I took it quickly, afraid he might change his mind if given more time, and I was surprised by the weight of it. Not only was it heavy, but there was a strangeness in the density, with an underlying heat. It reminded me of a thermos filled with hot liquid sloshing around inside and warming through the outside.
"Tell my father that I warned him about this," Baldur said as the palace quaked around us. "He cannot keep everything trapped down here forever. Eventually it will all come to the surface."
THIRTY
I hid the spear way down deep in my bag, beneath the Valhallan cloak. The throne room had been deserted--Baldur was the last one to go, while Valeska, Oona, and Asher waited behind with me as I got the spear safely tucked away.
In the time it took me to put it away, another wall had come down. Oona and Valeska stood on the veranda, watching it fall.
"There's only four walls left," Oona announced morosely as she surveyed Zianna. "They're almost halfway through."
"Let's try to make it out before they make it all the way," I said as I secured my bag on my shoulders.
Asher glanced around the massive, empty throne room. "Do you know how to leave? Because I haven't a clue."
"Not off the top of my head," I admitted. "But the solarsteinn got us here, so hopefully it can get us out."
"Or--" Valeska said loudly, and I looked back to see her smiling slyly as she stood on the railing that ran around the veranda. "If we wanted to go faster, I could give you a ride."
Without looking, she jumped backward off the railing, only to come flying back up a second later. She hovered above us, her large black wings flapping languidly behind her.
"Can you carry all of us?" I asked cautiously as I walked over to her.
"I don't think I could carry all three of you at once," she admitted. "And I couldn't take two of you higher, but if I had you and Oona, I'd be able to glide you down to the ground."
The loud wooshing noise of another wall falling rumbled through the palace, and I looked out at the chaos below for the first time. Many of the divine immortals inside Zianna had run toward the next remaining wall, attempting to support it with their strength and boulders, while others were armed, waiting for a battle if the impious broke through.
Gugalanna was leading the charge--kicking at the wall with his massive bull legs. But he wasn't the only one, nor was he the largest. He had an army of giants and monsters beside him, attacking the wall with everything they had.
The exousia and other flying immortals were diving at the impious, but they appeared to have little effect on them. Gugalanna punched an exousia out of the sky, then threw his head back and laughed.
Beyond the fighting and destruction, back far enough so as not to risk any injury, a woman in black sat on a throne of bones. The throne was part of a sedan chair, with a dozen ghoulish carriers holding the poles on their shoulders. Even when they weren't moving, her servants still held her up, so she could see her work unfolding from a slightly higher vantage.
The distance was so great that I couldn't really make out her features--I couldn't see her toying with the gold rings on her fingers, or the impish smile on her lips, or the glimmer in her black eyes--but I knew it just the same. What seemed possible or impossible was irrelevant to her.
Ereshkigal looked up at me--her eyes piercing through me--and her smile deepened.
"All right, let's do this," I said and turned back to Valeska.
Valeska instructed me to give Asher my bag, since she didn't want the extra weight. She'd paired me and Oona together because we were the two lightest ones, and we didn't have time to waste for her to make three trips.
I hated leaving Asher again, even for a second, and I kissed him brusquely before whispering, "Hurry down to me."
Then I ran over to where Valeska waited, standing on the railing of the veranda. Oona was already at Valeska's left side, with her arms wrapped tightly around Valeska's waist as she clung to her.
"What happens if we get too heavy?" Oona asked as I climbed onto the rail to take my place.
"You won't," Valeska assured her.
I looked down at the ground below, and I felt a dizzying nausea roll over me. I gripped tightly on to both Oona and Valeska--I had no intention of letting either of them go.
"But what if we do?" Oona persisted.
"Then we fall," Valeska replied matter-of-factly. "Hang on."
"Wait--" Oona began, but it was too late. Valeska had already jumped off.
I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn't see how quickly the ground was rising up to meet us, and the wind blew through my hair. Her wings beat above my head, and I tried to focus on the sound of that and not the feeling of my stomach rising into my throat.
