Mist

6

Mist stared at Vali. “Did you just say—”

“He did it,” Vali said, pointing his chin toward the corner of the room. Dainn stood there very quietly, his face as expressionless as ever but haggard and shadowed with exhaustion.

“How?” she asked.

“Magic,” Vali said. “Not sure exactly what . . . like a combination of Galdr and elf-magic. Pretty impressive, too. Got them all fighting each other and hardly had to lift a finger.”

Impressive was scarcely the word for it. Mist had barely managed to hold off a dozen Jotunar out for blood, and then only for a few minutes when she’d tried shaping the Battle-Runes in her mind.

Even Vidarr might have found himself hard-pressed to fight them all at once. But Dainn—

“I think he was trying to get through to you when the Jotunar attacked him,” Vali said, “but they were Hell-bent on killing him.” Mist felt her face go hot. She’d branded Dainn a coward without bothering to learn the whole truth.

But he’d lied to her and withheld a couple of pretty vital facts that changed the meaning of everything he’d ever told her. He’d walked into her mind and said that Freya was her mother, right in the middle of a battle for her life.

She still couldn’t believe it. During her earliest childhood years in Asgard, believing that her late father was a prince of Midgard, she’d had only the vaguest memories of the woman who had given her birth. Memories that had quickly faded once her destiny had been made clear to her. She had stopped wondering about her parents long before she had been given the gift of immortality and made a Chooser of the Slain.

A Valkyrie who had never really been mortal at all. Half- goddess, half-Jotunn. Dainn had said he’d come to San Francisco because Freya had sensed Gungnir. Mist no longer believed that was the whole story. For a few moments, she had felt Freya, and Freya’s power, as if she had become the goddess herself.

Had she? Had Freya somehow entered her mind the way Dainn had done? How had the Lady come to her from the Aesir’s Shadow- Realm now, when, according to Dainn, Mist wasn’t capable of hearing her?

Because that was also a lie. Mist had been played like a puppet by three immortals in less than half a day, and she didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

She walked slowly over to Dainn. “Why?” she asked. “Why did you keep it from me?”

He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I did not think it would be advisable to tell you so soon. Not until you were prepared to trust me.”

“Trust? That’s a good one.” She pulled her hand over her hair.

“Loki seems to be the only one who knows anything around here.

He knew about you, or at least that the Aesir had sent an elf to cause trouble for him, but until we showed up in Asbrew he thought Hrimgrimir had killed the gods’ agent. He didn’t seem too concerned that the ’elf ’ was still alive, since you’d apparently abandoned me.”

Dainn flicked a glance at her face. “He did not know my name?”

“Not until you . . . did whatever you did in my mind. I think he heard you then.” She brushed her temple with her fingertips, still feeling Dainn’s voice echoing inside her skull. “How did you do it?

You said you could only touch the surface.”

“It did not involve anything more than that,” he said. “I was not certain I would succeed, but it had to be attempted.”

“It didn’t exactly succeed. I’m alive, but he took Gungnir.” She tried to shake off a sudden wave of despair. “Why did you ask if Loki knew your name?”

He looked away again. “We met in Asgard,” he said. “When?”

“It is scarcely uncommon for elves and Aesir to meet there, and Loki always made free of Valhalla.”

“Did you have some kind of quarrel?”

“As a rule, Alfar prefer to avoid quarrels.”

You’ve got to be kidding, she thought. She and Dainn had been at daggers drawn ever since they’d met.

“He was more than just surprised when he found out you were here,” she said. She jerked her head toward the pile of Jotunar. “I wondered before if you’re a lot more dangerous than you look. Loki seemed to think so, too.”

Dainn’s expression shifted, twisting out of its usual handsome lines. There was no mistaking the hatred in it. “What I can do is nothing to his magic,” he said.

“Well, I think it’s pretty clear that whatever happened between the two of you, it ended badly,” she said, watching him carefully.

“And no matter what you elves claim, you can still feel anger and hatred. I’ve seen it in your eyes before. You’re no different from the rest of us.”

“I am different,” he said, looking away, “but not in the manner you suppose. Once I could have done him harm. I am no longer capable of it.”

“Apparently he doesn’t know that.” Mist narrowed her eyes. “By the way, where were you when I was fighting the Jotunar? I went into this blind because you didn’t get around to telling me some thing that could have made all the difference.”

“I was attempting to contact Freya,” he said.

“Did you succeed? Did she find a way to act in this world after all?”

