From the Earth to the Shadows Read online

  “So we have no weapons to protect ourselves?” I asked.

  “No, other swords are fine. It’s only the Valkyrie ones that are no good in Kurnugia,” Valeska replied.

  Oona groaned as she held up two identical-looking cylinders of bright blue liquid. “How much time do I have?” She looked back over at us. “When are we leaving for Kurnugia?”

  “The sooner the better, I suppose,” I said. “Does it matter what time we go there? Like, is night more dangerous?”

  “There isn’t really a true night or day in Kurnugia,” Valeska replied flatly. “So it doesn’t matter in that regard, and time moves differently.”

  I sat up straighter. “Time moves differently? How?”

  “It’s much faster,” she said. “In the time that we’ve lived one lifetime, they’ve lived five. It makes eternity stretch on for even longer.”

  “Well, that’s nice and freaky,” I muttered.

  “If time doesn’t matter, does that mean we’re leaving soon?” Oona asked dismally.

  Valeska shrugged and looked to me for the answer. I glanced at the clock, and it was slowly ticking toward one-thirty in the morning.

  “We haven’t slept yet, and it doesn’t do us any good to take on the underworld exhausted,” I said. “But we still have to go through the Gates to get there, and I know that’s no place for us after dark. So let’s plan on being ready by noon.”

  Valeska nodded once. “At noon, we go to hell.”

  TEN

  Quinn had been kind enough to let Oona and me take the bedroom, since she didn’t need rest as much as we did. Not that either Oona or I had gotten much sleep. I managed to get maybe an hour of fitful shut-eye, and when I woke, Oona was already up, sitting on her bed with a large book splayed open in front of her and a dim reading light in her hand.

  I recognized it instantly, in part because of the dusty sage fragrance it emitted every time Oona opened its yellowing pages, but it was also undeniably distinct in appearance. It was about a foot long and nearly as wide, and several inches thick, which meant it had to weigh ten pounds or more.

  The book was bound with in impenetrable black leather with a lustrous sheen. Inlaid in the dead center was a long spearpoint-shaped bornite crystal that shimmered in iridescent shades of purple and dark blue. There was no title or any wording on the cover or spine, but I knew it as the Sorcellerie Grimoire—a book of magic that had been a gift to Oona from her sorceress cousin Minerva.

  “I’ve been narrowing down what potions and charms to bring,” Oona said, with her eyes still glued to the pages of the book, as I sat up and stretched. “It’s so hard because Kurnugia is a whole other plane. I have no way of knowing how casting a spell really works down there.”

  “Valeska’s protection spell worked,” I said, then corrected myself as I recalled the painful-looking red burns that covered her back. “At least partially. And I imagine that it didn’t work as well as it could’ve because she didn’t fully know what she was doing.”

  “That’s true.” Oona agreed with me, but she didn’t sound completely convinced.

  I got out of bed and opened the heavy drapes, letting in the bright morning sunlight. The parking lot behind the motel was filled to the brim, mostly with tiny little hatchbacks and rusted hovercars. The black asphalt shimmered with an inferior mirage from baking under the sun.

  Facing Oona, I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back against the wall air conditioner, which rumbled and rattled as it attempted to keep the heat at bay with blasts of tepid, stale air. Oona had begun chewing her lip, making her silver studs above her lip twist and turn.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “Just…” She squinted at me. “Can we die in Kurnugia?”

  “I’m hoping we make it out of there alive,” I replied carefully. “But if you’re asking if it’s possible for us to be killed, then yes, I think so. Everything I’ve ever learned in school only points to one thing—when mortals die, they’re dead. There’s no afterlife or other plane for us.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she grumbled, sounding disappointed. “But I was hoping you might have known of some sort of cosmic loophole.”

  “If I knew how to cheat death, that would make my life so much easier,” I said with a dry laugh. Oona smiled, but it quickly faded.

  “Well, I suppose I ought to get gathering my stuff, then.” She flipped the book closed with a heavy thud and stood up. “I’ll do my best to pack everything we need to keep us alive.”

