What one of us does, Freya said, intervening for the first time, is sometimes difficult for another of us to undo. Her eyes were on Sigrun, however, and the valkyrie twitched. Sigrun. Walk with me for a moment.
Sigrun suppressed a guilty start and stood, highly aware of the way Adam was watching her at the moment. Saraid interjected now, gently, Also, your friend Silentheart has had a tail for some time. She would feel odd, I think, not to have one. As if it had been amputated.
Sigrun stepped away, following Freya, with a backwards glance at both Adam and Tyr. Her husband had gone silent, as he sometimes did when much magic was afoot. He felt . . . out of place, she knew. Well, as do I. This is not my place.
Outside, the wind had partially died down—enough that Niðhoggr had been able to relax his outstretched wings and lie down on the ground, instead. His huge eyes seemed to be fixed on Sigrun and Freya as they walked out into the fresh snow that seemed to leave the land a little cleaner than it should be, considering everything that had passed here. You understand, Freya said, gently, that what I said, also applies to your circumstances?
Sigrun lifted her head, puzzled. Freya looked at her. Loki’s curse. I do not believe I can unmake it. He was as skilled in seiðr as I am, and he has keyed this curse to future events. As I just said . . . what one of us does, is . . . sometimes difficult for another of us to undo.
She blinked. It hadn’t even occurred to her to ask. Sigrun shook her head, silently, a bitter taste in her mouth, as she looked back at the wreckage of the building. “Our efforts hardly seem to merit any sort of guerdon.”
And yet, there is something you would ask of me? I sensed it in you, though you are not bound to me. I heard my name in your thoughts.
Sigrun exhaled, wondering, absently, why her breath didn’t hang like a white cloud in the chill air. “You . . . placed teachings in my mind, my lady. I would . . . have you take them back.” She swallowed, hard. This was tantamount to questioning the wisdom of a goddess’ actions.
Why would you have me do so?
Sigrun assembled her thoughts on the fly, and put them together, from incoherent distaste and fear and horror to coherent rational argument in a single click. “I do not need them—”
You have used them. Even moments ago. Was there no satisfaction in this?
Sigrun closed her eyes. “There was satisfaction in seeing Ima restored from her own curse,” she acknowledged, very carefully. “But this is not who and what I am. I know what I am. I am a sword crafted for the hands of the gods. A human smith, having taken steel and wrought it, folded it a thousand times, tempered it and sharpened it and made it whole, would not then take that sword over which he had labored, and cut off the hilt. Would not drill a bore down the center of the blade, weakening the steel. Would not attach a firing assembly in place of the hilt, load the . . . disfigured, malformed creation with shot and powder, and then attempt to fire it. The blade made into a barrel would shatter, and like enough cost the smith his life as the pieces went flying. The contraption would be neither gun nor blade, and equally inept at either task required of it.”
You do not trust in our craftsmanship? Freya’s eyebrows rose, though Sigrun hardly dared to look at her.
“My lady, I trust that you would not be as foolish as a human might be, to load a blade with explosive materials and then wonder what would happen if it were aimed and fired.” Sigrun paused, seeing Reginleif again, in her mind’s eye. Reginleif had been far more intelligent, Sigrun knew, than she herself was. She’d been lauded for her wit for two hundred years. Capable. Savvy. Trusted. The trainer of seven generations of younger god-born. And she’d turned on Loki and Hel, and her actions had, in the end, set in motion the train of events that had killed one, and banished the other. “God-born have enough power, being precisely who and what we are. We are already . . . dangerous.” Reginleif. Tlilpotonqui Tototl, back in Nahautl, the priest and god-born of Tlaloc.
You are not an experiment. You have been changed by events, yes. But you resist those changes, so strongly that I had to hide my teachings in the deepest layers of your mind. Allow me to express this in another fashion, child of Tyr. You would not think now, to ask us to use our power on your behalf, for that so many others require our aid. And yet, is it not your responsibility to use every gift you have, to aid our people, yourself? And still you ask me to take that ability from you?
