The stone circle was ghostly in the weak morning sunlight, an arresting sight, ancient and weathered by time. The stones stood upright and resolute, their shadows marking the pure snow around them.
A blood-red sky greeted them as they sledded towards it. Was it a bad omen? A sense of power thrummed through the air. No wonder the rumours had started. Compared to this monument, Ciara was small and insignificant, her life only a brief murmur in the passage of time. The stones had seen centuries pass and would see many more.
"I've never seen or felt anything like this before," Tonraq said.
The wind made Fell's dark hair ripple behind him as he led the way. "This is it. This is where we'll find a guardian."
Something cold surged under Ciara's skin as if in response, and all the doubts she had had faded away. It was impossible that these stones had stayed standing and relatively unscathed throughout the Ice Age, let alone centuries before that. It had to be the work of a guardian.
"We proceed with caution," Fell said, strapping a couple of extra knives to his belt. "One at a time. Hall, with me. Isa, get at the back."
"No!" Isa looked outraged.
Fell passed a hand over his pained face. "I've brought you into enough danger over the years. Isa, please. I don't want you charging headfirst into this one." She pursed her lips as Fell beckoned to Ciara.
Ciara looked at Tonraq, who nodded encouragingly. Rufus tried to pad after her but she batted him back. "Midgarson, hand me my axes. If the guardians really are this dangerous..."
"No."
"Why not?"
"If it comes to it, we will defend you with our weapons."
"Really." She resisted the urge to snort. "Why me?"
Fell gave her a sidelong glance. "Why not you? You want to find a guardian, do you not?"
Ciara found herself hating him for how well he had healed. Perhaps she should have just let his life end after all.
Fell paused for a fraction of a second before passing through the outer circle of tall rocks. Ciara followed, craning her neck to look up at them, and a tremor rolled through the air. Something about this wasn't normal. Fear built in the pit of her stomach.
"Did you feel that?" Fell whispered, and she nodded.
The snow fields were silent around them. Animals didn't venture here.
They stepped carefully into the main circle, which was even bigger. Some of these monoliths had been stacked into arches, with one stone lying across two pillars, and it felt like the air around them stood still. The low sun shone through one of the arches, blinding her, and she lifted a hand to block it out.
Minutes trickled by, and the others followed them inside. Fell's jaw clenched. He paced the empty space in the middle.
"Fell," Sebastian said. "I don't think there's anything here."
Had they come all this way for nothing?
"We can't leave straight away after all the effort we made to get here," Tonraq replied.
"No. No." Fell was not accepting defeat. "We felt it – we felt something."
"A cold breeze," Isa said.
"Face it, Midgarson," Ciara said. "You don't like admitting you're wrong. But we must have been too desperate – of course there's nothing here, someone else would have found it by now." These stones, to her frustration, were blank. "The rocks are pretty, I guess." More like magnificent. Half were silhouetted by the sun, while the other half were illuminated with its rays. "But there are no guardians."
"This can't be right. We're missing something," Fell insisted.
Ciara wandered around the monoliths, scanning for anything unusual. Aside from the fact that it had been built back when such a feat was seemingly impossible, there was nothing strange about it. The others spread out to search, too, while Fell remained in the main circle.
Tonraq was running his hands over a standing stone. Sebastian checked behind each one with a knife drawn, as if expecting to see a guardian hiding in every shadow.
Ciara tried to imagine what would happen if they saw one. What she would do. What would she do? Let it kill Fell, if it was hostile? The thought made her stomach churn.
"I don't think the rocks will change shape, not even if you glare at them as hard as you can," Ciara called, and sat down in the very centre of the monument.
Fell turned on her. "You –"
A rumble cut him off. It sounded like a muffled avalanche, and the earth shook beneath them.
Fell's eyes widened. "Don't. Move."
Ciara slowly got to her feet. Then something deep within her, something that lived in the marrow of her bones, stirred.
It purred, ancient and cold and foreign.
She gasped as a strange sensation flooded through her. Like she was drowning in icy water, like someone had poured buckets over her head, into her stomach, draining away all her heat and life. She cried out as it sharpened into agony.
"Ciara!" Tonraq.
"No! Stay back!" Fell barked.
Her hands burned. She looked down at them and her heart dropped to her feet. They were covered in thin tendrils of blue light. Markings that shimmered, shining so brightly she could see them through her gloves. They snaked their way up her arms.
Fell, Isa, Sebastian and Tonraq stared at her in horror.
"What's happening?" Ciara whimpered. Cords of blue light, starting at her feet, travelled towards the rocks. Fell leaped out of the way of one of them.
The stone circle came to life around them.
Blue swirled into patterns that shone on the monoliths, unearthly, like starlight or ice, setting the whole thing ablaze. Shapes and runes glowed, spelling out stories and mysterious scenes. Images of animals in pairs, all strange, deadly and beautiful.
"The Soul Syndicate," Fell breathed, his eyes huge with wonder.
The burning spread to her face. Her gorge rose. "What is this?"
"Ciara, you –"
A streak of red lit up the sky and darkness bloomed around them.
Someone cried out, and a purring male voice rolled from the shadows.