  Oona went back out to the main room to get the magic aspect covered, while I decided to focus on the practical things—namely, weapons. I pulled out the long black duffel bag from where I’d stashed it underneath the bed, then set it on the mattress. I unzipped the bag to reveal our small cache of armaments and make my picks about what to bring down with us.

  The majority of the weapons had come from Samael, who had gone into his private collection to give me the most powerful, supernaturally endowed defenses he had in his arsenal. Of the two that I had procured without Samael, I had to immediately disregard my Valkyrie sword Sigrún, because it wouldn’t work down in Kurnugia.

  The special constraints of sneaking down under the cloak meant that despite their obvious power, I wouldn’t be able to take all the weapons. The long swords—Tyrfing and Dyrnwyn—would be particularly cumbersome, so I set them aside.

  That left me with the jagged black tourmaline dagger that once belonged to Kalfu, the iron-spiked flail chain mace Sharur, and the sword made from a solitary piece of obsidian-like stone, Kusanagi. Three weapons. I hoped that Valeska brought her own, because there really wasn’t much to share.

  I grabbed the rest of my gear—my hip sheath, my hooded vest with dagger sheath, and my heavy-duty knapsack—and spread it out on the bed so I could account for everything as I packed up. My knapsack was already preloaded with essentials, like bandages, bottled water, and jackfruit seeds to eat, and I added Sharur, the Valhallan cloak, and my sólarsteinn to it. The sunstone had come in handy before, and it might be the best tool for finding Odin’s spear.

  I pulled off my loose T-shirt, preparing to change and get dressed for the mission, when the door to the bedroom opened. Quinn came into the room, smiling sheepishly when she saw me topless. I thought about covering up, since I was only wearing a black bra and mismatched pair of striped panties, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen me naked plenty of times already.

  “I wanted to talk to you before you left,” she said. Her voice was low as she stepped closer to the bed, but she appeared completely undeterred by my semi-nudity.

  “Well, let’s talk, then.” I grabbed my ribbed leggings out of my suitcase and pulled them on. They were tattered in a few places, but they were still the most durable pair of pants I had.

  Quinn pushed her silver hair behind her ears. “I don’t want you to go,” she said, then quickly added, “I know that you have to. But it kills me that I can’t go with you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I insisted without looking at her.

  “I know that you probably will be,” she agreed.

  I pulled a tank top on over my head, all too aware of how her eyes felt on me. My skin felt flushed, but I hoped she didn’t notice as I went back to loading up my gear bag.

  “Is that what you came to tell me?” I asked. “That you want to go with, and you hope I don’t die? I mean, I appreciate that, but it was already implied, I think.”

  “Malin.” She groaned as I picked up my black hooded vest. I’d just pulled it on and started doing up the sheath buckle when she grabbed my arm. “Can you stop for one second and talk to me?”

  Her hand was soft and strong, and I finally lifted my eyes to meet hers. She stared at me with a pleading desperation in her eyes, but I’d already heard that in her voice. Even though I was looking at her now, she let her hand linger on my arm, and I didn’t push it away.

  “I don’t want to leave things like we did,” she said. “The things I said ba
ck in Sugarland—”

  I looked away. “No, you were right. You should’ve said that stuff a long time ago, honestly.”

  “I don’t know what the future holds. Not for us, not for the world,” Quinn admitted softly. “But I know that you’re going somewhere that you might not come back from, and I can’t go with you.” She paused, taking a fortifying breath. “I don’t want the last thing I said to you to be hurtful. I still care about you. I always will.”

  “I…” I swallowed hard, struggling to find the words that always wanted to escape me when I was around Quinn. “I still care about you, too.”

  She’d moved closer to me, somehow, without me noticing. As if she’d been able to materialize in the space right next to me. Her hand moved down from my arm, holding on to my hip, and her other hand went to my chin, gently pushing it up so I’d look at her.

  “You have to come back, Malin,” she said in a voice that was low and husky.

  “I plan to,” I whispered, and she closed her eyes as she leaned down to me.

