Betraying Destiny by Nora Ash

Author:Nora Ash [Ash, Nora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little Huldra Media

Mimir stayed silent for hours, which suited me just fine. I lay on my back and stared into the sky, letting my mind drift into blessed oblivion.

Occasionally I would hear Grim’s soft footfalls draw near. I knew he was checking on me—felt his eyes linger on my prone body, my face. I didn’t bother to return his gaze.

At some point I supposed I would have to tell him about my pregnancy. He was the father, after all.

That thought was the only thing that penetrated my numb oblivion, filling me with tendrils of fear. I’d thought I understood his motivations—his heart. I’d felt so safe with him as we lay together, intimately tied in flesh as well as spirit.

But now? This man, who had killed and deceived and betrayed? What guarantee did I have that he wouldn’t harm my child, either in some twisted attempt at protecting me, or out of sheer indifference for the life we had created together?

I rubbed my thumb over my abdomen. It was… funny. I hadn’t known about my daughter’s existence for more than a few breaths, and she was still hardly more than a couple of cells—a spark, at best. But I loved her. Whatever else Grim was, at least he had given me her, even as he’d rent my soul in two and crushed the last flicker of hope in the world.

But if he hurt her? I wouldn’t survive that.

The flapping of wings drew me from my gloomy thoughts, and I looked up at the two ravens circling above me. Arni and Magga had flown off sometime during my fight with Grim—probably so the dark god wouldn’t take out his ire on them like his father had. I hadn’t seen them since, not that I’d been looking.

“News of Freya’s demise is spreading through the realm,” Magga said. “Even here, her death ripples through the denizens. Despair and bleakness abound—more so than normal.”

“Any news from above?” Mimir asked.

“Nothing,” Arni cawed. “Too soon for the recently deceased to bring any whispers of the consequences of her absence with them.”

Mimir blew out a breath. “Hel has all days been woefully behind the information curve. It would really be helpful if the queen allowed passage for more than just dead sou...” He trailed off so abruptly my indifference waned enough for me to turn my head in his direction.

The prophet had a faraway expression in his eyes as he stared at Arni.

“What?” I asked.

“Hel does allow passage between the realms for more than just arriving souls,” he murmured. “There is one way for the dead to leave freely.”

I jerked upright as an ember of hope I hadn’t known still existed deep within flared to life. “What is it? How? Why has no one thought of it before?”

He grimaced. “Because it is not… an ideal solution. If one became a spectral—a ghost… they would be able to walk through the barriers separating our plane of existence from the living. But once passed, that barrier will close for eternity, trapping the soul in the living lands without a body.

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