Hel whipped aside the bottom of her dress to show her legs: merely bone now, with blue-gray flesh still clinging in some places, held together by only a few tendons and a lot of magic.
Angrboda stared. That was all she could do.
“I can still feel them, you know. And your salves worked well,” said Hel snidely, covering her legs again with a flourish. “Unfortunately, I no longer had access to them.”
“Hel, I’m . . . I’m so sorry. But you must listen to me. I’ve finally managed to travel again, and this—you’re the first person I wanted to see.” Angrboda attempted to steady herself under her daughter’s cruel gaze and continued. “They killed me that night. The night—the night you and your brothers were taken from me—but I didn’t die. But I also couldn’t fight back, and Odin made me see how it’s all going to end. The gods, the giants, and all the worlds. Ragnarok—”
“Aye, I know of Ragnarok. I see more than you’d think down here. I know of fate, as do Frigg and Freyja and the Norns. You’re not special to the gods because you can access this dangerous knowledge—you’re only the most disposable to Odin. How many more times are you going to let the Aesir kill you, Mother, before you realize that?”
Angrboda clenched her teeth. “Why do you mock me so?”
“Because I see right through you,” Hel sneered, stepping down from the dais. “You, the wise old witch in the woods, doing no harm so that no harm will come to you. You forget that your enemies strike first, and they strike harder, and they do not give you the same respect that you give them.”
“Hel—”
Hel circled her like a predator, her bone feet making an unnatural click-clack sound on the stone floor. “Soon it will begin. And what will you do? Head back to your cave to wait out the end, when all the worlds go up in Surt’s flame? You’re nothing but a coward.”
“You’re not listening to me,” Angrboda said. “I’ve not been idle this entire time. I’ve been trying to come up with a way to save you. I can save you.”
“There you go, meddling again, Mother. Have you forgotten what happened the last time you tried to ‘save’ me?” Hel gestured at her covered legs. “I want none of it. I—”
Suddenly she let out a shallow breath and stumbled, clutching her chest.
“Hel?” Angrboda said worriedly, stepping toward her.
“Leave me be,” Hel snarled. She stalked back to her chair and sat down heavily, hunched over, pain and anger in her eyes. Her hand was still at her chest as she ground out, “Don’t you understand? I don’t want your help. I don’t want you.”
Angrboda took out the wolf figurine—somehow tangible, somehow every bit as real as Hel herself—and held it out to her. Hel stared at it, and her expression faltered, began to crumple just the slightest bit.
“Come to me when the end begins,” Angrboda whispered. “When your father comes to you, come to me. I’ll protect you, I swear it. You may have rejected me as your mother, but you are still my daughter.”
Hel’s mask of hatred was back up in an instant. “You have no daughter, witch, and I have no father. Begone. And take that worthless piece of wood with you.”
No longer able to bear looking upon her daughter’s twisted face, Angrboda closed her eyes and let herself float away, grasping for that deepest part of Yggdrasil—narrowly avoiding the dragon Nidhogg as it chewed the Tree’s root, snapping at her as she went past—and following it up and up—
And then down again. Something—or someone—had sensed her presence through the Tree and was dragging her back. Angrboda’s heart leapt for a moment at the thought that her daughter had perhaps experienced a sudden change of mind, but then she realized she was on the opposite side of Hel’s realm now.
Why am I here? She turned to look over her shoulder at the runes carved into the doorframe: this is the eastern gate and is dedicated to my mother.
Oh, Hel . . . Angrboda’s incorporeal stomach twisted as she looked around, hopeful.
But Hel herself was nowhere to be found.
Who would summon me to my own grave?
Suddenly she noticed movement in the distance. Barreling through the fields of shuffling dead, a solid figure was coming straight toward her, astride the oddest of horses.
Angrboda stood her ground and waited for the horse and rider to approach. When they were mere feet away from her, they stopped, and Angrboda recognized Sleipnir, the eight-legged horse her husband had birthed an age ago.
