River of Shadows (Underworld Gods #1)

“In this very place?” I repeat.

Rasmus stops and nods at the frozen waterfall. We’re right next to it now and I can see the darkness behind it, feel all that empty space. There’s a cave or a passage back there behind the solid ice curtain, and the wind that’s blowing out of it smells like mint and I swear I hear a low murmur, like a crowd of people.

And then I hear it.

I hear him.

I hear my father’s voice, airy and breathless, like a forgotten whisper. “Hanna, don’t come for me. Please. Just let me go.”

My heart sinks, my eyes going wide. I try to swallow but can’t.

“Papa!” I cry out softly at the cave, tears freezing on my lashes.

But there’s nothing in return. Just this mint-scented wind, that’s sometimes ice cold and sometimes furnace hot and sounds like another world, another life is hidden in the depths.

“Was that you?” I ask Rasmus. “Was that some trick you did with your voice?”

He gives his head a firm shake. “No. I wouldn’t have told you to stay behind. I need you to do this, Hanna. I can’t go and get Torben alone. You have to be with me.”

No. No, this is still all crazy talk, still all nonsense, still all a fairy tale and make-believe.

“I just…I want to go home,” I say faintly.

Rasmus stares at me.

“And I want my father back.” My voice is louder now.

He sighs and looks at me with melancholy eyes. “You can’t have both. Which one do you want more?”

Of course there’s only one answer. “I want my father back.”

Oh god, Papa, I want you back.

He gives me a quick smile. “Okay. Then we keep walking.”

He starts again, heading to the cliff face and walking alongside it until he disappears behind the iced veil of the waterfall.

“Rasmus?” I call out after him. No response. Even the wind seems to have stopped. All is eerily calm. I look behind me, but there’s just the frozen river and the snow and the trees and there’s nothing but silence. Rasmus had lied to me, told me he was taking me to town, when he was really taking me here. He’s unreliable and untrustworthy, but there’s shit-all I can do about that now.

My father doesn’t want me to save him.

And so I will.

I take in a deep breath and go behind the waterfall.





Chapter 5





The River of Shadows





It’s dark in the cave.

Silent.

I stop walking and listen, trying to pick up on the sound of Rasmus’ footsteps or his breathing, but there’s nothing. The air is horribly cold and still, though it smells faintly of mint.

“Rasmus?” I say, and my voice bounces off the walls of the cave, almost making me jump. “I’m not going to walk blindly into a dark cave alone. Where are you?”

There’s no reply. Not at first. Then, as I’m turning around, ready to head back the way I came in, the iced wall of the frozen waterfall glowing faintly from the outside light, I hear a whisper.

“Don’t talk,” Rasmus says, voice so low that I nearly miss it.

I open my mouth to say something, to do the opposite of what he just told me, when he quickly adds, “Just walk forward.” He pauses, and I hear him take a shaking breath in the darkness. “Don’t. Make. A. Sound.”

Considering I don’t know where I am and he does, I press my lips together firmly and slowly start walking toward where his voice came from, holding out my hands as I go in case I run into something.

“I can see you,” he whispers. “A few more feet. I’m reaching for you.”

Suddenly I feel his hand against mine, warmth amidst the cold, and he’s grasping it tight. I nearly gasp but manage to keep quiet as he pulls me along gently.

Beneath our feet, the snow and ice has faded away to what feels like a floor of hard-packed dirt, and the further forward into the cave we walk, the warmer it gets. Eventually the sound of our footfalls disappears and I can tell the walls are coming in around us, as if we’re now in a tunnel.

I’m lucky as hell that I’m not even slightly claustrophobic because I think I’d be losing my mind about now. Even so, I’m doing everything I can not to think about the fact that I’m walking blindly through a black tunnel to who knows where.

The Land of the Dead? No. I still don’t believe in it, still don’t believe that’s where Rasmus is taking me. Maybe it’s a clever moniker, perhaps when we pop out at the end of this tunnel (that so far, has no light at the end of it), we’ll end up in Russia. But we aren’t going to be stumbling around some underworld looking for my father.

Rasmus squeezes my hand and slows his pace so that I’m pressed up against his back. With his other hand he reaches back and pushes against my hip, moving me over so that I’m directly behind him and from the change in the air, I know that the walls of the tunnel are close now. Really close. I keep closing my eyes and opening them hoping that they’ll adjust to the darkness better, but no matter what I do I only see a black void.

I think I’ve been doing pretty good about keeping my cool so far, but my heart is thundering in my chest so hard and so fast I’m afraid that maybe I could die from fright.

There’s a faint rustling sound right in front of me, I think of Rasmus’ coat rubbing against the tunnel walls, his shoulders are broader than mine, and we slow down even further.

Suddenly my ears pop and it feels like we’re walking through something, like the air has thickened and we have to really push to keep going forward. It’s like walking through glue.

Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it’s gone, and we’re nearly falling forward. In the black, I’m beginning to make out the outline of Rasmus in front of me and when I look around him I see a faint gray light at the end of the tunnel.

My heart leaps. Thank god.

Rasmus starts walking faster now, his grip on my hand even tighter than before, and I have a feeling I still have to be quiet.

The opening to the tunnel gets wider and wider but no matter how hard I stare, I can’t decipher what I’m looking at. It’s like all that’s outside is this gray mist, no shapes or structures.

It isn’t until we’re standing at the mouth of it that I finally see where we’ve ended up. In front of us is a pebbled beach that’s coated with a light dusting of snow, the stones pitch-black, shiny and smooth. Beyond that, a line of dark water laps at the shore before being obscured by thick fog.

I step out onto the beach and look around in awe. The cave is set into tall slick cliffs that reach up into the sky until the mist swallows them. The beach itself is only a few yards long, just a patch of pebbles protruding out into the water. Everything else fades away into the fog and it feels like we’re standing on the edge of the world.

Goosebumps erupt over my skin, even beneath the layers of clothing. But we’re not at the edge of the world, right?

I look over at Rasmus who walks toward the water, the tips of his boots getting wet. He reaches out into nothing and then the mist clears just enough to reveal an iron pole sticking out from the water with a large iron bell at the end. Rasmus reaches into the water and pulls out a shining rock, then whacks the stone against the bell, the note ringing out loud and eerily low, and I watch in confusion as the water starts rippling outward into the mist, as if the bell is sending soundwaves.

So much for not being able to make a sound. “Why did you do that?” I ask Rasmus. “Where are we? Russia?”

He throws the stone back into the mist where I hear it land with a splash, then turns to me with the most intense look in his eyes. He reaches out and grabs my shoulders with his gloved hands, squeezing them. “You did a good job in there by not making a noise, but I’m going to need you to humor me for a bit longer. This next part is especially important.”

I frown. “Why, what’s happening?”

“There will be a boat coming through that mist any minute now—”

“A boat!?”

“Yes. We will be getting on that boat and I want you to play along with everything I tell Loviatar.”