I flick my knife, feeling power surge through me.
The knife goes flying in the air, then heads back toward me.
But instead of stabbing Salainen, it pauses, as if confused.
By the time it figures it out, Salainen has moved out of the way, taking me with her as we topple to the ground, and the knife goes into the wall, stuck there.
I reach out, waving my hand around, trying to conjure the energy back. The knife starts to shake but, before I can get it to come to me, Salainen is picking me up and throwing me in a cell.
I go flying through the air, landing on the cold damp ground with a thud that makes me think I’ve broken a few bones.
“Fuck,” I groan through the pain, feeling a strange wash of embarrassment. How was I able to fight off Louhi in Death’s body and yet, when fighting my own fucking self, she’s tossing me around like a sack of potatoes?
Black magic bullshit.
I growl at my father for creating such a beast and then I’m trying to get to my feet and go after Salainen who is at the door, watching me with those frozen black eyes.
It’s then that I notice I’m not alone in the cell.
Don’t look, I tell myself. Don’t look. Get up and fight. Pick up the sword and try again. Don’t look, don’t look.
But then I smell ocean salt and bonfires on the beach and I practically disintegrate.
Death.
I look behind me and see him there.
The real him.
Lying on his back, not moving.
I start to shake. I don’t know what to do. Do I go to him? Do I fight my shadow twin?
I choose him. Crawl over to his body, needing him to be alive and yet not seeing a single breath come from him, not a pulse from his heart. Even his energy is cold, like it’s been turned off. It’s vacant. Gone.
“No,” I whisper. I pick up his gloved hand in mine. “No.”
It’s all over.
“Welcome to your new existence, Hanna Heikkinen,” Salainen says to me coolly. “You may have come from a Goddess, but you were discarded and unwanted as much as I was. At least here, in the bowels of Inmost where you belong, you can still be with your king. Me, however, I will be out there with the new king. No one will know the difference, except maybe his family and advisors, but they should all be in Oblivion by now anyway. Rasmus won’t leave anything to chance.”
She pauses. “The moment I shut this door is the moment that Kaaos will reign. The afterlife will never be the same again.”
“You won’t win!” I yell at her, fury flowing through me. “You won’t! They won’t listen to you alone, believe me they won’t, and Death’s Shadow Self is dead. A spider thing has probably eaten him by now. You, Louhi, Rasmus, you won’t be able to use the body, you can’t impersonate him.”
“That’s what you think. Shows how foolish you are.” She finally smiles, showing those fangs. My heart sinks. Silly of me to assume a body made from spells and shadows, conjured from nothing, could be easily destroyed.
“Enjoy an eternity with your dead God,” she says. “He was especially fun to kill.”
Chapter 26
Hanna
“The Death”
Salainen slams the iron door in my face, the sound of multiple locks, no doubt bound by dark magic, sealing it shut. The sound is finite and cold in this dark place, and I have no energy to run for the door and pound on it for help, demanding that my shadow twin release us.
Because there is no hope.
Not for me.
Not for Death.
Because Death is dead.
The thought hits me so hard that I can’t even take a breath, my lungs seizing. All the adrenaline has left my body, now plunging me into a despair that I’m not sure I can crawl out of.
I twist around to face him, even though I can’t see him in the pitch black, my hand gripping his gloved hand tightly, so tight that if he were alive I know I’d be causing him pain with my newfound strength.
I wish there was even a speck of light in here, but when you’re miles underground, it’s not easy to come by. And to think this might be where I’ll spend eternity. In literal Hell.
What will become of me down here? Will Salainen ever come back, perhaps with Louhi in tow? Will the two of them torture me for the rest of time? Or will I be left here to rot alongside Death, until I finally die of thirst or starvation or madness? Will the tunnels of Inmost be where I end up, or will it be Oblivion?
Where is Death now? Could he somehow be alive? I wish I could see his face, just one last time. The last time I saw it, that didn’t count. I know his energy usually speaks to mine, our atoms collide with lightning when we’re mere inches away, but now, in pure death, there is nothing at all. Just this emptiness, like he never existed at all. I’m holding onto him and, with each passing second, I fear that he’ll turn to sand between my fingers.