Page 145 of North Is the Night
Loviatar appears at my left, her hand on my arm.
“Take her to the tower,” Tuoni commands.
“No, do not leave me,” I cry, clinging to him.
He turns, cupping my face with both hands. “I must secure Tuonetar. Go with Loviatar.” He kisses my forehead. “Go. I will follow.”
“Come,” Loviatar commands. “Aina, come.”
Tuoni barrels his way through the crowd, magicking a rope of fire. I gasp, pulling Loviatar to a halt. The Witch Queen sits in my silver chair. The twins of pain and suffering stand to either side of their mother. In Kivutar’s hand, there is a slender wand.
“No,” I cry out.
“What is happening?” Loviatar hisses, her nails digging into my arm. “Tellme.”
“Kivutar has the wand. Your mother sits on the throne.”
As Loviatar pulls at me again, Tuonetar’s voice echoes over the chaos. “And so, the great silent hope is now a spoken prophecy. Death shall be powerless in his hands?Iam death, and I shallneverbe powerless!” She holds out her arms, the chains of her manacles dangling from her robes.
With a flick of her wrist, Kivutar waves the wand over them. Like Ukko’s mighty hammer hitting an anvil, red sparks erupt from the wand’s tip. The Witch Queen shrieks, black blood dripping as she fights the cuffs, which hold her fast.
“Again,” she hisses at her daughter.
Kivutar raises the wand.
“No,” Tuoni bellows. He crashes onto the dais, tackling Kivutar to the ground.
The Witch Queen shrieks again and squeals like an animal caught in a trap, still scraping at the manacle. “Get it off,” she screams. “Take this foul thing off!”
Kiputyttö grabs it with her bony claws. Tuoni fights his way to his feet, the witch’s wand now clutched in his hand. At the same moment he points the wand at the Witch Queen, the bones of her hand crack and splinter, squeezed tight in her daughter’s fist, and the manacle slides off and drops to the floor with a clank. Tuonetar slashes her broken hand towards Tuoni, blasting him back, the wand flying from his hand.
“Tuoni,” I scream.
Loviatar and I are buffeted by the other gods still scrambling for the doors. “Come,” the witch commands. “You are not safe here.”
“We’re not safe anywhere,” I sob, holding to her arm with both hands.
The Witch Queen snarls, leaping from my throne with her broken hand clutched against her chest. She stalks towards me like a wolf, her bloodshot eyes locked on me. The room clears around her as all the other gods dodge from her path. “I told him I would never yield to a mortal’s brat,” she snarls. “I told him no death magic would ever eclipse me! I will rip the whelp from your womb with my teeth!”
“Protect your queen,” Tuoni shouts from his knees, blood dripping down his face.
Loviatar drags me behind her, squaring off against the Witch Queen.
“Your death is mine, Aina, Queen of Tuonela,” the Witch Queen screams. “The prophecy cannot come to pass. Step aside, Loviatar.”
“I shall never step aside,” Loviatar replies, her hands raised. “The prophecy must hold.”
“You would have us stripped of our power?” she shrieks.
“I would have us be made whole,” the blind witch replies.
“She will ruin us all!”
Loviatar tips her head back, smiling. “She will free us.”
“Move, or I kill you,” Tuonetar snarls.
Loviatar remains still. “Do your worst.”
