Black Ice

by Susan Krinard

  When Freya had contacted him in Midgard, Dainn had known that she intended to use her daughter as her vessel. But that decision had been made after the Dispersal, when Freya had been desperate to acquire a physical body capable of serving as her host in Midgard. Was it possible that the Lady had always expected Mist to be more than a mere Valkyrie? Could she have had other plans for Mist before the Dispersal had forced her to make the brutal choice of her own survival over her daughter’s? What part might Svardkell and the “others” have played in such hypothetical plans? Dainn rose to take another towel from the shelf and laid it over the Jotunn’s face, moving slowly as he thought. If Freya had kept such secrets from Dainn, whom she believed to be completely in her thrall, she would not have allowed Svardkell to contact Mist if she could have prevented it. She clearly didn’t want Mist to discover the true circumstances of her birth, or what they might portend.

  Had Svardkell hidden himself among Loki’s spies in hopes of reaching Mist without Freya’s knowledge? “Loki knew,” the Jotunar had said. Knew of his relationship to Mist? Or even more than that? And Loki had “forced” Svardkell to … attack Mist?

  Loki would find it amusing to send Mist’s own father to harm her. But if he thought Svardkell might regain his senses long enough to tell Mist something that would help her understand herself, he would never have been so foolish.

  Dainn wrapped his arms around his chest as he considered a dozen troubling possibilities. It would be difficult enough to tell Mist that her father——one of her fathers—had died because she had defended herself against a seeming enemy, though he knew he couldn’t shield Mist from the truth indefinitely.

  At least he could share Svardkell’s warnings about the boy and the traitors. Though, again, Dainn wondered how much the Jotunn had known about Ryan. If Svardkell had been trying to warn Mist of a threat from Loki, why hadn’t Laufeyson made even the slightest attempt to capture the boy?

  Taking a deep breath, Dainn whispered a few brief words in the elven tongue—words he hadn’t heard spoken in centuries—and knelt to gather the body into his arms. Though he was even more anxious to set the wards and join Mist now, he had no intention of allowing her to witness the state of Svardkell’s fatal injury or dispose of the body herself.

  The house was still silent—as were the cats, who stood watching from the safety of the door to the hall. Dainn carried Svardkell out to the lawn, laid him down gently, and crouched over the Jotunn’s body. He rested his palms on the brown, frozen grass.

  The song of the earth seemed muted, more so than it should have been even in the grip of the coldest winter. When at last Dainn grasped the threads of life and began to weave them together with elvish Runes, they continued to slip out of his fingers as if they found his efforts somehow distasteful.

  Dainn pushed his hair away from his face and frowned. He felt not the slightest trace of the beast, and he had worked such magic many times before. Once more he sang to the earth, and this time it responded. Thousands of tiny roots burst from beneath the soil, rising above the flat brown grass, swaying gently as if no cold could touch them.

  Working quickly, Dainn asked the roots to take what he offered. Each tiny strand bent toward the Jotunn, prodding, pressing, until one by one they worked their way into the lifeless flesh. And fed, and thrived, and carried the body with them as they sank back under the soil.

  Nothing remained of the Svardkell but a large patch of brilliant green grass. Dainn touched it, and it died under his hand.

  He got up, staring at the ground beneath his feet. He had done what was necessary. But there had been a strangeness to it he couldn’t quite define, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth and an ache in his joints.

  Brushing his palms against his pants, he went inside. He would look in on the young mortals, reassure them if necessary, and begin strengthening Mist’s wards, weaving the subtle spells of nature among and around the unyielding elements of Mist’s forge magic. If he worked efficiently, in ten minutes he should be finished and ready to go after Mist.

  He stopped at the foot of the stairs. Ryan stood on the landing, clad in T-shirt and oversized jeans, his hair falling over his eyes.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  Dainn hesitated only for a moment. “Loki is in the vicinity. Mist has gone after him with some of the Einherjar.”

  Ryan gripped the banister and closed his eyes. “I didn’t know,” he said. “No one told us.”

