by Matt Larkin
Kill him …
No. Odin would kill only those he must.
He grabbed Lytir by the hair and lifted him upward. He wanted to ask for forgiveness, but to do so now would have seemed even more arrogant. No. There was no forgiveness. There was only necessity. There was urd, and through it, choices were revealed as illusions. The only real choice became whether to resist the coming darkness or give in to it. Those who refused to take a side were, in truth, aiding the fall of man.
With a grimace, he cut Lytir’s throat and let the priest fall to the bridge.
Sunlight burst through the clouds in a single ray, one falling upon the dying Vanr. More rays shot down, a cascade of light shining over every sacrifice. Then more and more rays, until the whole tree seemed to be glowing, radiant, even as it shook. As leaves fell.
“Frey!”
Odin spun at Freyja’s voice. She was there, running to her fallen brother.
No. No!
“Freyja …” Odin’s mouth fell open and he tried to reach for her. His chant faltered. At the far end of the bridge, a warrior suddenly dropped dead. A leaf fell from Yggdrasil. More leaves fell, and Aesir and Vanir began to fall with them.
Odin’s spell was drawing energy from Yggdrasil, and because of that, lives across Midgard were being snuffed out. A dozen lives with every passing heartbeat. Gods above and below, what had he done? He had started this because it seemed mercy, because he could not bring himself to kill all these people.
He stumbled forward, reaching a hand for Freyja.
She was still running in his direction, tears in her eyes. And terror. She must have guessed what he had done. And it was done. Now, if he did not finish, the breach would widen, feasting on the energy of Yggdrasil. Thousands would die, and Vanaheim would fall. Maybe all of Midgard.
She wasn’t supposed to be here. Not like this.
He had not seen this. Tyr was supposed to … Tyr … Thinking of the man suddenly granted him a vision of the warrior, in agony. In desperation, holding the chained werewolf. And Tyr, forever maimed. One more sacrifice.
“I love you,” he whispered to Freyja.
She faltered and fell to her knees. She was too far, and could not have heard his words. Maybe she had read his lips. Maybe she had seen it in his eyes. Or maybe her own Sight told her what had to happen now. Given the choice between saving the world and saving the woman he loved … what choice would she have him make? He knew the answer.
Choking on his voice, he continued chanting. With his bloody palm, he drew one last glyph on the bridge. The mark of Surya himself. “Sun god … I … I invoke you.”
As one, the Vanir screamed. Those standing fell to their knees. White light poured from their eyes and noses and mouths. Odin’s gaze remained locked on Freyja. Surely she could not see like that, but she did not turn away from him. He looked at her even as the light grew blinding, as radiance reached into the sky.
A tremendous pop echoed through the valley, and the bridge cracked, pitching Odin forward. Unable to see, he caught himself on a flagstone and held on at an angle. The screaming had stopped, though faint ripples of air pressure continued to pass over him. Aftershocks from a quake between the worlds. He blinked until he could see once again. Spots flickered in front of his eyes.
He climbed the flagstone back onto level ground. An enormous chunk of the bridge had pitched into the chasm. Freyja had been on that chunk, but Odin doubted she had fallen. Not here.
A numbness had settled up his chest and swallowed his heart. With it done, he could step off the edge and fall into the abyss. Leave this torturous life behind. But neither urd, nor his people, were done with him. He had a duty to them now, as ever. They needed their king to be strong. They needed him to be infallible. They needed him to be a god.
Despite exhaustion doing its best to drag him into unconsciousness, he crawled to Gungnir. Using it as a walking stick, he rose to survey what he had done. A crack had spread along Yggdrasil’s trunk. Odin had likely done as much damage this morning as Nidhogg did in a century. Thousands of leaves had fallen.
But the only bodies here were the Aesir and that of Lytir. Even his other Vanr sacrifices were gone.
Gone to what Odin dared hope would be a better place for them.
61
Tyr lay against a tree, head in his remaining hand. He had lost his sword hand. What did that leave him? Maimed and immortal. And lacking both the women he had cared for.
