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He’s a god-awful snake of a man, I thought.
Noted.
Hel reached up and gently cupped one of the sparkling green leaves. It glittered with an impossible number of tiny stars. I realized, rather belatedly, that this was the world tree. Hel plucked a small world from the branch and cradled it in her hand.
“You could become ruler of all if you wanted,” Fenrir said, unable to completely mask the venom from his sweet voice. “Why not take power from your lazy king? Where has he been? Hanging around? He cannot compare to you. You are the end of all, and you should be respected as such.”
End of all. It was a title that Fenrir must have taken too seriously. When Hel refused it, he’d taken it for himself.
“I know you hunger, my love.” Hel turned to Fenrir. She still had the small world cradled in her palms.
A twinge of reluctance sparked inside her as she took it in. Hel wondered what this galaxy contained. Were there lives here? Or was it a collection of rocks? Did those rocks have potential? We would never know.
I almost cried out when she lifted the world to him as an offering.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen, but we cannot make our union known or else we will be separated. I would rather have you than any power in all of the worlds.”
Fenrir reached for the leaf in her hands. Hel suddenly closed her fingers around it. He snarled. A bit of his wolf reached his eyes. Two glowing yellow orbs glared at Hel. She did her best to ignore them.
Regret curled in her stomach. She’d already plucked the world from the tree. It could not go back, but she also couldn’t fathom giving it up to Fenrir. He’d already consumed so much. She’d wanted to help him become a god, but the ritual had failed and turned him into this creature.
She couldn’t sustain him forever. Her family would find out eventually. They would smite her for sacrificing so much to him. Their domain had dwindled so much, and the worlds no longer kept Fenrir satisfied. With her growing form, her body didn’t satisfy him the way it used to, either.
My lip would have curled at that thought. I wanted to reach through Hel and sock Fenrir in the face.
Hel laughed. She clutched the tiny gemstone leaf to her stomach. It flashed in a burst of light and turned into a mote that sank into her body.
May this death empower my generations to come. Someday, you will do better than I did.
What. The. Hell. Did. She. Do?
The vision vanished. I gasped for air and gripped Maddox’s arm so hard that my nails must have dug into his skin. When I lifted my eyes up to Hel’s, she gave a sheepish half-smile.
Maddox
I hadno idea what’d just happened, but the stunned look on Addie’s face left me wary. I lifted her back onto her feet where she swayed. My wife couldn’t catch a break. This world meant nothing to me without her. I refused to keep going if this task took her from me.
“You love her,” Hel said, almost as if surprised.
When Addie swayed again, I lifted her from the ground and shoved past Hel so I could take my wife to the bedroom and lay her down. Hel followed behind me like a ghost.
I watched my wife, her brow furrowed. Even while she struggled with the recoil of whatever Hel had done, Addie fed arcana to me. I could feel it moving between my fingertips in her palm. She could have been dying, and she would have given me everything.
“Of course, I love her,” I growled at the hovering goddess.
Hel let out a happy sigh. “I was afraid that time would repeat itself, but it seems that a cycle has been broken. Adeline’s ancestors had no luck with love. Even her mother struggled. Her parents separated long before her mother passed.”
Addie sucked in a deep breath and cracked open her eyes. She served a glare in Hel’s direction. “What have you done to us?”
Us?
At first, I thought Addie was talking about the two of us, but I noticed the way she clutched her rosary tight to her chest. The little beads twinkled with the light of souls locked away inside them. She’d explained how her mother and the others before them chose to lend their power to the rosary passed down generations. It kept them from their duties in the afterlife, but it allowed them to stay and protect their descendants.
“You cursed us,” Addie said accusingly.
Hel’s magical wall must have broken. That or Vi shattered it. The rest of the crew appeared behind Hel. Most of them looked to Addie on the bed. Vi, on the other hand, had her attention on Hel like she wanted to fist fight the goddess in a breakfast diner parking lot. Vi seemed like the kind of woman I would pick up for aggravated assault at two in the morning.
I signaled for her to back down. Vi narrowed her eyes at me but backed up all the same.