She took a step forward and raised a hand as if to approach the creature, but Sleipnir had grown large and fierce and did not know her. The man upon his back raised his head, and one icy blue eye stared down at her from beneath his broad-brimmed hat.
Here we go again, Angrboda thought with an inward sigh.
The feeling seemed to be mutual. “They said a wisewoman was buried here.” He looked at the inscription on the doorframe and said, “Most think you died that night. Your daughter included. Perhaps I should have known.”
My daughter knows the truth of things now, Angrboda thought, but she said nothing and put on her blankest face. It also occurred to her that Freyja couldn’t have told him already that Angrboda was alive—the woman had just left her in the cave, after all. So how did he find me?
The answer was simple, she realized: She’d used Yggdrasil to travel, and Yggdrasil was his. No wonder he’d noticed her immediately once she started using seid again.
She looked at him, feigning confusion, and said, “What man is that who’s summoned me here?” Again, she wanted to add. “A difficult road I have traveled to come to this place, and I’ve been dead a long, long time.”
“Dead you are, many times over, and yet I’ve raised you again, for I have need of what you know. I am Vegtam, the wanderer.”
Angrboda very nearly rolled her eyes at this false name, but she kept her expression the same.
“Vegtam” pulled back on Sleipnir’s reins and commanded, “Tell me—for whom is Hel’s hall so decorated? Whom is she to welcome?”
Hel hadn’t answered Angrboda’s same question, but suddenly Angrboda remembered what her daughter had said: “I see more than you’d think down here. I know of fate.”
Suddenly she knew whom Hel was expecting.
“Despair, Vegtam,” she said, her head whipping toward him, her face blank once again, “for Hel has brewed her mead for Baldur, son of Odin, who shall be slain by a sprig of mistletoe. And now I’ve told you too much, and I shall be silent.”
“Do not be silent. Who will be his killer? Who will slay Odin’s son, truly?”
Why is he asking me again, when I’ve already told him? Does he think the answer will change, or does he think there’s more to know, more to Baldur’s death than simply being pierced by a mistletoe dart?
“Baldur’s blind brother, Hod,” she said, recalling her vision, “who will in turn be slain by Baldur’s avenger. I’ve told you this before, and more besides.”
“You will tell me the details of his death. You will tell me all, so I can do him justice.”
“Justice,” she said, her chapped lips forming a cruel smile, “will be served when your son enters my daughter’s hall, Odin All-father.”
“You are no wisewoman and no prophetess, Angrboda Iron-witch, mother of monsters,” said Odin frostily, pulling the reins to turn Sleipnir around.
“A false man visiting a false grave you may be,” Angrboda shot back, “but the only truth here is in my words.”
She felt his hold on her loosen and she began to drag herself up and away. Before he could say anything in response, she grinned cruelly and said, “And beware—your own doom is fast approaching.”
She awoke in her body then, with the wolf figurine still clutched in her hand, her mind reeling with emotions: grim satisfaction that she’d finally gotten the last word in a confrontation with Odin, and horrible guilt as she recalled ev
ery single sentence Hel had uttered to her.
She sagged against the she-wolf and held the figurine to her chest.
I will make this up to you. I swear it.
And I’ll do it by making sure you survive Ragnarok.
* * *
• • •
It took Angrboda some time to recover her bearings after that. The next thing she wanted to try was to reach out to her sons, but the thought of things going the same way as they had with her daughter was more than she could bear.
Nevertheless, she attempted it anyway. She sank down and reached for Yggdrasil, used the Great Tree to observe the hidden places of the worlds one by one, jumping back to her body every time she felt the slightest hint of Odin’s presence—but thankfully he didn’t seek her out again. In her mind she called out to her boys, but she heard nothing, saw nothing. Wherever they were—Jormungand at the deepest part of the vast ocean, Fenrir bound somewhere unknown—they were out of her reach.
