I went back underground, determined to go at once back to the older ancestral fire. It felt like the thing I had been waiting for had happened. As usual, it had been about the last thing I had expected: Vali and his curse. But then again, if I had expected it, I wouldn"t have had to wait to see what it was before I could use it for inspiration.
But this was a weird sort of inspiration. Despite the council"s assurances they would deal with things, I was not at all eager to be party to cursing anyone because of something someone they were related to had done a century before.
But I did want to know what had happened to Yrsa.
Only, as eager as I was, when I got back to the fire behind the waterfall, Mjolner wasn"t there. And he didn"t come when I called him.
It felt deliberate. Like he di
