Page 71 of Valhalla is Full of Hunks
I didn’t get the chance to question the extent of her knowledge. The doors finished opening to reveal a tall figure waiting for us on the other side. She was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, with flowing black hair and tanned skin, despite the sub-zero conditions she lived in.
She seemed to pose—tilting her head away, as if to display her perfect profile. As she turned to face us head-on, I flinched. The opposite side of her face was now visible in gory detail—with pale, bluish skin, like a corpse who’d been found floating in the sea. Her full lips gave way to skeletal teeth, and bits of bone and skull showed through where her flesh had rotted away.
Hel.
Daughter of Loki and Angrboda, sister of Fenrir and Jörmungandr, and ruler of Helheim within the realm of Niflheim.
She who welcomes the dead not killed in battle.
With the help of her guides…
“Greetings, Brothers… Surtr”—she craned her neck to peer toward where Fen’s enormous frame was hiding Iola—“and littleVölvadíswho knocked on my door.”
“Nope! That wasn’t me,” Iola called, peeking out from behind him. “I mean, it was an accident. We got what we need now so we’ll just be on our way… scary half-zombie lady…”
“Nonsense!” Hel replied with an airy laugh that didn’t match her macabre appearance. “You have delivered the very souls who can assist me in seeking retribution.”
Iola, Fen, and Jör all froze.
I smiled.
Looks like the seer is still useful, after all.
25
IOLA
How the HELL wouldIbe guiding souls?
I mean, how the Hel…
Helheim—aka Niflhel, apparently—was a frozen afterlife, the domain of the half-terrifying, half-goddess leading us to her palace. She referred to this looming fortress as Eljudnir—the damp place—which we had to access by crossing a threshold simultaneously known as a stumbling block and where one falls to their doom.
So homey.
“Sleeping quarters are that way, and I shall ask the staff to fetch your luggage,” Hel pleasantly chirped, waving her skeletal hand down a hallway that looked exactly the same as the twenty others we’d passed. The entire place was cave-like, with dark obsidian rock that was intricately carved, and it smelled like a grotto—which was surprisingly pleasant. “Hopefully, the bags will arrive in time, as my servants are a bit slow and lazy…” She sighed and gave me a look that said ‘you can’t find good help these days, nawmean?’ before continuing her Tower of Terror tour.
To be honest, I was only half-listening. My anxious mind was too busy wondering how we’d ended up here, whether we could leave, and whyIwas the one who’d somehow opened the gates.
Daddy that he was, Fen voiced my concerns without me needing to say a word. “Sister. What did you mean when you referred to the three of us as ‘souls?’ Surely, we are not dead! We’ve been interacting with mortals in Midgard for centuries.”
Hel glanced over her shoulder to where Fen walked beside me. “Not dead, but perhaps not meant to still be alive… if the prophecies are to be believed.”
Her bitterness was so thick, I could practically taste it, and I recalled Jör telling me how he and his siblings had been ripped away from their mother, all because the gods got their panties in a bunch over a prophecy.
That they then helped fulfill, by doing just that…
Of course, the opportunist in the group latched onto her words to validate his infuriating narrative. “Precisely!” Surt butted in, with the same level of confidence as every mediocre man I’d ever sat in a meeting with. “We were not meant for this continued existence. Our destiny is Valhalla.”
I scowled at the back of his stupid head, hoping he could feel it. Jör had outrighttoldSurt he didn’t want to go to Valhalla anymore, and all this idiot had done with the information was dismiss my sweet snake’s needs and hurt his feelings. Even now, Jör didn’t pipe in to back up his Sir. He simply pressed his lips together and dropped his pretty gaze to the flagstone floor as we followed Hel deeper into her fortress.
I’ll make it better, baby—promise.
Hel tilted her head to shoot Surt an assessing look. “I assume that’s why you wereborrowingpieces of my gate, hmm? To reconstruct Loki’s famous blade?”
As bratty as my mouth was, I would have shut the fuck up if this goddess—rightfully—accused me of stealing her damage twigs. But Surt was too blinded by his own superiority complex to notice the dangerous territory he’d wandered into.
Typical.