  “I am sorry,” Dainn said. “There has been no time.”

  “And I didn’t see it. It’s worse than before.” His throat worked. “I used to see things that were going to happen, and now sometimes I feel them when they’re happening. But half the time I don’t see anything, and when I do I can’t explain it.”.”

  “You are not to blame,” Dainn said, knowing better than to offer comfort. When the boy opened his eyes again, they were like cloudy glass orbs, utterly blind.

  “Who died?” he whispered.

  “One last chance,” Loki said.

  Anna only stared at him, her lips parted and her gaze blank. She almost looked, Loki thought sourly, as if she ought to be drooling.

  Hymir raised a heavy brow. Loki waved his hand.

  Dragging the woman to her feet, Hymir passed her to Grer and lifted his massive fist.

  He never completed the strike. A jet-black arrow of feathers and fury dived through the open door and flew at Hymir, raking his face with razor-sharp talons. Hymir cried out and let the woman go, waving his hands to fend off the raven’s attack.

  “Orn!” Anna cried, beginning to rise.

  “Get that cursed bird!” Loki shouted. Ide and Grer made a grab for it, ignoring the woman, and Loki began to gather his waning power. If he could slow the creature for a few vital seconds …

  He had just begun the spell when another, distinctly human shape crashed through the window, shedding broken glass as she charged toward him with sword raised to strike.

  Loki turned to face Mist, changing his spell to one of defense. The raven continued to attack each Jotunn in turn, preventing any of them from coming to Loki’s aid.

  Just as Mist’s sword sliced down to cleave his flesh, Loki raised a ward between them. Her weapon struck the shield of transparent ice with the sound of a hundred mortal voices shrieking in pain.

  Without hesitation, Freya’s daughter skirted the shield and ran toward Anna, who had been bright enough to flee for the window. Loki raised his hands to gather the fragments of glass scattered over the ground and, sucking nearly all the scant warmth out of the room and the Jotunar’s bodies, hurled a spear of fire at the window.

  Mist pulled Anna out of the way and jumped aside, but the flame fused the shards of glass and formed an opaque seal across the window frame, blocking Mist’s escape. She pushed the young woman behind her and faced Loki again, looking past him at the Jotunar.

  They were frozen, temporarily weakened by Loki’s spell, their bodies so brittle that a precise blow at just the right spot might shatter them. But ice was their magical element, and Mist must know they’d soon be on their feet again.

  Of the raven there was no sign.

  “Really, Mist,” Loki said, careful not to give any indication that this fresh bout of magic had come very near to draining him of power completely. “So dramatic. It would seem you have been enjoying too many tales of heroes with extraordinary powers who rush in to save the day whenever the weak or innocent are in the clutches of a monstrous villain.”

  “At least one part of that conceit is true,” she said. “You’re pretty monstrous.”

  Loki laughed, but he found himself dangerously distracted. He had been eager enough to learn what might have changed with Mist since their battle and Freya’s disappearance, but these were not the circumstances under he would have preferred to test her.

  She seemed no different to him than she’d been before: still straightforward and irreverent, tough and vulnerable, beautiful and utterly lacking in awareness o
f her beauty. Only that beauty gave evidence that she was related to the Lady at all.

  Freya had, indeed, lost her. “That is all a matter of perspective,” he said, discarding his brief fantasy of having both Mist and Dainn in his bed. At the same time. “I had not expected us to meet again quite so soon.”

  “I’ll just bet you didn’t,” she said, baring her straight, white teeth in a grin.

  “May I presume the raven brought you here?”

  She didn’t reply, but the answer was plain on her face. She’d never been any good at hiding her emotions, no matter how diligently she tried to maintain a stony expression.

  Loki had always been of the philosophy that one should always throw the maximum volume of rubbish against a wall and observe what clung to it.

  “You didn’t know about it before, did you?” he asked. “You didn’t realize that Odin’s messenger was here in Midgard, concealed as the pet of an ordinary mortal woman.” He smiled. “Odd, that. Freya’s daughter or not, you once served the All-father.”

