Page 76 of Goddess of Light

Then, the light dims. Darkness encroaches again, not as absolute as before but still strong. The eclipse hasn’t passed. Hanna’s strength wavers. She stands rigid, and I can tell she’s trying to keep her identity intact, to remember why she fights.

In the distance, I think I hear a horn, a faint echo. Could it be the Vellamo and the other Keskellis? Is Ilmatar finally making her appearance? Or a trick of Thaerix’s screams? The sound repeats, clearer this time, cutting through the cacophony. The skeletons pause, heads tilted.

Hope flickers in my chest.

But we are still trapped. Hanna’s light flickers uncertainly. She’s fighting not only the enemy but her own mind. Soldiers around me breathe raggedly, struggling to hold positions. Ilmarinen clutches the sampo, trying to edge closer to the ley line’s heart.

I slash at a skeleton, feeling my muscles burn. The horn sounds again, louder. Is help truly on the way? If so, can we hold out until they reach us? We balance on a knife’s edge, caught between salvation and annihilation.

“Hanna,” I whisper again, not sure if she can hear me. “Remember who you are.” If she can remember me, if she can remember Tuonela and all we’ve built, maybe she can hold back the madness of forgetting. Maybe she can shine again without losing herself.

I steel myself. Whatever happens, I won’t abandon her. Nor will I abandon these soldiers, this land, or the future we’ve all fought for. If this is the end, we’ll face it together. Still, I hold out hope that the horn heralds allies rushing to our aid. ThatIlmarinen will find a moment to plant the sampo. That Hanna can balance on this razor’s edge a little longer.

We stand at the brink, shadows and screams pressing in. My sword feels heavy, my breath ragged, but still, I raise it, prepared to strike at whatever comes next. We will not surrender. We cannot. The underworld’s fate depends on this.

I will not be defeated.

A skeleton lunges at me, and I swing. The world hangs, unfinished, uncertain, on the edge of a blade.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

HANNA

When I was younger,I liked to think that if I was ever in any kind of emergency, I would turn into one of those people where others would say, “Wow, she was so calm and poised. She really kept her head.” Of course, I didn’t really have many emergencies back then, but it was tested when I thought I left my phone behind in an Uber. Turns out, I do not keep my cool when tested. I completely lose my shit.

Which was why, when I was able to harness the sun and swoop down onto the battlefield outside Castle Syntri and literally smite everyone like the fucking God I am, I actually felt like I was finally one of those people. I mean, I sent those bitches up in flames, and I did so without my pulse even quickening.

Cool as a cucumber.

Of course, that only happened because I didn’t really know who these people were or understand what they meant to me. Being a Goddess of the Sun means you’re a littletoocool instead of hot. The irony.

Regardless, I wish I could have kept some of that fortitude, because even though I’m able to call upon my powers a tiny bit, like a glorified night light, I’m internally losing my shit.

The battlefield has become a place of darkness and howling winds, of screaming souls and clashing swords, and I am lost to the chaos, floating between fear and purpose. This eclipse brought on by an Old God presses at my senses, trying to smother the memory of sunlight. My father, Lovia, Tellervo—everyone is struggling blindly in the blackness. I feel my powers flicker inside me, waiting to be unleashed, yet doubt coils around it, yanking it back like a choke chain. I know what I should do, what I could do, but I would lose these people and who they are to me.

I watch as Tuoni drives his sword through a couple of skeletons and then slices at the darkness that is the moving eclipse. Fighting erupts from all around me, and I have no idea who is winning. I pick up a sword from the ground, wanting to rely more on it than my powers, and step back away from the front line, trying to figure out what to do next.

I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Tapio, barely able to make him out in this suffocating darkness. I sense the Forest God more than see him—he smells of pine and damp leaves, a living fragment of these woods. He’s trying desperately to rally his domain, forcing green sparks from his fingertips, coaxing half-dead branches and wounded trees to fight back. But the eclipse overhead mocks him, the Old God twisting night and shadow into something that smothers all growth.

A skeleton lunges at him. Tapio cries out and parries with his wooden staff, snapping one undead limb, then another. He’s good, much better than I gave him credit for, but then a root lashes out from the darkness. Yggthra? It coils around his leg, biting into flesh. He gasps, horror coloring the sound, his eyes gleaming as he stares at me for help.

I feel the sun-gift flare inside me. If I unleash it, I might burn through this darkness—briefly. But what if I lose control andscorch my allies too? That would be even worse than losing any sense of my humanity.

The thought paralyzes me.

“Help!” Tapio’s voice scrapes the air. Panicked, I step forward and raise a trembling hand. I could fire a clean beam of sunlight, cutting the snare off him.

Do something! Anything!I yell at myself.

I hesitate, heart pounding, before I raise my sword and run at him. I start hacking away at the root, trying to slice it in half. I call for help, for someone to pull Tapio away while I try to get the monster to let him go.

Tapio cries out again, weaker, being dragged downward. Zelma’s eclipsing night thickens, shadowy shapes closing in. My muscles shake as I continue to hack away at the root, panicking, unsure of what else to do. A soldier runs over and grabs Tapio, holding on to him, but that soldier is dragged away too, heels carving ruts in the dirt.

“Father!” Tellervo yells, running toward him. Her palms are out, coaxing the forest to help, but only a few vines shoot up and wrap around his arms, not enough to make a difference. The rest of the forest is too weak and corrupted by the battle.

I force a spark of light onto my palm—I could free him.

The fear has me in a vice, but I know what I must do.

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