Page 150 of Fallen Gods

The crickets chirping, water lapping on the shore, the sounds of the Hunt—it all just stops.

Chest heaving, I look up and see Aric covering me with his body. And when I peek out from his frame, I gasp.

He just leveled acres of forest.

Gone as if it never existed.

I pick up the rocks at my feet, and immediately they turn to sand in my hands.

“Aric.” I test his name on my lips and slowly gaze up at him. His eyes are pure white, his hair has lengthened, and tiny ice crystals twist their way through the strands, creating a sort of crown on his head. His arms are covered in blue-and-white etchings, runes all the way down to his fingertips. A blue line divides his lips the same way it did for his costume mask, like he somehow knew that it was his natural state. It’s majestic, beautiful.

He looks like he’s ice himself.

A king.

He finally opens his mouth and whispers so low that I feel the rumble in my chest. “Home. He burned our home, destroyed world after world.”

My stomach clenches.

“You were next.”

Tears burn the backs of my eyes.

“Give him the hammer, and he’ll stop at nothing. Give it to Sigurd, and he’ll get revenge. Take it yourself…”

“And Laufey dies.”

“Is one life worth more than a world?” he asks, his gaze piercing. “What would Laufey want?”

I know in my gut exactly what she would want. She gave me the note. Spelled out exactly what to do. I kept thinking it was too easy…because it was.

Find Mjölnir.

Save the world from Odin’s rule.

Forfeit everyone else—me included.

The note wasn’t a clue.

It was her final goodbye.

Her last gift to a daughter she failed to protect—so I could do what she couldn’t. So I could be brave.

“I kept getting visions of frost,” Aric rumbles out, his voice growing deeper by the second. He starts to clench his teeth like he’s in pain, then arches his back. The rune, it’s doing something, and he’s trying to hold it at bay. “Frost is the key.”

“What do you mean? The key to what?”

But he can only hold out a shaking hand. “The note—do you have the note?”

“I have it.” I reach into the bodice of my costume and hand it over to him.

“Frost,” he repeats. “The Giants would communicate with frost on what looked like normal letters, but only a Giant—” He clenches his teeth again, then starts to cough. “Only a Giant’s frost can unlock it.” He breathes over the note, and ink appears between the runes. “Trust in Aric,” he reads. “You are safe. Giants will rise. Gods will fall. Do. Not. Fail.”

Chapter Seventy-Six

Aric

My back aches, my mind races, and the frost begs to be unleashed underneath my fingertips. Visions are coming so hard and fast, I can barely organize them in my mind.