  “I still do,” she said, shifting her grip on her sword.

  “Then you must find this situation most disturbing. Your slut of a mother said nothing before she disappeared, did she? Yet she was supposed to be the Aesir’s only contact with this world.” He examined a broken fingernail with disapproval. “Tell me … what did you and your mother discuss when you left my apartment?”

  Her grip on her sword wavered, and Loki pressed on. “Surely you remember how delightful our party became after the Lady joined us? No?” He arched his brows in exaggerated dismay. “Perhaps you met Eric there?”

  Loki recognized that only some supreme act of self-will kept Mist from charging him like a child with his first ax. He raised his finger to his lips before she could spit out an appropriate insult.

  “What else do you remember, little Valkyrie?” He asked. “Did you ever get the sense that perhaps you were being left out of the game?”

  “If you think you won more than this single skirmish because Freya couldn’t hold a physical shape—“

  “Did I win?” Loki asked. “Of course, or Freya would be here, and I would not. But Odin’s messenger shouldn’t be here at all. Do you suppose that Odin has grown tired of Freya’s failures and sent another ambassador in her place?”

  Mist clearly refused to be shaken by his barrage of questions. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. “You didn’t know about the raven, either, or you would have gone after it long ago.”

  “Oh, but I did expect a raven to turn up eventually. And here it is, just as predicted.”

  Anna pressed forward, her mouth open to speak, but Mist pushed her back again. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “Just as you choose. I wonder … has it spoken to you?”

  ”Why? Did you expect a transcription?”

  Which means no, Loki thought. The bird had obviously known where to find her, but had left its purpose a mystery to both of them.

  “It might amuse you to know that this woman you protect insists that our fine-feathered friend is a parrot,” Loki said. “One that has been in her family for decades, brought to the United States from Norway.”

  “Do you see me laughing?”

  “We used to laugh together,” Loki said gently. “Don’t you remember?”

  “It’s not a time in my life I look back on with any fondness.”

  Loki clucked his tongue. “You’ll give Anna a false impression of our relationship.” He looked past Mist’s shoulder. “Ah, Anna. We could have had a much more pleasant experience if you had only cooperated.”

  “Stup ir,” Anna spat.

  Loki ignored her. The recovering Jotunar gathered behind him.

  “You’ve come on a fruitless errand,” Loki said, dropping his cordial tone. “The woman is closely connected to the bird, and she may be injured in a fight. Don’t make me take her from you.”

  “Go ahead and try it.”

  “Your mother can do nothing to help you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want her help.”

  “Perhaps that is wise, lover-of-mine. Either way, you are entirely on your own.”

  10

  Mist weighed the odds as she waited for the right moment to call in the troops.

  She could easily see that Laufeyson wasn’t at his full strength, though he was preening and sneering and doing everything he could to hide that disadvantage from her. He was obviously trying to rattle her with his prattle about Freya and the fight in his apartment and how much she remembered of it.

  And he was coming close to succeeding. She knew she had to focus on the moment, not on his insinuations about Freya.

  She had no idea what Loki had meant about expecting a raven to turn up “eventually,” or why he claimed that this young woman—Anna—believed the bird was a parrot. But Mist sensed that Loki had been working hard at something besides hunting the raven, and she intended to make him waste as much of his remaining magical energy as possible.

  And since he still seemed to believe she couldn’t be any real threat to him without her mother’s help, she’d hold off on using anything other than the most basic Galdr until the last possible moment.

  “Not entirely alone,” she said. “You have these Jotunar, but I also have my allies.”

  “I was informed about the arrival of the other Valkyrie bitch,” he said, “but it seems she has come without her Treasure.”

  “What makes you think we need it?” Mist grinned at the Jotunar. “From the looks of these fools, all we need is a cereal box for a shield and a couple of toothpicks for swords and spears.”

  The biggest and obviously most dominant of the Jotunar growled and lunged toward her. Loki threw out an arm to hold the giant back.

