Page 166 of Veil of Blood and Bone

I don’t trust my own instincts. Exactly the same way I’d felt the last time I’d visited Jötunheimr.

“It hasn’t been long enough for me to miss it,” I reply.

We both know what this storm is. We both recognize the magic, reading it in the piles of snow thrusting up into the sky.

There are no cars to light the path, to use their beams to cut a trail for us.

“So what in the blue balls of Freya are giants doing in this plain?” Wren’s shadows point ahead, and I pretend to ignore the way his knuckles have turned white. “They haven’t come in these numbers in years.”

She’s out there in this cold. Somewhere.

“No, they haven’t. So why now? And what else is coming?”

We have no answers for it, and I hate it. The Norns' spinning fate means so much is open to transformation. Too much.

Things can change and leave us reeling with the unexpected.

Tendrils of darkness dance atop the snowdrifts in patterns only Wren knows how to read.

When they peel off to the left, when my gut pushes me forward on the same path, we follow. The blacktop is covered and leads down. Always down.

My nails curve into claws and prick my palms, slicing skin. I don't notice.

Breathe. Do not panic.

But for a second, I’ve lost her scent. I’ve lost everything. Apprehension hits hard and hollows me out, hunger following right after.

My body reacts before my thoughts intervene, fangs dropping lower, vision sharpening. The world slows until there is only movement and prey.

Wren catches my wrist and I realize I’ve buried my claws into my own palm again. “Hey.” His voice comes slow and careful. Dangerous.

“Yeah, I know.” I drag air into lungs that no longer require it.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” Snow hisses across the road and billows around us. “You losing your fucking mind out here doesn’t help the cause. It helps no one.”

I pull free from him. “If she’s bleeding⁠—”

“Then panicking guarantees we won’t reach her in time,” he interrupts. His nostrils flare. “Hopefully it will only be a small giant.”

The words rumble from his chest, rough, landing wrong.

Between his tone and the ice, the skin on my face prickles with an odd awareness.

I bark out a humorless laugh. “There’s no such thing as a small giant.”

The jötun weren’t merely large. Humans reduced them to size because the alternative was worse.

Vastness was difficult for mortal minds to endure.

The first giant I ever saw had been kneeling and still towered over the trees. Ice formed across every step it took. Entire villages vanished in its wake, swallowed under storms that lasted weeks.

Wren’s expression darkens. “You think one crossed over fully?”

“No.” I scan the blizzard. “I think something opened the door long enough for it to reach through.”

Luckily for us, however, if one of the jötun have made it through into this world, they aren't here on their own merit. Someone is helping them. And perhaps their magic isn’t as strong as it would have been if they’d come on their own accord.

Then again, if they didn’t need their power to tear open the door, they’ve got more of it stored.