Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 121534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 608(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 608(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Rowen stands.
“Thank you,” I rasp, every breath jagged, pulling the strings on my corset loose to breathe easier. “For saving me.”
Father’s laugh rolls across the chamber like thunder. “Do you really think it’s about you?”
Rowen cuts him a glare. “Keep your word.”
Odin’s eyes gleam, too bright, too hungry. “Your time starts now.”
Time? Time for what? I don’t understand.
Rowen lifts me, his grip ironclad, and sets me on my unsteady feet. He pries the box from my hand.
When he flicks it open, my world splinters.
It isn’t Mjölnir.
It’s not Thor’s hammer.
I failed.
Chapter Eighty-One
Rey
I stare for a few seconds in disbelief.
Then a scream, raw and blood-soaked, tears out of me before I even realize it’s mine. “No. No, no—” My voice breaks. “This is wrong! You said it would lead to the hammer!” I yell at my father. “You promised if I did this one thing…”
I can’t fight without Mjölnir.
My father is too powerful. Without the hammer, I’ve failed.
My gaze turns to Aric. Tears stream down my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Aric. I’m so sorry.” My knees buckle.
Rowen holds the object up and examines it, a small smile on his face.
It’s an artifact all right. Just the wrong one.
I recognize it as the lost Nightfrost diamond, the one given to the Giant Alvaldi by Thor himself. Mjölnir’s counterpart, the only relic in the universe that is the hammer’s equal. The legend from Laufey’s stories, from the paintings in the Eriksons’ home—it shouldn’t be here, now, in the real world.
It’s a simple band crowned with a diamond as blue as the deepest ice.
I stare, shaking. “Why would it lead me to Nightfrost?” My body trembles. “I didn’t know. I swear!”
Rowen’s eyes suddenly lock on mine, full of a grief I’m trying to understand. “I’m sorry, Rey. I really am.”
For what? What is he sorry for?
He slides the ring onto his finger.
The air splits with a jarring scream from the sky.
The moment the diamond touches his finger, the Rowen I know vanishes—and in his place stands a figure ripped from my nightmares. Black armor. Black cape. A shattered red hammer painted across his chest in blood. Eyes glowing with an unnatural blue fire and a smile that screams evil.
Rowen.
My Rowen.
What’s happening?
Odin rises to his feet, triumphant. “Son. Welcome back.”
Son.
The word echoes in my skull until it breaks.
Thor.
The runes over his door. The glamour.
Reeve is cursing up a storm, glaring at Rowen. “Are you fucking kidding me? I killed you!”
Rowen—Thor—ignores him. Reeve turns to Odin instead.
“We had a deal, Odin! These two for the location of Nightfrost.”
Odin flicks a hand, and Reeve goes flying into the wall.
As if held by an invisible force, Reeve is pinned, thrashing. “Should have seen that coming a mile away, and yet I trusted you—fuck you very much.”
With another flick, Odin slams Reeve’s head against the wall and he drops, unconscious.
My brother ignores Reeve. He strides to Aric, bleeding and broken, tilts his head up with the finger wearing that cursed ring, and whispers, low in his throat, “By the time I’m finished with you, Giant, you’re going to wish you were dead. Now…try not to become a corpse before I get my weapon free.”
Then he moves around to face Aric’s back and slams his hand into it, right where the runes burned themselves down his spine. The next thing I know, he’s trying to grip something massive buried under Aric’s skin. Gold glints in the light.
Rowen pulls.
And I can see it, the world tearing open as the handle of Mjölnir becomes visible under Aric’s skin.
Aric knew the location of Nightfrost.
And Nightfrost knew the location of Mjölnir.
Hidden in plain sight, under the power of runes and three Giants.
The greatest weapon in the world wasn’t just being protected by Aric.
It’s a part of him.
Chapter Eighty-Two
Rey
I’m too stunned to move.
Rowen. The one I trusted, the one I leaned on. All those nights I complained to him, the way he joked with me when I was breaking, the stories we would tell about Thor—about the God he could never be. And all along, he was sitting there, smiling at me, lying to me.
My chest tightens. Tears burn hot and blur everything, but not enough to erase the sight of him in that armor, not enough to silence Aric’s cries echoing like a dirge through the chamber.
Hiding in plain sight. Thor. God of Thunder.
The ground crunches beneath my boots, shards of frost cracked and shattered from someone’s fury—Aric’s fury. His rage is etched into every surface: walls clawed with jagged ice, pillars fractured where the frost exploded outward.
Rowen steps away, empty-handed. What happened? Did he not set Mjölnir free?
Men shove me forward, rough, causing me to fall to the hard ground in front of my father.
Odin’s still holding his pistol—sleek, black, merciless like his eyes. He levels the weapon at my chest.
“All I ever needed,” he says softly, almost lovingly, “was your blood. And now, when we have the hammer in our hands, I can regenerate as much of it as I want. Don’t worry, you won’t be awake for it. After all, everyone has a purpose. I’ve always found it entertaining how often you thought you had a purpose outside of existing simply so he can thrive.”