by Eva Chase
A fierce cry and an ominous sounding thump carried through Valhalla’s walls. My pulse hiccupped. All of us raced for the main doors in an instant, Loki speeding past the rest of us on his shoes of flight.
On the field that stretched between Valhalla and the forested fringe of the realm, Freya was flinging streaks of her magic, bright as her golden hair, at a group of lurching figures. As I pushed myself off the ground and flapped my wings to join the fight even faster, a putrid mildew-y stink filled my nose. The graying skin and bloated faces of her attackers confirmed my initial impression: They were draugr. Zombies who’d once been people like me.
My stomach lurched, but I whipped out my switchblade. They weren’t human anymore. They weren’t even really alive.
Loki gave a shout, and two of the undead forms burst into flames.
“We should come at them together!” Baldur called from somewhere at my other side.
A swatch of shadow had already toppled one of the others. Freya drew her sword and sliced the head off another. Jolted along by my surprise and fear, a bolt of lightning seared from my switchblade and blasted into the fifth. Thor’s hammer smashed into the last of them a moment later.
I dropped to the ground near the scattered bodies, my chest heaving to catch my breath. Nothing else moved on the field beyond them.
Freya bent to tug something out of one of the fallen draugr’s grasp. She held it up. It was a boxy metal device with an eerie red glow emanating from a sphere of glass at its center.
“I smelled them before I saw them,” she said. “But it’s a good thing I was nearby. This is dark elf work. There was one of the dirt-eaters with the pack of them, but he ran off as soon as he saw me coming.” She turned the device in her hand. “If I’m getting the right sense of this, one push of this button and the contraption would explode. They were heading for Valhalla.”
A chill crept up my spine. The rest of us had been in Valhalla—had they known that and meant to kill us? Or had they simply been trying to cut off one of our main avenues into Surt’s world?
“How did they reach this realm in the first place?” Loki said. “Let’s see if we can’t scrounge up that dark elf to tell us.”
He darted forward, and the rest of us hurried after him. We didn’t end up going far. Several feet from the edge of the forest, he stopped by a scorch mark that had blackened a strip of grass. A smoky smell rose off it. He prodded the burnt area with his toe.
Hod came up beside him and inclined his head. “What’s the story of how Surt brought his army to Asgard during Ragnarok? Didn’t he open a bridge of his own, one of fire?”
“He did,” Thor said, his deep voice unusually subdued.
“Why did he only send seven people up here?” I said. “He couldn’t really have thought he’d take us down with a little squad like that, could he?”
Odin’s low voice carried from behind me. “It was a feint,” he said. “He might have hoped they’d do some damage, but that wasn’t the main purpose. The main purpose was testing how swiftly we’d react.”
Loki grimaced. “And no doubt the dark elf that brought the draugr is reporting back to him right now.”
“We fought them off,” Baldur said, but with a hint of hesitation.
“You didn’t use your combined power,” Odin said. “The moment of a real fight, and you all reacted on your own.”
“There was barely time,” Hod started, and his father spun toward him with a singular glower.
“How much time do you expect Surt to give you? If we want to save this realm and Midgard, there’s no more time for chatter. You should get back to your practice. We must be ready for our enemies.” The Allfather cast one last look toward the scorch mark. “Foul giant.”
I thought I saw Loki wince. But even I couldn’t deny that we hadn’t been completely ready for this tiny battle. I waved my switchblade with a crooked smile. “Time to bring out more targets?”
8
Thor
The sun had sunk almost to the distant treetops when I finished the last round of my patrol around the city. We couldn’t know when Surt might make another attempt to breach our defenses. We had to be on guard now more than ever.
I found myself walking toward my father’s hall rather than my own. All that time in Muninn’s prison had brought up thoughts I hadn’t considered in a long time. I’d tried to put them aside, but some of Odin’s comments about Surt had stirred them up again. Maybe he could help set those thoughts to rest as well.
The hall was quiet, no one visible from the foyer. “Father?” I called out. He’d said he was going to survey the realms from his high seat—he might still be up there.
I swung my hammer as I waited to see if he’d come, taking reassurance from the heft of Mjolnir in my hand. It was strange to think I relied so much on this weapon the dark elves had crafted, when they’d been the ones most frequently toppled by it in the last few weeks. And now they were leaving bombs on our doorstep.
Maybe Ari was right—maybe we should dig deeper into why. It certainly couldn’t hurt to know more.
That principle was why I was here right now.
My stomach grumbled, reminding me that it had been several hours since lunch and at least two since my ample mid-afternoon snack. I’d almost made up my mind to leave and stop by again after I’d refilled my stomach when a faint creaking drifted from deeper within the hall. Odin must be descending the ladder that led to his upper floor.
He appeared in the hallway a moment later, his weathered face weary but his posture still straight. His spear gleamed in his hand, not quite touching the floor as he strode toward me.
“You wanted to speak to me, my son?” he said, his tone unreadable.
“If I’m interrupting you…” I started.
He waved his hand dismissively before I could continue. “A small break will do me good. A bit of rest for this overworked eye.” The arch of his eyebrow seemed to say that he didn’t really think he needed rest at all. He motioned me toward one of the side rooms. “Did you uncover something in your rounds?”
