Crown of Crimson (Underworld Gods 2)

Since I’m behind him I can’t see Rasmus’ face, but his tone is light. “News travels fast in Tuonela. Your wedding day has been the talk of the realm for weeks now. I’ve been planning this for some time.”

“You mean you’ve been in Tuonela this whole time?” I ask incredulously. “I would have thought you would have run all the way back home.”

“I don’t run away from things,” he says stiffly, even though he ran like hell after Death let him, leaving me behind in the dust. “I hid. Strategically. I made alliances. I bided my time.”

He’s starting to sound like he’s roleplaying in a new season of Survivor. “So you never went back to see my father? How do you know he’s okay then?” Panic starts to work its way through me. All this time I assumed Rasmus went back and was keeping an eye on my father. “What about Eero? Noora? If he doesn’t remember what happened, then he’s completely vulnerable.”

“He’s fine,” Rasmus says quickly. “Believe me. I may not have left Tuonela, but there are ways of keeping tabs. Your father is back at his cottage, he’s still hidden by the cloaking spell.”

“Yeah, but if he doesn’t remember anything, he’ll be back at the resort working, right? He’s going to think Eero and Noora are his colleagues, his friends!”

Oh god, now he’s really in danger, I think. I think I’m going to be sick. I peer down at the forests and snowy patches on the mountains. It’s a long way down if I’m going to vomit.

“He’s fine,” Rasmus says again, his tone sharper this time, and it does nothing to quell my fear. “But the sooner we get you back to him, the better it will be. You just have to trust me on this.”

In this exact moment, I don’t think I trust anyone. I close my eyes, my heart sinking. “Why didn’t you go back? Why did you wait for me?”

“Because,” Rasmus says after a moment. “I had to.”

We fly in silence for a while, my feelings all over the place. We soar over the mountains, then around the walled tower of the City of Death that pierces the highest clouds like a spear, and while part of me is still enraptured by the fact that I’m seeing this view of the Land of the Dead from a flying skeletal unicorn that can speak telepathically to me, my emotions are complicated.

All this time I had worried about my father and I was assured he was okay. Most of the assurances were from myself, having the aurora stone earrings that shine with his life energy, and thinking that if Rasmus were with him, he’d take care of him. After all, he often said that he was like a father to him. How could he just let him wander back to reality alone with the two people that tried to kill me?

A lightning strike suddenly slices the space in front of us, a burning electrical smell filling the air. Rasmus and I scream in unison, just as Alku lets out a snort of alarm. All at once, the mild weather disappears and gigantic black clouds come rolling toward us as if we’re witnessing a storm on a time-lapse film.

“Rasmus!” I yell. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not doing anything!” he yells back as the storm gets closer.

I don’t think there’s a way around it, Alku tells me. But I’m going to try.

Alku veers sharply to the left, toward a set of low mountains that seem miles and miles away, the dark billowing clouds spreading across the land as far as I can see. Below us the forest grows more and more sparse, the land flattening out into various steppes and plateaus. Lightning strikes the few trees strewn about, scorching them or setting them on fire.

If this isn’t Rasmus’ doing, then I know whose it is.

This is all Death.

He’s just discovered that I’ve left.

So you’re the cause of all of this? Alku muses, picking up on my thoughts. Funny, you know I’ve noticed the weather turning for the better this last while. Guess that was you, too.

I don’t say anything. I don’t need to. It doesn’t really matter now, since Death is conjuring up a storm that could very well kill us.

Just as that thought crosses my mind, a bolt of lightning comes down so close that my bare arms feel singed.

“That was too close,” Rasmus yells, his voice going high.

Tell the shaman that I’m doing all I can, Alku says. Unless he wants to help out with his own magic, we’re going to need a lot of luck until we can find some place to take cover.

“Can we turn around and go back? Maybe hide in the City of Death?” I ask.

If you go in there as a mortal, the chances that you’ll be found out are high. You won’t come back out, Alku warns.