It wasn't until she finally set us down, with the ground firmly beneath my feet, that I realized I'd been holding my breath.
"Told you I could do it." Valeska grinned as she stretched her wings, then she stared up at the towering palace. "Be right back. I'm gonna go rescue your boyfriend."
I thought about correcting her, that Asher wasn't my boyfriend--I mean, at least not officially, yet--but she was already flying off again. And honestly, did it really matter? I cared about Asher, he cared about me, and with the world literally falling down around us, labels no longer really seemed to matter.
As I looked out at the walls trembling beyond the valley, the sound of crashing rocks mixed with battle cries. A lot of things I'd worried about up on earth didn't seem to matter anymore. Time really did move differently--an entire lifetime had gone by in a matter of hours. So much was changing, so quickly.
Oona stared at the incoming carnage with wide, fearful eyes and her mouth agape. It was still far away, at the very edges of Zianna, but it was only a matter of time before Gugalanna and his crew broke through.
"How are they doing this?" she asked. "Haven't these walls been up for centuries?"
"I think so, but they used Asher's blood to unseal the protective spells," I said, explaining as best as I understood it. "They'd never been able to get their hands on the child of a Valkyrie before."
When she looked back at me, her eyebrows were drawn together, and her skin had paled. "Did we do this? Is this our fault?"
"I don't know," I admitted around the growing lump in my throat. "But we're going to do everything we can to make it right."
Valeska returned a moment later with Asher, along with my bag of gear and Oona's. Oona blinked back her sadness and took a deep breath, easing her anxiety by focusing on the task at hand.
The familiar anxious electricity churned through me, warming my muscles, and I felt the buzzing growing around my heart. The urge to fight, to kill, was growing inside me, but this wasn't my usual Valkyrie mode: the angry ache in my stomach was because I wanted to protect Asher, to avenge him and my mother.
"Let's go while we still have a chance," I said. "We'll deal with everything else later."
THIRTY-ONE
The only entrance--and exit--of Zianna was right by the melee, so that would be no good for escape. Gugalanna and his army couldn't walk under the arches--they had to tear down the walls to fully break the spell that kept them out. But they were blocking the pathway of anyone else who might want to get out.
The final wall--the starry black opal one--was still standing, but it had begun to weaken. So our only way out that we could see was to find a crack in that wall. We started as far as we could get from the fighting, but the wall held too strong. We had to get closer to the battle.
I ran alongside the wall, my legs humming with delighted electricity at finally getting a chance to move. I was racing toward the fighting, and my vision shifted subtly to hyperfocus.
My wounded leg should've been throbbing. It still wasn't completely healed from when I tangled with a spider woman I had been sent to kill. But running like this helped my instincts kick in enough, as my body prepared for its job. The edge of my vision darkened, tunnel vision that allowed me to focus on a single immortal at a time, so I forced
myself to slow my breathing.
The others trailed behind me, since they couldn't run as fast. Walking now, I ran my hand along the smooth cool stone, until I finally spotted a break. It was much closer to the fighting than I would've liked--only a few yards separated the crack from where Gugalanna kicked at the wall--but it was the first gap I had seen that was large enough for us to fit through.
I motioned for them to hurry, my eyes darting between them and the trouble at the wall. Valeska went first, deftly sliding through the growing crack in the trembling wall, and Oona and Asher hastily followed.
Valeska was still leading the way, climbing over the red crystal rubble of the sixth wall, by the time I squeezed through the crack after them. Oona stumbled on a stone, and Asher grabbed her arm, helping her across, and I hurried after them.
We all moved as swiftly and as quietly as we could to avoid detection, and fortunately everyone else seemed to have their hands full, so they didn't notice us climbing over the remains of the wall.
I made it to the fifth wall when I realized that Valeska wasn't leading the way anymore. I stopped and looked past Oona and Asher, who stayed a step or two behind me, and I saw Valeska standing on a tall chunk of blue garnet, staring intently at where the impious pounded at the final wall.
