TWENTY-TWO
BJARNI
Hel was as miserable as the stories suggested. Everything was gray and dull and dead—which I suppose shouldn’t have come as a surprise, seeing as how this was the realm of death and all.
It could have been fire and pitchforks, for all I cared, because the second we stepped through that portal, the place next to my heart that had been so unbearably silent flared to life with a light far greater than any sun, and I knew we had finally found her.
“Hel’s t**s!” Magni spat by my side as he keeled over with his fist pressed to his chest.
“Maybe don’t blaspheme the Queen of Hel in her own realm,” Saga suggested, his tone dry despite the hand he was clutching to his own ribs. “She’s a prickly b***h—you don’t want to summon her attentions.”
“Isn’t she your sister?” Modi aske