Sigrun flinched. From the age of three, the notion of duty had been firmly instilled in her psyche. Be brave, little valkyrie. But it was one thing to be born into service. It was another thing to have more burdens added to an already substantial load. “These are not my gifts,” she said, her voice dull. “Borrowed feathers, Hel spoke of.” The words triggered another terrible set of memories, and Sigrun braced herself. “Inti spoke of those, too, when he looked on Sayri Cusi, who had . . . swallowed pieces of gods. Made himself into a kind of ghul, loaded down with stolen lives and stolen power. Inti said that he preferred truth over that kind of self-deception. I would not be a ghul or a vulture.” A faintly bitter smile touched Sigrun’s face now, and she looked away. She had her answer, suddenly. “In helping Ima, and the jotun, and all the others? The knowledge was yours, not mine. The power was Lassair’s and Saraid’s, not mine. Kanmi, Trennus, and Minori have earned their magic, through decades of learning and practice.” Sigrun paused, and assembled her chaotic thoughts again. “When I extend the othersight—which I never asked for, any more than Frittigil ever asked to be able to see through illusion, or heal, or anything else—it always has seemed a logical extension of my truthsense. An ability to see what is truthfully at work in someone’s mind and spirit.” She swallowed. “Today, it has, possibly because of the huge amounts of ambient power . . . extended itself. Perilously close to seiðr. That is not my gift, either.” Sigrun’s throat closed down. “I do not want it. I have no right to it. Take it from me.”
A long, steady look from Freya. A weapon damaged by being misused. A ghul. A vulture. And yet, if it were a gift, given freely, you still wouldn’t accept it, would you?
She closed her eyes, and shook her head, not even able to understand what Freya was asking, or why. The words didn’t seem to apply to her. Her mind was still spinning, and her memories of the past hour or so were not entirely clear. Some of them, Sigrun pushed to the back of her mind as much as she could. She never wanted to remember most of today’s events, any more than she wanted to think about the day of Inti’s death, or Tlaloc’s. She didn’t want to think about the moment of chilling cold as Hel’s power had touched her, or the arcing prominences of Loki’s power, as he struggled to keep himself from exploding. The sensation of regret that had passed over her when Loki had spoken of Fritti.
If learning to use this power meant that you could undo Loki’s curse yourself . . . would you do it then?
The words dangled there, like a delectable piece of fruit. And, for an instant, Sigrun thought of the first book of the Judean holy writings, and the spirit of evil, tempting the first woman with the knowledge of good and evil. Foolish, she’d thought when she first read the words. How can you know what good is, if you don’t know what evil is, too? And how can knowledge, understanding, ever be a bad thing? And yet, here she was, in spite of that, asking Freya to take knowledge away from her.
Knowledge was tempting. She could be . . . more than what she was. She could be powerful. She could be capable. She’d have years in which to work on unknotting Loki’s curse, every night, as she lay in bed. But then she wouldn’t be who she was. She’d be . . . someone else. Someone even less human than she already was. The more power someone had, the less human they became . . . it might be an axiom for some tragic Hellene play or another, but that didn’t make it any less true. If she gave in to the temptation . . . would she still be herself? Would she even be able to look herself in the eye, on those rare occasions when she couldn’t avoid her own gaze in a mirror? Would Adam even know who she was?
Very slowly, and feeling as if she were abou
t to shatter, like so much glass, Sigrun shook her head, unable to speak. “All I asked,” Sigrun whispered after a moment, “Was for your help to prevent me from living in a world distorted by the othersight. I asked that it be removed, and you told me that you could not take it from me. So I asked to learn how to suppress it, so that I would not be distracted by it. Could do my duties. I never asked for anything more than that. ”
And did you think that there would be no price? Freya’s voice was stern.