"So here you are at last."
"Who are you? What's happening to me?" Ciara cried.
Fell backed towards her. She couldn't see the others through the darkness.
"You know who I am. I am the darkness to your light. I am the other half of the eternal hourglass. I really shouldn't have to introduce myself."
"Show yourself, you coward!" Ciara was shaking.
An exasperated sigh. "Fine. If I must. You just have to take the fun out of everything, don't you?" As if a wind had blown through the rocks, the smoke disappeared.
Her heart almost stopped. The circle was not just glowing blue now. Red light, brighter than blood, was interspersed with the blue. Red and blue – The colours of the guardians.
A young man leaned against an arch and grinned at them.
He had olive skin and spiky black hair that faded to brown at the tips. His face was sharp, delicately-boned with a wide, mischievous smile, and he wore a dark leather jacket, his hands stuffed jauntily in his pockets.
Most striking about him was his eyes, which lanced into her own. They were bright red.
"Ask," Fell breathed.
The human black soul.
Ask pushed off from the arch and gave an elegant, exaggerated bow. The circle didn't seem to dwarf him the way it dwarfed the rest of them. "The one and only. I must say, you're looking pretty bedraggled in this vessel, my dear Embla. You took your time in Ginnungagap, didn't you? You left me alone with these insufferable mortals for a while. No hurry to be reborn? I understand. Sometimes the raw, peaceful power of the chasm is better than this chaotic world."
Was he talking to... her?
"You're standing there like a rabbit. Come on, close your mouth. You're embarrassing me," Ask drawled. His eyes danced, as if everything was terribly amusing to him.
Fire bloomed along the snow until it enclosed them in the circle. Isa, Tonraq and Sebastian staggered towards Ciara and Fell, away from the heat.
Fire. This man – no, he was a guardian – could control fire. It's all true. Everything is real. The power emanating from him... She could barely breathe in his presence, in the hot air that rippled from him.
"I'm not Embla," she said finally, and Fell stiffened beside her.
Ask chuckled. "Come now. I'm not playing these games, sister."
"You're not my sibling." Ciara wiped sweat from her forehead.
"You are my sister, my other half. It doesn't really matter what we call ourselves, we have never been related by blood. This is something deeper. You are the white soul of the humans, the protector of justice, and whatever else you like to call yourself – I'm not giving you the satisfaction of going through all your pompous titles." Ask sniffed, ruffing his hair with a hand. She could have sworn she saw sparks fly from it.
"No. You're wrong." Icy pressure pounded against her bones.
"Ciara," Fell hissed. "Your eyes are blue."
"Brown," she corrected sharply. "My eyes are brown."
Ask rolled his eyes. He pulled a small mirror out of his pocket and prowled towards her.
"Stay away from me!" Ciara flung out both palms – and a wave of snow burst from them, along with a blast of blue light.
The others jumped away from her, but Ask, unaffected, kept walking.
Ciara saw her own face in the mirror.
Blue markings curled around her eyes, along her nose, the curve of her lips. Frost sparkled on her eyelashes. And her eyes... The brown had disappeared. They were a bright, unnatural blue, teeming with power and cold. The markings were elegant, weaving together like an intricate pattern of lace, pure light carving its way along her skin. She saw runes like those on the circle, spelling words she could not read.
Windows to the soul.
Blue for Niflheim, the ice realm.
Ask gave her a sharp-toothed grin and Ciara stared in horror as his own red markings began to unfurl, eerily similar. His eyes shimmered like spilt blood, the marks cutting lines along his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, framing his eyebrows.
"No," she choked. "This can't be true. I've never seen or felt this in my life, I –"
"Please, spare me your blubbering," Ask said, and put a hand on her arm. She wanted to scream at the touch – it was fire, agony against the cold swirling through my skin.
Something tugged at the confines of her body and the world went dark around them. All colour and heat drained away.
Ciara gasped for air and staggered, breaking away from Ask. Then she stared in horror at the stone circle. Everything looked insubstantial. The horizon was a black line in the distance, the ground was glassy, smooth and clear of snow. The rocks were huge, hulking shadows, the rest of the world wreathed in thick mist.
Ask had turned into a teeming mass of black smoke that distorted his human form. Two red eyes burned in her direction.
"You're – you're a monster." Her legs gave way and she collapsed.
"I've been called worse." At least his voice was the same.
"Where are we? What have you done? Where are my friends?" She caught sight of them as the words left her lips.
They were... dead. They were hollow shells, skeletons, of ash-grey, with empty eye sockets. No hair, no real clothes. Inside thorny ribcages, she could just make out the faintest flicker.
Bile surged up her throat, burning.
"Oh, please." Ask sounded bored. "Stop making things so dramatic, Embla."
Ciara wiped sweat out of her eyes with a trembling hand. "Are we dreaming? Am I asleep? This – it's a nightmare." A nightmare made sense. Everything in her was screaming.
"Too real to be called a dream, yet not real enough to be called reality. , between existing and... not existing. This is the spirit plane."
"The what?"
