I turned back to the cover, and it looked new enough to me. “What makes you say that?”
“Because Thor died, like, three years ago,” he said. “Bodil is still allowed to rule, though, because she and Thor have a little kid.”
“How do you know this stuff?” I asked. “I don’t even know this.”
“I traveled with Bent for a while, remember? And he loved talking about all the stupid crap the Omte would get themselves into.”
“What happened to the King?”
“There’s a tavern in Fulatr?sk called the Ugly Vulture.” He shook his head, like he thought it was a dumb name. “According to Bent, it’s a real roughneck place, although, also according to him, all the bars in Fulatr?sk are really rowdy places. But the Ugly Vulture is apparently the worst.”
The road had become narrow, so the swamp came right up to the edges of it, and Konstantin slowed down. As the sun continued to set, everything around us seemed to glow an eerie red.
“Thor really loved the Ugly Vulture,” Konstantin went on. “That is one nice thing that Bent said about the Omte—their royals have no problem getting down and dirty with the commoners.”
“How progressive of them,” I said dryly.
“So anyway, I guess Thor got really drunk on eldvatten—”
“Eldvatten?” I interrupted him.
“It’s this really, really strong alcohol that the Omte make. It’s like a cross between wine and moonshine, but I have no idea what’s in it,” Konstantin explained.
“So the King is totally wasted at this point, and Bent didn’t know the full details of it, but another patron starts getting mouthy with Thor,” he continued. “So the King starts hitting this guy, and the guy gets pissed, so he rips out Thor’s throat with his bare hands.”
I gaped at him. “This is who we’re going to for help? Their King died in a bar fight!”
“We don’t have a lot of other options,” he countered. “And besides, the King was drunk. He was probably less of a dick when he was sober.”
I leaned my head back against the seat. “We are so screwed.”
The car started to slow down, and I looked out the window, hoping to see a palace or some sign that we were getting closer. But it was only cypress trees and dark water.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“We’ve run out of road.” Konstantin put the car in park and turned it off. “Now we get to finish the journey on foot.”
EIGHT
everglades
The heat was oppressive. It’s hard to explain exactly what it felt like to come from twenty-degree temperatures and snowstorms to more than eighty degrees and humid. The air seemed to condense on my skin, and bugs buzzed wildly around me.
As we waded through the bayou, with the murky water coming up to our knees, I hoped against hope that Konstantin knew where we were going.
“Watch for alligators?” Konstantin warned.
I looked around the water, which was getting harder to see in the fading light, but even in bright afternoon it would be hard to tell a log from a large reptile. “There are alligators here?”
“I have no idea.” He glanced back at me, smirking. “I don’t know anything about what lives down here.”
“I guess we’ll find out, then, won’t we?” I muttered.
A mosquito buzzed loudly around my ear, and I tried to swat it away to no avail. It finally landed on the back of my neck, and I slapped it hard to be sure I got it.
“You should be careful about making loud noises, though,” Konstantin said as I followed a few steps behind him.
“Why? Will it attract alligators?” I asked sarcastically.
“No, but the Omte startle easily, and we definitely don’t want them startled.”
Beneath the water, the thick mud threatened to rip off my boots with every step I took, making it very slow going. I told Konstantin that there had to be an easier way to get to Fulatr?sk, but he reminded me that the Omte didn’t want to be found. They made it as difficult as possible for anyone to stumble upon them.
It had gotten dark enough that we needed to pull out our cell phones and use them as flashlights to help guide our path. But there was still so much around us we couldn’t see, and the wetlands were alive with noise—frogs, insects, and birds were loudly chirping their nighttime songs.
Somewhere high above us, I heard the flapping of wings, but I couldn’t move my light fast enough to spot them. I’d also heard the high-pitched squeaks of bats, so I figured that they were zooming around to feast on the plethora of bugs.
Occasionally I felt something swim up against my leg, but since nothing had bitten me yet, I tried not to worry about it.
Lightning bugs flashed around us, their tiny bodies twinkling through the trees and reflecting on the water. In the twilight, surrounded by the music of the animals and the still waters underneath the thick canopy of branches, there was something beautiful about the marsh, something almost enchanting.