River of Shadows (Underworld Gods #1)

“Maybe.” I swallow hard, the iron pressing against my throat. “I never gave much thought to what I deserve. I was just living without appreciating it, without recognizing it. Maybe this is what I deserve, for twenty-four years of just floating along the surface, not grabbing onto life while I had it.”

“Mmhmmph,” he says after a moment. “That’s very dramatic. I can’t tell if it’s amusing or annoying.”

I want to glare at him, but I’m still stuck on something from earlier. “Are you really going to cure my father’s cancer? Torben Heikkinen? Make sure that he can live out his full life?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he says. “I regret it already, but I don’t like going back on my word. I said it, so it’s done.”

My heart nearly bursts, even though the feeling is bittersweet.

My father’s life will be extended.

I just won’t be part of his life anymore.

“You could thank me,” Death says. “No one ever thanks me.”

“Because no one wants to die!” I tell him.

“Why not?” he asks. “If they knew what was in the City of Death, they wouldn’t fear it. They might even welcome it. Even those who are damned to Inmost aren’t damned forever. We have Bone Matches where the winner can live in the Golden Mean.”

I stare at the black void of his face. “Don’t you want to be feared? Isn’t that the whole point of you?”

Another waft of dead air passes between us, sending an icy chill down my spine. In the distance, thunder crashes and the clouds grow dark.

I’ve made him angry again.

Death stops and takes a step toward me, leaning down, leaning in close, and all I can do is stare into the dark abyss as the abyss stares back. “Do you not fear me, little bird?” he rasps, his voice a black hand reaching into my soul. “Because I spared you on the spider’s web? You don’t even know what fear is, you impetuous mortal. Not yet. I will break you into a thousand little worthless pieces, I will suck your heart through the marrow of your bones, I will take your body, your memories, every ounce that defines you, and grind you into my morning coffee, so that your suffering will give me energy for the day. I will make you beg for death, and even then I won’t grant it to you, all for my own fucking amusement. So go ahead and squander your fear. You’ll need it later. Your life will depend on it.”

He keeps walking but I feel like I’m rooted into the ground, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, the fear making a home in every corner of my body.

“Come along,” he growls, yanking at the chain and I’m pulled toward him, the iron collar nearly snapping my neck. I stumble along, lost in the fear, in the loss of hope, my thoughts and emotions caught in a whirlpool of despair, until the Hiisi forest ends and we come to the desert with the weird orange haze. To my surprise, it’s completely empty.

“Where is everyone?” I ask.

“They went after the redhead,” Death says gruffly.

“So we’re walking?”

He starts across the desert, yanking at my collar again, making me cry out in pain. “Now we’re walking.” He casts me a sidelong glance I can’t see. “The nerve you have to complain about your mode of transportation.”

“I’m not complaining,” I manage to eke out, pulling the collar away from my throat so I can swallow. “I’m just surprised that we’re walking to your shadow castle or whatever. Shouldn’t you be riding your unicorn? Shouldn’t you have a chariot made of bones, pulled by five black stallions that breathe fire?”

“You have quite the imagination. Sarvi will be back soon I imagine. The others will head to the castle. Either they find the redhead or they don’t. Sometimes I think there are ways out of this land that even I don’t know about.”

“Who is Sarvi?”

“My unicorn.”

“Do you know how silly that sounds?”

Death lets out a low growl, like a cornered wolverine. “Unicorn as a word makes perfect sense for the creatures. It’s fucking fairy tales that made them into some blessed angel horse. They are anything but. Violent, bloodsucking, voracious equines with a bad attitude. I’m just lucky that they were leftovers from when the Old Gods ruled, and that they decided to serve us. They didn’t have to.”

“How long is the walk?”

“It will take days. Many days. Maybe even weeks because of how aggravatingly slow you are.”

Great.

“Tell me about the Old Gods,” I say, pulling at my collar again.

“I will tell you nothing,” he says.

“Tell me how you tortured Rasmus. What did you do to him?”

“Torture? Trying to bait me with topics I enjoy?” I feel his eyes on me for a moment. “How well do you trust him?”

I balk, glancing up at his shadowed face. “Rasmus? A hell of a lot more than I trust you.”

“That’s a given,” he says simply. “Do you know him well?”

I lick my lips, the dry air sucking the moisture from them. I’m not sure how to play this. I could lie, but that might not make a difference. Fuck, I don’t think anything I do or say going forward is going to make a difference. “I barely know him at all.”

“I have three sayings in life,” Death says, ticking off three fingers, their intricate metal coverings glinting orange in the desert light. “Never trust the living. Never trust a God. And never trust a redhead.” He glances at me. “I’m afraid you’ve already done all three.”

I feel like he’s baiting me now. We continue to walk, and I’m ever so conscious of the rising dust and heat and Death’s commanding presence beside me, his metal and weaponry chiming with each step. Despite his size though, his movements are fluid and graceful, even if the ground shakes a little under his footfall.

“I trusted Rasmus to keep me alive,” I eventually say.

“Yet you’re the one who fought my daughter and killed the swan,” he points out tersely. “It sounds like you kept him alive there.”

“He called upon Vellamo when The Devouress was going to eat us. He told me the truth about my father. He did that ice thing with Eero and Noora, these shamans back in Finland. Saved me from them too.”

“I see,” he says. “Did you know his mother was a Lapp Witch? Among other things…”

“No. But so what? That makes sense that he would have some power that way, right?” I mean I don’t know what a Lapp Witch is, but it sounds like a normal witch.

“Perhaps,” he says. “But even Rasmus doesn’t know that. He thinks his mother died when he was young, same goes for his father. He was raised by his grandmother, then in part by your father after she died. Did you know that part?”

Obviously I didn’t, but I hate that Death knew of the secrets my father was keeping from him, so I don’t say anything.

“Did you not wonder what happened to him in the night?” he goes on, his tone light now, as if we’re having a casual chat.

I shrug. I had wondered that, of course. “Figured he went to take a piss and you accosted him?”

“He ran off and left you behind. We found him at the mouth of the Gorge of Despair,” he says. “Somehow he crossed these plains and survived.”

“What’s so dangerous about them?”

“You don’t hear that?”

I listen. There’s nothing but the sound of us walking, of sand blowing in the wind.

“You’ll see them soon enough,” Death says. “Regardless, it’s impressive. But by the time he got to the Gorge, he was stuck. We were up early doing surveillance of the area, looking for you, when we saw him. When we grabbed him, he told us he was here to do a trade. We assumed he would trade himself for your father, but to our surprise he said he was going to trade you for him. Must be the witch in him.”

I swallow the dust in my throat. Death could be lying.

“He knew how badly I wanted my father back,” I tell him. “He assumes I would gladly make that trade, and I did.”

“You don’t think that was his plan all along?”

“His plan was to rescue my father, to save him. He said he needed my help. If my help meant me being traded in his place, then so be it. What difference does it make now?”

“You don’t feel betrayed?”