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 condu
ct 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.
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