by Linsey Hall
“When will I get my powers, exactly?”
“You forget yourself!” Odin bellowed.
I winced. He ran hot and cold, this one.
“I have good reason,” I said. “I must—”
“I know, I know,” he grumbled. He looked at Frigg. “What did the smoke say about this?”
“She will receive her powers when she returns Idun to our halls.”
All right. That gave me some time. Not that I would delay in rescuing Idun—I didn’t want her stuck with a kidnapper forever—but it would take me time to find her. In that time, hopefully Ana and Rowan could come up with a plan for ambushing the Rebel Gods. And it wasn’t like they would attack me while I was in the realm of the Viking gods. They were too smart for that.
“I accept the challenge,” I said.
Odin and Frigg nodded, each looking equally regal.
“Do you have any clues about where she is?” I asked.
“There is a rumor that she was taken by the son of a suitor of Greip.”
“Greip?”
“A Jötunn,” Odin said.
One of the giants. Though they weren’t always giants in the traditional huge sense, from what I’d read. They were similar to gods, but with power over the natural elements rather than people. Many were large, but not all.
“Do you know anything else about her?” I asked.
“We do not,” Odin said. “We can find no trace of her. It is like she never existed. I would consult the head of Mímir, but he has gone.”
“Mímir was the wise man who lost his head in the Vanir-Aesir war?” I asked.
“The Aesir-Vanir war,” Odin corrected. “And yes. He has been missing for over a year.”
From the stories I’d read, Mímir had lost his head in the war, but he hadn’t died. Odin had enchanted the head not to rot, and it provided wisdom to him. Without it, no wonder they had no leads on Idun’s capture.
I bowed low, feeling a bit silly but it definitely seemed like an appropriate gesture. “I will find Idun.”
“See that you do,” Odin said. “For if you fail and we gods die of old age, you may never receive all your powers.”
That would ensure the Rebel Gods wouldn’t be able to use their spell to find me, but I needed my powers to defeat them. I didn’t want to be hunted for the rest of my life.
And the last thing I wanted to be responsible for was the death of all the Viking gods. Talk about failure.
So, yeah. We’d have to find Idun.
The golden-haired woman reappeared and escorted us from the room. Odin and Frigg’s enormous magic faded as we departed the building, feeling like a weight lifting off my shoulders.
As the great golden doors shut behind us, Huginn and Muninn landed on the ground in front of us.
I looked at Cade. “Right. So we have to figure this out.”
“We’re looking for the son of a suitor of Greip.”
“Except that as far as Odin is concerned, she doesn’t exist.” I frowned. “What if she isn’t real? What if it’s a kenning?”
“A kenning?”
“I read about it in my research. It’s a poetic way of saying things for the Norse. A famous one is wound-hoe, which is a sword. A ‘son of a suitor of Greip’ could be just an obscure way to say a Jötunn. Since two Jötunn would make another Jötunn.”
“Aye, I see. So it’s not meant to point to a specific person.”
“That’s my best guess.”
“Aye. So we should go to Jötunheimr, where most of them live?”
“You read my mind.” I turned to the ravens. “Could one of you give us a ride to the entrance of Jötunheimr?”
The birds cawed, then grew twice their size. Three times. Soon, they were large enough to climb upon. I scrambled onto Huginn, and Cade climbed onto Muninn.
They took off into the air, rising high on the wind. Exhilaration filled me as the ravens flew over the city, then skimmed the treetops. They dived low and darted through a portal, appearing at the edge of Yggdrasil, high in the sky. The flight down made my stomach pitch. They flew for the roots of the tree like they were missiles plummeting downward.
I clung to them, desperate not to fall, as the wind tore at my hair and made my eyes water.
By the time we reached the bottom, I was panting, my arms aching. I tumbled off Huginn, then turned to thank him.
He cawed, pointing his beak toward a well set against the trunk of the tree. Huge boulders had tumbled around it.