She desperately hoped she would see them once more before they perished. Did they know what was to come? Had they accepted their fates, or should she be doing more for them? She didn’t have an answer for these questions—and even if they survived the battle, even if their fates could be changed, she doubted her shield would be large or strong enough to protect both a wolf as tall as the sky and a serpent big enough to encircle a world.
As the days passed, she worked even harder on perfecting her shield—now she could protect her entire arm for several minutes—but found she was running into trouble. It had seemed so easy to sink down, go back to that void where she could feel the power flowing and tap into it. Use it for her shield.
But in reality, whenever she got close to the edge as she had before, she found herself hesitating. The power pulsed and hummed and beckoned her, and she found herself wondering if, this time, she wouldn’t come back from it.
She’d almost been lost during those nine days and nine nights tied to the tree, hovering in the safety of that space between life and death. And Freyja had pushed her only far enough to skim the surface; Angrboda had been able to come back on her own. The farthest down she’d gone was when Odin had pushed her, his own knowledge of seid like a fishing line, ready to pull her back once she’d found out what he needed to know.
The power she sought lay deeper in that void than she’d ever been. What if she couldn’t pull herself back up? That thought frightened her beyond all else. So she decided that she would venture there only as a last resort.
I am Angrboda Iron-witch, she thought. The Old One, Mother Witch, who birthed the wolves who chased the sun and moon. Former wife to Loki and mother of both the ruler of the dead and the two creatures of chaos destined to bring about the doom of the very beings who ruined our lives.
I can do this on my own.
* * *
• • •
Mere days later, the gods caught up with her again—this time in the form of two enormous black ravens. The birds fluttered to a dramatic stop on a branch just ahead of Angrboda and the she-wolf, blocking their passage.
“You,” said one. “Witch.”
“The Aesir require your assistance,” said the other.
The she-wolf growled at them, but Angrboda sighed the long-suffering sigh of someone who had been burned, stabbed, killed, betrayed, hassled for information, woken up, and otherwise continuously bothered by the very same group of people who had stolen her children away from her in the night. Will they never leave me alone?
If the gods are so great, what do they need me for?
“I didn’t know that Odin sent his ravens out to disperse information,” Angrboda said to the birds, who were named Hugin and Munin, Thought and Memory. They flew around the Nine Worlds each day before returning to tell their master all they’d seen. “I was under the impression that your job was quite the opposite.”
“A favor,” said Hugin, “for one whose death you yourself foretold.”
Angrboda hesitated. “Is it Baldur?”
Munin bobbed its head, confirming her suspicion.
Hugin said, “And it was by your husband’s own hand that Baldur was slain.”
“I have no husband,” said Angrboda, as she had said to Skadi before, but she paused. “Wait—Loki killed Baldur?” That’s not what I foresaw—his brother Hod killed him. Not Loki.
Her brow furrowed. I saw . . . I saw Hod shoot the mistletoe into Baldur’s heart.
But Hod is blind.
Which means that someone must’ve guided his hand.
“How did this happen?” Angrboda asked.
“Odin’s son had been dreaming of his own demise, and his mother, Frigg, made everything in all the worlds swear not to harm him,” said Munin.
“All but a young sprig of mistletoe, which Loki the Deceiver sharpened into a dart for Hod to use to slay his brother,” said Hugin.
Odin knew about the mistletoe, Angrboda thought. If he truly wished to prevent Baldur’s death, he would’ve warned Frigg to take extra care.
But something still wasn’t adding up. She herself hadn’t known that Loki would be the one to slay Baldur, so how could Odin have known? Was Loki being framed? Punished for a crime he did not commit?
Angrboda’s eyes narrowed. “You lie. Loki is many things, aye—but a murderer?”
“You must do a favor for an innocent,” Hugin added, like it hadn’t heard her.
Angrboda sighed again. That’s what I get for arguing with birds, I suppose. “What exactly do they need my assistance with?”
