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)
In fact, in this moment, I feel as if I’ve split away from my former self.
She smiles warmly at me before gesturing towards the archway we entered through. “It is time for you to return to Tuonela, my daughter of the sun. You have a destiny to fulfill and a world that needs you.”
I frown, unsure of what she’s saying. “What do you mean, return to Tuonela?”
Her posture stiffens as her gaze cools. “Your destiny, Hanna. You can’t have forgotten already. You haven’t been here long enough.”
I still don’t understand. Tuonela? I shake my head. It sounds familiar but the more I try to think about the word and what it means, the more the meaning slips away from me. It’s like I can’t quite remember.
“My destiny is here, Mother, to become one with the sun, with the power of the universe, just like you.”
“Tuonela,” she says in a hard voice, as if I’m supposed to know what that means. Her eyes blaze with fire now, and I don’t know why she’s so angry. “The Underworld. You have to reunite with Tuoni. He’s on his way. You must join with him and defeat Louhi, or the realm of the dead will be lost forever. You know this, Hanna. You just saw everything you were and are and will be in the pool.”
I swallow uneasily as fragments come back, like fossils barely visible beneath the sand. “Right,” I say slowly. Now, the visions and memories come back, like ghosts. I remember Tuoni. The God of Death. My husband. Which makes me the Goddess of Death. But how can I be that when I am the Goddess of the Sun? How can I worry about what happens in a world that’s buried so far beneath this one?
My mother looks away, grumbling under her breath. “This is not supposed to happen this way. Your father was here for ages before he started to lose his connection to the earth.”
“What are you talking about? My father?” I picture him, gray hair and a beard, and my heart pinches with sadness. I realize I have lost him a few times over, but the moment I stop thinking about him, the pain goes away.
She grabs my hand and leads me out of the cave, back into the gold light. I can’t help but laugh as fiery butterflies land on my arms and in my hair, singing softly to me.
“Perhaps you weren’t ready,” my mother says, more to herself. “Maybe Vellamo was right. But what choice did I have? Leave you in Tuonela? You had no hope of defeating Louhi otherwise. Rangaista and the Old Gods would see to that.”
“You seem troubled,” I say, watching as a butterfly crawls to the ends of my hair, which flow around me like molten copper.
She exhales before giving her head a shake. “It doesn’t matter what I seem. I need to get you back to the Underworld in time. I didn’t think the power here would affect you so quickly, but the longer you’re here, the more trouble you’ll have connecting to your previous life. Gaining the powers of a God means gaining distance from your humanity, but you were wanted and chosen because of your humanity, Hanna. Your mortality is your morality, your connection to Earth and those you love. That’s supposed to temper your powers. We are frightening, terrible beings without morality to rein us in.”
“But you’re not human,” I tell her. “And you don’t seem frightening or terrible. You say you to want to help others, right?”
“I do so out of a sense of duty but I don’t have a heart, Hanna,” she says. “I am too distant out here to feel deeply for beings beneath me. I am used to only being the observer. The most I can get involved is through you. I know what must be done and that you’re the only one who can do it. But if you’re already starting to forget who and what you are, that’s going to be a problem.”
“So you’re sending me away from this wonderful place, from my home, so I can fight for someone else?”
Why would she do that when I only just got here?
“So you can fight for everyone you love and hold dear. So you can fight for the world itself. Life and death have always been in perfect balance, and with Louhi rewriting what it means to die, turning it into a place of perpetual hell, life will no longer have the meaning it should. Life will not be worth living if the afterlife is worse than dying.”
The words are starting to sink in. I feel their weight, even though I have to fight the urge to shrug them off.
Tuoni.
My father.
Lovia.
I remember them.
I just don’t…feel them.
“What should I do?” I ask.
“You must hold onto their memories,” she says. “And the memories will hold onto you. But you must find a balance. The more you hold on, the more your powers might wane. Hopefully, when we get you back, you’ll be able to do some damage to Louhi without losing your connection to the others.”