Page 85

“What’s that?”

“It’s ancient. It means… it means something like… like ‘return to me.’”

Lilja pulled back her hand, and she, Helena, and Alma stared down at me. All three of them had blood smears on their faces. Above them, a dozen or so soldiers were looking down at me as well.

“It’s… it’s working,” Alma said and wiped the tears from her eyes. “The wound’s closing.”

Lilja cupped my face. Her hands were sticky with my blood. “Lie still. You’ll feel better soon.” This time I managed a nod.

“You did it,” Lilja said. “You made the doll. You beat Stali.”

“For you,” I whispered, and my voice had more power than I had expected. I lifted my hand and put my fingers to the wound. There was a shallow indent right below my collarbone, but the skin was whole. Lilja bent down and pressed her forehead to mine. Closing my eyes, I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight, feeling my heart slow its still frantic pound.

“How do you feel?” Alma asked.

I opened my eyes and moved my limbs. “Normal. At least almost.” That strange feeling of leaving myself was entirely gone. I felt mostly like I had just walked ten miles after a night of no rest.

Lilja held out her hand, and I took it, letting her help me sit. I found my legs had enough strength to stand.

I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Hrafn bent down and reached for Alfrun’s staff which lay next to her body, but Helena snatched it before he could grab it. Lilja stood, and Helena handed it to her.

“I hold the staff,” Lilja said to Hrafn. “I killed Alfrun. I’m the new queen of the mountain.”

Hrafn’s eyes were mere slits. “You don’t want it.”

“I don’t, but I’ll take it if I have to.” Lilja stepped up onto the dais. “I’ll make you a deal, though,” she said, standing in front of Alfrun’s throne. “The staff and the mountain for the freedom of everyone in the dungeons. Lift their bonds. Let them be human again.”

“That’s an agreeable term,” Hrafn said, and his response was so prompt that he must have already decided on that exact action.

He stepped onto the dais and reached for the staff, but Lilja yanked it out of his reach. “And,” she said, “no more stealing other elves. No more stealing humans.”

This time Hrafn hesitated. “It’s the way of elves.”

“I don’t care. If you want to be king of this heap of stone, you’ll have to swear it. On the staff and on your life.”

Hrafn glanced around at the soldiers. One stepped forward. The one with the cut across his cheek. “I find it agreeable,” he said. “It’s brought us nothing but bloodshed.” There were nods all around the hall. Someone said something in that strange tongue of theirs. Whatever it was, it made the others cheer.

“Will it work?” Helena asked Lilja with a nod at the staff. “The oath. It didn’t bind Alfrun.”

“Hrafn’s different. It’ll bind him.” Lilja turned to Hrafn and held out the staff. “Swear it.”

He laid his hand on the elm wood. “I, Hrafn of the dark elves, now of the light elves, swear to let Eivor and the rest of the dark elf prisoners go. I swear to never bring another elf or human inside the mountain against their will. If I do, let the magic smite me where I stand.”

I glanced at Alma. She had suspected it too. This was Hrafn’s reason. Helping us was his revenge against Alfrun. He had once been a dark elf. Taken perhaps, like Lilja. How he had come to be Alfrun’s advisor… well, one day I would ask Lilja if she knew his story.

With the staff still in her hand, Lilja nodded for Hrafn, Helena, Alma, and me to follow her. “Let’s go get the others from the dungeons.”

We crossed the dais and through the door behind it. The corridor beyond was narrower than the one we had come through but lit by the same strange lights. Alma took my elbow. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I feel fine.”

“You almost died.”

“But I didn’t.”

She squeezed my arm. “You didn’t.”

We came to the top of a staircase. Like that of a church tower, the steps formed a spiral, only they went down and not up. Far down. At the bottom was another corridor. Copper doors lined the walls. So many doors.