Read Online Descendant by Lesley Livingston - Free Book Online Page B

brows knit together in a fierce frown. “I hate prophecy. Hate it. Prophecies never come true in the way people expect they will, and the minute anyone hears one, they start running around like idiots, doing whatever they can to either make something happen or keep it from happening. And it invariably has exactly the opposite effect from what they’re trying to achieve. It’s terribly frustrating. That’s why I try so hard not to see the future. Any of it. And I don’t tell people what I see about them when I do.”
    “No exceptions?”
    Webber was quiet for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t have to make an exception for you, Fennrys Wolf. I don’t see you in the future.”

VI
    T he cloak her mother wrapped her in was heavy and thick, but Mason still couldn’t stop shivering. There was no warmth emanating from Hel as she led Mason in a direction only she could discern. There was a horrifying sameness to the landscape, but it seemed as if her mother knew exactly which way to go, and so Mason stumbled blindly along at her side for what seemed like hours.
    Eventually, Mason noticed that the underground landscape had begun to alter. Subtly at first—almost in the way a scene in one of her dreams would shift—and then seemingly all at once. The craggy, jagged rocks had given way, abruptly, to a winding, unencumbered path and a vast, starry blackness that stretched above their heads—although Mason was positive they had never left the cavern. Sheer, mountainous cliffs rose on one side of the path and dropped off into endless chasms on the other. Mason’s footsteps began to falter as weariness threatened to finally overtake her, but her mother urged her on with a tightened grip on her aching shoulders. Deep purple shadows seamed the soaring rock faces, and Mason was almost certain she could feel eyes on her, peering out from the dark fissures.
    She halted in her tracks, tired of not knowing what was going on. Mother or no mother, she was not going to meekly follow this stern, dark woman up a mountain without knowing what was waiting for her once they got to the top. Her mother’s cloak fell from her shoulders as she kept moving past Mason up the path.
    “Tell me where we’re going,” Mason said.
    Her mother turned and cast her an unblinking stare.
    “Asgard,” Hel said finally, after a long pause. “To the great hall of Valhalla. There we will find the spear of Odin.”
    “Why?”
    “Because the Bifrost has been shattered, and you need a way to get home.”
    “And . . . a spear can do that?”
    “A magick spear, yes,” Hel answered drily in the face of Mason’s skepticism. “The Odin spear can do a lot of things. Traveling between the realms is one of them. Now. Do you want to go home?”
    More than anything, Mason thought, and was almost shocked by how desperately she wanted to leave the dark woman at her side behind. What was wrong with her? She’d wanted all her life to meet her mother. So why did she react to her now as if she was a complete stranger—and a dangerous one at that?
    You should be ashamed of yourself, she thought.
    Her mother was dead. Because of her. Who knew what kinds of torments she’d endured in this place? Mason took a deep breath and tried to find a spark of compassion somewhere inside herself. After a long moment, she found it. But that was only because she’d thought fleetingly of her father. Suddenly, she could imagine what the look on Gunnar Starling’s face would be if she could somehow manage to find a way to bring his beloved Yelena back to him.
    “Will . . . you be coming with me?” Mason asked haltingly, a pang of hopeful longing in her chest. But it was a faint hope—instantly quashed by her mother’s flat response. “I cannot,” she said. “I am Hel. My place is here.” “Right.” Mason turned away, brutally shoving aside thoughts of her father’s happiness. Her mother wasn’t her mother anymore. Her mother was Hel, and a goddess.