BOOK 2 - Viktoria Ch. 06

"What good spiders!" Dream gushed, patting them on their heads.

"We took care of everyone we found." Memory touched Viktoria's cheek. "Maybe I should have made you promise not to get hurt, rather than not dying."

"I'm fine." Viktoria brushed Memory's hand away. "We need to find Lurky." Slipping the medallions into a pocket, she walked towards the bedroom and found the space curved, opened a new area not visible from the living room. It resembled a laboratory. Cages of spiders lined the walls, and a variety of glass containers in racks on counter tops held liquids and magics of different colors.

Lurky lay on the floor, eyes closed.

"Lurky! What have they done to you?" Viktoria fell to her knees beside him. She shook him, but he didn't wake. "What happened to your swords?"

"He's not sleeping," Dream said. "He feels like Musette did, separate from himself."

"He's been bitten." Memory held up Jael's arm, showing Viktoria two puncture wounds on his inner wrist. Her eyes filled with tears. "Shadow, he's reliving all his worst memories, and you're in them, blaming him for everything."

"I'll call Idris. Maybe he knows what to do."

"Viktoria, are you all right?" Idris asked when he answered.

"For the most part. We found Jael. He's been bitten by the mage's spiders. But we caught the mage. He's bound and blinded by shadows. And there are some women here, witches the mage was taking magic from. Dream and Memory have helped them forget what happened to them, and they're sleeping now, but—"

A chill wind blew through the room, bringing a flurry of swirling snowflakes with it.

"Uh oh," Dream murmured.

Memory heaved a sigh. "Mother's coming."

"Idris, I'm going to have to call you back." Viktoria disconnected the call. "I didn't ask for help! I don't need to be rescued!"

The flakes swirled together, forming a portal, and a woman with red hair and a gap-toothed grin stepped through. "Stealing my Sieluluntu." Louhi shook her head. "You girls! If you keep up this sort of behavior I will need my soul bird. Birthing nine plagues was easier. You two I will deal with at home." She waved an arm.

Memory and Dream shrieked their protests as they were swept into the portal to Pohjola.

"I didn't call for help," Viktoria said.

"But you were kidnapped." Louhi gripped Viktoria's chin, tilting her head to the side. "And look at your face."

"That was the plan, it wasn't a real kidnapping! We didn't need rescue. I wouldn't have let the mage hurt Dream or Memory. We got free by ourselves, and saved everyone here! The men who kidnapped us don't even know who they are anymore. You were watching, I know you were. You saw what happened."

"You didn't save everyone." Louhi nudged Jael's still body with her foot. "And what about consorting with this... cursed one?"

"He's different."

"The number of times I've heard you girls say that before." Louhi sighed. "I thought you were smarter than this, Shadow."

"He is different."

"Shall I judge him? Set him a task to see if he's worthy?"

"You can't! The mage did something to him. He's not in any shape to be judged about anything right now." Viktoria brushed hair back from Jael's forehead. "I can come back to him when he's well. You'll see how different he is then."

Louhi studied Jael, reaching out a hand to cradle his face. She closed her eyes and muttered under her breath. She opened her eyes. "I can help him. If you ask for it."

"You're being cruel, Mother." How could she have done everything right, and now lose it all?

"I am offering you a choice. What was our agreement?"

"If I live in the human world for a thousand and one years without asking for help, or being rescued, I don't have to return to Pohjola, except for when I choose to, and I am free to leave anytime without interference. If I succeed, you will allow my sisters the same challenge."

"And how long has it been?"

"You know how long it's been."

"How long has it been, Shadow?"

Viktoria closed her eyes and sighed. "One thousand years, eleven months, twenty eight days."'

"He won't last two days like this. He's one of the cursed, so he won't die from this, but his mind will be lost." If you want me to save him, you must ask for help and return to Pohjola. Or you can stay here and win the challenge in two days. Your freedom or his mind. Choose, Shadow."

Viktoria allowed a single tear to roll down her cheek as she took Jael's face in her hands. All the things she'd denied herself, all the precautions she'd taken, every moment of watching her step, keeping to her shadows, and not letting anyone in for a thousand years. It had all been for nothing.

The disappointment and bitterness her sisters were going to feel towards her when they realized they were all going to be trapped in Pohjola with no chance of reprieve was going to be hard to live with. But it would be harder to live with herself knowing she could have saved the only man who ever loved her and hadn't.

Jael gave up his swords, his mind, and would have died for her. He would have sacrificed everything. How could she do any less for him? "Please help him. I'll return to Pohjola." She pressed a kiss to Jael's lips. "I'm sorry, Lurky. If I had known things were going to turn out like this, I would have let you bite me when we met. I would have been your Draga, even for one day." Shifting him off her lap, she laid him on the floor. "You promise he'll be all right?"

"He will be well."

Viktoria stood and stepped towards the portal.

"Shadow," Louhi called. "I thought your Lurky meant something to you. If I'd known you would discard him so easily I wouldn't have offered you the choice to save him."

"You are being cruel again, Mother. You don't allow vampires in Pohjola."

"No, I don't. But I can fix him easier at home. Take him with you."

"I... we... you... he..." Viktoria glanced between Louhi and Jael.

"It's good to see being in love has not robbed you of your pronouns." Louhi smirked as she pulled Viktoria in to a hug. "I knew Selene and Riordan before you girls were born. I know what a Draga is. If you have found a love like theirs, I am happy for you, Shadow.

"I didn't place all these restrictions on you to make you miserable. I wanted you to be sure of your choice. If you are willing to give up everything you have worked so hard to achieve over the last millennia, you must be sure. I saw what he went through, is still going through, for you, too. I couldn't find anything more for him to to prove himself worth one of my daughters. I want all my girls to find love and be happy. You think I want to be surrounded by foolish girls mooning over faithless, unworthy men forever? It's been six thousand years. I'd like to have a life someday."

"Did it ever matter if I succeeded or not?"

"Had you won our bargain, I would have honored the terms. Did you want to feel like you earned your freedom, or that I handed it to you? I treated you like I treat all the others who want something from me. The difference between you and all those silly boys forever chasing my daughters, is that when faced with the real challenge before you, you made the right choice. Now bring your Lurky. Let's go. And bring your new pets, too. Your grandmother is interested in seeing what happened when her beer mixed with them. I think she might be considering a new flavor of beer."

Viktoria cajoled the spiders to follow her, pulled shadows and smiled as they coiled around Jael. With no instruction from her, they lifted him and carried him through the portal.