Page 7 of A Game of Queens
I felt much better, so I wasn’t truly worried. Or maybe that was simply how wonderful it felt not to be in terrible pain inside the giant serpent. The warm, thick honey spread through my body, pumping me with more energy than I’d felt in… ages. Maybe ever.
Dörr carefully set me on my feet and then I sensed him dropping down before me, bending low. He still gripped my shoulders, his giant fingers tenderly making sure I kept my feet. “Forgive me, my queen. I couldn’t think how else to save you.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Touch me and you’ll know.”
Hesitantly, I stretched out my hand toward the dark bulk before me. I laid my fingers on the shadowed shape. I thought it was his bowed head, but I didn’t feel any hair. Only a faint warmth from his slick skin. I’d thought he was warm before, but now that I’d fed, I realized I was much warmer than he was. That wasn’t necessarily concerning, though the oily stuff on my fingers was definitely different.
“You’re an Aima queen, descended from a goddess. From your name, and where we found you…” He tipped his head back and the inky depths of his eyes glittered like black diamonds. “I would hazard to guess you’re descended from Hel.”
His words resonated within me. “That seems familiar… but I don’t honestly remember.”
“I smelled Loki,” one of the other shapes said. “He was the father of Hel, Fenrir, and Jörmungandr.”
I shuddered, remembering the parental way he’d treated me—while leaving me to suffer and die inside one of his children. “What are your names?”
“I’m Svar of the Endless Slough.”
“Myrk of the Bottomless Pit.”
Their names were certainly unusual. But at least theyknewtheir names. I only had Loki’s word to go on that mine was even Helayna. Though it felt right once I heard it.
I trailed my fingers down Dörr’s head to his shoulder. It wasn’t just his head that was slick. It felt like he’d crawled out of an oil pit. The stuff coated my fingers and started to warm on my skin, but not in a bad way.
In fact, it felt good enough that I shivered. The rest of me was so fucking cold that I was tempted to rub against him like a cat and smear the warming oil all over my body.
“You don’t know,” he whispered roughly. “You don’t know what we are.”
“No…?”
“When you called us, we had been sleeping as gargoyles for at least three thousand years.”
Well. That explained the wings, and why they’d felt like stone against me. They really had been living statues.
“They can’t transform as quickly as I can. I’m a few hundred years older, give or take. That makes me stronger.”
“Okay.”
His fingers tightened on my shoulders and I felt the searing intensity of his stare, though I could barely make out his glittering eyes in the darkness. He braced me, as if he feared he would need to catch me. “We’re dark alfar, my queen.”
“Okay…?” I repeated slowly, not sure why that was a problem.
“You might know us better as dark elves,” the one on my right said.
I was sure I’d probably heard fairytales at some point about elves, but I’d never expected to meet any.
Let alone call them as Blood.
Let alonedarkelves. Though it certainly made sense in this cold, dark place. “And you said we’re at the base of Yggdrasil? That’s the world tree of Norse mythology, right?”
Dörr didn’t answer immediately.
“Yes,” the one on my left finally replied. “We’re at its base in Hvergelmir. Does that mean something to you?”
“No…” I said slowly. “Why should it?”
“Because it was also called Hel, after the goddess who commanded this realm.”
