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“Tuoni,” she says in a warning voice. That’s not a good sign. That’s the first time she’s used my name in that tone before. “She’s your daughter. Let her live a little. Same goes for your son. Let him live a little, too. Wouldn’t he be a better addition here in Shadow’s End, working at your side as confidante and advisor, than out there on the boat?”
I almost laugh, but I remember Tuonen is in the castle and the last thing I want is to show him disrespect. “He doesn’t have the experience.”
“Then give him a chance to get it, in a few eons he will. Look, I wouldn’t be talking to you about this if she hadn’t confided in me, hadn’t asked me to talk to you. Maybe you can ask one of the other lesser Gods to do it. Or Goddesses. Or spirits. Someone like whatever the hell Kalma is. Someone who will want to do the job with the reverence it deserves.”
Hanna is so impassioned, her big brown eyes pleading with me, that I can’t help but be touched by her devotion to my daughter.
“You care about her greatly, don’t you?” I ask.
She nods. “I do. And I don’t want to overstep any boundaries or step on any toes. I know she’s not my daughter at all. But I care for her all the same. Just tell me you’ll think about it. Please.”
I give her a half-smile. “You know I like it when you say please.”
“There you are,” Tuonen’s voice calls out, preventing me from getting carried away with my wife.
I look over the railing and see my son coming up the stairs. He’s wearing black head-to-toe, lots of leather straps and iron accents. Like father, like son. The last time I saw him was when he was ferrying the almost nude women to the City of Death.
He stops at the steps below us and looks at Hanna.
“And now we meet again,” Tuonen says, bowing slightly. “A queen this time.” He looks at me under his mask of obsidian vipers. “Do I have to call her stepmom?”
“Please no,” Hanna says with a laugh. “Just Hanna is fine.”
“Okay, Just Hanna,” he says as he adjusts his bowtie, which is the only piece of color on his body: red. If I wear red we can match as a family, which wouldn’t be a bad move. I have no idea if any of the members of the uprising will be there at the Bone Match, lurking in the shadows, but it can’t hurt to look like a united front.
“I came up to tell you that dinner is almost ready,” he says to me, and it’s then that I can catch a whiff of Pyry’s cooking wafting up through the castle. He takes his mask off for a moment, pushing his black hair off his forehead.
I eye Hanna, watching her closely. I’m quite aware that she’s closer in age, comparatively speaking, to my son than she is to me, and I have to say that Tuonen is pretty handsome. Obviously. He’s got all of my genes, aside from the horns. And the tail. But I’m not allowed to talk about the tail.
But while Hanna seems to be taking him in appreciatively, finally seeing him without his mask, she’s not fawning over him. Still, I put my arm around her for good measure.
“I have to go get changed, I was chasing a flying dinosaur around,” I tell him. He frowns at that and slips the mask back on. “But come with me, Tuonen. Hanna had a really interesting idea she just sprung on me.”
The three of us walk down the corridor toward my chambers and I tell Tuonen all about her idea, about getting another lesser God to take over the role to give him and Lovia some space. It’s not like me to do this. Usually I stew over something for months, even years, before I come to a decision.
“Another ferryman?” Tuonen says as I grab suitable clothes from the closet. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that.” He’s trying to sound blasé, but I can hear the excitement in his voice, which makes me realize that perhaps this is something my children really need. I know they’re immortal and have been around for eons, but perhaps they deserve to hold on to their youth a little longer.
It’s what she said about Vipunen that really has me reconsidering things. Vipunen is the one who is constantly reminding me of my place, of not upsetting the balance of the land, of keeping the natural order of things. I’ve had that drilled in my head since I woke up naked on the floor of his caves, just a fucking child about to become a God.
But if the almighty giant is so determined to keep me in line, how come he isn’t keeping anyone else in line? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m the only one he has access to, but then sometimes I wonder why that is. Why doesn’t my brother Ahto have to deal with Vipunen? Or my sister Ilmatar? Even our parents, Ukko and Akka—Old Gods that are far more powerful than we are—keep out of the way. They don’t interfere.
