.
Using my thumb, I wipe a clear streak onto the rune marked on his forehead.