  “Is Dainn with you?” he asked.

  “Right outside with the others.”

  She was lying, of course, but Loki didn’t seem to know it. His eyes flared red with either rage or lust. Mist didn’t want to know which.

  “You should let him come in,” Loki said, baring his impossibly white teeth. “I would like to apologize for my inconsiderate treatment of him when we last spent time together.”

  “I don’t think Dainn has any interest in hearing your apologies.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  “You lie the way most people breathe. You’re scared shitless, and you have reason to be.”

  It was always a safe bet that pricking at Loki’s pride would make him reckless. He sent his Jotunar to attack.

  They didn’t get far. The broken door burst inward behind Mist and Anna. Bunny, Tennessee, and Rick rushed into the shop, slamming into the giants before they could reach Mist.

  It was an unequal contest: even without magic, the giants were bigger and heavier than the Einherjar. Slender Bunny, in particular, was at a disadvantage.

  Even so, the Jotunar hadn’t yet recovered from the side effects of Loki’s spells, and were moving at a slower pace. The Einherjar managed to dodge the worst of the blows, giving Mist a little more time.

  She shoved Anna out the door, where Bryn grabbed her and hustled her out of the line of fire. Rick went flying, tossed across the room by the lead Jotunn. Another giant created a spear like a giant, needle-sharp icicle and hurled it straight at Bunny.

  It was Edvard who intercepted it—Edvard, one of the Einherjar she’d barely met, who suddenly seemed much larger and faster than he had been when Bryn and the others had gathered at the loft. She swung Kettlingr at the third Jotunn. The giant’s fist, mailed in a thick glove of ice, hurtled toward her face. Tennessee caught the giant’s arm and struggled to hold it back, bracing his feet as the Jotunn pushed his weight against the biker.

  The raven streaked through the broken door and stabbed his beak into the giant’s face just as the Jotunn prepared to smash Tennessee to a pulp. The giant knocked Tennessee away and snatched at the bird’s wing. Blunt fingers slipped on midnight feathers and grasped at the raven’s tail.

&n
bsp; Loki, who had stood back during the fight, called up nearly invisible Merkstaves, strung them out as if he were spinning wool, and shaped a net just the right size and shape to catch and hold a large and powerful bird. Mist charged the giant who held the raven in his grip, cutting toward his legs. He leaped back and swung the raven toward Loki by its tail.

  Mist knew she couldn’t avoid using her magic now. The thrum of a motorcycle engine outside told her that Bryn was taking Anna to safety; all Mist had to do was save the raven and get the Einherjar out alive.

  In a handful of seconds she had considered and discarded all other options but one. Her forge-magic had been less than cooperative when she’d used it against the captive Jotunn she’d left tied up at the loft, but she tried again, calling up Runes of fire and imagining Kettlingr as a hammer, striking hard against the anvil of the earth, cracking wood and concrete, sending jagged fragments flying up to fall again in a deadly hail that would strike her enemies down. She plunged the sword into the floor.

  A great jolt nearly bounced her off her feet. The ground rippled. Loki’s barrier of fused glass shattered, falling to a pile of shards on the floor. Mist lost her balance and slammed against the wall. It vibrated madly under her shoulder.

  A band of fire tightened around her wrist, making her gasp. Her tattoo was burning like acid into her skin, ravens and wolves attacking with vicious teeth and beaks of iron..

  The ground gave one final heave, and suddenly the world went utterly still. Rick and Tennessee lay on the floor, bloodied and breathing hard but still alive. Bunny was crouched in the doorway. There was no sign of Edvard, the raven, Loki, or the Jotunar.

  The savage pain in Mist’s wrist began to fade. She pushed away from the wall and yanked Kettlingr from the ground. It came out clean, as if she had just honed and polished it to the finest sheen.

  Gripping it in her right hand, she reached down to Rick with her left and hauled him to his feet. Tennessee groaned, tried to rise, and sank down again. Bunny, scratched but otherwise whole, knelt beside him.