Page 4 of Queen Takes Darkness: Helayna
“Ideas?” I asked sharply. “And no, we can’t just rip our way to her.”
Myrk held up his hand, fingers melded together into a point. His stone flesh flowed into a wicked-long obsidian sword. “I can cut a small slit in his side and you can go in after her.”
Svar grunted. “Can’t risk it. We don’t know how deep within we’ll have to go. If we irritate him too much…”
His words sparked an idea in me. I willed my index finger to sharpen to a chisel point and stepped closer to the massive coil. “We’re coming, my queen. Keep calling so I can find you.”
“Please, hurry. I’m buried up to my neck.”
Grinding my teeth with fury, I laid my left hand on the snake’s scales. Closing my eyes, I focused on her. This precious, unexpected gift. A glimmer of hope in a place where no hope had ever resided. A spark of life in a place of cold, empty death.
I slid my hand over the coil until I could swear she was just on the other side. Then I carefully slipped the point of my small chiseled finger beneath a scale and popped it open. The snake’s skin twitched at the small pain, but it was nothing to a serpent so large that, according to legend, he encircled the entire world. A minor irritant that happened all the time.
Svar scooped up a handful of sand and rubbed his palm over the slightly dislodged scale. “That’ll really annoy the shit out of him.”
Instinctively, Jörmungandr rolled the massive coil upward, away from the grit that would irritate the small injury.
Lifting the coil away from our trapped queen.
Of course, another coil barred the way. And another. I carefully pried up more scales, while Svar rubbed the grit over the tender spots. Again.
“My queen?” Myrk called, pressing his ear against the snake’s mighty side. “Talk to me. We need to make sure you haven’t moved.”
“I can’t,” she whispered faintly. “Swallowed. He’s going to crush me.”
“Never,” Myrk retorted. “His mouth is otherwise occupied.”
“Don’t you know the tale of the Midgard Serpent?” Forcing his tone lighter, from a crushing avalanche to merely a falling boulder, Svar rubbed another handful of sand against the snake’s hide. “He’s too busy swallowing down his own tail to eat you.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m… falling. Into him. He’s absorbing me.” Her voice caught on a sob. “It hurts so badly. I don’t know how you’re going to get me out.”
My own breathing rattled in my chest on a vicious growl of helpless frustration. “One problem at a time,” I said for myself as much as my brethren. “Keep talking, my queen. What’s your name?”
“He said it was Helayna.”
Svar shook his head. “You can’t trust Loki further than I could throw Dörr. Did he wipe your memory?”
“Loki?” Her voice rose and she laughed, a harsh, brittle sound that skated across my obsidian hide. “The trickster. Of course. He told me I had to free myself. I was the key.”
“If you embrace your power and break open Jörmungandr, then he will release his tail and rise to the surface. Ragnarök will begin,” Myrk said. “He will fill the sky with poison while the giants rage against the gods. Everything will be destroyed.”
She cried out again, but this time, the sound was muffled, though shriller and more desperate. “Crushing. Can’t. Breathe.”
Oil rose to the surface of my skin like a human would sweat, making me shine as gargoyle transformed to alfar. My elven form couldn’t work the serpent’s coils aside any faster, though I would be more agile.
We were running out of time. The scales were larger, the coils thicker. Were we near his head? His middle? I had no idea. She felt closer, but if she was crushed in the coils…
I would rather cut our way to her than risk losing her like this.
I peeled open another scale as large as my head, straining to lift it away from the snake’s thick skin.
Svar started to rub sand into the open wound, but Myrk ducked down beneath his arm. “Wait. Do you see that?”
The two picked at something beneath the scale and started to draw out a thin cord. A string.
“Hair,” Myrk breathed out. “Her hair. Goddess.”
He carefully tugged on the strand of hair, pulling it out of the snake. It grew thicker and he pulled more quickly. A braid.
