I squeezed my eyes tight, trying to bring up the image: gray clouds, black mud, jagged stone rising high, high above me.
Then, with an electric pop, the portal appeared in front of me. The wand thrummed in my hand, strangely heavy. I didn’t know how long I could keep the portal open.
“You go first, I’ll be right behind you,” I said to Barthol.
I concentrated as my brother stepped through and disappeared with the sound of crackling static.
I stared at the shimmering surface of the portal. This was it; I was going back to Hel. The realm of mud, mist, shades, and death. I should have been worried, scared even, but instead I was strangely excited. A sort of nervous energy radiated through my body—a bit like when I’d first opened the note from Galin.
For an instant I pictured his face vividly: square jaw, sharp cheekbones, golden eyes. What would it be like to see him again? Had he missed me at all?
Only one way to find out.
Gripping the wand, I stepped through the portal.
I gasped as cold rain sprayed my face and instantly soaked my hair. All around me rain poured down, like being under a shower that was set on cold and turned up to max spray. My feet squelched in black mud when I stepped forward.
“Ali, over here,” Barthol called out.
In the icy deluge, I tried to wipe the water from my face with the sleeve of my leather jacket. Already I regretted my decision to wear it. I pressed a hand to my forehead like a sort of visor, trying to look for my brother in the dim light.
“Here,” he said again.
At last, I saw him. He stood with his back against a wall of gray rock. Jagged stone jutted out above him, giving him some protection from the rain. But on either side, streams of water poured down from the top of the cliff high above.
Bingo. I’d got us to the right spot. At least I thought so.
I hurried over and squeezed in next to him under the overhang of rock.
“I didn’t realize it rained so much in Hel.” Barthol hugged himself, teeth chattering, his cave bear jacket giving off a dead-animal smell.
“Neither did I. Last time it was mostly just a thick mist and fog.” I shivered as an ice-cold rivulet of water dripped down my back.
“Do you know where we are?” he asked.
I grimaced. “I tried to send us to the entrance of Hela’s tomb.”
“What’s it look like?”
With a growing sense of unease, I peered around. The rain was pouring down in thick sheets, pooling in deep puddles on the black mud. “The entrance was a big crack in the cliff.”
“I don’t see anything like that,” said Barthol. “Just rock.”
Neither did I. Shit.
Already I was nearly soaked through, my leather pants sticking to my legs unpleasantly. I really wanted to get out of the rain.
“Do you know the way?” Barthol asked hopefully.
Again, I looked in either direction along the wall of rock. I didn’t recognize anything. “No. But let’s try going right and see what happens.”
Slowly we began to walk along the base of the cliff. Black muck sucked at my feet, and I wished I’d thought to wear rubber boots. My shoes were already soaked through.
“Ali.” Barthol grabbed my shoulder. “What is that?”
He pointed behind us to a dark shape in the mist, and my stomach dropped. It hung like a dark stain over the ground, and the rain simply passed through it. Unquestionably, one of the local denizens.
“It’s a shade,” I whispered. “Don’t give him any attention.”
I grabbed his wrist, pulling him forward, away from the shadowy spirit.
We continued along the base of the cliff, but found only sheer rock. Where was the entrance to Hela’s tomb? I stopped to look back, hoping the shade had wandered off, but the thing still lingered in the air. Was it following us?
I turned to walk again, but Barthol called my name.
“Ali, look.” He pointed at something in the rock farther ahead—a dark space at the very bottom of the cliff. I hurried until I reached it.
There, at knee level, was a small entrance, large enough for a child. It definitely wasn’t the crack I remembered, but it was an opening nonetheless.
“I think it’s a cave,” said Barthol.
If there was one thing the Night Elves understood, it was caves.
I nodded, crouching down to poke my head inside a dark, narrow tunnel. It wasn’t the path I’d taken before. But what I liked about it right now was its distinct and total lack of ice-cold rain.
“I think we should try it,” I said, pulling my head out to talk to Barthol. “Maybe it will lead to Galin.”
My brother nodded. “I just want to get out of this rain.”
I crawled inside. Barthol grunted as he squeezed in behind me.
I pushed my wet hair off my face. The cave was even narrower than I’d anticipated, with a ceiling so low, we were forced to crawl on hands and knees. But it was dry! In fact, it was strangely warm. Bonus.
As Night Elves, we were basically at home here in the claustrophobic dark, able to see in the pitch black.
“Just to clarify,” said Barthol. “You have no idea where this goes?”
“No idea,” I said.
As I crawled forward, the cave remained narrow. I realized it was nearly circular, like a tube. Was it man made?
After another hundred yards, nothing had changed. Just as I was starting to worry that we’d have to turn back, I saw a light.
“There’s something ahead of us,” I whispered.
“I see it too.”
I wriggled on my stomach, until I was able to see a sort of grate in the floor. Light streamed through, drawing lines of light and shadow on the ceiling of the tunnel. We were in some kind of air vent.
I carefully peeked through. Below me was a lavishly decorated bedroom. A large king-sized bed with a white duvet, a fireplace at the far end, and a sofa that faced a row of tall windows. Biting my lip, I wondered if this was where Galin’s goddess-consorting duties took place …
Had he been a willing participant?
I clenched my jaw. It didn’t matter. That wasn’t why I was here.
Yet the prospect of seeing him again got my heart racing. Peering around the room, I saw two doors, one across from the bed and another closer to the fireplace.
Barthol brushed against me, trying to get a look. “What is it?”
“A bedroom.”
“Galin’s?” Barthol said, a little too loudly.
I clamped my hand over his mouth and pointed at the door by the fireplace. Just as he’d started to speak, I’d seen it move.
His eyes widened. Together we watched as the door slowly creaked open.
I couldn’t see anything at first. Just a huge cloud of some sort of ghostly white mist. The scent of lavender floated through the air, and the sound of a faucet running. The mist was steam from a shower or bath.
The steam billowed into the bedroom. Then, silhouetted within it, a tall figure appeared. Not large and broad shouldered, but lithe and thin.
I nearly gasped as I saw blue, swirling tattoos against icy skin. The Goddess of the Dead. Strangely beautiful, she stepped into her bedroom.
Jealousy and a kind of possessiveness pierced my heart. Had she seduced Galin? Or trapped him?
Interlacing her fingers, she stretched her arms above her head, looking at herself in the mirror.