“Pushing his pyre into the water,” said Hugin. “The ship will not budge. Not even Thor can move it. The Aesir fear it’s bewitched.”
“Your safety is guaranteed,” Munin finished.
“With us, Hyrrokkin,” said the ravens together, and they fluttered ahead to the next branch and turned around to look at her as if bidding her to follow.
Angrboda arched her eyebrows and turned to the she-wolf. “Hyrrokkin. You hear that? ‘Fire-smoked.’ That’s a new one, that is.”
In response, her companion made a sound disturbingly close to a snort of derision. We’re not really going to do this, are we?
“Well, I’ve no desire to set foot in Asgard ever again, or do the gods any favors. But I can’t deny I’m tempted to heed this summons.”
The she-wolf looked skeptical. Why? I have a distinct feeling that you were their last resort . . .
“For my own selfish reasons,” Angrboda said, stowing the wagon behind a cluster of trees. When it was sufficiently hidden, she stuck her walking stick in the she-wolf’s mouth, where it promptly transformed into reins. “To see how Odin feels to have his most cherished son taken from him. To watch him grieve with my own two eyes, after all he’s done to me.”
But he knew it was coming, and he didn’t prevent it, the she-wolf pointed out.
“That doesn’t mean he’s not grieving.” Angrboda pulled herself onto the she-wolf’s back. “Besides, how often do you get to attend the funeral of a god?”
* * *
• • •
They followed the ravens out of the forest and to a rocky, crowded beach, where there was assembled the most diverse group Angrboda had yet seen in the Nine Worlds: the Aesir, the Vanir, light elves and dark elves, dwarfs, trolls, Odin’s valkyries and einherjar—his slain warriors—and even some giants she’d seen before. Angrboda pulled her hood lower over her face so none would recognize her. If it was truly a spell keeping Baldur’s funeral pyre from moving, she’d need all the strength she could muster to break it, and she didn’t feel the need to waste her energy glamouring herself into an old woman when a hood would do just as well.
The assembly parted for the witch and the she-wolf as though they were lepers. The two of them rode right up to the beach, where a massive ship sat, half in the sand and half in the water. A few of the Aesir and one of the trolls we
re hanging back from it, doubled over and breathless. Thor was among them, seeming furious.
The witch dismounted the wolf and took the reins from the animal’s mouth; they instantly turned back into a walking stick, which Angrboda used to brace her steps on the dark sand as it shifted beneath her feet.
She was just moving toward the ship when she heard her companion snarl from behind her—and she whirled around to see that two of Odin’s berserkers had crossed spears between her and the she-wolf, and two more berserkers had spears pointed directly at the creature’s throat.
“That is unnecessary,” Angrboda said coldly to them, her hood still hiding her face.
The berserkers did not move an inch.
I’m fine, the she-wolf said. Just hurry up and do what they wish, so that we might leave.
So Angrboda walked up to the ship, and Thor stepped back, scowling. He looked to his father, and then Angrboda looked past him and saw Odin: dressed not in the heavy traveling cloak and hat in which she usually saw him, but rather now in the finery befitting the highest of the gods. He was staring her down with his one eye, and she could see the sorrow there, though she could not bring herself to feel sorry for him.
Next to him stood a woman Angrboda barely recognized from her time in Asgard—his wife, Frigg, dressed in the finest clothes she’d ever seen, with her dark hair elaborately plaited, her face tearstained, her raw grief laid bare.
She saw Frey, Freyja, and Tyr as well, all looking mournful. Angrboda did not feel sorry for them, either.
With one of her hands hovering a few inches away from the ship, Angrboda lifted her head such that her features were distinguishable only from Odin’s angle. She arched her eyebrows, questioning. He nodded.
She reached toward the ship and immediately felt the spell beneath her fingertips, saw the runes carved upon the prow, and knew that it was he who had cast it.
Her head whipped around to face Odin. “What trickery is this?” she hissed.
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