Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 125422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 627(@200wpm)___ 502(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 627(@200wpm)___ 502(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
But once I’m in my chambers and getting ready for bed, my heart is too heavy for sleep. I keep seeing Tuonen sinking into the deep, keep hearing the sob that escaped Tuoni’s lips and broke my heart right in two. This is a castle of grief from which there is no escape.
I go to the glass doors of the balcony and look outside. It’s snowing lightly, gathering on the stone railing and in the corners of the panes. It’s beautiful in its own way—the great dark sea below, the jagged mountains in the distance. Somewhere there’s Kuutar’s moon behind all those heavy clouds but I don’t expect to see fair weather for a long time. When I imagined us finally back at Shadow’s End, I thought there would be sunshine and reason to celebrate. For some reason I never imagined we would lose Tuonen in the process.
Was that naïve or just hopeful?
Is there even a difference?
I exhale heavily and stare at the flakes as they gather on the window pane. At least the snow is pretty. Though the more I stare at it, the lighter it becomes. I look up and suddenly I’m blinded, like a supernova is going off in front of me.
Instinctively I block my eyes, though it takes me a moment to realize I’m part of the fucking sun and I don’t need to do that. So I lower my arms and watch as a bright ball of sunlight lands on the balcony.
I step back, out of the way just as the doors blow open. Snow fills the room, followed by the glowing figure of my mother, Päivätär, Goddess of the Sun.
“Mother?” I ask, immediately humbled by her blinding presence. “Why are you here?” I can’t help but get a little nervous, like I’m in trouble for something.
She stares at me for a second, the solar flares around her body dimming, before she says, “Do mothers not visit their children sometimes?” As if I dared to question her. Then she says, “I have come to bear you a gift.”
“Oh?” The last gift she gave me was the whole damn sun, so I’m a little wary about what this could be. “Wouldn’t Kuutar be mad if you gave me the moon?”
“I’m not giving you the moon,” she says in a huff, growing brighter, totally not understanding what sarcasm is.
“That’s fine,” I tell her quickly, not wanting to see her offended. She may be my true mother, but she scares the shit out of me. “So what is the gift?”
“The gift is sacrifice. Your sacrifice.”
Oh, yeah, that’s a great fucking present.
“Excuse me?” I exclaim. “A sacrifice?”
“You have the power of all life, Hanna. It is part of your bones, part of your blood. This power is stronger in you than it is in me, because your humanity is strong enough to control it.”
“And you think I should die because of that?”
What the fuck?
“Most of your power will die, yes, because you exhausted it first. But you are not dying, Hanna. You are saving the people you love. The people of the realm. The ones sent to Oblivion.”
I shake my head. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Your gift, Hanna, nurtured in sunlight, is that you can reverse Oblivion. Your gift of life can pull everyone out until Oblivion ceases to exist. The dead will return and walk again here.”
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Mostly because I don’t understand it. “You’re saying I can somehow, like, Uno Reverse Hell?”
She stares at me for a moment and I can almost hear her brain trying to compute what Uno means. “You are light. Oblivion is dark. Your eternal sun and power of life will destroy it completely.”
My heart starts to beat faster, hope rising in my chest. “So you’re saying I have the power to bring everyone back to life? Tuonen? Bell? Rasmus? Vipunen?”
“Vipunen is not dead,” she says to me, a hint of haughtiness in her tone. “He has been with me on the sun. Punishment for getting involved with Tuonen’s fate when he knows better than that. He has been watching you though. He is proud.”
Pick up the sword and try again.
I blink at that, my circuits overloading with too much information.
“I can bring back the dead. Like the dead dead?” I repeat.
“Every being that has been sent to Oblivion, yes,” she says, patience waning. “And I do mean, every being.”
“Wait. So that means like Louhi and Rangaista and Salainen?”
“Yes.”
My eyes widen in horror. “That’s not fair.”
“You are correct. It is not fair,” she says stiffly. “If you want it to be fair, you would only bring some back, but not others.”
“But…how?”
“Your power can only bring everyone back. But you do not possess the metaphysical ability to become a replacement for Oblivion and become the great judge of humanity, only letting worthy souls in while keeping others out. That is not in your markup.”