Foresworn (14 page)

She was right. It was. And all I could think to myself was
not yet
.

“Kara said we’ve run out of time,” she continued.

“How do you know?” I asked the Valkyrie.

Kara shook her head so hard, red curls bobbed about everywhere. Then she glared at me. “How can you not? Listen and tell me what you hear.”

I cocked my head as everyone went silent. I heard the other kids talking outside and that was it. Until the faint sound of something started to grow louder. “Birds?”

“Yeah, there are birds. Lots of birds. But even worse? The music stopped.”

I tried to hear the singing voices that had stayed in the background all this time so I’d grown used to them, but I couldn’t hear them at all. “I hadn’t even realized. I mean I heard it yesterday and even last night, but I hadn’t thought about it today.” I’d been too wrapped up in Arun. I looked at him and fought a blush when I saw the way he watched me, the way the corner of his mouth barely turned up.

“Salvatore is beside himself,” Kara continued. “We can’t get him to calm down because he’s hearing something else and can’t seem to explain what.”

I listened harder. “It must be the birds. But I think they’re far off still.” All night we’d listened to wolves and now there were enough birds to make noise miles away. A creepy sort of premonition slithered down my spine. A lot of those calls were deep and scratchy—sounding like they came from monsters more at home in a scary movie. Ravens.

Ravens and wolves—the creatures who would come to the battles to feed upon the dead.

Kara looked at Alva. “I believe we should wait for the other gods and her sisters to arrive. We can set a bonfire in the clearing to keep everyone warm and to help guide the helicopter here.”

Arun nodded. “There should be enough room for them to land.”

“We could set Brigg up to glow them in, too,” I added. “You know, like a human lighthouse.”

“In the mountains.” Arun chuckled. “Let’s set up camp, go through the supplies and get everything ready.”

He didn’t have to say for what. We were all quiet as the others filed out, leaving me to dress. But first, I sat on the bunk and wrapped my arms around my knees. A part of me wanted my sisters with me so badly; I wished they were here already. But another part hoped they’d have to set the helicopter down somewhere on the way. Somewhere safe.

I shivered and pulled the sleeping bag around my shoulders. It smelled faintly of crappy freeze-dried food, smoke from the fire and the much more welcome scent of Arun. I buried my nose in it, wishing I’d had more time alone with him. More time to experience those wonderful kisses of his. My sisters were going to tease me to death over this—over falling for someone I’d just met. Though...it sounded like they’d done the same thing.

Raven and Coral had to come. I knew the three of us were supposed to be together here—knew that the three of us were necessary.

Even if one of us didn’t make it.

* * *

“The birds are gathering like crazy. Look!” Nanna pointed. I’d been helping her set up tents. She abruptly dropped the backpack she’d been digging in and stalked to the edge of the clearing, her boots kicking up snow. Stopping, she shielded her eyes because the sun had broken through the clouds today.

In fact, a lot of the clouds seemed to have moved off.

“You know what our people think of the raven, Kat?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I used to give my sister Raven a hard time about it.”

“They’re tricksters. So they could be trying to lure us to that spot.” Nanna’s dark eyes were shrewd as she turned to me. “Or that could be where we’re all supposed to go. My grandmother used to say that nothing is just anything, that everything has a reason.”

I stared at her for a long moment, then snorted out a laugh. “What does that even mean?”

“It means what you want it to mean.”

I watched her longer, caught the hint of a smile and cracked up. “You’ve seen too many cheesy old movies. You’re messing with me.”

“Yep,” she quipped as she spun around and walked toward the snowmobiles. “I have no idea what the crap my grandmother meant most of the time. But all that worthless stuff stuck in my head.” She pulled a white beanie out of her pocket and pulled it onto her head, then looked back at me. “We should check out why those ravens are there. See if
their
something is anything and has a reason.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I kept laughing and glanced up at Arun as he stepped beside me. He wore a heavy black parka and a matching knitted hat his mother had brought. Blond curls escaped from under the hat. His sword was holstered on his back.

He smothered a laugh, tried to turn it into a cough. “Maybe I don’t want to hear an explanation for that mind scramble.”

I had to think for a moment to clue in to what he talked about. He looked so...hot. I never knew I had a thing for guys with swords. “Nanna has a strange sense of humor.”