“I don’t understand what you—”

“Was that me in there fighting Loki, or was it my mother?” Genuine shock froze his face. “What are you saying?” She rapped her knuckles against her skull. “Didn’t you stick around to see how things were going to come out after you shared the big secret? Didn’t you hear Loki call Freya’s name at the end?

Who was he talking to?”

“I was not able to reach Freya. You were there. She was not.”

“ ‘Loki fears you because he fears the Lady,’ ” she said, quoting him. “ ’Freya is the key.’ And then I wasn’t myself anymore.”

“You are more yourself now than you have ever been.”

“Do you think this is funny?” she demanded. “First I find out a goddess who never so much as spoke to me in Asgard is my mother, you tell me I can’t talk to her myself, and then suddenly I’ve got some kind of connection with her I can’t control.” She felt her chest tighten and took in a quick, sharp breath. “What did you do?”

“I did nothing. You drew upon the power that was already hidden within you.”

“By fighting Loki in a way I never even would have considered before?” Killing him with love, she thought, with a shudder of disgust. “You saw it, didn’t you? Why did just knowing who I was change me so much?”

“Your instinct for survival is powerful,” he said, still looking more than a little shaken. “You found a part of Freya within yourself and made it real.”

“Completely unconscious of what I was doing?”

“Were you ever truly unconscious?”

Once again he was evading her real question, but since she hardly knew how to ask it, she couldn’t blame anyone but herself. “You’re a real bastard, you know that?”

“Is it another apology you seek?”

“I don’t want your apology. I want you to stop lying to me.” His gaze, deeply shadowed, met hers again. “Since you don’t trust me, how can you be sure I will tell you the truth now?” Mist grabbed the front of Dainn’s barely recognizable shirt and pulled it close around his neck.

“I’ll know,” she said.

She was bluffing, but she sensed that Dainn took her threat seriously. Maybe he believed her relationship with Freya, whatever the Hel it was, gave her the ability to sift truth from deception. Maybe it was even true.

“What do you wish to know?” he asked softly.

She let him go. “The giants knew I was half Jotunn, and Hrimgrimir called me ‘Sow’s bitch,’ even though I served Odin. Loki must have known I was Freya’s daughter all this time, just like you did.”

“He clearly had no idea of your abilities.”

“Obviously, since he didn’t seem to worry about my finding out who he was when he lived with me. But why should he wait until we were facing each other here in Asbrew before he tried to get me on his side? If he believed I knew where the Treasures were all along, why didn’t he try to force me to tell him before he ran off with Gungnir?”

“I have no answer,” Dainn said.

Of course he doesn’t, Mist thought sourly. “Loki did believe I was

Freya in there, didn’t he?”

“His behavior indicates he was fully convinced.”

“And he was scared. He didn’t expect any of it. When I . . . did what I did, he didn’t know how to fight back.” She struggled to find the right words. “I know he never stopped trying to get Freya in the sack. I can see why he’d hate her, but why the fear? He’s the one with all the advantages now. He deceived the Aesir, he took Gungnir, but for a few seconds it was as if he couldn’t fight at all.” Dainn’s hesitation was so brief she almost missed it. “Their relationship was far more complicated than it appeared to others in Asgard.”

“How?”

Dainn tugged at his collar, smoothing it as if it belonged to an expensive suit rather than a set of rags held together by dirt and blood. “It is something Freya did not consider necessary to tell me.”

“Need-to-know basis again, huh?” She snorted. “That’s convenient.”

“I am sorry—”

“Skip it. Let’s go back to what happened before he thought I turned into Freya. He still wanted me on his side even after I said I couldn’t tell him where my Sisters are. Even after he was ready to kill me. Why?”

Brushing black hair away from his face, Dainn studied Mist as if he were deciding whether or not to trust her.

“He must have realized you would soon discover who you were and finally come into your power. He would have known that it was not only Gungnir the Lady sought when she sent her agent to find you.”

“Then I was right,” Mist said, her heart like an iron billet pressing against her ribs. “Freya never gave a damn about me in Asgard.

But now I’m useful to her somehow, aren’t I?”

“You are her daughter, but you are also Odin’s servant. Before the Last Battle, she was unable to—”

“Bullshit.” Mist turned sharply away, took a few steps, and swung toward Dainn again. “Why would the First Valkyrie let her own daughter serve another god if she cared about her? She hasn’t suddenly developed some powerful maternal instinct for me. She has a use for me now that this war’s about to begin, and I know what it is.” She pushed her face close to Dainn’s. “I’m not completely blind, Dainn. She needs a physical shape in Midgard, and I’m some kind of conduit for her power.”

