Crown of Crimson (Underworld Gods 2)

It moves from my stomach to my chest, then to my back where my shoulder blades are. And while this heat is coursing through me, Death is pistoning up into me and I’m riding him and I’m lost to the reality of us together again, even if it’s not much of a reality at all.

“Tuoni,” I say through a shaking breath. My eyes are still closed and yet they feel open at the same time, like the light from outside is coming through my eyelids and this, this, is my real sight.

I come, both soft and hard, swept away in an undertow before being thrown into the sky. And while I’m crying out, crying for my God, my husband, my love, I feel wings sprout from my back. Golden wings that propel me through the heavens, right onto the surface of the sun.

“Hanna,” Death says in fervent awe, coming slowly. “Hanna, look at yourself.”

I open my eyes.

Everything is brighter.

I’m brighter.

Just as it was when I saw Vipunen, I am shining like I’ve swallowed the sun and the rays are shining through me.

“What?” I manage to say. “What’s happening?”

“You’ve grown your wings, little bird.” His expression is both dazed and triumphant.

I curl my back forward and a giant pair of gold wings curve over me, sparkling in the incessant light.

I stare at the tips, watching as Tuoni reaches up and tugs on the ends of the shiny metallic feathers.

I gasp.

I felt that.

It was as if he were tugging on my arm.

What the fuck?

“I don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head, staring at them. I can move them up and down, back and forth. “I don’t understand. Why do I have fucking wings?”

I pause, looking down at him. “Am I an angel?”

I don’t mean to sound horrified, but I do.

He laughs. “No. You’re definitely no angel, fairy girl.”

And then the light that we’re currently in starts to fade, slowly, like someone taking down a dimmer switch. It fades and fades until the darkness starts to infiltrate and I can see where we are.

Back in the cell in the dungeons of Inmost.

Lit only by a sunmoonstone sphere.

My wings are gone.

I guess they retreated or faded the same time the light did. One minute they were here, glinting and glorious, and the next they disappeared back inside my shoulders, along with that heat I had inside me.

Reality comes crashing down.

We didn’t die.

And Tuoni is alive.

But the golden peace is gone and we are stuck in Hell.

I stare down at him. His hand is still on my thigh.

I have not died.

He can still touch me.

“I am the prophecy,” I whisper. “I am the one to unite the land with you.”

“You know who else you are?” he says to me.

“Who?” I ask, leaning forward on him. He reaches up, running his fingers over my face, making my eyelids flutter.

“You’re Hanna Heikkinen,” he says. “Fairy girl, little bird. And Daughter of the Sun.”

Daughter of the Sun.

THE END…ish