“No,” I said. “All looks normal, except for that burn where Surt’s bridge must have touched our land.”
Odin nodded. “I hadn’t realized he might summon that type of fire on his own. With the chaos during Ragnarok, I never determined exactly how it had been formed—I assumed there was other effort involved.”
My gut clenched at that idea. “Maybe there was again.”
“I think not.” The Allfather sat himself down on one of his fine wooden chairs and motioned me to another nearby. “I may not be able to watch everything at all times, but I haven’t seen him associating with any allies of that stature. Only the dark elves and the riffraff he’s gathered from Muspelheim. What matter did you wish to bring to my attention, then?”
“I only wondered…” I shifted on the chair, not sure how to proceed. “It may seem out of the blue, but I think it’s time. We’ve never really talked about my mother.”
Odin paused in the middle of adjusting his grip on the spear. He peered at me with his single brown eye for a long moment. “Did Muninn show you something distressing in that prison of hers?”
“No,” I said. “I simply—I know she was a giantess. I have some kind of connection to Jotunheim. I thought, if I understood that better, perhaps it could help in defeating Surt.” And in simply feeling more at peace with who I was, although I wasn’t sure my father would see that as worthy reasoning. If Thor the Thunderer didn’t know who he was by now, what could help me?
Odin let out a huff of breath. “There’s nothing to be gained in speaking of her. It was a moment of ill-judgment on my part—although I have always been pleased with the result.” He tipped his head to me. “I removed you from the giants’ grasp the moment you were born. You are all mine and not at all theirs, down to your nature. I’ve had all the time in the world to observe it.”
Those words didn’t comfort me the way they might have once. I pushed onward. “Ther
e are still things I’d like to know. How did you come to, ah, meet her? What family was she of? Did—”
“Enough.” Odin held up his hand, a definitive end to the conversation. He heaved himself back onto his feet. “You left that part of your life behind almost from the instant your life began. Leave it where it belongs. These are a people who can barely see two feet beyond their lusts and rages, other than those rare exceptions like Loki. We won’t glean anything from them when they can barely glean anything of themselves. I should return to my searching.”
He headed off toward the room that led to his high seat at a pace that offered no room for compromise. This was obviously a subject he had no intention of speaking on.
I frowned as I let him go. That remark about Loki brought back all the things the trickster had shown us in Muninn’s construct of the room at the top of Odin’s hall. The things my father had held his silence about for so very long. How many other secrets was he keeping?
But now didn’t feel like the time for attempting to pry them loose. Not when Surt was sending his rotting army right to our back door. And I couldn’t say Odin was wrong about the giants. By Hel, we’d been able to fool them into taking me for Freya with nothing but an ill-fitting dress and a veil that barely hid the battle fury in my eyes. By all evidence, most giants only saw what they wanted to see.
That fact settled deeper into my mind as I left the Allfather’s hall. We’d deceived the giants so many times in the past. I wasn’t sure we could trick Surt very easily—for him to have captured my father at all, he was clearly one of the sharper ones. But his kin back in Jotunheim… How might they play into this war?
Freya was just coming out of her hall a little farther into the city. She glanced at me and then past me to where I’d come from, and ambled over to join me.
“Did you talk to him?” she asked.
“Briefly,” I said. “He was in a hurry to get back to his seat.”
She hummed and sucked in her lower lip. “How did he seem to you?”
How could I answer that? The Allfather might have been my literal father, but his moods had always been nearly impenetrable to me. He kept his own counsel—that much had always been true.
“Concerned, but not overly so,” I said, taking my best stab at answering. “A little tired. Impatient, but then, that’s hardly unusual.”
“He has all the patience in the world for his questing,” she muttered, but there wasn’t much rancor in her voice. “He’s been quieter than usual even with me since we returned. I don’t know how concerned I should be.”
I didn’t remember the goddess ever confiding that much to me before. Which suggested she was at least twice as worried as she was admitting.
“He’s been through a lot,” I said. “And there’s a lot we still have to face. It’d be strange if he seemed completely normal.”
“I know.”
I hesitated and then offered the only comment I could think of that might make her feel better. “I’m concerned about him too. We’re all keeping an eye on him.”
“Some of us with different motives,” she said with a hint of tartness. I wondered who she was talking about, but her expression had softened at the same time. “I suppose we’ll see our way through this as we have so much else.”
Before I could think of anything reasonably articulate to say in response, the smell of roasting meat wafted past my nose. An answering gurgle sounded in my belly. I was turning toward the scent before I’d even realized I was moving.
Freya laughed. “Let’s see what we can ferret out for dinner, shall we?”
The savory smoky smell led us to Baldur’s gleaming white hall. Around the back of it, we found him and Hod and Ari standing around a fire pit. A pig’s carcass hung on a spit over the flames, its flesh browned and sizzling.
“It appears you have more than you can chew here,” I said as I joined them.
Hod turned his head toward my voice. “Why am I not surprised that you showed up the moment the meal was ready?” he said with a smile.
"You know me too well."
"Just be sure you leave some for the rest of us."