He didn’t even blink. “You are mistaken,” he said. “She could not simply force her way into your mind, even if she were inclined to do so.”

“She’s a goddess.”

“And so will you be.”

“I’m a warrior, not an Asynja.”

“A warrior knows she must use every advantage in a fight. You have inborn abilities you have scarcely begun to explore. It is your magic, not your skill with a sword, that will help us in this battle.” Mist searched his eyes, torn between a desperate need to believe him and the fear that he was still lying to her, that he would never stop lying no matter how many times she threatened him. It didn’t help that she saw genuine concern in his eyes. Regret, sorrow, compassion for what she was going through. Almost as if he’d been in the same situation himself.

“Freya regrets that she never acknowledged you in Asgard,” Dainn said quietly.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” She backed away, putting a little more space between them. “Who was my father?”

“Freya did not—”

“Tell you,” Mist finished for him. Norns knew it could have been one of a hundred Jotunar Freya had lain with. Not all of them were ugly, barbaric monsters. Some had magic well beyond that of an ordinary giant.

In any case, this time she believed that Dainn really didn’t know.

“If Freya isn’t just using me as . . . some kind of anchor in Midgard, what does she want from me? Aside from my apparent ability to scare the shit out of Loki without knowing how I did it.”

“Nothing has changed except your knowledge of your heritage.

We must keep Loki from turning the Treasures against the gods.”

“Gungnir didn’t work for Loki.”

“He knows his possession of them is the key to ultimate victory.

That is why we must and will stop him.”

Mist shivered. What if she really did have magic she could use against Loki to get Gungnir back, find her Sisters, and warn them before Loki got to them? Was it really that simple?

No, not simple. She’d have to acknowledge what she was, that she was capable of what she’d done in Vidarr’s office. More than that—

she’d have to accept it completely and make it a part of herself. Become a creature of magic. The prospect was . . .

Terrifying. But she knew something about unpleasant truths: if you didn’t find a way to deal with them, you’d never be able to live with yourself.

And as long as it was her choice, she could decide what to do with it. She could find a way to turn the ugly tactics she’d used against Loki into something she could live with. A warrior’s way. “I don’t want this,” she began, steeling herself for the inevitable.

“But if it has to be done, then I’ll—”

She broke off. Dainn’s expression had changed again, his face growing more gaunt, his eyes haunted, his gaze burning and bitter. It was as if something ferocious, unpredictable, and utterly unelflike had awakened within him, shredding his usual nearly emotionless demeanor like tissue in a typhoon.

She had seen that expression twice before, once when they had first met and again in the loft. She hadn’t understood it then, and she didn’t now.

“You need do nothing,” he said. “Walk away, Valkyrie.” Mist laughed to cover her bewilderment. “Walk away? What kind of crap is this? You just finished doing everything you could to get

me involved.”

“Yes.”

His irises were nearly black, and his upper lip twitched like an angry dog’s. But there were other emotions in his face—that concern she’d seen before, worry, and fear. But not for himself. “I give you this chance,” he said. “Take it.”

“That almost sounds like a threat.”

“It is a warning, and the last I will offer.”

“It isn’t your choice to make, is it? Don’t you take your orders from Freya?”

“She and I are not in constant contact, nor can she read my mind.

By the time we speak again, I will have found a way to deal with her.” He was deadly serious. But he wasn’t making any sense. She’d bluffed about being able to tell whether or not Dainn was lying, but the only thing she was sure about was that Dainn was trying to give her a way out of a responsibility she wanted no part of. Before she could speak again, Dainn spun on his heel and began to walk away.

“Dainn!” she called after him.

He stopped without turning around.

“I don’t know what secrets you’re keeping,” she said, coming up behind him, “but I know you’re being more honest now than you’ve been since we’ve met. If I supposedly have so much ‘power,’ why are you afraid for me?”

“For you? Perhaps I am the coward you named me.”

Mist reached for his arm and grasped it lightly, feeling his pulse throbbing through rags and flesh alike.

“Whatever you are,” she said, “I know you tried to help when you kept the Jotunar occupied. You gave me a way to fight back when Loki almost had me. And you know I can’t let Loki have Midgard.

The Aesir have to win.”

“Will they be so much better than the Slanderer?” he asked. His words sparked the memory of Loki speaking nearly the same words to her. “Do you believe the Aesir will tread lightly on this earth, benevolently sparing the creatures here any inconvenience?” he’d said. “Do you think they will be better than I?”