"Valeska?" I called her in a hushed voice, but she didn't move.
I followed her gaze and instantly realized what she was looking at--a swarthy woman standing at the edge of the fighting. Her large black wings were outstretched behind her, and with her dusky skin and wild hair, her similarities to Valeska were striking. She even had the same wide, prominent eyes.
"Valeska," I repeated, slightly louder this time.
She continued staring for another second, then jumped down off the garnet.
"Was that your mother?" Oona asked softly, falling into step beside her, as the four of us headed back on our way.
"It was," she replied curtly.
"Why didn't you say anything to her?" I asked.
"She's helping to take down Zianna," Valeska said. "She's working with everything I'm fighting against. What's there to say?"
I felt a rush of air behind me as the final wall began to fall, and the loud cheers of celebration from the impious nearly drowned out the roar of its collapse. Valeska never looked back. She just kept walking.
Unlike most of the walls, which were gems or stone, the one directly in front of us was made of platinum, so it didn't fall the same way the others did. It was torn in some places and bent down in others, making it resemble shredded paper. That's how strong Gugalanna and his monsters were. They made metal crumple like nothing.
Because parts of the platinum wall were still standing, we had to walk farther down to find a gap to slip through. I kept glancing back over my shoulder as we walked, at the flood of impious streaming into Zianna.
"Hello again, little Valkyrie," a familiar voice purred, and I looked ahead to see a beautiful woman stepping out from the shadows behind the metal wall. I blame the stress of everything for not recognizing her, not immediately. It took a second, but when she smiled at me--her smooth skin peeling back to reveal a mouthful of growing fangs--I knew exactly who she was.
It was Amaryllis Mori, the Jorogumo. The spider woman who tore a hole in my calf before I killed her.
THIRTY-TWO
"Remember me?" Amaryllis asked as her voice distorted from something lyrical into a deep monstrous growl.
Her transformation was already well under way. The delicate features of her face tore open as multiple red eyes sprouted across her forehead and cheeks. Her legs ripped, shedding blood and skin, to make room for her long spider legs.
Seeing the venomous setae on her, sticking out of her legs like a thousand deadly needles, gave me flashbacks of the agonizing pain she had left me in.
"Who is this cyka?" Valeska asked, sounding disgusted over the audible sound of Amaryllis's stomach distending until it tore open, to allow for her bulbous arachnid abdomen.
"Oh, just an old friend," I said as I reached for the dagger on my hip.
Amaryllis took a step toward me, her long spindly legs moving lightly over the crumpled wall. "You should've let me go when we were on earth. You could be making your escape right now."
"There's still time," I replied, taking a step back from her.
I definitely did not want her setae getting anywhere near me, but my fear had actually begun to abate. That was the thing that happened when instinct took over--I lost any real sense of my body or normal mortal fears and emotions. And I became a weapon. As the buzzing intensified around my heart and a pressure built at the base of my stomach, it calmed me some to know that all of my dread and panic would be gone in a few seconds.
"Valeska, get them out of here," I said, wanting them to get clear before things got really bad.
"Um..." Oona sounded uncertain, so I looked at her from the corner of my eye. "Valeska already flew off."
"What?" I asked, and Amaryllis threw back her head and began to cackle.
I suddenly became all too aware of the fact that I couldn't see either Asher or Valeska from where I stood, with the monstrous spider woman encompassing most of my vision. Oona was the only one lagging beside me, and it didn't really matter where the others were, as long as they were out of the long reach of Amaryllis's venomous legs.
"Get out of here," I told Oona without looking away from the Jorogumo. Then, more emphatically, because I knew Oona wouldn't want to listen: "Go!"
"Your friends are already deserting you?" the spider woman asked. "You're going to die alone."
"Well, I did kill you once before by myself," I reasoned. "I think I can defeat you again."