"Ah, I don't believe I've ever downed more than half a roast pig in one meal."
I aimed a wink Ari's way. She grinned, but her expression looked a bit tight.
She'd taken on so much since we'd returned—and really before that too. All her solitary patrols of Muspelheim, having to contend with that raven woman and the other threats there on her own... I bristled instinctively, thinking about it.
Baldur moved to adjust the spit and check the meat, and I came to stand beside Ari, resting my hand on her shoulder with a gentle squeeze. She set her hand over mine. The simple sensation of her thumb tracing over the back of my hand sent a bolt of desire through me.
I kept those impulses in check, just enjoying the warmth of her touch. There’d be time to enjoy more with her, if she wanted, after other appetites were sated.
Hod had joined Baldur by the fire. He nudged his twin companionably as they discussed the state of the roast: Baldur going by sight and Hod by smell. Baldur's face lit up with a laugh.
When was the last time I'd seen them look so easy with each other? Definitely not since the mistletoe catastrophe. There'd always been a thread of tension between them from the moment of our rebirth. And if I'd picked up on it, then it hadn't been exactly subtle.
Now, despite this morning's attack, they appeared relaxed. Comfortable with each other.
My heart swelled with fondness. My brothers deserved that happiness after the struggles they'd been through.
Ari leaned over to kiss my knuckles. I couldn't resist drawing her chin up to kiss her properly. Her soft lips parted against mine, and right then I couldn’t imagine how this place had felt complete without her.
She beamed at me, looking more relaxed herself at least for the moment, and went to grab the plates from the stone table nearby. "Isn't it about time we get carving that up? I'm starving."
"Let me," I said, moving forward. Baldur stepped aside with an amused expression and handed me the knife.
"Maybe you should take your portion last," he said teasingly. I couldn't remember the last time he'd poked fun either. Yes, we'd come through Muninn's tortures stronger.
"That's just asking him to eat everything that's left," Hod said with a laugh.
"We do need to keep our Thunderer well-fueled," Freya said, patting my arm.
I mock-glowered at them and dug the blade through the crackling skin. Juice seeped out to hiss in the fire, the sharper scent making my mouth water.
The pig tasted even better than it smelled, I discovered a few minutes later when I got to dig into the haunch I’d claimed. The flesh was just the right mix of chewy and tender, with a smoky flavor laced through the near-sweetness of the pork. I was about to go for a second helping when a tall slender figure with hair as bright as the flames in the fire pit emerged from the dusk.
“Well,” Loki said, with a smile that looked as if it’d been cut into his face by a blunt knife. He came to a stop at the edge of our circle. “What a fine dinner I wasn’t invited to.”
Hod set down the plate he’d been holding. “Oh, don’t sulk,” he said mildly. “We are allowed to occasionally keep things in the family.”
Loki’s smile turned even stiffer. “The family,” he repeated.
Ari swatted Hod’s arm and motioned Loki over. “I don’t think any formal invitations went out. Everyone just showed up.”
“There’s plenty more,” I said, moving to the roast like I’d planned to anyway. The last thing we needed was the trickster in a mood. “I’ll carve you a slice.”
A minute later, Loki had a plate with a fine cut of pork on it. He considered it with a vaguely dissatisfied expression. I had no idea what the Sly One wanted now, so I just worked on chopping myself off the other haunch.
“After this morning’s brief adventure, I think we need to talk strategy,” Loki said. He started to pace around th
e fire pit. “Surt is getting bold. He must be close to ready to launch his full attack. Just barreling in there with our unified powers isn’t likely to win the day.”
“I assume you’ve come with your own ideas on that front,” Freya said.
Loki gave her only the briefest nod of acknowledgment before barreling on with even more frenetic energy than he usually showed. “We need to step up our efforts to close off the gates to Midgard. Regardless of the dark elves’ motives, which it may do us well to uncover, humankind is too vulnerable for them to have free access. Muninn may also be key, if we can contrive a way to capture her.”
The beginnings of the idea that had been forming in my head earlier rose up. I lowered the carving knife. “There’s also—When it comes to giants—”
Loki brushed me off with a flick of his hand. “Yes, yes, we know Surt is a giant. I have plenty of experience to draw on. We’re well covered in that department.”
“No,” I said, a little more firmly. “I don’t mean that. I was thinking about the time we faced Thrym and—”
“Come on now, Thunderer,” Loki said. “This really isn’t the time for reminiscing about past glories. If Surt was simply looking to marry Freya, we’d have a much easier situation on our hands. Now, when it comes to Muninn, she’s clearly shown she’s willing to talk to Ari…”
Hod jumped in to say that by no means should we be using our valkyrie as bait, and Ari argued that she could hold her own, and Freya wanted to return to the problem of sealing the gates on Midgard. No one looked to me, standing there with my half-carved haunch. An itch of frustration ran over my skin.
Why should they look to me? I wasn’t known for my scheming or my strategic prowess. They needed me to hurl my hammer on the battlefield in whatever direction they pointed me.
But there was an ache in my gut, a different sort of hunger than I’d ever felt before. What if I wanted to be more than that? Where in the realms did I even start?