Page 57 of Reaper's Reward

Perse stroked my hair. “I’m so proud of you. Love is the only reason to defy fate.”

I definitely wasn’t going to try that again any time soon. As we stepped out of Limbo, I made a mental list of people that I would rewrite fate for. It was a short list, and the reasons were even shorter, but that was for the best. I didn’t think the gods would like it if I kept rewriting the future.

There were going to be consequences for what I’d done. I wouldn’t know what they were until I ran into them. There wasn’t time to worry about that right now.

Perse and I stepped into Hel’s underworld and began the search for Fenrir’s fate thread. It was twisted and gnarled like one of the roots of the great world tree. I struggled to take ahold of the massive thread because it was like wrangling a crocodile. The thing thrashed in my grip and made me worry that Fenrir could feel what I was doing.

We had to search through the thread’s past to find the soul of his lost lover. Maybe then we would be able to treat with her and ask for her help.

While I struggled with Fenrir’s damn fate thread, Perse strayed towards the roots of the tree of the worlds. The Norns stopped and watched Perse with open suspicion. Perse bent and peered into the well that the Norns used to water the roots. I considered calling Perse back, but I doubted she would listen to me.

The roots were rotting. I could see it, through the darkness. Even from here, I could smell it, too. This whole place was falling apart like Hel didn’t have the power to keep it alive anymore. I wasn’t about to help, either. I didn’t have power over life. The roots were already dying. I would only expedite the situation.

Perse, however, was the goddess of a life domain. She smiled bright as she touched a fingertip to the roots of the world tree. I quickly turned and booked it out of the room before the Norns could crucify Perse for cross-pantheon contamination. I didn’t know if that was a thing, but I didn’t want to stick around and find out, either.

Fenrir’s fate thread led me deep into the dark hollows of Hel’s underworld. I startled when Perse reappeared beside me in a burst of cherry blossoms. They drifted to the floor and faded away, which made me wonder if she left trails of them behind in Hade’s Elysium.

“We need to work fast,” Perse said. “If Fenrir realizes what we’re doing, then he’s going to try to fight back.”

I huffed an empty laugh. “I like how you made sure to saytry to.”

“There’s a reason that Hel asked you to do this. You’re more than a match for him. You just don’t have all the right skills yet. That’s why I’m here.”

“You would think that Hel would be the one giving lessons,” I grumbled.

The fate thread in my hand turned greasy. It turned lumpy in my hands. I couldn’t help but wonder if he could swallow things whole, like a snake. What was I touching? Was that a person? A mountain?

I wasn’t about to playPerson, Place, or Thingwith Fenrir’s fate thread, though the thought did make me laugh a little. Exhaustion was making me hysterical. How much had happened? Where was I? What was I even doing?

Oh, that’s right. I was trekking through the past of a mythological monster to find the woman he might have loved.

I wasn’t expecting the destination, though.

A figure came into view. At first, I thought that she’d simply realized that I was messing around in her domain and thought to check in on whatever I was up to. Then I noticed that her attention was not on me.

Hel stared off into the distance. When her attention slowly slid in my direction, she wasn’t looking at me. No, her attention was on the wriggling fate thread in my hand. The thing had led me right to her.

Was…was that a coincidence? Had she intercepted me to hide Fenrir’s past?

Or was Hel the lover who had betrayed Fenrir?

“Ex-fucking-scuse me?” I shouted as I clenched Fenrir’s fate thread. “You had the audacity to tell me to kill my husband and ask me to take care of your ex all in the same breath?”

Okay, so she didn’t tell me to do both at the same time, but I was pretty sure that Hel knew exactly what I was talking about. She’d put a lot on my shoulders, and it was all the consequences of her own actions. I wasn’t here to take care of generational trauma. She could heal her wounds on her own for all I cared.

“I can’t believe you!” Fenrir’s fate thread wiggled in response to my tone.

“I think we need to pause,” Perse said softly. “We might have come to a crossroads. Information needs to be shared. Don’t you agree, Hel?”

Hel groaned. It was a very human reaction that almost made me laugh. When Hel looked at Perse, I noticed a bit of contempt. Perse just smiled, bright and defiant.

“The trickster god, Loki, had a son. I loved him and all that he was, but the man hated the fact that I was divine and he was not. You see, Fenrir had been born a human with divine blood like yourself. Both of you are mortal.

“Fenrir drew upon his father’s trickery and used my love for him against me. He had me change him into something that was no longer mortal. It changed him beyond any of our expectations. The man that I’d grown to love ceased to exist. In his place was only hunger. He climbed the branches of our tree and reached to consume entire worlds.

“I had to strike him down. You understand, don’t you? I had to do it. My feelings no longer mattered. I loved him and ached because of what I had done, but I could not let that stop me. I tore him down and asked my siblings to help me chain him. When all was done, I struck his origin from all records, for I was afraid of what might happen if someone else made such a creature.”

Hel locked eyes with me.

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