River of Shadows (Underworld Gods #1)

Her eyes soften sympathetically. “I know how this all seems to you. I don’t pretend to have the answers. I just want you to know that even though he’s Death, my father isn’t as bad as he seems.”

The jury is still out on that. The only time Death seems to redeem himself is in the bedroom, and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to go on that alone. I mean, it’s been days since I’ve seen him at all. There’s a chance I’ll never get to sleep with him and then what do I get? Whole bunch of being the Queen of Death for eons to come with no dick.

“What about you?” I ask her as she starts taking my hair down from the updo. “When you go to the Upper World, do you see yourself getting married?”

She laughs and shakes her head, strands of blonde hair coming loose from her braid. “I am not suited for marriage. In this world or the next. There are always shamans and other Gods coming through this land trying to win my hand. It’s the stuff legends are made of—the Bride of Tuonela is supposed to be me. But my father never wanted to give me away like that. He gave me freedom from the start to be who I needed to be, so long as I did my role.”

I mull that over. Daddy Death and his daughter seem to have a pretty pure relationship, and that’s something that wins him major points in my book. But the points don’t add up to much when you consider the negatives. Mainly being the whole God of Death thing, keeping me as a prisoner, and forcing me into marriage.

“You do want to marry him though,” she says, her voice singsong as she lets my hair flow over my shoulders. “You may not love him, but you do want to marry him. That much I can tell.”

I’m about to protest, but then I stop myself. I have to remind myself of the truth, of the real truth. My purpose. My plan. I find it harder and harder to stick to it without having Bell here to remind me each day, but it still remains. When I marry Death, I become a queen. And while I have zero experience being a queen, it will give me power and clout. Over time, I will get used to the role, and Death will get used to seeing me in that role.

And just when it seems like he’s really got me, that’s when I go.

It’s a long con, maybe the longest con ever, which means it has to start now.

So I just give Lovia an awkward smile and shrug. “Well, who doesn’t want to be a queen?” I tell her.

That seems to please her, enough that she lets it go.

However, she doesn’t let the whole wedding thing go.

The next morning, the day of the ceremony, she has Raila doing a full-on body spa treatment on me, from waxing my legs with frosthoney, to the sugar scrubs, to dustings of edible powders from herbs that only grow under falling stars. Then I’m being crammed into a red gown with a black lace veil and my hair is being threaded with crimson poppy petals and black feathers and shining rubies.

I have to admit, I do a double-take when I see myself in the mirror. I may not have a crown on my head yet, but I look like a queen. So much so that I hardly recognize myself. For once my height makes me look statuesque instead of huge, my strange face looks ethereal and wise. I carry myself differently here, wearing the clothes instead of the clothes wearing me.

You suit this place, a voice inside my head says. You know you do.

You belong.

But I still don’t want to believe it. I can’t.

This isn’t my place to be.

“Are you ready?” Lovia asks me. She’s wearing a silver gown that’s cut scandalously low and inappropriately high, her hair long and loose, carrying a bouquet of flowers that look to be made from crystals.

“As I’ll ever be,” I tell her, giving her a weak smile.

She takes my arm and leads me out of my room and down the stairs, Raila behind me and holding onto the train of the red gown. I actually never asked where the wedding was taking place, I assumed in one of the massive halls in the castle. But to my surprise, we keep walking down…down…down.

“Where are we going?” I whisper as we get to the cellar level, the air damp and chilled, filled with bad energy that makes me want to run away.

“The crypt,” Lovia says to me.

I stop dead, Raila nearly running into my back. “What, the crypt? Why?”

“It’s a church,” Lovia explains patiently.

Yeah. A fucking creepy ass church of saints with missing eyes!

And it’s tradition, Raila says. To be in the presence of the Old Gods while a new God is sworn in. Even if you are but a mere mortal, Hanna, you become a Goddess in name when you take this crown. The Old Gods and the saints will watch the ceremony from secret dark places, bearing witness to everything new.

Man, Raila has definitely been drinking the Sect of the Undead Kool-Aid, hasn’t she?

“In other words,” Lovia whispers to me as we approach the crypt, the candles burning outside as before, “The Old Gods will see the new queen sworn in and the prophecy shall be fulfilled. At least, that’s the hope, isn’t it? Anything to help stave off an uprising.”

I swear to god, if I hear the word uprising one more time… I mean, what the hell is there to rise up against? The dead should be happy that they have a city to go to instead of the eternal suffering and chaos and whatever there was before. Then again, it’s usually those at the bottom that want to bring down those at the top. Perhaps some will choose eternal damnation so as long as everyone has to suffer equally. A better life isn’t always good enough if others have it even better.

There’s no more time to ponder it. We walk through the door and into the white crypt and I’m surprised to see there’s only a couple of people inside. Well, one God, and a big, winged unicorn.

Kalma is standing at the altar of bones with the crown of crimson in his hands, looking at us expectantly as we enter. Sarvi is on the other side of him, wedged between the creepy, eyeless statues, their candles eternally flickering.

“Where is Tuoni?” Kalma asks us.

“Uh, here with you?” Lovia says.

No, Sarvi says, then realizes no one understands it. The unicorn looks at me. He is supposed to come down last. Hanna, you are supposed to wait for him at the altar.

Oh, of course Death would make you wait for him. He has to be different, doesn’t he?

But even though I’m joking inside my head, I can’t ignore the kernel of unease in my stomach. That something is wrong. It doesn’t help that I’m standing in the creepiest place in all the land and I swear the snakes in the shadows are hissing at me, telling me to leave.

“He better show up,” Lovia says, taking me by the arm again as Raila picks up my train and we walk down the aisle. “It’s rude to keep a Goddess waiting.”

She gives me a reassuring smile as we get to the altar but even I see the uncertainty in her eyes.

I look over at Sarvi and the unicorn seems to shrug, albeit warily.

I then glance at Kalma and he does the same, eyes kind but on edge, and my attention is captured by the haunting beauty of the crimson crown in his hands. Up close, it’s horrible and beautiful all at once, the way the black bones and ruby gems mingle with each other like blood and darkness becoming one.

The more I stare at the crown, the more that it calls to me, in that throaty way that the Book of Runes was, and I can practically feel it hum with power. Then again, this whole crypt is like that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that those statues aren’t statues at all, but actual people and Gods who are waiting for their chance to rise. I feel like if I stare at them long enough they’ll move.

I shake that feeling out of my head. It won’t do me any good, I’m already as spooked as it is.

A few minutes pass. Then a few more. The energy in the room hums louder and louder and finally I have to break the awkward silence.

“Don’t tell me he got cold feet,” I joke.

Kalma gives me a nervous smile.

Sarvi says nothing.

Lovia frowns.

Raila, well, who knows what’s going on under that veil. But she stays silent too.