The base of Yggdrasil was so wide that it was more like a cliff wall than a tree, large enough to support the formation of different mini ecosystems around it.
Like the pond where I’d sacrificed my sword, or this area of tumbled rocks.
When I looked at the well, a word flashed in my mind—Mímisbrunnr.
Huginn and Muninn took off toward the sky, flying out of sight. Their black feathers glinted in the light, and then they were gone.
I met Cade’s gaze, then pointed to the well. “They wanted us to go over there, don’t you think?”
“Aye.”
I turned and started toward it, rolling the name Mímisbrunnr around in my head.
“Any reason this well is special?” Cade asked.
It was large and ancient, the stones worn smooth with time and set close to the trunk of Yggdrasil. Huge boulders towered around it. We stopped next to the well, and I peered into the depths to see nothing but blackness.
“A name flashed in my mind earlier,” I said. “Mímisbrunnr. I think it means Mímir’s well. Which would make this his well of wisdom.”
“The one where Odin gave up his eye to drink from the waters.”
“Ah, crap. Not the eye again.” It’d been hard enough to let go of my sword. My eye would be too much.
I searched around the well, hoping for a clue of some kind. The ravens had been quite clear that we should come here. Did it have something to do with entering Jötunheimr?
Footprints in the dust caught my eye. They looked fairly fresh. But strange. One was a human footprint, the other a hoof. But they looked like they were standing together, both belonging to the same figure.
I stood up and searched the area around. The tumbled rocks around the well were large enough to hide someone.
“Hello?” I called.
No one responded, other than Cade. “Who are you calling for?”
I pointed to the footprints as I leaned against the well. “Someone was recently here.” Mímir had gone missing from Odin recently. He was supposed to be just a head, but maybe… “Mímir? Is that you?”
Silence again.
Mímir would respect wisdom and cleverness. Therefore, if it was he who was hiding, I had to be clever. How would he have gotten here?
“Mímir, I think it is you who is hiding. This is your well, is it not? And there is a strange set of footprints.”
“He has no feet,” Cade said. “Do you think he got some more?”
“No one would want to live eternally, their head carried around by a grumpy old god. So I think that Mímir found some kind of magic to give himself a body. But it went a bit awry. He has a human leg and a goat’s leg. There’s no creature in Norse myth that has that. So I think it was created. Maybe by Mímir, since we are here at his well. And he mysteriously disappeared from Odin’s grasp.” I shrugged. “Or maybe he got someone to carry him.”
“I can carry myself, thank you.” A figure stepped out from behind a rock.
As expected, he had one human leg and one goat leg. The rest of him was human, save for the left arm that was actually a wing. His face looked pasty and strained.
“You are Mímir?” I asked. “I guessed correctly?”
He inclined his head. “I cannot say I am unimpressed.”
Wow. It’d really felt like a shot in the dark, but I wasn’t about to turn down a victory. “So you did run away from Odin.”
“Of course. It took me centuries to find a way to build myself a body, but I am not called the
wisest man for nothing.”
“Yet Odin hasn’t searched for you here?” Cade asked.
I had to agree. It seemed pretty obvious.
“He has, but I avoid him. He doesn’t own me. No one does. But he kept me prisoner for years, using my knowledge for his own. He may have drunk from the well of knowledge, but I am the expert.”
Odin might be called the Allfather, but he wasn’t always paternalistic, from what I’d read. He could be quite ruthless. And this just went to prove it.
“So you’ve returned here to drink from the well,” I said. “To regain your knowledge.”
A splash sounded from inside the well, and I turned. Though I peered hard into the blackness, I saw nothing.
I turned back to Mímir to find him watching me closely. “Fish?”
“Yes.” He gave us a hard look. “Now, why are you here?”
“We are looking for Idun, and the ravens pointed us in this direction.”
“Huginn and Muninn?” he asked.
“The same. Why did they help me?”
“They are wise as well. Perhaps they saw that you are worthy. You are the Valkyrie Dragon God, are you not?”