“I did not think that asking to give up something unwanted would cost so much.” Sigrun opened her eyes and put her hands behind her back, but couldn’t meet Freya’s gaze. “I say again, I do not want this burden. I will not use it. It is not mine, nor is it of me. And I beg for you to take it away.” A tired voice spoke at the back of her brain; her own furious words directed at Sophia, years ago. No more gods and no more futures. All I have ever asked is a mortal life. And, years before that, confiding in Adam, how wonderful it was, to have a chance to be normal with him. To be human.
Hear me, daughter of Tyr. You will use this gift. Not because I command it, Freya said, with a faint, oddly gentle smile, But because it is in your nature to do so. You are not capable of walking past one in need. And there are many here who will have need of you. Freya put a hand on Sigrun’s shoulder, as cold tears slid down her cheeks. You cannot escape your own nature.
I can try.
And in spite of herself, she could hear Sophia’s half-mocking, half-sympathetic words, ringing in her ears all over again. You make the choices that, in this universe, you were always going to make, Sigrun. Because you couldn’t be you, and not make those choices.
So all I am left with is a choice between two evils. Allow myself to be forced into doing things that are . . . not me . . . and lose myself in them. Or try to be someone else. And lose myself that way, too.
Any choice I make, I am damned.
Adam wasn’t sure what had passed between Freya and Sigrun, but when they came back in out of the cold, his wife’s face and eyes were remote. Lost. Desolate. This wasn’t the near-insane anger of a few weeks ago. In its own way, it was worse. It was like looking at the ghost of a murder victim as it stared down at the body it had once occupied. Lost, and without hope. “Sig, what’s wrong?” he asked her, urgently, as soon as he got her away from everyone else.
“Nothing,” she told him. And that was the first time he could remember her lying to him.
He let it pass. It had been a very bad thirty-six hours. And it promised to be an even worse month or year or decade, past this. The others were all murmuring about what they could do to help here. Saraid was begging Trennus to understand that she needed to stay here, with the wolves, and give them voices, until many more could be made what Ima was now. Trennus, naturally, was nodding in understanding. Adam . . . hadn’t been aware that there was anything more personal between Trennus and Saraid than the contract they’d had for decades but from the way she’d just leaned up to kiss him—and right in front of Lassair . . ! They’re spirits, they’re not human, and you can’t judge them by human standards, he reminded himself, rapidly. Treat them like aliens, the way Tren’s always said.
The dragon had so far refused to leave, and Freyr was helping to restore the jotun in the vicinity who’d still been in the ‘training facility.’ Tyr had departed once he was assured of Sigrun’s health, but the god had appeared deeply troubled by something as his form had demanifested. Thor had taken Brandr away, without a word to the rest of them, before Sigrun and Freya returned from their conversation, and Sigrun looked bereft on realizing that her old friend had been taken away . . . something that stung at Adam’s conscience a bit. The older bear-warrior had looked tired, in a way that went beyond physical exhaustion, and Adam didn’t envy the man. Personal betrayal on many levels. Years of his life removed from his memory by Loki—and god only knew if the memories were back; the bear-warrior didn’t seem able to speak now, at all, as a result of the injuries inflicted on him by Hel. Adam wasn’t sure if the man would ever be able to speak again. There was an odd sort of symmetry between Ima regaining her voice, and Brandr losing his.
Vidarr had yet to leave Ima’s side, and Helga had dug in her pack to get the new giantess at least a dress to wear, though obviously, something would need to be done about the tail. Minori and Kanmi were asking Lassair urgent, interested questions about the transformation process, which Ima had now demonstrated she could, indeed, accomplish on her own, though she reported that it was tiring. Erikir was talking about going to Gotaland and rallying as many of the city-guards as he could, and Vidarr was expressing an interest in trying to rally as many of the new jotun as he could . . . assuming that any of them were sane. “We’ll need the sane jotun to protect the humans from the grendels and the ettin,” Erikir rasped.
