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My rage came back. This time, my arcana roiled inside me like smoke from a frigid fire.
Hel smiled this time. “There it is, the vitriol of my descendant. I have been wondering if you would burn like a distant star, or if you would remain the dead light of one long ago snuffed.”
Descendant?I blinked, taken aback.
Well, I hadn’t been expecting that. I stood and brushed myself off. Even standing, I could not look Hel in the eye. She had to be at least eight feet tall. It would have made her imposing had she not ripped me away from the world of the living right when Maddox needed me.
The fire of my anger still smoldered. It seared a hole in me like dry ice.
“Send me back. I’m not in the mood for divine games.” I lifted my chin.
Hel clicked her tongue. It had the hollow echo of bone. “I am not as frivolous as your friend’s pantheon. Here, we hold the balance of the world in our hands. Here, all must stay in stasis or else the fabric of the world will come unraveled.”
I wrinkled my nose. “What does that have to do with me? I’m just a Reaper.”
Hel’s sigh was long-suffering, and it made me rethink my reaction. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from saying anything else stupid for a while.
When Hel gestured beyond herself, the darkness cleared to reveal a shadowed expanse. In the distance, great white roots hung from the ceiling. They spread in all directions, curling and twisting like a mass of snakes. Three figures moved between the roots and a stone well. They dragged buckets from inside the well and brought the contents over to the roots.
Hel turned and put a hand on my shoulder. The cold that emanated from her reminded me of the chill touch of death that I felt every time someone died. Had it been her all along? Or did all death deities feel like this?
“Watch closely,” she said.
The figures carrying buckets slowly poured the contents onto the ghostly roots growing from the cavern ceiling. It was as if the roots could sigh with happiness. The liquid soaked into the roots and vanished. Here and there, in the round coils of the plant, I caught glimpses into other worlds like every circle formed a portal elsewhere.
“This is the tree of the world,” Hel said. “Should it fall, then everything in its branches and roots would vanish for good. It is my job to keep it safe.”
Her hand on my shoulder tightened. Bony fingers dug into my flesh like a silent warning. That’s how I knew I was in deep trouble.
I swallowed and looked up at the goddess standing beside me. She glared at me with that blue-fire eye.
“Your mistakes threaten to undo all my work, child. No descendant of mine will be the cause for the collapse. You will rectify what you have done.”
There was noor else. Hel simply told me what I would do and nothing else, as if there was no other option. I straightened, ready to listen and obey.
Hel’s hand moved to my hair. Bony fingers yanked my head back, forcing me to look up into her pale white visage. A blue fire flickered in the hollow of her skull-face. My neck strained in defiance. Pain flared along my neck despite how still I tried to remain.
“Destroy that wolf of yours before he ruins the fabric of the world.” Her lips curled away from her teeth.
I stiffened. That cold flame sparked in me once again. I gritted my teeth and tried to hide my reaction from the goddess. Her human eye narrowed. She could see right through me. There was no point.
“No,” I said. My voice shook ever so slightly.
Her eyes widened—not in shock, but in a maddening anger. A deep growl rumbled inside her. It sounded like bones tumbling over one another in an empty chasm. Just hearing it made me shudder, but I wasn’t going to back down on my stance, either.
Maddox wasn’t doing anything wrong. He hadn’t asked for this life, but I didn’t think he was the kind of man who would enact revenge upon the entire world just because he’d been changed into a shifter. There was nothing wrong with him. He wasn’t a world-ending entity.
“No,” I said again, firmer this time.
Hel thrust me to the floor. I caught myself against the stone. The bits of fallen gravel bit into my palm, but the pain didn’t bother me. It reminded me that, though I was in the world of the dead, I was still very much alive.
“He’s a good person,” I said as soon as I pushed myself up. “He’s not a threat. I can promise you that.”
“Child.You are sonaïvein your beliefs. What makes you think that this dog can defy fate? His splintered thread is tearing the fabric apart. The longer he breathes, the more the fabric will come undone. All he does is eat and eat, chewing away at the world. We can only begin to repair it once he is no longer among the living.” Hel stepped up to tower imperiously over me. “Bring him to me so that I might cage him and keep the world safe from his hunger.”
The way she talked down to me, both literally and figuratively, sparked something in me. It was the spirit of Vi, ready to spit in the face of the divine. Maybe Hel was my ancestor, but that didn’t mean she could make demands of me.
I spread my arms wide. “Strike me down now, because I will not obey. Deliver your punishment and send me on to my job in the afterlife.”