When Dainn had told her how the Aesir planned to build a new Homeworld in Midgard, she’d only briefly considered the consequence, having been focused on more urgent concerns. Like staying alive.

But she’d never doubted the Aesir would be better. It would be impossible for a battle between Loki and the Aesir to occur without collateral damage. Certainly the Aesir, who had once frequently interacted and even intermarried with mortals, would take some care to minimize such damage.

Would they conduct the war in some barren waste, where few mortals could be harmed? The Sahara desert, perhaps, or the Australian Outback? Or would Loki force the Aesir into a position of killing innocent bystanders?

Mist knew that if she could make only the smallest difference, she had to try. Not because she owed Freya a bloody thing, but for the sake of her adopted world. And for all those who had fought so valiantly against tyranny.

Like Bryn. And Geir.

“You don’t believe that, Dainn,” she said. “I don’t know why you’ve suddenly decided to convince me otherwise, but I’m involved in this up to the wingtips of my bloody golden helmet. I’m not backing out now.”

Dainn’s shoulders stiffened. “You will help? Willingly?”

“You wouldn’t get me any other way.” She paused, surprised at the clarity of her thoughts. “Look. For a long time I made myself believe I couldn’t have any place in Midgard. That changed when I realized this was the only life I was going to have. Now this world is my home, and I have to defend it.”

“You are fortunate,” Dainn said, refusing to let her see his face. She understood exactly what he was trying to say. “This isn’t your home, is it?” she asked softly. “Even after centuries of living among mortals, you still don’t belong.”

“No,” he said. “I have no home.”

For a moment she was tempted to sympathize with him, even to pity him. She could almost feel his sorrow as if it were her own, feel his loneliness.

Curse it, she wasn’t going to let sentiment cloud her thoughts now. Especially not sentiment about him.

“Maybe you don’t have any personal stake in Midgard the way I do,” she said. “But you do have a mission. I can’t say I’m ready to trust you completely, but neither one of us is going to get very far if we don’t work together.”

Dainn half turned his head, once again displaying his handsome, haggard profile. “You asked about my magic,” he said.

The non sequitur caught Mist completely off- guard. “You mean about the fact that you use it under some circumstances and ignore it in others, even when the situations may be equally deadly?” Dainn lifted his hand, and Mist saw how violently it trembled.

“As I told you before,” he said, “magic exacts a price. I . . . have not . . . had reason to make use of mine in many years. You may think ill of me for my reluctance to act, and for many other failings.

But I had no choice but to preserve my strength until it was truly needed.”

“So you had to have my help to find Loki,” she said. “Yes. And now . . .” He let his hand fall back to his side. “I cannot be certain how long it will take me to recover. I will continue to require your help.”

Mist had a bad feeling she knew exactly what he was trying to say. “You mean you’ll be crawling around inside my head again, the way you did at the loft?” she asked.

“Yes.” He turned to face her, his eyes still as black as the bottom of the sea. “Choose carefully, Lady. If you ask it, I will leave here now and trouble you no further.”

“I’ve made my decision,” she said.

All at once that strange, almost violent intensity was gone from his face, and he was as composed as if the most taxing thing he’d done all morning was brush his long black hair.

Which, like the rest of him, badly needed a good washing. But that could wait a little longer. “The first thing we need to do,” she said, “is get Gungnir back.”

“Not the first,” Dainn said. “We must dispose of this.” He gestured toward the pile of Jotunar, several of whom were beginning to stir.

Mist couldn’t believe she’d been yammering on with a dozen Jotunar still in the room. “This is Vidarr’s problem,” she said harshly.

“He needs to tell me what the Hel is going on around here. Unless he really did strike a bargain with Loki, he’ll be pissed and likely to want revenge.”

“Do you trust him?”

That nasty little word again. Had Vid feigned submitting to Loki?

It wouldn’t be much like him to use subtlety and deception where more direct action would do— in that, he wasn’t unlike Thor, another of his half-brothers—but she didn’t see any other explanation for his behavior. Including the fact that he hadn’t tried to help her until it was safe for him to do it.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I trust him.”

She glanced around the room. Vidarr and Vali were either still in the office, or they’d sneaked past her and Dainn without their noticing. They probably had enough functional magic left to do that, but it would look very, very bad.