“She’d have to with that name. Can you imagine the teasing she probably dealt with because most of the people I know carrying that moniker have grandkids.”

Nanna whooped loudly. “Come on! I wanna drive this time!”

Arun laughed. “I like her. Brigg, too.” He looked around at the gathering of kids. “All of these kids are really decent. Really cool. I hate the thought of what’s coming.” He pointed toward the bonfire. “I’m mostly worrying about Salvatore. I keep thinking we should stash him somewhere until it’s over.”

The boy under discussion sat next to the fire, eating. He grimaced after each freeze-dried bite, then looked in the bag as if he expected something different to be in there each time. It was hard not to smile at that, hard not to think exactly as Arun did. Because he was right. The sweet Mexican boy wasn’t equipped to fight. “He followed the music and the other kid died protecting him. I think he might be pretty important. And you know what? His name? It’s Italian and it means savior.”

“My mother said that Hoenir is supposed to survive and become a sort of counselor or spiritual guide to the other surviving gods.”

We both stared at the boy. I could kind of see that happening because he did have a sense of peacefulness about him.

“You guys coming or what?” Nanna yelled. “I’m ready for some speed!”

Brigg climbed onto the back of her snowmobile. Arun and I took another and then Sky joined us, driving alone. Arun rode behind me this time because he wore his sword and holster on his back.

And, oh, I loved driving that thing!

It was a little wobbly at first and the others had to slow for me a couple of times, but I quickly got the hang of it.

We sped around trees and my butt left the seat on a couple of the hills we nearly flew over. Arun held on to me tight—and I loved that part of it, too. For a few moments, I closed my eyes, felt the wind trying to burrow under my clothes, enjoyed the feel of Arun and let myself daydream that we were just a bunch of kids out having fun. Then I opened my eyes, saw the sky turning into a wall of black and that fantasy vaporized. Thousands of the birds swarmed the atmosphere, their cries so loud I heard them over the snowmobile motors. Their groups cast long sinuous shadows on the ground. Some flew in agitated patterns that didn’t seem to have reason.

Sky raced out ahead of us. I couldn’t stop my grin when she hit a snowbank, went flying into the air and screeched her joy. Then everything in me froze as her cry turned into a bloodcurdling scream as she suddenly made a sharp right and turned the snowmobile on its side. As she slid, she kept screaming and reaching for low-hanging branches as she passed them.

I yelled when her snowmobile suddenly disappeared. She’d managed to grasp a branch, but her leg had been under the vehicle and she was dragged. As we sped closer, I saw that some kind of fault had cracked open in the ground.

Sky screamed once more, then disappeared.

I pulled the snowmobile to a stop, jumped off and ran to the edge but she was just...gone.

“Sky!” Arun yelled as he slumped to the ground next to me. He leaned over the side. “Sky, please answer!”

But the hole went deep—deeper than I could fathom because it was like looking down the side of a mountaintop cliff. One that had no bottom. There was nothing but a yawning pitch-black abyss below us. I shivered. “What the hell is this?” I whispered, horrified as I looked at Arun.

The look on his face tore through me so hard and fast, I had to close my eyes. Yet, all I could see then was the look of absolute terror on her face as she’d screamed and gone over the edge. As if that image had been tattooed on the backs of my eyelids.

“I’ve hiked all over this park and I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Arun leaned over more and I grabbed the back of his coat.

Like I had the strength to stop him if he went over. “Please, stop leaning like that. We can’t lose you, too. Especially not after I came all this way to make sure that didn’t happen.”

“She’s not lost. Sky!” But his voice echoed into the ravine. “Where did she go?”

Hot tears pricked the backs of my eyes. I looked across the rift and my mouth dropped open. “Gods! Look at the other side.”

“Are those handprints?” Brigg stood and walked around the crater. He knelt on the other side. “They are!” he yelled across the fault. “Footprints, too. Big-ass footprints.” He straightened, his red cheeks bright against the backdrop of snow. “Guess some giants came out here.”

Giants. Giants who came from Niflheim. I stared down into the endless black depths of the hole and knew that Sky was gone forever. I sat back, everything in me tight.

