Crown of Crimson (Underworld Gods 2)

And by default, they hate me too. I’m a Goddess and their queen.

Fuck. I probably shouldn’t be here or I’m going to get thrown in the ring too.

But that fear doesn’t stop me from going forward, trying to find my husband.

I’m near the last cell, one where the iron door is open just a crack, when suddenly I feel a burst of energy at my back. It makes me freeze, total and complete terror taking over every cell in my body.

“Stop,” a voice says behind me.

The most familiar voice in the world.

A female voice.

My voice.

Oh shit.

No. No. NO.

I try to swallow.

Can’t.

Try to breathe.

Can’t.

The only thing that seems to be working is my heart, which is going to punch a hole through my chest.

“Turn around,” the voice says.

And I find myself moving even though I don’t want to, even though it feels like it will break my bones.

I turn around to face myself.

I’m standing ten feet away.

Wearing a dress that looks similar to the one I had on, the one that hangs in tatters on my body.

Everything is the same.

It’s my twin.

She doesn’t smile.

But I’m not smiling either.

I grip the selenite knife in my hand.

Oh, now she looks a little amused.

“We finally meet,” she says, staying where she is, her posture mimicking mine. “I’ve been waiting a very long time for this. Twenty-four years.”

I can finally swallow. It’s painful, feeling bruised from where Louhi choked me.

“What is your name?” I ask her, sounding raw.

“Salainen,” she says simply, tossing her hair over her shoulder. It’s then that I notice we’re not exactly the same. My eyes are lush brown. Hers are black, and when she speaks I see that her incisors are little too sharp. She has a scarf around her neck, and I get the feeling she’s covering something up.

“I’ve been waiting to meet you, too,” I say.

Oh god, please have courage.

She lets out an acidic laugh. “No. You haven’t. You’ve only heard about me recently, only been in this land for a short while. Me? I’ve been here since the day our father discarded me.”

It kicks me in the gut because I have a feeling it’s true.

“I don’t know what my father did but—” I start to say, but suddenly she’s behind me, so fast that she has her arms around me, holding my back against her chest, her hand over my mouth, immovable.

“Our father,” she snipes through a raspy breath right into my ear. Underneath her voice is another layer, like it’s the real her, and it’s utterly inhuman. “He is our father. Not just yours. And he betrayed me. He created me out of nothing just to fool that woman you called your mother.”

I try to speak. Try to tell her I don’t understand. But I can’t.

She goes on, voice deepening, her grip on me growing harder. “Do you know what it felt like to be abandoned the way that I was? To be created for the sake of being tossed aside to the wolves, left for literally dead? He got your Goddess mother pregnant and didn’t know what to do about the baby. He knew about the prophecy, and she thought it would be safest if the baby was raised in the Upper World, with him and his then wife. Yes, our father was involved with a Goddess while married. What a man. Not to mention already being with Louhi, having Rasmus. So, our father, decided the only way to raise you and not lose his marriage was to get his wife pregnant and switch the babies out at birth.”

I swallow hard. The things that Tuoni told me about what he saw in my book are starting to make sense, but I can’t believe it at the same time. How could my father do that to my mother?

“He got her pregnant using Shadow Magic. He conjured me using parts of himself, wishing for me to be identical to you. I grew in your mother’s belly, I remember all of it, being trapped in there, waiting to be free. You grew in the Goddess’ belly. We were both taken away at birth. Our father took you from Tuonela and brought you to the Upper World. Then he took me from the Upper World and left me in Tuonela. Just rang the ferryman’s bell and left. I’ll always be grateful that it was Loviatar that found me, brought me to Louhi. The discarded child of Torben. Louhi gave me a home. Now she’s given Rasmus a home. We are the prophecy.”

I’m having a hard time understanding any of this, but it doesn’t matter right now. She could be telling the truth, she could be lying. All that I know is that she’s the Kaaos bringer and she views Louhi as her mother and that’s enough for me to know that I’ve got to destroy her.