Her smile fell away, as her skin twisted around her fangs into a ragged scowl. "You had an unfair advantage. But down here, this is my turf, little Valkyrie. We're all growing more powerful than you can imagine."
"You should be thanking me!" I argued, taking a step back every time she stepped forward. "Because I returned you, you got a spot fighting right next to Ereshkigal. Isn't that what you wanted?"
I kept talking because I didn't have a plan, not yet. Without Sigrun I felt naked, and I wasn't sure how effective my Valkyrie abilities would be at tempering Amaryllis's otherwise superior strength and venom.
My only goal was to keep everyone safe until I saw an opening, and then I would take her down. Waiting for the right time, unfortunately, was at odds with everything else I was feeling. My entire body was longing to fight. I felt like a coiled spring, the pressure becoming almost unbearable.
But I couldn't kill her--she couldn't die here--so I had to wait until I had the best chance of landing the most damaging blow possible. I had to get her down long enough that I could make a run for it.
"I was fighting for Ereshkigal up there!" she bellowed, and as she leaned toward me, saliva dripped off her fangs. "I wanted to stay free, instead of being trapped in a dank, dark cellar!"
Then she straightened up so she towered above me. Her beady red eyes blinked in unison, pulling her pale flesh into eyelids and stretching her already taut skin even more. When she smiled, blood dripped down from her lips onto her fangs.
I crouched, making myself into a tripod with one hand, a knee, and a foot. In my right hand I gripped the dagger at my side, and if she took a step closer, and I kept myself low enough to the ground, I could run underneath her and slice her open from end to end.
"But I won't be here for much longer," Amaryllis said, almost bragging as she took one small step forward. "It's already begun. The dead won't stay dead for much longer."
I needed a little more from her--one full step--and I would be close enough that I could dive between her legs before she had a chance to stab me with them.
"I'm going to leave soon, go back to the surface and the sun," I taunted her. "You'll still be down here, and I'm going to see to it that you never escape."
Amaryllis snarled and lunged at me. I dove forward--tucking and rolling under her legs--
and then I was directly underneath her. The red hourglass marking on her black exoskeleton was like a bull's-eye, inviting me to take a jab.
So I did. I drove the blade into her abdomen, breaking through the skin like it was a thick eggshell. Her black gooey insides started to spill out like a demonic yolk, and she howled and bucked backward.
Unfortunately, my dagger went with her--stuck in her as she staggered back, crying out in anger and pain. It was all I could do to scramble out from under her without getting trampled.
"How dare you!" Amaryllis yelled. She was weakened, swaying from side to side as she hobbled toward me, but she was relentless.
She had backed me into a corner--literally. I was trapped between a pile of rubble and the platinum wall. There was nowhere for me to go.
"Incoming!" Valeska shouted, and I looked up in time to see her flying high above us as a giant chunk of black opal fell in our direction.
Amaryllis was looking up, too, her many eyes locking onto the massive gemstone before it smashed into her. I held up my arm, shielding myself from the splatter as her abdomen exploded into a mess of disgusting goo and guts.
She cried out in pain, because she was still alive. There was no release of death here for her, which meant that her plans for vengeance hadn't stopped yet, either. Slowly, she began crawling toward me, tearing her humanoid torso off her spider body and using those arms to pull herself forward. The sound coming from her mouth was completely inhuman. A guttural mutation of a scream.
I stood up, preparing to stomp her into submission if I had to, when Asher appeared on top of the rubble holding a sword made of bones. The blade itself appeared to be made from a gigantic femur--maybe a centaur's--with one edge sharpened to a razor-thin blade.
When Asher walked over to her, she hissed and tried to spit her venom at him, but she only succeeded in causing herself to cough up black blood. He raised the sword, and with one fell swoop, he sliced off her head.
"That oughta keep her immobile for a while, right?" he asked, looking over at me.
"I hope so, but I don't know how long it takes for her body to regather itself."
Asher wiped her blood off his brow with the back of his arm and said, "Let's go, then."