“When we scaled the walls, we took off north at Liv’s instruction. We traveled for days through the snow until we got to the Icewall Mountains.” Bryn hesitated. “Maude, you should know that none of us wanted to leave you, and it weighed on us the entire time.”
Maude nodded sharply before waving her on, hoping Bryn would continue with her story.
“When we got to the mountains, Liv opened a door in the wall that led to a long walkway,” Bryn said quietly, her eyes shining at the memory.
“Bryn, where are we?” Maude asked softly as she prepared herself for what would come out of her sister's mouth.
“The passage had soldiers lining the walls who led us through to the other side of the mountain range… into Nida, the capital city of the Elven Kingdom of Shadows.”
“That’s impossible,” Maude breathed.
This wasn’t real. Nida didn’t exist anymore.
“That’s what we thought, too,” Bryn confirmed. She had started pacing again. “It seems Liv was hiding a bit of truth about herself from you all.”
Maude tensed.
“She is Elven. An orphan from the Kingdom of Light who has been living as an informant for the Kingdom of Shadows for the last two hundred years,” Bryn said carefully, watching Maude’s face as she spoke.
She let out a cracked laugh. Of course Liv was Elven. She had suspected as much from how she moved but thought it impossible. Maude had assumed she had come from a mortal line that had some Elven blood diluted into it. Thoughts of how she had trained with Liv for weeks and always suspected something was different brought to the surface another who had trained with them.
“What about Gunnar? Is he alive?” Maude asked, desperate for some good news.
Bryn hesitated again for a beat too long, so Maude held her breath, readying for the blow.
“Yes, he’s alive,” she said finally. “But he still hasn't woken from the deep sleep the Elven healers put him in to work on him.”
Maude closed her eyes and thanked the gods they could get healers to him in time. A thought occurred to her then.
“If you left my body in Logi, how did I end up here?” she asked, slightly wary of the response her sister would have for her.
“The Elven say that the Valkyrie brought you here instead of Valhalla,” Bryn said, skepticism heavy in her words. “The Shadow King brought us to you. By the time we got here, you were already in a deep stasis. We had no idea that you would be here when we arrived.”
Fear and dread spread in her stomach, oily and heavy. This didn’t make any sense. She had died in Logi… right? Shaking her head at the ridiculousness of their conversation, Maude tried to focus. She knew she had died and, like a coward, had welcomed it. Her head spun with all the information Bryn was giving her.
"How is that even possible?"
Bryn said nothing, only letting her eyes drift down to the fatemark on Maude’s chest.
“Gods, what now?” Maude blew out a breath.
When Bryn didn’t say anything but only kept her eyes on her fatemark, Maude looked down.
Five runes now circledYggdrasilbefore the Valkyrie wings flanked either side.
Uruz. Hagalaz. Gebo. Dagaz. Eihwaz.
The damning evidence that had forced Maude to run from Herrick after she had surrendered her entire heart to him now lay inked on her chest with the wonderful addition of two more runes. It still didn’t explain why the Valkyrie had brought her here, to the Kingdom of Shadow.
Her attention snagged on one of the new additions to her fate telling. Reincarnation.
Reincarnation? she thought numbly.
"It seems you have nine lives just like the stray cats you love so much in Logi," Bryn joked, her tension making her words land awkwardly despite her efforts to ease Maude's confusion.
Maude gave her sister a flat look as she tried to process what she was saying, but the rune for reincarnation shone in bright red ink around herYggdrasilfatemark, the Valkyrie wings flanking the Tree of Life seeming more like a sick joke than ever.
Oh gods,she thought as the connection snapped together in her scrambled mind.
