I think what I liked best about the way Muspelheim celebrated was the music.

It reminded me of Kalda, the rollicking, cheerful fiddle. The way she used to dance, her head flung back, her cheeks red, spinning us both in circles until we were dizzy and too winded from laughing to continue.

The jotun honor their dead, and tonight the feast was in their name. The soldiers who died during the battle of course, but especially Kalda. They asked me what I wanted, kept asking me, and I kept saying nothing. Until the last time they asked and I requested one thing. Just one thing.

There was a picture above the big fireplace behind the head table, there for just one night. Taking the spot of the Muspelheim coat of arms for the length of the feast.

The portrait artist knew her. An old boyfriend I think.

When I looked up I could see that whoever he was, he'd truly known her. Maybe even loved her, because he captured her likeness perfectly.

In the picture she was laughing, her head tipped to the side, her dark hair tumbling down one shoulder. Her eyes sparkled, and the picture was so real it felt like I could reach out and touch her. That her skin would feel warm.

She was so alive in the painting. It brought tears to my eyes and my chest ached the slightest bit, and I was happy and sad all at the same time.

Maybe later I'd dismiss it as me being caught up in a moment of hysteria, maybe I'd decide I'd imagined it, but right now I was so sure I'd heard her back there. During the battle.

I'd felt her presence, heard her voice speak to me.

I jumped when a voice spoke in my ear over the music. "Vee?"

When I whirled around it wasn't Kalda—of course it wasn't her, ridiculous—Gunny was standing there, her smile wide and white, her eyes sparkling. She was wearing a green dress studded with a frosting of white crystals at the collar.

"You're actually wearing dress." I smiled at her, and Gunny's cheeks went bright red.

"Can't believe they got me into this. I figured I might as well though, the bandages came off this morning, finally. Got a proper bath so I figured, why not go whole hog, right?"

"Well, it paid off. You look beautiful."

And alive, I added in my head.

Instinctively I reached down, curling my fingers in Fiske's thick fur. His muscular form shifted beneath me, and he tilted his head to regard me with bright green eyes.

Fiske hadn't left my side since we'd returned. He was like a shadow, and I couldn't be more grateful. Grateful that he was alive, that we'd both survived this. Come out of it, not unscathed but...intact.

He didn't seem interested in returning to the forest, and I didn't ask him to. These days we didn't even have to speak to one another to know what the other was feeling.

Nobody else could know what we'd been through. No one else had been through that. Had come out alive. Had shared the heartbreak.

The only other person that could even get close was Eli.

"Wow, Gunny. You wore a dress."

Eli emerged from the crowd. He had to raise his voice over the cheerful fiddle music, and he was carrying three cups of mead, a bit awkwardly, one of the cups wedged against his chest between his arms. Gunny stepped forward to relieve him of one of them.

"Thanks, mate. Gods, apparently all I have to do to totally shock people is put on a bloody frock." She winked at me. "I'll have to remember that for confusing the enemy."

"Excellent battle tactic." I grinned.

The dancing had started now. Or at least, King Loki pulled Megan—laughing and protesting—out into the center of the floor. Queen Jess and King Asher were visiting from Niflheim. They'd come as soon as they'd heard about the battle, but the journey had taken them several days.

Eli slipped the mug of mead into my hand, nudging me gently with one elbow as he did. "They're a sight to see, hey?"

He was staring at the royalty on the dance floor.

They were. Queen Megan was in a white dress, shimmering shards of cut glass sewn into the bottom, and her skirts flowed out as she grabbed Queen Jess' hand. The other queen's dress was orange and red silk, swirling around her like glittering flames.

I laughed as both women started reaching out into the crowd, pulling their subjects onto the dance floor.

"And your new position starts the day after tomorrow." Eli raised his brows at me over his cup of mead. "How do you feel about that, official advisor to the queen?"

"Like I'm completely under qualified. I know the position is merely ceremonial." I took a long drink from the mug and Eli laughed. "I think the person who is happiest about my new job is my mother, if I'm honest."

Fiske rumbled under my hand, the wolf equivalent of a chuckle. "You can hardly blame your mother for being proud. You did stop a war."

"I think she has told every single person who will listen that her daughter is the new royal advisor. I caught her talking to some of the visiting dignitaries yesterday. Apparently it's very important that the Dokkalfar ambassador know who I am."

Eli laughed. "I'm sure he was thrilled to hear all about it."

The dance floor was starting to fill up, and King Surtr, Loki's grandfather, had jumped into the middle of it, swinging one of the frost jotun women round and round as he roared along to the song. Lyrics of his own making, apparently. He also refused to put down his ale, and ended up spraying anyone careless enough to get close.

Charlotte was there too, which struck me as funny. I hadn't expected the sorceress to dance for some reason, but she had her arms thrown around the neck of a tall, grey-eyed jotun and she was laughing at something he'd said, her cheeks flushed red.

The Queen's three companions ringed her in, the half-bloods I wasn't familiar with, and one of the girls—taller than Charlotte, with cat-eyed glasses and dark blond hair—grabbed the sorceress and her man and reeled them in, forming a circle around their queen.

Eli would be fine here. It was something that had taken me this long to realize. He would fit in fine, they would accept them, like they'd accepted Queen Megan. Even if they were a little wary of him now, that wouldn't last.

I drained my mug and set it down on one of the trays as a servant whisked by us, nodding my thanks at her.

"I love the music," Eli was saying. "It's so cheerful. There's something about it that feels...I dunno, it feels..."

"Free." I linked my arm in his and my other hand crept down, resting on Fiske's back, winding my fingers through his fur.

"Yeah." Eli smiled at me. "That's it. Free."

"And now," Fiske rumbled. "You should go dance, you two."

I protested, but Eli was already dancing backwards, snatching at my hand, his fingers closing around my wrist. It was hard to say no when he looked at me like that, with his eyes sparkling. That mischievous smile on his face.

"You don't get to sit your own party out, oh royalist of advisors."

I turned and shook my fist at Fiske in mock anger before Eli dragged me out onto the dance floor. Looking back, I could swear he gave me a wolfy grin.

I couldn't say no to dancing. Kalda would have wanted me to dance. She would have been right in the middle of all of it, laughing, head flung back, arms out as she spun in circles.

So this was for her.

Eli and I joined the circle around Loki and Megan, and we were pulled in, welcomed by laughing, smiling faces. Charlotte grabbed my other hand and we spun in dizzying circles on the dance floor. The noises became a happy blur around me, the sound of the fiddles echoing in the hall, Eli's laughter beside me, Charlotte joining King Surtr in his outrageous lyrics and Loki laughing and groaning over his father's singing all at the same time.

And maybe it was the mead that filled me with warmth, or the fire in the hearth, or the heat of bodies on either side of me. But I was so warm, and I was dizzy with happiness, and finally, for the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn't in the past anymore. I wasn't mourning.

I was in the present, and in good company, and so I shut my eyes and let myself spin and spin and spin.

Just like Kalda would have.

THE END.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the Jotun Series! If you'd like to learn more about new books coming out, check out elatimer.com and click on "books" or sign up for the newsletter to get news when a new book is released!