Crown of Crimson (Underworld Gods 2)

Lovia laughs. “This is just your first layer,” she says. “More will be added as the sessions progress. Iron pieces on your shoulders, your chest. Today you’ll probably be fighting with wooden sticks. Then again, I’ve seen the way you handle a sword—even though it happened to be my sword—he may bump you up a level.”

“So do I actually fight the giant?” I whisper, suddenly terrified. I’m picturing Mickey Mouse and the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk but Mickey is wearing a ridiculous catsuit instead. It doesn’t end well for Mickey in my brain’s version.

She nods, pulling my hair back into a braid while Raila pours me more coffee from a carafe. “You do, but it’s not what you think. You’re fighting something, you just don’t know what, or who, it is. You never see Vipunen, of course. No one ever has. Apparently you die if you do. So you wear the blind mask. But fighting with the mask on is great training regardless because it teaches you to rely on your senses.”

“Maybe it’s great training for you, but you’re a Goddess,” I tell her. “You’re, like, perfect. I’m just a basic bitch human being who has zero training in swordplay or fencing. I can dance and I can take a hit and I can kick, but I don’t know my way around a weapon.”

She chuckles, turning me around and putting her hands on my shoulders. “Hanna,” she says kindly. “Sarvi told me what you did with a selenite knife. And I saw what you did to those swans with my sword. You are not a mere mortal, not in this world anyway. You can handle this, I promise you.”

I swallow, my mouth feeling suddenly dry. My stomach twists with unease. “But—”

“No buts. You’re going to do fine.”

I don’t believe her, but it doesn’t matter. In no time, Lovia is taking me out of my room and down all the stairs of the castle.

“Isn’t your father coming?” I ask, looking down the empty corridors. He could at least see me off before I go and fight a giant. What if I don’t come back?

She shakes her head. “His training with Vipunen was when he was a young boy and it was very different from what Tuonen and I went through. He lived in that cave with the giant for a very, very long time.”

“And he never saw him once?”

“Not once. To hear him tell it, he was blind after he emerged from the cave, he had gotten so used to not using his eyes it didn’t matter. Of course, his sight came back.”

Jeez. Hell of a childhood Death has had.

We exit the castle and head to the stables, the air smelling of manure and hay, a scent I actually love. Lovia brings out a big draft horse from a stall. It’s white with a dark mane and tail, dappled with blue-gray. Not a visible bone or hint of decay on him. He looks healthy more than anything.

“This is your horse now,” Lovia says. “He came to us recently, hasn’t had the chance to rot. It’s not sentient as far as I know and I’ve been trying to communicate. But either way, he’s yours. Give him a name. Or not.”

The horse looks at me with big black eyes that have translucent crescent shapes in them, like looking at a waxing moon in the night sky. “Frost Moon,” I say. I reach over and give him a stroke down his neck. “Frosty for short. You better not fucking die on me.”

“Whoa,” Lovia says, grasping the bridle. “Morbid, much?”

“If you haven’t seen The Neverending Story, then you don’t know,” I tell her, grabbing Frosty’s long mane and hoisting myself on his back like it’s second nature. I’m riding bareback but it’s comfortable on a horse of his size.

“Seems so,” she says. Then she goes and brings another horse out of the stable, this one thin with wild eyes and a metallic black coat. She gets on her horse, her dress flowing under her, and we head out of the stables and then through the gates of Shadow’s End, passing under the giant iron gargoyles that perch over the arched tunnel.

“It’s a long walk to the caves,” Lovia says over her shoulder. “Easier to ride there. Even easier to fly, but Sarvi already said he was busy.”

“Now that you guys can talk, you sound like best friends.”

She laughs. “I have to admit, it’s nice to have someone else to talk to in this place. Someone I can confide in, you know?”

“Well, there’s always me,” I point out, feeling a little forgotten.

“Of course,” she says, giving me a quick smile. “Right now there’s you. But in time, you’ll be one with my father. Once you start to feel like the queen, once the two of you start getting along, you won’t have time for me. At any rate, I’m leaving, remember? Soon as you get someone else to take over the ferrying duties for my brother and I, I’m going back to the Upper World. I’m not letting that dream go.”