  Her lips had barely touched mine when the bedroom door opened.

  “Why doesn’t anyone knock?” I groaned, but I was already stepping back from Quinn, putting the necessary distance between us.

  “Sorry,” Valeska said, leaning on the open doorframe. “I was checking to see if you were ready. It’s about time to go.”

  “Yeah, almost,” I told her. “Give me like five minutes.”

  “Okay. Just be quick.” Valeska went back to the living room, but she left the door open behind her.

  I finished buckling my vest harness, and Quinn moved back toward me, like she meant to pick up where we’d left off. But for me the moment was broken, and I knew that we didn’t have time to waste.

  “Is there anything else you needed to say?” I asked her as I slid the dagger into its sheath.

  “No,” she said, but her words were filled with heavy regret. “I think I said it all.”

  “Mal?” Oona called from the other room, and a second later she was in the room. Quinn finally started backing away from me to let me finish what I needed to do.

  “Yeah?” I asked without looking up at her.

  “Did Odin say anything else?” Oona asked. “Is there anything else we should know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, what happened?” she persisted. “I mean, exactly. Be specific.”

  “I already told you like fifty times.”

  “And if telling me fifty more times could help us, then I’ll keep asking you.” She had the sharp tone that let me know there was no point in arguing with her.

  “We waited at the temple, and Odin arrived a few minutes late—”

  “How did he arrive?” Oona asked.

  I shrugged. “I didn’t see him arrive. He was just there, walking down the steps. His raven was there, too, so maybe that’s how he travels.”

  “A raven?” she brightened. “You didn’t mention that before.”

  “I didn’t think it was that important,” I said. “Odin has a pet raven, Muninn, that he hangs around with a lot.”

  “Only one?” Oona asked.

  I snapped the clips shut on my knapsack and looked at her. “What?”

  “Doesn’t Odin have two ravens?”

  It hadn’t occurred to me before, but in at least half the pictures I had seen of Odin he was accompanied by his two black giant ravens, Muninn and Huginn. I’d been too preoccupied by meeting with a Vanir god to really think about it.

  “Yeah.” I nodded slowly, remembering what I’d learned in school when we’d covered Odin. “Yeah. A teacher told me that they each represent something. Muninn was … heart, and Huginn was mind.”

  “So, Odin is bringing Muninn around with him?” Oona asked. “But where’s the other one?”

  I slipped my knapsack on my back. “I don’t know. Maybe when we get back from Kurnugia you can ask Odin yourself.”

  ELEVEN

  We took a bus from our motel, traveling through the lush greenery of Belize. When we’d first arrived here, it was like being transported into a fairy tale. It was such a disorienting contrast from the dark claustrophobia of the city back home. Here all the colors were bolder, and even the sun shone brighter.

  It only took the hyperbus fifteen minutes to speed north through thirty miles of jungle before dropping us in the middle of El Noveno Anillo, with the driver telling us we’d have to make the rest of the way on our own.

  Last time I had come to the run-down suburb that ran around the Gates of Kurnugia—only five days ago, though it felt like a lifetime—we had come to the north side of the city, traveling down from the affluent metropolitan area of Belmopan. We had seen the luxury condos and historic architecture blot out the trees before giving way to the slums of El Noveno.

  But this time we’d come up from Caana City, ending up on the south side of El Noveno, and it was even worse than what I’d first been introduced to. The “homes”—if they could really be called that—were almost entirely made of rusted corrugated metal patched together with cardboard and mud.

  The dirt roads were narrow and uneven, with plenty of holes, dips, and large rocks marring the path. But the area was crowded, with humans and immortals alike, all of them looking ragged and malnourished. The instant Oona, Valeska, and I got out of the van, looking all healthy and clean, the locals approached us with outstretched hands, begging for spare change or fresh water or something to eat.

  We began walking slowly toward the Gates of Kurnugia, slow not so much by choice but because of everyone crowding around us. Valeska firmly and repeatedly told everyone no and pushed her way ahead, carefully stepping over garbage and moving to the side to avoid a motorbike that bounced carelessly past us.