“And we jotun will need humans, too,” Vidarr agreed. “Hard to drive a supply truck when you don’t fit in the cab.” He shook his head.
“It’s all going to boil down to infrastructure. And getting the bodies out of the streets before disease wipes out half of the survivors.” Erikir stood, slowly, pacing across the building to retrieve his sword, which had pierced through Reginleif and Loki alike, staring down at it in his hands, thoughtfully.
“Caetia! You’ve been holding out on me!” Kanmi’s voice, as the man was distracted from his and Min’s conversation with Lassair. He bared his teeth in a grin nearly as wolfish as that of a fenris, and Adam could see Sigrun’s startled reaction from across the room.
“Holding out on you? How so?”
“You never told me that shit-talking is an integral part of your culture. I am a world-champion shit-talker. I could have been your king, and I never even knew. I am aggrieved, Sigrun. Sorely aggrieved.” Kanmi folded his arms across his chest and grinned at her.
For just an instant, Adam saw Sigrun’s lips quirk up, and he felt a rush of gratitude to their abrasive Carthaginian friend. Sig raised her eyebrows, briefly, and told Kanmi, “You would have to do it in verse to score the most points, Esh. Alliterative or rhymed, your choice.”
“Oh, rhymed, definitely,” Trennus said, picking up the topic. Trying to make the moment feel slightly more normal. “My people have the same tradition. My father’s had traveling jesters flyt at him for years. Of course, the whole point is not to take it personally. It’s all in fun.” Trennus gave Kanmi a look, and got back to work with the jotun, plotting out an approach to the city of Lieksa, so they could see how many people there were alive. Sane. Undamaged. “You’d take it too seriously, Esh.”
Adam felt . . . lost. He could pass out rations and hot soup with the best of them. He could probably hunt down the insane, and the ettin, and the grendels. He could help, but he was still a Praetorian. Sig was ashen-faced, and said little beyond the fact that she would need to take a leave of absence to help here. Yes, but you are coming home after that, aren’t you? he wanted to ask, but couldn’t. Of course she was. Of course, she would.
He was sorting through his own pack, looking for rations, when he found it. Livorus’ sword. He’d forgotten it, in the hectic nature of the fight. He’d promised the propraetor he’d find something appropriate to do with it, here in the north.
After a moment, he drew it. The blade was worn; Livorus had trained with it for forty years, and had actually used it in battle a time or three. Nothing more than a common Roman short-sword, though with a modern basket hilt, one that protected the hand and fingers better than the ancient crosspiece style had. He looked at his reflection in the blade for a moment. Dark brown hair, starting to gray at the temples. Unshaven face, eyebrows that were starting to take on a hint of “crazy desert prophet” if Sig didn’t remind him to shave off the stragglers now and again. Dark eyes. Adam stared at his own gaze, troubled. He didn’t remember looking this tired.
The soft scrape of the blade pulling free got a half-dozen wolf heads to turn. Adam swung the blade around, so that the point was directed at the ground, and walked across t
he broken poured-stone floor to where Loki had stepped through a portal into the Veil. There was a melted-looking place in the poured-stone, warped where searing energies had put the material into a state of cosmic flux. Adam looked around for a crack, and finally found one, and pressed the tip of the blade against it, without much hope.
The blade sank into the poured-stone, as if it were still wet, but remained still, motionless, when Adam took his hand away from the hilt, cautiously.
Everyone behind him had stopped moving and talking. “Livorus asked me to bring his sword north with him,” Adam said, a little self-consciously, realizing that everyone was staring at him as he turned. “He said that if he could have, he’d have been here with us. As he’s always stood by us before. And it seemed appropriate to leave here, a sword Livorus will never hold in battle again . . . as a marker. A reminder that everything ends. Lives. Eras. Perceptions.” He hunted down Sigrun’s eyes, and met them. “But sometimes, some things end, so that other things can begin.”
It was a platitude, and he knew it. But he wanted—no, needed—to try to lift that empty stare from her eyes.
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