Page 114 of Soul of Fire

We landed heavily, releasing Arne a few feet away so he didn’t end up on top of us again.

“What do you mean she’s gone!?” Bryndis had shifted, leaving a frantic Branka in her place. Jorgen was running toward us, the odemarksdyr who had eviscerated the land nowhere in sight.

“The odemarksdyr?” I asked, staggering as an exhausted Kindra lost hold of the shift.

“Fled. What do you mean she’s gone?” Branka took my shoulders and shook them until my teeth rattled. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and I knew Bryndis must have told her what Kindra had already told me. “Where is Eisa?”

I couldn’t hold back the sobs any longer.

We had lost her. Arik had lost her. And if she was gone, he would follow, if he wasn’t lost already.

“She fell,” I said, between sobs as Jorgen came running up to meet us. I clutched Branka’s wrists, needing something to hold onto. “She fell into the Rift.”

Therewerenosmilesor laughter as we sat around a small campfire watching as the sun rose over the ravaged land.

The kingdom was in ruin. Thousands were dead. We’d seen their bodies as we’d flown over Hovedstaden, and I knew more must have fallen to their deaths in the Rift or at the claws or teeth of the odemarksdyr.

I didn’t know where the monsters had gone. Odemarksdyr did not flee. They would be back, and more death would follow.

The evil that had long been kept at bay was somehow here and basically fucking invincible.

And we’d lost our Drekadrottning. Our Drekonungr. My friends.

Ilost them.

I had silently doctored Arne’s injured arm, as well as the new injuries across his thighs from the black barbs of the serpent’s tail. They’d been almost as vicious as the garmr blood, cutting deep, and Kindra spent her final reserve of energy healing as much as she could, slipping into unconsciousness around dawn.

Arne said nothing as I’d worked. Simply stared into the flames, a man lost to his grief.

Branka spent most of the night crying in Jorgen’s arms while he and I watched the sun rise in anguished silence. I had no idea what to do or where to go, or how to go on in this new reality.

What do we do now?I asked Kindra.

She didn’t reply, only pulsed faintly in my mind, her gold dulled to almost bronze with fatigue.

Branka was staring into the flames. Her sorrow had morphed into rage during the night, and her beautiful eyes were tight with fury. “Tell me again. What was it?”

I sighed. We’d been over this five times by now, and nothing I said would change anything. “An enormous black dragon or serpent. Wings, but no legs. Amber eyes. Barbed black tail. Poison teeth, based on the injuries on—“ I swallowed, shaking my headas I forced down my guilt. “On Eisa’s back. And when it spoke, I could hear it in my head, like Kindra.”

Branka nodded, wiping a tear away angrily. “And how do you kill a dragon?”

I shook my head. “It’s not a dragon.”

I glanced at Jorgen, who reached for his mate. “Love—“

“No!” She stood up, stepping out of his reach, and Jorgen looked for all the world like it broke his heart. “This thing killed my best friend. She was my best friend, Jorgen.” Her voice broke. “And I want it dead.”

She turned, looking toward the black tendrils that stretched across the plains from where the monsters had appeared.

“It’s like the odemarksdyr, right? Made from darkness.” She whirled on us, looking furious. “Well?”

“I guess so,” I said as I looked to Jorgen for help.

“And what kills the odemarksdyr?” Branka pushed.

Jorgen’s jaw was tight. “Dragonfire. But I can guarantee you that Idunn and Baldur would have tried that. And if they couldn’t—“

“They were only two.” Branka had a gleam in her eye that I had never seen before. Fury. Vengeance. “What about two hundred?”