Page 152 of North Is the Night
He trembles with weariness, his eyes blinking open. His face takes on a mournful look. “I am the Great Fading, Lord of Blessed Death. But don’t you see? I can delay it only. I can’t stop it. I certainly cannot reverse its course. None of us can.”
I drop his hand and step back. My hand flutters over my abdomen. “You think this child... you think he’ll be able to stop death?”
His eyes flash with excitement. “Think of it, my love. A child born to a mortal mother and the god of death. Living and dying, in one body. Mortal and immortal. He shall be the embodiment of the great balance. Such a child would have magic truly fearsome to behold.”
Death shall be powerless in his hands.
Could this child be the unmaking of Tuonela?
She will free us.
Loviatar’s words shouted at the Witch Queen echo in my mind. The goddess is so sure of my fate that she risks her own life to protect mine. She needs me alive. She needs this child alive. What will happen to us? Can there be a world without death? Will that not upset the balance even more?
“You are fierce, wife,” Tuoni says, his tone gentle. “You want to keep fighting me.” His lips brush my cool brow. “I feel it in the bond. I felt it all night. You can keep nothing from me.”
I go still, heart in my throat.
He knows.
His hands squeeze my shoulders. “Yes... you think on it even now. You think of crossing that river. You think of escaping and taking my son with you.” Leaning away, he cups my jaw, tilting my face up.
I search his mismatched eyes, looking for his rage, his indignation. I see only sadness. My heart breaks for this lonely raven, this lovesick man. His end of the bond is a riot of conflicting emotions. Those calculating eyes stare through me, rooting me to the soft, mossy soil of this enchanting eternal spring.
“Very well,” he says at last. “Your body may be supple as a reed, but your will is a bar of iron. You wish to leave me.” His expression is one of anguish. “I cannot bear to see you suffer, my love.”
“What are you saying, my lord?”
He holds my gaze. “I will grant your wish. I will return you to the land of the living.”
My heart drops. “Oh, Tuoni—”
He raises a hand to silence me. His dark eye smolders like a burning coal, and his white eye seems almost to glow. “I will release you to the realm of the living,” he intones, “only after the child is born.”
I close my eyes, knowing what he’ll say next. “Tuoni, no—”
He slams the door of our bond shut, knocking the wind from me. He’s forcing me from his soul and his heart. He doesn’t want me to witness them breaking.
“Tuoni—”
“You will stay, or you will go,” he continues.
“Please don’t do this.” I press at the door of our bond, pounding with my fists, begging to be let back in. “Tuoni,please.” I drop to my knees, hands digging into the mossy soil. “Don’t make me choose.”
He ignores my tears, his emotions now locked deep in an iron box in his heart. “Stay or go, Ainatar, Queen of Tuonela... but my son stays with me. He shall never leave the realm of death.”
46
Siiri
I’m running out oftime. I’ve circled the main palace structure twice, looking for entry points. A door Väinämöinen drew on my map is no longer there, and a crumbling tower on the western wall has been refortified. It’s lit like a beacon with guards on the wall. There will be no getting in that way.
Unseen, I pass another set of guards. They move along, unhurried and inattentive. How long has it been since a shaman to rival Väinämöinen’s power has dared to enter this realm?
I can’t keep circling this fortress. I need an easy way in! If only the hand of hope would place Ainaoutsidethe walls. I could—
“Oh, gods...”
I duck back behind the closest tree.
