And thank my lucky fucking stars, it actually seemed to be working.

“Perhaps you are right,” Joleb said, and then everyone in the room, including me, seemed to let out their breath at the same time. His snout took on a nasty smirk. “Perhaps I will keep you. After I become the god-killer and rip out every one of Skallagrim’s scales in front of you, perhaps I will let you live.” His gaze grew greedy, and he buried his claws in my hair once more, but more gently this time, letting the strands run through his fingers like water. “I’ve never seen hair like this,” he murmured. “The colour of moonlight on metal. Yes, I think I will keep you after all.” He cocked his head. “I know Skallagrim will die when you do. But does it work the other way around? If he dies, will you perish, too?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and it was the honest truth because I really had no fucking idea.

His grip on my hair tightened possessively, making my scalp burn with pain.

“I suppose it does not matter if you die when I kill your mate,” he purred darkly. “You will be mine either way. And whether you are dead or alive, your hair will gleam just as prettily all the same.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Skallagrim

After spending far longer than I’d intended to at the gates of Heofonraed, I had to admit defeat. There was no way in. And for all intents and purposes, it seemed there was no one even there to answer. Perhaps things had changed since I’d been mate mad. Perhaps, even if I did not kill them, they all had died and for some reason had not been replaced. The Eaforswynne were still here, guarding who in the stone sky knew what, but no council answered my calls.

This was disconcerting, but even worse was the fact that it meant I would not be able to find Suvi’s friends. At least, not quickly. I supposed I could start opening sky doors at random, searching the universe one little corner at a time for the group of them, but who knew how long such a task would take? Theirs was one miniscule machine in the entire scope of a sprawling starscape. It would be worse than trying to find one specific grain of sand in the churn of the Bohnebregg River. For Suvi, I would at least attempt it, but I felt physical pain at the idea of being away from her for so long while searching in such a fruitless, inefficient way.

It was with a foul mood that I hurled myself back up into the sky above Heofonraed. It was as if I was beating the sky itself with my wings, trying to alleviate my frustration. River help me, I could already anticipate Suvi’s hurt disappointment. I hated that this would not be the reunion I had promised her. Instead of returning victorious with all her friends, I’d be coming back empty-clawed, and I did not feel worthy of her.

Some small, fearful part of me even went so far as to worry that Suvi might no longer love me if I failed her in this. Which was absurd, because Suvi loved me before I’d even remembered Heofonraed. She loved me without ever knowing there was a possibility I could track down her friends. So it was foolish to think that her love would be rescinded over such a thing now.

But perhaps I was a fool. A great, blundering, fine-scaled fool.

Because that foolish thought scraped at me. It dug in with claws, got between my scales, and it hurt because it felt far too much like truth.

Going from angry to furious, I smashed the sky open with my fist.

The sky door opened directly above Callabarra on Bohnebregg, but I could not see the city due to Aeshyr’s protection spell. I had to say the word to reveal Callabarra, and for a gut-gripping moment I panicked, thinking I’d forgotten it as I’d forgotten so many important things already. But then, like a single drop of water, it was flung from the river in my mind.

“Falreth!”

The landscape below wavered, then drifted away, revealing Callabarra. From up here, it looked very different. Maybe even a little wrong. Dark. Though it was night so of course it would be dark, and there were a few lights here and there, so what was I doing thinking it odd that the city was dark? But all the same, something about it felt... Not right. I glanced back at the sky. The sky door had faded, but everything still looked strangely opaque. There were no stars.

Cloud cover. The first I’d seen so thick like this since my return, and the river inside sloshed and churned and suddenly spat out the words rainy season.

Without being able to see the moons and stars, I couldn’t tell how long it had been night here. But still, I knew I’d spent far longer at the gates of Heofonraed than I’d meant to, hoping to avoid having to come back here defeated like this. But there was nothing left to do about it for the moment, and as much as I hated going to Suvi and seeing her hurt little face, I desperately wanted to be with her after being gone all day.

I flew downwards, alighting on the balcony outside the small apartment. But the eerie sense of wrongness intensified, got hard and twisty, because the apartment door was open. And my Suvi was not in the bed.

My heart spasmed, my scales leaping along my limbs in a great, anxious ripple. I forced myself to remain calm, because Suvi was probably just downstairs with Zev and Jolakaia. She must have gotten lonely without me, and the last thing she needed to see was me insane and enraged like I’d been the first time we met. If I smashed into the main house, she’d probably be terrified that our bonding hadn’t fully taken hold, which I knew it had. If my long time at the gates of Heofonraed had taught me anything, it was that the mate madness had been entirely cleansed from my blood and body and brain. I needed to be at her side again because I loved her and I missed her, not because my entire being was suspended on the edge of a blade balanced above the abyss.

Though I wasn’t so sure, now, because when I looked into that dark, empty apartment, where her scent was already stale, abyss was what it felt like.

Taking the stairs by foot was too slow. I snapped open my wings and sliced down through the air to the ground. But the abyss grew all around me, because the door to the main house hung open, too. I could smell Zev and Jolakaia much nearer and fresher than Suvi. A sound behind me had me spinning, and there I saw them.

Zev was lying prone, seemingly unconscious. Jolakaia was on the ground, too, but she was not down there to heal her mate but because she also appeared to be injured. She groaned, rolling stiffly onto her side and attempting to rock onto her hands and knees.

In a cracking flash of an instant, I’d wrenched her up. I sat her heavily on the workbench and held her by the shoulders so she would not topple.

“Where is Suvi?”

The time it took for Jolakaia to open her eyes and focus them on me was an eternity of agony. I could feel black smoke gathering all around me, lining the edges of my vision, and it was not the darkness of mate madness but the pulsing tunnel vision of a berserker rage barely held back. Suvi’s scent, especially out here, was faint and fading, and there was another scent, too, one I thought I recognized but couldn’t immediately place as my control grew taut and nearly snapped.

Jolakaia had been good to me and especially to Suvi. I did not want to hurt her. But if she did not wake up to tell me what had transpired, then hurting people would no longer be a mere possibility, but the inevitable outcome of fury that was becoming near-delirious with fear.

I shook her aggressively by the shoulders. She gave a crackly, pained-sounding exhale, trying once again to focus her gaze on me.

It didn’t work. Her eyelids slid shut even as I shook her again. Zev looked like she would be no help – she was even worse off than her wife, still lying unmoving, though I could see that she was breathing.