“I am. Can you tell us anything about Idun? Have you heard about her abduction?”
“Perhaps. But you must answer a riddle first.”
I stifled a groan. “Does it have to be a riddle?”
“I’m bored. Riddles entertain me. But perhaps you can have a historical riddle. If you know your history, it will be easy to answer.”
I kind of knew my history. At least, I’d been reading up on the Vikings in every spare moment. “Fine. What is it?”
“Logi and Loki once held an eating contest. Which one was the victor?”
I definitely knew who Loki was. But Logi?
Mímir watched us with a crafty gleam in his eyes as I leaned toward Cade.
“Ever heard of Logi?” I asked.
“No.”
I looked at Mímir. “One hint. Who is Logi?”
“I can tell you, but you’ll have to tell me why your chosen one was the winner.”
“Fine.”
Mímir smiled. “Logi is a fire spirit.”
Hmmm. I looked at Cade, head spinning. “It can’t be that Logi burned all the food. That’s not eating it.”
“Loki has many tricks up his sleeve. Always. He could turn himself into a giant to eat as much as he wanted.”
“True.” But something was tugging me toward Logi. Then it clicked. “Fire consumes everything. That’s it! Loki can eat endlessly, but fire consumes everything. Logi probably ate the plate and even the table as well.”
Mímir smiled. “Well done, indeed.”
“So we succeeded? You’ll tell me what you know about the abduction of Idun and her apples?”
“I have heard that she was taken by a Jötunn. Likely to Jötunheimr. More specifically, in Utgard. The Jötunn Thjazi once took her. They have done so again, I believe.”
It confirmed what we’d interpreted from Odin’s gossip. One more thing pointing us in the direction of Jötunheimr.
“How do we get to Jötunheimr? It must be near here, because we asked the ravens to bring us to the entrance.”
“You are correct.” He pointed to the massive root that wound around the great rocks. “That root connects this plane to Jötunheimr. Step upon it, and it will carry you up.”
Well, that was weird. But I was talking to a guy who was part human, part goat, and part bird, so nothing was very normal today.
“Is there anything we should be aware of in Jötunheimr?” Cade asked.
“Everything.” The expression on Mímir’s face made me shiver. “But in particular, the cold and the ire of the giants. You should seek the palace at Utgard, but avoid the giants.”
“Utgard?” I frowned. “Does that have anything to do with the concept of utangard?”
“Indeed it does. You will be well outside of the realm of inangard. Utgard and Jötunheimr are centers of utangard.”
I grimaced. Of course this wouldn’t be easy.
Mímir gestured to the root. “Go on now. I have things to be doing.” With that, he turned and walked off.
“What’s this about utangard and inangard?” Cade asked.
“They’re the Norse concepts for safe and unsafe, essentially. Asgard is a place of inangard—so are villages and homes. They are places within the bounds of law and rightness. Utangard is the opposite. Lawless and dangerous.”
“Just our kind of place, then.”
“Exactly.” I walked up to the root that grew out of the ground. It was massive, I realized. A large flat platform that burst out of the earth and then dived back into it.
I scrambled onto it, Cade at my side. As soon as we reached the top, magic fizzled around us. Then the root burst from the earth, plunging upward.
Fear froze my skin, but I didn’t fall off the root and plummet to my death like I expected. The magic had gotten ahold of me and carried me along. Faster and faster we shot through the sky, heading for the leaves high above.
When we plunged into darkness, my head spun. I gasped, trying to get my bearings, but it was impossible when riding a magical tree root up to the top of the universe.
The ride stopped abruptly, and I tumbled off the platform. Cade rolled off along with me.
I scrambled to my feet, cold slicing through my bones, and looked upon a barren hellscape of icy misery.
9
“Ah, excellent. Just what I was hoping for.” I shivered, making a mockery of my statement.
The landscape stretching out before us was barren and gray. Snow flurried though the air, whipping past huge trees that put the giant redwoods to shame. These were the trees of giants. Not Yggdrasil—nothing was like that tree—but these were the size of New York City skyscrapers. The river to our left was massively wide, tumbling gray and icy over boulders and downed tree limbs.