Fenrir snarled and spit in his direction. Not for the first time, Tyr cursed the Hel-spawned wolf. And wished he had the means to kill such a monster. Slowly, he rose, and stalked over to the creature.
Tyr kicked him in the face. The varulf’s head collided with the trunk where he was bound. The werewolf went still.
“Damn you.”
Tyr cracked his neck. What was he to do? He had a promise to keep. He had sworn to send aid to the Vallander emperor. Back then, Tyr had imagined going himself and fighting in glorious battle. Maybe his days of glory were done forever. Hard to fight like this. Maybe not so hard to die, though. Maybe one last glory, against the armies of Serkland. A bitter end. Fitting.
He spun at the sound of footfalls.
Odin and Frigg both approached. The queen, fortunately, had left her varulfur twins behind. From what Tyr had seen, Fenrir would be able to turn them against their own people on a whim.
“I know what you’ve lost, my friend.” Odin clapped him on his shoulder. “And I know what you achieved. I asked you to prove your valor once again. And you have done so much more than that.”
Tyr swallowed, looking up at the sun. The beast had ripped Zisa to pieces before his very eyes. He had awakened to Idunn’s screaming, to see her consumed in light. And now, Gramr, slung over Odin’s shoulder, was wailing for him.
“I failed. If I had gotten the women away from Vanaheim … would Idunn have …” Hel, but she was crying for him.
Odin shook his head and backed away, seeming to see Tyr’s pain. “That was not your urd. What had to happen is what did happen.”
Tyr sighed, glancing at Frigg, who nodded. “So you would take me back as a thegn, despite it all?”
Odin grunted. “I would make you a jarl. Many tribes have lost their leaders. Whatever crimes you did under the influence of this blade, they were not in truth your doing. And all will know of your valor here, glory unlike any Ás has ever earned before.”
A jarl? He did not deserve it. He had failed Odin and Zisa and Idunn, all. And his hand drifted for the blade. She needed him.
Odin raised a hand to forestall him. “The runeblade is no longer for you. You, I will appoint to watch over this beast for now, until his prison can be prepared.”
“Prison?”
Odin grunted. His eyes seemed glazed over. “There are rock cells, deep beneath the mountains of Vanaheim, unused in long ages. We will bury the wolf so deep he will not see the sun until … until the dying of this world.” Odin shook himself, his gaze clearing. “And you, Tyr, have but to name a leaderless tribe, and I will make you its jarl.”
“Skaldun.” The word left his mouth before he even had time to think.
“Tyr, they … are not fond of you,” Frigg said.
Indeed, they loathed him. But because of his actions, the tribe had no jarl. And Starkad and his brother Vikar had neither father nor mother. It was one duty Tyr would never shirk and never fail in. No, it was not time for him to die just yet.
Maybe Odin read that on his face, for he nodded.
Tyr had lost Idunn. Had lost Zisa. Had lost himself along with his fighting hand. All that remained to him was his son.
62
Head in his hand, Odin sat inside Sessrumnir, resting on a throne Frigg had insisted he claim. The remaining jarls stood about, bickering over who would be the first to receive the apples.
He had called this Thing because it was expected of him. He, King of the Aesir, had done as he promised. He had taken Vanaheim for the Aesir, had defeated their so-called god
s. Once, that had been his greatest aspiration. Once, he had thought from Vanaheim he would save the world, drive out the mists. The Norns had tried to warn him. Knowledge not only had a price, it was a price. Knowledge of the future was a burden weighing upon his shoulders, beating him down and stripping from him the right to choose his own path.
A flickering in his mind warned him even before the Ás warriors brought Eostre in. None dared lay a hand on her, and she walked, head high and back stiff. Her eyes revealed only the barest hint of the emotion she must surely feel.
Idunn, too, had failed to escape Vanaheim before the spell had taken effect. Odin wanted to blame Tyr for his failure, but then who could have succeeded under such circumstances? No. It was Odin’s own folly to think he could spare those he loved the consequences of his, and their, own actions. Had they not lingered in Vanaheim, the spell would not have reached them. But that was not urd, after all.
