Magnus Chase - Rise Of Darkness

Chapter 24-My Birthday, Deathday, And Execution Gift

"I'm not gonna lie," Alex whispered "I was worried about you."

Alex and I were huddled next to each other next to a different wall. Sam was asleep in a corner while Saar and Cyrus were sprawled on the ground.

"Same here." I murmured.

After some rather anxious arguing over tomorrow morning, we all decided to get some sleep. That seemed to next to impossible for me, since so much was sprinting through my mind, sleep was not even an option.

Apparently, Alex was also having the same problems.

"I know you're not asleep yet Beantown." He had said "Scoot!"

I complied, and now, here we are.

"I heard from Sam that your birthday and death day were recently." He said.

"Y-yeah," I confirmed "they were."

My head was laid back against the concrete wall, my eyes closed so I couldn't see Alex's stern face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked after a beat of silence.

I sighed "Well, I kind of forgot, with this whole quest stuff. I only learned about it when Saar had her birthday the day before, the twelfth."

Alex muffled his laugh at that. "You two can't seem to not find a reason to hate each other."

"And I don't think I could ask you to help search," Magnus snipped back with a half-joking tone. "you would find more reasons to hate her."

Alex's face scrunched up as he tried so hard to keep his laugh from being to loud. "Probably," he conceded.

We fell into silence, a smile played on my lips as I continued to keep my eyes shut, trying to embrace the darkness and sleep. But it was not until Alex reached up and pecked me on the cheek that I opened my eyes.

"Happy birthday Chase." He whispered. Then, something passed through his mind, making his eyebrows rise a little before kissing me on the cheek again. "And death day."

I suddenly left like one of those zombies. Not angry and blood thirsty or whatever, but everything that came out of my mouth was a garbled mess and I felt like I had never had water in my life.

"You-uh...Th-Thank you?-uhh—" I managed, earning an eye roll from Alex. His cheeks were still red, even when we first arrived they were red. Was it from his horrid health condition in here or the cold?

After a little, Alex's face fell, as if he had a bad thought. "So what are we going to do about tomorrow?"

That was the thing keeping me up. No matter how many outcomes I could come up with, someone was going to die by Hel.

"Everything that has happened has filled the gaps of this prophecy to the tee," I tried to depict "so I don't see what else we can do."

Alex looked towards me expectantly, so I continued. "Tomorrow morning, Hel's guards are going to be coming by to drag me, Saar, and Cyrus out of there for our decision. Then, she's going to have Cyrus try to break the walnut with your mother inside. And kill us most likely."

"Come on," Alex groaned "you have to have a better plan than that? What about the other piece?"

"What other piece?" I repeated.

"The second part of the prophecy that red-head gave you. Something about skofnung rage?"

I thought back to that incident with Rachel Elizabeth Dare, it seemed to be a hundred years since then. But her words popped into my mind eventually.