"A plane of being that mirrors the corporeal world. It is a place for souls, for you and me. Greys can't affect it, can't sense it, and they only show up as little flickers." He sniffed in disdain. "But we... we rule this land. We can shape it to our will, visit it whenever we wish, and draw on its power for ourselves."
"There is no 'we'."
"Look at me, darling. I am a black soul." Ask spread what she could have called his arms, and colourless flames leaped from him. The mist shrank back, while some of its tendrils coiled around Ciara. "And you are white. Look at yourself, and tell me you're going to carry on denying it. Go on."
Ciara looked down and almost screamed.
Her body was made of pure, blinding white light. She had no skin – what was she? She couldn't breathe. This wasn't her, this wasn't –
"And now you're panicking. Lovely." Ask's eyes were slits. "Let's take you back before you do something stupid." He touched her arm again.
Sunlight pierced her eyes, breaking over the top of an arch. She fell to her knees in the snow – snow, wind, sun – it all still existed. She let out a dry sob, plunging her hands into it, her body wracked with uncontrollable shivers.
"Believe me now, sweetie?" Ask purred. "That is your soul. But something is... Hm." He bent down in front of her and his red eyes widened. "Oh. How interesting. You have found a way to cheat death... and you avoided me while doing it. That explains your confusion! Tell me, what did the white-haired woman say when she died in your arms recently?"
"How did you know about that?"
"Because that was Embla."
Ciara was intensely aware of Fell, Tonraq, Sebastian and Isa's eyes.
"That was Embla, and her soul has fused to yours. It seems like you have finally unlocked your powers. It's fitting that we have reunited again here, in this ancient place of council and meeting."
A hand touched her shoulder. "Ciara," Fell whispered harshly.
Me. Me – Embla, the white soul.
A guardian.
No.
It couldn't be true. It was some kind of trick – illusion.
Ciara looked up at the stones. One pattern depicted two snarling wolves, entwined and mirroring each other. One blue, one red, with the sun and the moon held beneath their paws. Sköll and Hati. On the monolith next to them... The humans. Embla looked nothing like her, with long, flowing hair and an aloof face.
That's not me. That's not who I am.
"Although something is wrong," Ask mused. "That little flurry you conjured just then was child's play. You have so much more inside of you..."
"There's nothing inside me," she whispered, but her words seemed fruitless.
Ask lifted one hand and flames danced around him, guided by his movements. Rings of fire rippled out from him and Isa gave a small scream, but they passed straight over their heads.
Fell stepped in front of Ciara. "Ask," he said, "we need your help."
Ask's face shuttered, a bored mask falling into place. "All mortals need my help." He picked at a nail. Of course, he was the only human who could survive without gloves.
"The Suzerain has set a decree for the guardians to be found and brought to the Protectorate. You could stop anyone from getting hurt, if you summoned the Syndicate –"
Ask laughed humourlessly. "The Syndicate! The Syndicate is long gone."
"But the other guardians are in danger, and we don't know what Fenris wants to do."
"I do not care."
"But this threat affects you as well as them –"
"I am immortal. Fenris will be dead and it will not matter in a few years. People will forget about this era in a century, at a stretch. And a century is like a heartbeat to me." He shrugged.
Isa snarled. "Listen up, you arrogant little know-it-all." She stormed towards Ask, and Fell winced. "We're trying to save you, and if the Suzerain finds you..."
Ask sneered in her face, his eyes like embers. "I do not answer to authority."
"This should be your problem." She jabbed his chest with a finger. "You're the one who's supposed to protect us –"
Fire flared from Ask and Isa was knocked backwards by an unseen force. She screeched, falling to the snow.
In front of Ciara, every muscle in Fell's body went taut.
"Do not touch me, mortal," Ask spat. "Yes, I am a guardian. But I can do what I want. I am not obliged to help anyone. You greys are weak and pathetic, sort it out on your own." He took a step closer.
"Get away from her!" Sebastian shouted from the edge of the circle, an arrow nocked to his bow. He let it fly at Ask.
The arrow stopped, its tip an inch from Ask's heart. It burst into flames, closely followed by Sebastian's bow, which he threw into the snow with a cry.
"I'd think twice about shooting me, boy," Ask growled. "I could incinerate you all with half a thought." He glanced at Ciara. "You disappoint me, Embla. You should have learned that consorting with greys is useless."
"I'm Ciara, not Embla. I don't have any memories, like you said –"
"Ah, but you will. Give it time." Ask's attention switched to something in the distance. "We have company."
Her heart sank at the sight of a group of people riding reindeer in the distance across the plains. They were most definitely Outriders, heading their way, and they did not look happy.
"It's been a pleasure," Ask sneered in Fell's stormy face. "But I must be going now. Good luck with your... quest."
"Wait! Tell us where another guardian is. At least one."
Ask's eyes were like embers. "You're the Midgarsons, are you not? You know where Hati is."
"He's –" Fell faltered. "He's still there? But guardians move around –"
"Do not presume anything about us. Yes, he is still there." Ask gave a low, mocking bow, spreading his arms wide. "Goodbye. We may not meet again." Then he looked at Ciara and flashed his teeth. "Until our next meeting... Embla."
Fire roared in a vortex through the circle, but before we could react, it vanished. Along with Ask.