My eyes widened, and I hastily took a step back as the soil beneath my feet began to crumble and fall into the primordial void. They said while the stag created the creatures and worlds that lived in Midgard, the Ginnugagap, or yawning grave, was what lingered before there were gods and other worlds and would be there long after. That on one side of the void sat Niflheim, the land of ice, intense cold, and mist, and on the other sat Muspellheim, the land of fire, heat, lava, and smoke. And in between the two sat a nothing that was something—a space between spaces that took you wherever it desired. To jump into the gap between two worlds would be to give up all control and knowledge of what surrounded you, what held you to the world, what made you even you. Yet this was my task. Not to jump into the gap, but to complete whatever Hel desired of me while I could be in an entirely different world as an entirely different being seeing through entirely different eyes.

Looking down at the gaping void, I couldn’t suppress a shudder. In tales, the gap was supposed to be filled with roots from Yggdrasil, the world tree, but there was nothing peering back at me through the yawning, obsidian nothingness. Only a feeling of terror deep in my stomach that got larger and larger the more I peered into it.

It radiated darkness and despair—the darkness of the unknown and the despair of not being able to ever know. The vast void led to somewhere at the same time as leading to nowhere at all.

“That’s suicide,” Diaval hissed. “How is she supposed to know what you want her to do in the gap? How is she supposed to know what her tasks are?”

Hel’s ghoulish gaze raked over Diaval, but the she-goblin didn’t waver. “Your friend is the stag. If anyone can survive a jump into the gap and wherever it leads, where it follows, and understands my own messages that come after for her, then it is her and only her.” Hel let out a surprisingly ladylike laugh.

“Do you accept this?” Hel asked.

“So, the gap isn’t the task by itself, is it? It’s what awaits me on the other side?” I questioned, brows furrowed. “It’s the choices I make inside?”

“Janneke,” Soren said, “don’t do it. We can find another way.”

“Janneke, I’ll gladly sacrifice myself for the good of the Permafrost,” Rose said.

I turned back to my friends. “No words of protest, Seppo? Diaval?”

Seppo shrugged. “If anyone can do it, it would be you. You never cease to amaze me with how powerful you are. I don’t doubt you.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe in her—” Soren said, but I held a hand up.

“I know. It’s your instinct, your fear, and it’s perfectly understandable.”