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26
ADDIE
Ididn’t like what she’d done, but when I looked back to the well of power deep inside myself, I could almost see the ruins of what had once been an entire world. The potential for life had been transformed into the power of death. Every one of my ancestors that came before me had the same well before offering to lend their power to the next generation.
The beads of my rosary bit into my palm as I gripped it tight.
There’d been so muchdeathup until this point. It sat heavy on my shoulders like it was all my fault. I wasn’t the one who made any of these decisions, but I was the one who had to live with the consequences of them.
“You sent me back in time,” I began. “You sent me without asking, without telling me what you were planning. You knew everything that needed to happen. I was left in the dark this whole time.”
I didn’t ask for this.
I’d asked for a lover, for a family, for peace and happiness. Instead, Hel had given me tools of war. She’d turned an entire world into a weapon. My heart broke for all that could have been there. If I could have, I would have plucked the world out of myself and put it back on the tree’s branches.
The goddess behind me made me wonder if maybe that was possible. Persephone was a goddess of growth and life. If anyone could help me restore a fallen world, it was her. Maybe that’s why she was here at all. Persephone loved my unlikely romance, but she had other motives.
“I am not what I used to be.” Hel’s voice remained steady, like she couldn’t be bothered to care about the pain shattering my heart right now. “If I did not do this one small thing, the fate of this world and many others would be in true peril. You are the world tree’s only hope.”
I lifted my head. “Is that what he wants?”
Hel nodded.
Fenrir must be weak, still. In Hel’s memory, he’d been feeding on the worlds hanging from the tree. He wasn’t that man anymore. The power he’d gained from that kind of sustenance had faded over the many years. He needed more in order to get back to the world tree.
He would have gotten it if I’d let him eat me.
Hel glanced back at my friends. “You’re all powerful in your own right. If Fenrir gets ahold of any one of you, then he will have the arcana that he needs to reach the world tree.”
We had a Barghest, the antichrist, and—well, we didn’t quite know what Cerri was yet, but we knew that her arcana was on par with my own. Hel had a point. I couldn’t bring my friends with me. They would be obvious targets.
A scream of frustration turned into a lump in my throat when I swallowed it back down.
I coughed to clear it. “W-where do we find him?”
Hel would know. She loved Fenrir to this day. That’s why she kept him chained in the open where she could still visit him. A part of him might still love her, too. He didn’t kill her when he had the chance. He’d left her barely more than a mortal.
That, or he wanted her to watch helplessly while he ended every world in existence.
I had to admit that sounded way more likely.
“Follow fate,” Hel said before slowly fading out of view.
That’s how I found myself meditating in the living room. Potato purred on my lap while I surveyed the weave of fate for any discrepancies. Any time the weave fluttered in the slightest, I jerked back in fear. I didn’t want to endure the recoil of snapping threads again.
At least that meant there were a number of pointless threads floating around. With one eye on the weave, I put the rest of my attention into making chains for when we finally found Fenrir.
A huge wave rippled over the weave. It slowly rolled towards me. I jerked back, but there was more than enough time to get out of the way. Unbound fate threads unraveled from the weave to leave a hole in the fabric of reality. There, that was where we would find Fenrir.
It seemed too easy.
I came out of my trance and looked up at everyone in the room. Maddox and Ryder stood together. When I came to, Maddox stepped away from his Alpha and came to my side. He took my hand in his.
“Fenrir just announced his location. He wants us to come find him.” I bit my lip nervously.
I had to force my lip out from between my teeth while I steadied my core. I wasn’t going to run scared like I had back in the woods with Ness and the dead girl. That wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore.
Maddox brought my hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on them while holding my gaze. His eyes sparked with a hot need that burned deep within my core.
