White Stag (Permafrost #1)(64)

Soren and I looked at each other. Part of me was horrified for Satu and what she dealt with; the other part was awed that Seppo enjoyed messing with someone whose very name made me quake in fear.

“Anyway,” Seppo continued, “he wasn’t very happy I was sent instead, but I reminded him that his invitation said he was looking forward to seeing Satu’s clan at the Hunt and I was Satu’s clan. He had no choice but to accept me.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t kill you,” Soren said. “He’s done more for less.”

“Well,” Seppo deadpanned, “he really wants to sleep with my mother, and sending my head back on a platter would probably kill any blossoming desire he’s sure she’s hiding.”

I cringed. “Okay, less talk about Lydian wanting to sleep with your mom, more talk about the plan.” If I heard one more word of this, I was going to throw up—preferably on Seppo.

“Well, I was taught acting ignorant was a better way of getting information than being the bruiser for the tough guy, so I played that angle. Lydian and a few other men were planning to reach the mountain top and call Skadi while the rest of us waited in ambush. I managed to tag along without them knowing.”

I grumbled something under my breath. I had to hand it to him—he had guts to spy on not just Lydian, but Skadi, an actual goddess and giantess.

Seppo glanced around the cave. “So he called her and asked for an exchange; he would provide a favor for her if she did one for him. Lydian asked if there was any way the stag could be killed for good. He started rambling about destruction and betrayals and how something terrible would happen unless he could stop it. Something about a snake eating its own tail or whatever. It really wasn’t very coherent.”

Soren’s eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. “Lydian is clearly mad. So why would Skadi tell him anything?”

Seppo shrugged. “I’m not sure the exact reason. She might have thought he meant to prevent whatever terrible thing he said would happen. But I do know that something was preying on her pack of wolves and she couldn’t defeat it, and she was anguished over it. When the Aesir killed her father and she fell out with Njord, she went back to the mountains and the wolves became her family. She said if Lydian killed the creature, then she would give him the information he sought. He came back with the severed head of the monster, and she gave him information.”

“Which was?”

Seppo swallowed, eyes shooting around. “I’m not sure. By the time he got the information, the others found out where I was. I only just managed to convince them I got lost. I’m pretty sure I still have a dislocated rib.”

Soren’s eyes narrowed. “So, we know what he’s doing, but we don’t know how he’s going to do it? That’s helpful.”

I scowled. “We’re back to square one.” The moon was a sliver in the night sky. Donnar’s warning came back to me. By new moon it will all be undone. Soren said there was never a hunt that lasted past the new moon. That could have something to do with Lydian, or perhaps it was another way we could stop him. No matter how he was planning to kill the stag for good, there was no denying that if he did, he’d upset the balance of the world.

Back when Lydian and Soren almost fought in the Erlking’s hall, their power almost brought the mansion down. The stag was all that stood in the way. Just as goblins absorbed the power of the creatures they defeated, the stag absorbed the power of the strong and released it to the weak, keeping some type of balance in effect. It detected when the foundation the world sat on became feeble and ensured that new blood would make it strong again. Like winter after a long summer, it let the old die and made way for the new. If the stag died forever, the power pledged to the new Erlking would be his, unregulated, forever.

The whole idea was mad. It was insane. Lydian was insane.

Soren and I shared a mind. “The bastard,” he said. “We need to stop him. But for that, we need to figure out what he’s doing.”

“Seppo?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”

The halfling shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

I stared at him in shock.

“I know that’s hard to believe,” he said. “But it’s true. It’s not right. And it shouldn’t happen. And we need to stop him from whatever he’s doing.”

Wordlessly, Soren and I stood. He slung his swords in their holsters, checked that his knife was still in his boot, and slung his quiver and bow across his chest. I adjusted the stiletto on my hip and the bracers on my arms. Deep inside the leather, the nail was burning.

“You need to dispose of that soon,” Soren said, looking at the bracer. Could he smell the burning? I could. “I know why you have it, but it’s not worth it now. You don’t need iron to gauge how human you are. You’re as human as you want to be.”

My gaze hardened. “I need to keep it. I just need to.” I couldn’t take the time to explain to him the tugging in my gut that told me the nail had yet to fulfill its purpose. Maybe it was just in my head. Maybe I couldn’t get rid of it because it was the last thing with ties to my old life. Either way, I couldn’t let it go.

We gathered outside the cave, the harsh wind whipping us with ice and dust. My hair streamed in the wind until I tucked it under my hood. In his free time while dying from lindworm venom, Soren had rebraided his hair, and it hung loosely to his waist. I scowled. It shone like snow. Mine still smelled of brine and pond scum.