White Stag (Permafrost #1)(85)

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ONE BY ONE, my feelings returned. Ash and iron burned through my clothes, underneath my skin. The smell of death and blood wafted through the air along with the musky, warm smell of a large animal.

Pain hit me from every angle, the most intense pain I’d ever felt. Nothing could compare to this. Nothing. No absorbed power, no n?kken’s venom, no repeated rapes or beatings, no whip’s lash, nothing compared to the way my body tore itself apart. My insides warred against themselves until I was sure everything in my body had turned to mush. My lungs were squeezed for every drop of air, and I gasped with every breath. Molten lead filled my body, burning and burning and weighing it down, so I couldn’t move or speak or even scream.

Besides the ashes and iron, three blobs of white, black, and brown rested closed to me, and someone sat just beside them, fidgeting and speaking to the blobs like they were real beings.

At first, I tried to stay conscious and hear the conversation around me, but the pain pulled me back each time. Every little part of me was dying its own death. Poisoned, withering, decaying. If I could see myself, I was sure I’d be a puddle of blood and innards on the ground.

“Should it have gotten out of her system by now?” I heard a familiar, worried voice over the buzzing in my ears.

The bond was strong. It will be gone soon. She’s in much pain. The wolf’s voice broke the ice inside my mind. Breki. Seppo was the familiar voice, Breki and the other wolves were with me. A fire lit inside my chest, burning alongside the pain, but this one I didn’t push away. I tried to call to them, but the only thing that came out of my mouth was a strangled sound.

Seppo’s warm hand rubbed my shoulder. “It’s almost over.”

What’s almost over? The Hunt? Soren and Lydian are fighting to the death as we speak. My chest ached. He promised not to leave.

The sun stretched over the horizon, a flaming ball falling across the sky. Breki lay with his large head on my chest, his thick fur warming me like a blanket. As the sun sank, the pain slowly dwindled into nothing until all that was left was an empty feeling. Almost like someone had ripped out an organ I’d only just realized was there.

With the help of the wolf, I sat up. Seppo straightened from where he leaned against Hreppir, the young pup’s ears rising and his tail thudding against the ground at the sight of me. Lykka looked away, her tail still low. “I tried to save him,” I said softly. The she-wolf just whined.

Now that my vision had cleared, I knew where we were. I’d lain in this same exact spot a hundred years ago, clutching an iron nail as I cried my heart out. My burnt village by the border where I’d been spared not once but, now, twice.

Seppo crouched down next to me. “I recovered your weapons,” he said. “Are you able to tell us what happened? Breki said he felt great pain from you. We rushed back here and everyone was gone besides you. You looked dead, lying there so still.”

I shuddered. “We fought against Lydian.”

“I figured that much,” Seppo said. “What happened?”

“Lydian and I were fighting; he was playing with me, I think. He sent a bunch of men to take down Soren. He was about to kill me but then Soren—Soren—” I choked, the words turned to ashes in my mouth, and coughed. “Soren broke free from his enemies and asked Lydian about the ritual. He said he’d go with Lydian willingly if he spared my life.”

Seppo’s blue eyes grew wide. “And then what?”

“He … said something … I can’t remember what, but then there was this horrible pain, and when I woke, he was gone and you were here.” I wiped the tears from my eyes; crying wouldn’t do any good now. Soren was a strong fighter; if he sacrificed himself for me, he knew what he was doing. But it didn’t stop my heart from splitting in two.

Seppo grinned. “He did it, then. He did it and you’re alive.”

“What are you smiling about?” I hissed. “He’s fighting for his life right now. I should be there.”

“He broke your bind,” Seppo explained. “And it didn’t even kill you! You’re free.”

I blinked. “I’m as tied to this world as you are, Seppo. Even if Soren has no hold on me anymore. Even if I can leave the Permafrost.” A bit of warmth trickled into my frozen heart, but I stubbornly believed that no good would come from this.

Seppo growled—the first time he’d done so—and shook his head. “No, Janneke, you don’t understand. He unbound all of it. You have no ties to us anymore. No obligations. You could just leave, and everything would be fine for you. You could—you could live a normal human life in some village far away, and no one would know you’d been around goblins for the past hundred years. There would be no outward signs like there would’ve been before. You could hunt without drawing attention to the Permafrost. You’d probably still feel its call, but you could handle it. You have a lot of self-control, I mean. You could leave and never come back and Lydian would be our problem and ours alone. He released you from any type of punishment, any type of backlash, any type of hold our world had on you. That is huge.” He shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. “I don’t think even my mother has enough power to do that.”

The warmth exploded in my chest and drove away the ice. Suddenly I understood, and the dull pain throbbing in my heart melted away like dew. I knew how power worked. When the stag chose the Erlking, it was because he was the one with the most power, and the stag allowed him to kill it. When the new Erlking was given power by the rest of the goblin community, he didn’t hold it. The stag did, until the Erlking called on it. Then it went back into the air for the goblins to use, until the stag was out of power, the Erlking weak, and the lords and ladies of the goblin world powerful and ready to start the cycle again. It was a give and take. Considering what Soren was about to get into, he had given a lot to set me free. He might as well have pulled out a knife and slit his own throat. Even if he did lose the fight, Soren had made sure Lydian would lose me either way. Lydian was sure he would win this, win me, but he hadn’t counted on Soren’s sacrifice to free me, and he definitely hadn’t taken my own will into consideration.