  The stench was undeniable, like a rotting corpse covered in two-month-old trash and left to bake and ferment under the hot sun. Which was exactly what I suspected was happening. Somehow, it was hotter here than in the rest of the country. There was no humidity, but a dry heat, like flames lapping up from a bonfire and threatening to engulf all of us.

  Sweat slid down the shaved side of my head, running down to the nape of my neck. I already had my long hair up in a ponytail, but it would do little to combat the sheer intensity of the heat.

  Finally, the humans and immortals had begun dispersing, after realizing that we weren’t easy marks for begging. It was still crowded, because there were far too many individuals living in too small an area, but they had begun ignoring us and going about their business.

  “How much farther?” Valeska asked.

  “There is still a ways to go,” I admitted, then motioned to the terra-cotta wall that loomed in the distance. “That’s how we get in.”

  A little boy came up to me, with a mop of brown curls. He stared up at me with eyes too big for his face and sallow cheeks. His lips were chapped, with a fresh scab on the corner of his mouth, and he held his dirty hand out to me.

  “Bonjou, fraulein,” he said in a clear voice, clearer than I expected for a child of his age. Then I realized he was probably around six or seven, maybe even older, but severe malnourishment had impeded his growth, making him appear much younger. “Ayuadame. Souple, Wasser. I’m sehr sediento. Please, fraulein.”

  He spoke in a hodgepodge of several different languages. From what I could tell, it sounded like a blend of German, Spanish, French, and English. I didn’t know all the words he said, but I was fairly certain that Wasser meant “water.”

  I knew I would probably regret it later, but I didn’t know how I could deny a wide-eyed, dehydrated little boy. I slid off my knapsack, carefully keeping it close so the others surrounding us didn’t get any ideas, and I grabbed my bottle of water.

  As I handed it to him, his eyes lit up like fireworks.

  “Mesi!” he exclaimed. “Mesi anpil!”

  He ran off, laughing in delight in between guzzling down the water.

  Valeska looked at me, her gaze suspicious under her heavy lids. “How do
you know that wasn’t a trick? That he isn’t a shape-shifter trying to trick you or mug you?”

  “I don’t,” I admitted with a shrug as I slid my bag back onto my shoulders.

  My Valkyrie blood usually gave me a sense of immortals, and all my training in school and at the academy meant I was pretty good at recognizing them, but I wasn’t 100 percent accurate. Especially given how overpacked the area was and the supernatural vibes that the Gates of Kurnugia gave off.

  “I would’ve done the same thing if he’d asked me,” Oona assured me with a smile, but she hadn’t needed to. Of course Oona would’ve helped him. By the pained expression in her eyes every time she denied a beggar I guessed it was taking all her willpower not to give them everything she had.

  I couldn’t read Valeska’s expression well enough to tell if she was disapproving or approving, but what was done was done, so we moved on. As we walked closer to the city, the crowds began to finally give way. Even the dilapidated homes were more spread out, and I noticed a few eyes peering out at us.

  We followed along the wall, heading around to the entrance to the Gates, and our trek had become eerily silent. Every now and again I spotted a rat or other small vermin skittering across our path, and once an olitau flew off over us. Its leathery red wings spread wide above us, momentarily granting us a reprieve from the sun, and the bat-like beast let out an angry screech before disappearing over the walls into the Gates of Kurnugia.

  But beyond that, we were alone. Knowing how populated the area was around us, I felt strangely isolated as we made the long trek under the bright sun.

  Valeska stretched her wings, flapping them lightly, which caused a wonderful, brief breeze. It also wafted the hot stench around me, but it was worth it for even the slightest of reprieves from the heat.

  “This is taking a lot longer than last time,” Oona commented.

  Since her legs were so much shorter than mine and she was less athletic, she had a tendency to fall a few steps behind, but she would never complain or ask me to slow down. Instead, she’d push herself harder, and I didn’t want her to end up exhausted, so I slowed to match her pace.