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)
I wet my lips and try to speak, my voice echoing faintly. “Vipunen, I hope you know how glad I am to see you—or not see you, as it were—but I need answers. I need to know what’s happening outside. The land is in turmoil. Old Gods awakening, Louhi’s forces twisting the realm’s fabric. Kaaos is finally here. My father fights a war that only grows more dire. I need…I need to understand what I can do, what role I play in this.”
If any.
A soft rumble like distant thunder passes through the cave. “Always searching for understanding,” Vipunen says, matter-of-factly. “You know the realm is wounded. Louhi and Rangaista have stirred horrors once laid to rest. The living, the dead, and the Old Gods are entangled in conflict. Your father stands at the center, forging alliances, trying to restore balance. But the scale of this war outstrips mortal or even godly strength. Forces older than memory now stride upon the Earth.”
I swallow, heart pounding. So he knows exactly what’s going on out there and yet doesn’t seem concerned at all. “Then you must know about Sarvi,” I say quietly. The unicorn’s name is bitter in my mouth. “Louhi captured them, drained their power, and I can’t help but feel responsible. If I hadn’t been trapped myself, my own horns sawed off for her magic, maybe I could have saved them.”
Rauta’s ears flick at the sound of my voice. He feels my guilt, I’m sure.
“Sarvi lives,” Vipunen replies, voice calm but unyielding, causing a bolt of relief to spike through me. “Though its energy wanes, it remains alive. Louhi uses it much as she once used Ilmarinen—an unwilling conduit of power. Your question is whether to go back and save Sarvi or continue forward, seeking your father, forging ahead in the war. You hesitate between duty and compassion, between the urgency of battles yet to come and the pain of a friend’s suffering.”
I nod, though he cannot see it—or maybe he can. “Yes,” I say. “If I go back, I risk losing ground and being recaptured, and my mother sure as fuck won’t let me escape a second time. If I move forward, well, maybe I can help my father win the war…but then I abandon Sarvi to torment.”
The thought claws at my chest.
Vipunen’s voice resonates through the stone, a steady pulse of truth. “You ask what you should do, but you know I will not command your choices,” he says. “I am the Oldest God, older than the troubles that plague your land. My role has always been to observe, to oversee. When you were young and blindfolded, I taught you patience, perception, acceptance of uncertainty. I never interfered in Death’s struggles, even though I cared for him when he was small, guiding him as one might guide a seedling into a mighty tree. I do not fight your battles. I do not alter fate’s course on a whim.”
His words strike a chord of memory. When I trained here, always in darkness, I learned to listen without sight, to move by instinct, to trust I could act without needing to see the path laid out. I always wondered why Vipunen never took sides, never lent a hand when needed. Now, I see—it’s not his nature. He’s a historian, a witness, a keeper of ancient secrets—one who nurtured my father, yes, but who never took up arms for him.
Too bad for us.
I look down at Rauta, searching for reassurance in the dog’s red eyes. He stares back patiently, as if waiting for me to find my own answers. The silence stretches, broken only by a gentle dripping of water somewhere deep in the rock.
“But Sarvi—” I start, voice wavering.
“Sarvi’s fate is woven into the larger tapestry,” Vipunen interrupts, tone even. “Saving the unicorn now might cost you dearly, diverting you from tasks that shape the realm’s future. Pursuing your father instead might mean leaving Sarvi to endure more pain. Such dilemmas define heroism, Tuonen. There is no neat solution.”
My hands curl into fists. “So I must choose, then.” I know he won’t give me a final directive. He never has, never will.
Vipunen’s voice softens slightly. “Do you truly wish council from me?”
“Yes!” I exclaim.
“Stay here,” he says. “Under the mountain, you are safe from the immediate horrors above. You are weary, uncertain. Patience was always our lesson, was it not? Your father—Death—knows me, and if he seeks knowledge or aid, he will come here. It might even be the only way to reclaim Shadow’s End. Eventually, your paths will cross again in this place. Fate has a way of folding back on itself.”
I reel at that suggestion. Stay here? While war rages, while Sarvi suffers, while my father struggles? The thought fills me with anger and dread. Yet, Vipunen’s logic is sound. Cowardly, perhaps, but sound. Rushing out blindly might achieve nothing but my own downfall. If I can’t trust my senses, or if I’m too weak to change the outcome, I might waste the advantage of being here, in this timeless sanctuary, under the watchful eye of the Oldest God.