She was just starting for the shattered office door when the half- brothers emerged. Vali went straight to one of the tables near the wall, bearing a bottle of Scotch and a shot glass. Vidarr leaned against the doorjamb, his expression locked as tight as a frightened virgin’s thighs on her wedding night.

Mist walked briskly across the room, skirting the Jotunar—none of whom had yet managed to lift themselves off the floor—and came to stand before Vidarr. He didn’t seem to be aware of Dainn at all.

“What happened, Vid?” she asked.

The muscles in his jaw worked as he glared at the opposite wall. “He . . . don’ wan’ to talk about it,” Vali said from the table, his words slurring as if he’d been drinking hard since he’d last spoken to Mist.

Vidarr turned his hot stare on his half-brother. “Shut up, Val.”

He met Mist’s gaze, head lowered and shoulders hunched like an angry bull, which he somewhat resembled even on his best days.

“What do you think happened?” he asked. “I invited him in for tea?”

“No,” she said, reminding herself that she had long ago stopped letting herself be intimidated by his bluster, Odin’s son or not. “He obviously breached your wards and caught you by surprise.”

“Tha’s right,” Vali said.

“Shut up,” Vidarr repeated, though he continued to stare at Mist.

“If you’ve got something to say to me, spit it out.”

“You started to tell me something just after Loki disappeared, something you wanted me to believe.”

“I don’t give a damn what you believe.” Vidarr smiled unpleasantly.

“You think I’m supposed to be impressed that you’re Freya’s daughter and spoke with her voice for a few seconds? Did you cry for Mommy to rescue you?”

Mist ignored the jibe. “Did you know who I was before?”

“No. And it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had.”

“For the gods’ sake, we don’t have time for this. I just want to understand what happened.”

“Then you’ll just have to live with your ignorance.”

Mist realized that he wasn’t going to be reasonable at the moment, and there wasn’t much point in pushing him now. She gestured behind her at the Jotunar. “This is your place. What do you want to do with them?”

“Kill them.”

That was the obvious solution. It certainly had the advantage of removing a few of Loki’s servants from the field, and it could be done with only a minimal use of magic.

But Mist knew why she was resisting the idea. She couldn’t forget she was half-Jotunn. Vidarr knew who his giantess mother was, and she had been an ally of the Aesir. Any of the giants here might be Mist’s kin. A cousin. A brother. Even a father.

She wouldn’t believe that. A father wouldn’t try to kill his own daughter. No one had ever claimed that the worst Jotunar didn’t love their own. It was everyone else they hated.

“There must be another way,” she said.

“What other way?” Vidarr growled, pushing away from the wall.

“Throw them out in the middle of Market Street and hope they all get hit by a bus?”

“I don’t slaughter things that can’t fight back.”

Vidarr snorted. “You were always so proud that you taught yourself to fight after all those centuries playing dress-up like a little girl wearing her Mommy’s pretty dress. You said you fought the Nazis, but—”

“I prefer to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”

“Just like Freya. All peace and love, all the time.”

“I’m not Freya.”

“No? Then why don’t we wake the giants up and offer to challenge them one-on-one? I’m sure Hrimgrimir would like another shot at you.”

Mist had had enough. “I can understand why you’re feeling so bloodthirsty, Vid,” she said. “Your ego has always been a little on the tender side.”

Vidarr started toward her, fists clenched, his shoulders straining the seams of his shirt. Mist tensed. In spite of their contentious history, she’d never have believed that Vidarr would actively try to hurt her.

She didn’t get a chance to find out if he’d reached his breaking point. Dainn stepped smoothly between them.

“Are you both such fools?” he asked. “This is exactly what Loki desires.”

Mist and Vidarr turned to stare at the elf. She had been so intent on Vid that she’d almost forgotten about him, and Vidarr was reacting as if a cockroach had gotten up on its hind legs and started reciting the kennings of the All-father.

Vidarr lifted his hand to strike. Dainn made no move to avoid the blow.

“Stop it!” Mist shouted. “Vid, he’s on our side!”

Vidarr lowered his arm, but his body was trembling with rage.

“Our side?” he repeated. “The cursed Alfr who betrayed the Aesir?”

“What? Vid—”

“You didn’t recognize him? The traitor who should have been dead by Thor’s hand?”

Comprehension blinded Mist, leaving her groping for something to hang on to while the ground crumbled beneath her feet. “Oh, this is rich,” Vidarr said. “Freya didn’t tell her darling daughter the kind of scum she was dragging around?” He laughed viciously. “He didn’t even bother to change his name. Dainn Faithbreaker, the elf who started Ragnarok.”