Destined (Desolation #3) Read Free Page B

something you need to know.”
    “Yes, my lord?”
    “You asked once, some time ago, about the Ascended Ones, Aaron and Lucy.”
    I didn’t answer, only watched him. Of course I remembered, and he knew it. I’d wondered if he could contact them, asked if they could find Desi, if they knew of her existence. The Ascended Ones had become friends to the Vanir gods when they took to the great expanse of space. And the Vanir gods were widely accepted as knowing everything—or certainly most things—as they were the creators of the Nine Worlds. If anyone could have detected Desi, dead or alive, it would have been the Ascended Ones and the Vanir gods.
    I’d asked Odin, but he had been evasive, claiming he could not call upon an Ascended One, that they had to initiate contact. He had not heard from Aaron nor Lucy since the day we’d gone to battle against Desi and Loki eight months ago.
    “I had meant to offer you some hope, but I fear my efforts may have only added to your pain.” Though sorrow and regret fought within Odin’s eyes, this time he did not look away. 
    “What is it, King Odin?” Hope and dread clutched me like a tourniquet had been wound around my heart and twisted tight. I swallowed against the bile that rose in my throat. What reason would my king have to lie to me, if not to save my feelings? She can’t be dead.
    “After you asked about Aaron and Lucy, I went in search of an answer for you, but they were already gone.”
    I listened to his words as if he spoke them from a very deep well. It seemed to take eons for the sound to reach my ears and just as long for my brain to comprehend it.
    “It is my understanding that they suspected where she might be, but it was a place where no Ascended One has gone, indeed a place where nothing exists. They put their eternal lives at great risk, and I fear—” he closed his eyes, as if striving to retain his composure. When his eyes finally met mine, he looked so sad that I felt my own heart breaking. “I fear they are lost.”
    “Where—” My voice cracked. I looked down, cleared my throat, rallied myself to try again. “Where did they believe her to be?” 
    “At the bottom of everything, my son. Beneath Ygdrasyll.”
    My world shattered. I felt as if I were falling—off the Bridge, through the vastness of space. Cold. Alone. Desi . 
    Opening my eyes, I swallowed the curse that rose to my tongue and forced myself to clasp Odin’s arm. I squeezed, perhaps more firmly than I ought to have done, while he looked at me with surprise. “Thank you my Lord,” I choked out. But while his gaze met mine a feeling of peace wound its way around my heart. Whatever his reason for keeping this information from me, at least now I knew. I softened my grip while the first genuine smile in so long found its way to my face. “Thank you.”
    I hurried to the Door, my hope a radiant thing that buoyed my steps and my heart. Now to find a way to reach the end of the worlds—but at least I had a place to look. Surely there would be a way.
    I caught up to Fahria, who cut me a look, but didn’t inquire why Odin wanted to speak with me.
    “When will you leave?” I finally asked, eager to think about something else, anxious for a distraction from the wild beating of my heart. 
    “I will see what information this Alfahr is able to glean from the dog. Then I will rouse my sisters and head for Muspelheim. You never said,” her eyes flicked to mine, “whether you will join us, or not.”
    I considered the question as I stared at li’Morl’s back. 
    “I will join you.”

 
    I stood with the others in the wheelhouse, the blood in my veins rushing even faster in response to the great power housed there. The white iridescent light of the Bifrost cast all of us in its shadow—except for li’Morl, who himself shone, his inner light rising to match that of the Bifrost.
    I remembered a story I’d heard as a boy when my mother taught me about the nine worlds. How Odin came