In truth, he found himself forever separated from Freyja—from Chandi. She was always connected to him, always bound to find him. Always, destined to be taken, oft as not by his own folly. Or by his accursed urd.
And Eostre now was one of only four remaining Vanir. Enemies certain to hate Odin until the end of time. An enemy who could never even understand that she, in a way, was Odin’s own daughter. For hours he had weighed the consequences of telling her. Even if she believed it, it would not abate her rage at what he had done to her daughter. Indeed, she might hate him all the more for it.
“I wished to spare her,” he said.
Eostre glared. “And where have you sent her, in your mercy?”
Odin folded his arms over his chest. “Alfheim.” The World of Sun would be, he hoped, familiar in some way to the Vanir. It was a land of greenery and spring and light. The same world to which they had once banished their own ancestors, the First Ones. But Odin’s spell had been targeted to anyone born on Vanaheim and, thus, had not affected the few remaining First Ones like Eostre or Lytir. Nor, in fact, Bragi, who had joined the Vanir in later days.
Eostre shut her eyes as if she had known he would say that.
“They can find peace there,” he said. “They did not want to fight for Midgard. Now they need not.”
“Peace?” Eostre strode forward until a thegn of Hoenir barred her way. “Peace? Do you think they will have it in the Spirit Realm? Do the vaettir you have encountered strike you as peaceable, as beneficent toward mankind?”
“The alternative—” Odin began.
“Oh, yes. I should be grateful you did not send them to Niflheim or Svartalfheim or some other even more dire world!”
“The alternative would have been to kill all who opposed me. I did not intend to cast out Idunn, but it is done. I have not the strength nor ability to reach her now.” If he did, he would have gone after Freyja first. But Idunn too, he would have died to rescue, had that ever been a choice before him. Were there, in fact, any choices before him?
Eostre sneered. “Then what of me? Am I to face your alternative, Lord Odin?”
Never. No, he could never bring himself to kill his daughter, not even his daughter from another lifetime. Nor, however, was she like to ever see him as an ally. In Vanaheim, Eostre might sow seeds of discontent, forever proving a liability to his rule. And rule he must, for the final war was coming, and now he had to prepare for it. Ragnarok, if it could not be averted, must at least be won.
After a moment he spread his hands, taking in the whole Thing. “Lady Eostre, I give you a choice. You can remain in custody as my guest.” Possibly until the end of the world. “Or, you can take up the quest your mother once undertook. You can go out into the world and bring hope to mankind. Spread the word of spring, help them survive Fimbulvinter until I finally find a way to break it.”
Eostre shut her eyes again, silent a long time.
Odin resisted the urge to fidget.
After an interminable pause, his daughter opened her eyes. “And you will offer the same choice to the other remaining First Ones.”
Odin had not really decided on that. But Eostre had not made it a question. And he owed her a debt he could not repay. Allowing the others of her kind to walk the world with her was the smallest favor he could grant her. After pretending to think on it a moment more, he nodded once. “You will give your word that neither you nor any of the others will act against me or the Aesir.”
At that, the woman sneered.
“Your oath, Eostre. That is the price for your freedom.”
She sighed. “I swear it … King Odin.”
Odin looked to Hoenir. “Lady Eostre is to be taken to Andalus. The other two First Ones as well.”
“And Bragi,” Eostre said.
The god of poetry had never proved a friend to the Aesir, least of all Odin. And yet … neither did Odin fancy keeping him prisoner for centuries.
Odin sighed, then nodded. “All the remaining Vanir.”
The jarl watched him expectantly. They all did.
“The apples will be dealt with once Jarl Hoenir has returned.”
A few of the others protested, but not loudly. They knew what Odin had done. Some whispered he had turned to the unmanly arts of vӧlvur, yet, none would dare challenge him now. Not after knowing he had thrown down the gods themselves. Odin had become a deity to the Aesir and, soon enough, to all of Midgard. A year ago, that thought had not tasted so bitter.
Or maybe the problem was, this was Freyja’s place. Her scent lingered in the air, her voice echoing in the halls. Sessrumnir would always be hers.