“Given your explanation of utangard, it’s roughly what I would expect,” Cade said.
“Yes, though looking at the place, I wish that Mímir had recommended we go another direction to find Idun.”
“Aye, he was an odd sort.”
“Wasn’t he though?” I huddled farther into my jacket, studying the terrain. Which way to go?
A massive collection of icy boulders caught my eye. They were a couple hundred yards in the distance, but there was something strange about them.
It was as good a lead as any. “Come on.”
We hurried through the cold, keeping our strides long and our heads bowed against the wind. As we neared the boulders that towered forty feet overhead, I realized that they were mostly ice rather than rock. And they were a vaguely familiar shape.
When the icy mass moved, I stumbled backward, heart jumping. Cade went on high alert, drawing his sword. I started to, realizing too late that I’d sacrificed my sword. I drew my daggers instead, feeling woefully underprepared.
The massive creature that rose to four feet made my muscles turn to jelly.
“Oh, this is bad,” I muttered.
It was a fox. Or a wolf. Hard to tell, considering that it was made of ice and stone. Cold eyes peered at us.
I glanced at Cade and whispered, “Get ready to shift and run if you have to.”
“You’ll fly?”
I nodded, keeping one eye on the fox.
Yep—it was definitely a fox. It’d be cute, if it weren’t massive and fangy. Long icicle-like fangs extended from its mouth. Being impaled on one had to be the absolute worst way to go.
It lowered its head to sniff us, going first for me, then for Cade. Though my flight or fight reflex begged to do either of those very fine options, I held perfectly still.
The fox’s eyes might be cold, but I didn’t immediately sense danger from him. And the fight option was actually terrible. Poking this enormous ice fox with my dagger would definitely get me chomped in half.
“Who are you?” The fox’s voice was deep and strong.
So that’s what the fox says.
Except I couldn’t even laugh at my own inane joke. “I’m Bree Blackwood, the Valkyrie Dragon God.”
“I am Belatucadros,” Cade said.
The fox’s icy gaze landed on me. “You, I know.” His gaze drifted to Cade, and he sniffed him again. “You are a god. A wolf.”
“Sometimes.”
The fox huffed, his back legs shifting, and little ice chips fell off him.
“What are you doing here, tiny food?” he asked.
Ah, shit. Tiny food. That was us.
“We’re here to find Idun, the goddess with the apples of youth,” I said. “Have you seen her?”
Interest gleamed in the fox’s eyes. “I see all in this realm, and no, I have not seen her.”
Dang. “We’re trying to get to the fortress city of Utgard. We were told that she may have been abducted to that place.”
“Told by whom?” The fox licked his lips with an icy tongue.
I swallowed hard. “Mímir, the wise man.”
“Do not trust all wise men. Not all wisdom is truth.”
I didn’t know what to make of that, but it did sound smart. “Could you tell us where Utgard is?”
“Perhaps I would prefer to eat you,” the fox said. “You are tiny and bony, but would make a good snack.”
“I can see how it would seem that way.” I got ready to call upon my wings, hoping that Cade would be prepared to run. “But we’re actually very tough. Our muscles make us stringy.”
The fox looked thoughtful. “I don’t like stringy meat.”
“Who does?”
Next to me, Cade huffed a laugh so quiet I might have imagined it.
“So maybe you could tell us where to go?” I asked.
The fox sighed. “Perhaps I could. But what would you do for me in exchange?”
“What do you want?”
“I have a few things in mind.” He sat on his haunches. “But the most important one is that I would like an apple from Idun’s basket.”
“You’re ice and stone though. Could the apple really work on you?”
“Not for immortality. But it would make me stronger. The apples are immensely valuable.” Greed shined in his eyes, and suddenly, I realized that he’d been leading into this. He’d wanted the apple all along—not a tiny bony snack, as he’d said.