“Oh no, Sky.” Arun moved away from the hole, staggered a few steps and fell to his knees again.

I hadn’t known her and the shock of her just going like that—without warning—had me frozen in place. For Arun, this had to be like being stabbed. I crawled across the snow to him and wrapped my arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”

He hugged me back. “She’s only been here a few months, but I feel like I’ve known her forever. She was always so upbeat. So positive. She had plans after all this. Was going to be a marine biologist and have all these kids.” He looked back at the hole in the ground. “We should get some rope and try—”

Brigg dropped to his knees next to Arun. “No, man. We can’t go down there because you know as well as I do that that hole goes a long, long way. It’s possible we can’t even cross over into the giants’ realm.”

“Then Sky could be stuck.” Horror bleached out Arun’s skin. “She could be trapped.”

“She fell. She didn’t have rope to go down slowly. There is no way she’s still alive.” Brigg grimaced. “I’m so sorry.”

Arun shook his head. “We don’t know that for sure, and I can’t leave her there. Can you imagine being trapped in Niflheim?”

I tightened my arms, feeling as if my heart were breaking in two. Like Brigg, I thought she had to be dead because just looking as far as I could down into that hole had made me dizzy. I wanted to say that Sky was only the first. There was no way more of us wouldn’t die. And with all the fires lately...But I said nothing. I only held him and hoped that I offered some kind of comfort, no matter how miniscule.

Arun tugged me close. He buried his face in my neck and seemed to just breathe me in.

“I’m so sorry about your friend,” I whispered. “There was no way we could have known that would be there.” A shadow passed over our heads, and I quickly looked up.

Ravens gathered so thick, so fast, that it grew darker around us. Their harsh, shrill cries filled the air and it felt as if something crawled over the surface of my scalp. “I think we should go back,” I said, having to raise my voice over the bird cries.

Nanna dropped beside us. “I was wrong to bring us here. I wanted to see why the birds gathered, but it seems they’re drawn to the opening to another world.” She stared in the direction the giant footprints went. “We have to follow that path. Tomorrow.”

Brigg suddenly held up his hand. “Listen.”

All I heard were the raucous cries of thousands of ravens. Earsplitting, bone-rattling calls that drowned out nearly everything else. Wind swooped down into the clearing, its bite sharp enough to sting through clothes. I stared at Brigg, watching the color leach from his face as he slowly looked over his shoulder at the ravine.

Then, so faintly I barely felt it, the ground rumbled beneath my knees. Clumps of snow fell off tree limbs around us. Sudden silence from the birds raised every hair on my body. I let go of Arun and shot to my feet, my hands clenched into fists.

Brigg held out his hand and Nanna quickly slid their personal backpack off her shoulders and pulled out his knives and her nunchucks.

This time, when the ground shook, it was hard enough to loosen rocks on the edges of the rift. They pinged and clattered.

Arun stood and slid his sword from the holster. Fury, etched with grief, tightened his features. He looked tall and strong...and powerful. I was used to his peaceful nature, his good humor, and I watched in complete fascination as he morphed into a broad-shouldered, dominant man—one who looked ready to take on whatever was now crawling out of that hole. If I hadn’t been scared out of my mind by whatever was crawling up, I would have totally wanted to jump him in that moment.

The massive hand that appeared to grip the sides of the fault sent me a step back. White hair cleared the side, followed by a ragged, long-nosed face that could have taken up most of a billboard.

This giant wasn’t one of the pro-basketball-player-sized ones.

His shoulders spanned the rift just before his other hand appeared...with Sky in his grip. I gasped, then felt like all the air was sucked out of my body when he sort of flopped her on the ground in his hand as he pulled himself free of the ravine. I looked for movement from her, my heart in my throat. When he finally stood on the ground, he didn’t even pay us any attention. He stared down at the girl in his hand, then shook her like a toddler gripping a rattle. Grunting, he flung her into the trees.

Then his gaze narrowed onto us.

Arun released this sort of growling yell and ran at the thing.

I didn’t hesitate—I ran toward the trees. Toward Sky. It wasn’t hard to spot her blue parka high among the snow-covered branches. She was draped over a limb, her back bent in a way that made acid rise into my throat. Her eyes stared straight ahead, no sign of life in them.