Odin rose abruptly and strode from the hall. The jarls followed, of course. He stood on the plateau, looking out over the island and to the other isles beyond. The Vanir had made this the center of their world. But it was their world, their realm. And if the Aesir were truly to escape their shadows, they must rise above that.
There is no escape from shadow … only temporary respite …
Odin ignored Audr. The easier answer would be to choose the other island, one where fewer Vanir had lived. But then, he could not afford to place his center of power farther from Yggdrasil. That was the source of all power, after all.
Instead, he turned to Njord’s palace. Freyja’s father had ruled from there for a thousand years. It seemed only fitting.
“Tear down the Vanr halls.” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the crash of the waterfalls. “All save this one.” This one was Freyja’s. He would allow none to come here, but he could not bring himself to destroy it either. “There, on the slopes of the great mountain, we will construct a new city. The city of Asgard. Send word to all the people. Nothing is to remain of the ancient halls save their foundations. We must build new, build afresh.”
The jarls left to do as Odin had commanded, though shock clearly colored their faces. To raze the houses of their gods was no doubt hard for them. But they needed to forget the Vanir. They needed to make this land their own. And from here, they would reclaim Midgard from the Niflungar and the mists. And maybe, just maybe, they could stop Ragnarok.
Odin had found no sign of Valhalla in the Astral Realm. Svanhit’s ring remained a weight, a reminder that the valkyrie had planned to take him to yet another war.
If there was no Valhalla out there, he would build it here. A place of light and hope, for the world to look toward.
As the end loomed ever nearer.
63
Skadi’s father—or Gudrun’s?—yet reigned over Castle Niflung and thus much of Reidgotaland. Beneficent sentiment born from one of Skadi’s lives meant she could not see herself striking out against the Raven Lord, and thus she found herself considering carving her kingdom out of Hunaland. Her apprentice was bearing the child of one Hunalander king already, was she not?
Gudrun blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the nigh total darkness permeating Grimhild’s chamber. The failed queen. Gudrun’s … mother? It had become so hard to differentiate between herself and the memories of the other women, though Skadi controlled her body. The goddess’
s mere presence in her flesh had already begun to restore its strength. Gudrun dared to hope time might begin to fix the fractures in her mind as well.
Grimhild sat up at her entrance, her breath ragged. The casting had taken so much out of her, after all.
Skadi snickered. “I used your own flesh to conceive a son, and now you’ve managed to get him killed as well. And still, after such weakness, you had the temerity to call upon me.”
Grimhild lowered her feet to the floor and rose, still trying to seem the elegant queen, still hoping to cast some veil of authority, even in her last moments. “I knew of no other way to save my daughter. I do not expect you to understand human sentiment, spirit, nor the bond between mother and daughter.”
Is that a jest? Bond? Bond!
Skadi chuckled and shook her head, running a finger along Grimhild’s jaw. “I do not think your daughter shares your opinion on your connection.”
“I only ever tried to make her strong.”
“Hmmm. Then you did well. She was strong enough to claim your—my—grimoire, after all.”
Grimhild sputtered.
Oh yes. That look of abject betrayal can only be engendered by the actions of one’s own kin. I must have worn that look oh so many times. To see it here, reflected in this twisted mirror of my own face, grants meaning to the agonies I endured at her hands.
Skadi laughed again. “I do not know what is more pathetic, Grimhild. That you allowed yourself to believe your daughter cared for you, or, perhaps worse yet, that you convinced yourself your actions toward her were born of aught resembling love. And I have become an expert on love subverted by the insurmountable boundaries of urd.”
“What do you want?” Grimhild demanded, stepping back.
Skadi snared the queen’s wrists and jerked her to a stop. She summoned cold from the depths of Niflheim, and it coalesced downward in a cascade, like a waterfall that crackled to the floor, forming twin stalagmites of ice. Grimhild shrieked in pain and obvious horror, though it was naught compared to what would soon befall her. Her icy restraints had bound both her hands. Still, the queen might have escaped in any of several ways, had Skadi not already warded the door to this chamber with symbols from the book, researched lifetimes ago.
