Dainn slammed his head against the floor. Red sparks exploded inside his skull. He rolled onto his side and lay still until the stabbing pain became a dull ache. Slowly he rose to his knees and brushed his hand through his hair, feeling it sticky with blood.
The injury would fade. Shame would ebb. Animal lust would subside, and he would once again become as sober and sexless as one of the ancient monks of the White Christ.
But none of his problems had been solved. Freya would have no patience with any hesitation or weakness on his part, and his only advantage was that she still faced certain limitations to her own powers, those posed by the rules of the game and her disembodied state. She would not be able to observe Dainn’s every action or oversee his day-to-day decisions.
Still, there could be no more mistakes. It was not only
his
future that hung in the balance. If the Lady won the game, the Aesir would be safe. His own people would live and thrive again. Midgard—the Midgard Mist wanted so much to protect—would have its chance at becoming the new world the Prophecies had foretold.
At the cost of one woman’s life. The life of one too honest, too forthright, too honorable to recognize the true extent of the web of lies he had woven around her.
And every time he touched Mist’s mind . . .
He had told her his telepathic ability was a particular talent of his, and among all the other lies that one seemed very small. He had not been certain it would work until he “spoke” to her when she fought Loki.
There had been only one other with whom he’d had such contact, aside from Freya herself. And that had come to a violent end long ago.
Sickened and weary both physically and mentally, Dainn pulled himself together enough to make certain that both the Jotunar and Vali were still asleep. He had
not
lied when he’d told Mist that he was near the end of his strength. Freya had weakened his resistance when she had tampered with the cage he had built with such care. The more he used his magic, the closer he came to—
“Dainn?”
Mist’s voice warned him just in time. He got to his feet and watched her approach with folded jeans, a plaid cotton shirt, and a pair of well-worn work boots in her arms.
“A
penningr
for your thoughts,” she said, circling around the quiescent Jotunar with hardly a glance. She came to a dead stop when she saw the blood in Dainn’s hair.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“I fell.”
“You
fell
?” Her brow creased. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Her seemingly genuine concern was so much at odds with her previous behavior that Dainn was momentarily shocked into silence.
“A moment of dizziness, no more,” he said.
“Left over from working your magic?”
“Yes.”
She continued to frown at him as she dropped the boots at her feet and brought him the bundle of clothes.
“I think these should be all right for you,” she said. “You’re about as tall as Vidarr, even if he’s twice as wide as you are. Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out you’re wearing his clothes.”
Dainn turned the bundle in his hands. “I will do my best to stay out of his way,” he said.
She leaned closer and peered at his head. “That’s quite a goose egg you’ve got under there. I’ll go get something to wash the blood off.”
“It is not necessary. Is there a place I can bathe?”
“There’s a bathroom in the bar, and Vid and Vali have rooms upstairs in the back, but obviously that’s not an option. Vid has a sink in his office. You can use that to wash up when we’ve finished here.”
“I am grateful.”
“Believe me, I’m doing this more for myself than for you.”
It was an attempt at humor, if a grudging one. Dainn gave her a brief nod, set down the clothes and began to shed his rags. Mist reddened and abruptly turned her back.
Curious. He had not expected such prudery from a Valkyrie, who saw bodies of every shape and state on the battlefield when she rode out to collect “heroes” to serve Odin in Valhalla. According to custom the Choosers of the Slain were supposed to be virgins, but Dainn knew that custom had been more honored in the breach than in the observance. Some of the Valkyrie had even married.
Mist herself had kept a lover, unaware though she had been of his true identity. Doubtless she had had others before Loki.
The image of bodies entwined filled Dainn’s imagination, reminding him how close to the brink he stood. He steadied himself and deliberately released the tension from his body. The best defense against such emotions was not to pretend they didn’t exist but to rob them of their power.
“I was not aware that Valkyrie were so modest,” he said to Mist’s back, examining the gaping waist of the jeans in his hands.
Her shoulders stiffened, and she turned around. “I thought you might like a little privacy,” she said. “But since you don’t—” She looked him up and down boldly. “Not bad for an elf.”
“You have seen many Alfar unclothed?”
“Wouldn’t touch one with a ten-foot staff.”
Dainn tugged the jeans on with some force. “And Loki? Did
his
body please you?”
“His body wasn’t—” She took a deep breath. “Loki’s body isn’t Eric’s.”
“Loki clearly found yours more than acceptable.”
The remark was stupid, childish, and entirely born of the very emotions Dainn was attempting to disarm, but Mist didn’t rise to the bait.
“Loki finds just about anyone pleasing,” she said with bitter self- mockery, “or any
thing
.”
She had no idea, of course, how effectively she struck at Dainn’s own shame. Finding his balance again, he shrugged into the shirt. It was a size too big in breadth, but Mist had provided a belt to cinch the pants at the waist. The length of both was nearly perfect. He let the shirttail hang loose to cover the flaws in fit.
Mist looked him up and down again. “Acceptable,” she said, “if a little working-class for an elf.” She nudged the boots toward him with her toe. “Try these.”
He knelt to put on the work boots. They, too, were a size too big, but they were better than the scraps he had worn on his feet for the past two days.
“Good,” Mist said. “Now all we have to do is cut your hair.”
Dainn winced. Little as she knew of elves, Mist had to be aware how much the Alfar valued their hair. His had been the only vanity he had permitted himself over the years, and he had stubbornly kept it long even when it made him more conspicuous, as it had in various places and times in the centuries following the Last Battle.
“I believe hair of this length is acceptable in the current decade,” he said, getting to his feet.
She looked very much as if she wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. Long hair hid the particular feature that marked the Alfar apart from mortals, even if it also tended to attract attention.
“You can keep it,” she conceded, “but don’t let it get in the way.” She glanced around the room, her gaze briefly settling on Vali. Odin’s son had ‘barely moved, his arms hanging loose at his side and his stubbled cheek resting flat on the tabletop.
“You put him to sleep?” she asked.
“It seemed prudent under the circumstances.”
“Then I guess we’d better get these Jotunar out of here.” She licked her lips, briefly revealing her unease. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Only let me guide you.”
“Only,” she muttered.
Dainn sat, and Mist followed suit. She faced him with legs crossed and hands resting on her knees. Dainn gave himself up to one of the many rituals he had developed to quiet his mind.
What he was about to do would require greater discipline than he had ever asked of himself—not because he might not reach deep enough into Mist’s mind, but because he might reach too far and enable her to understand, beyond any doubt, what he truly was and why he was here.
“We will begin as we did before,” he said. “But as you form the Runes in your mind, let your other thoughts drift like leaves on the wind.”
“Skip the poetry,” Mist said. “You want me to let my mind go blank, is that it?”
“As the Eastern masters do it.”
“Should I meditate on clapping with one hand?”
“Think only of the Runes. But do not concentrate too hard on the process, or you will fail.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said. She inhaled, slowly expelled the air, and closed her eyes. Dainn felt her agitation like a false note in a spell-song as she fought down her lingering suspicion and fear.
He touched her mind gently. She flinched. He reassured her by remaining on the surface, making no attempt to push, watching and waiting. Only when she had finally relaxed did he begin cautiously probing under the skin of the thoughts she could not quite suppress.
“Breathe deeply,” he said. “When you are ready, shape the Runes as you did before.”
She didn’t respond, but soon enough the staves began to appear, each one flaring bright—far brighter than before—as if it were constructed of Thor’s lightning, dazzling fire as quick as Mist’s temper. Dainn reached for the Runes, touching one after another, and Mist began to tremble.
“Be easy,”
he said silently.
“There is no danger here.”
Mist could not yet make her thoughts coherent as words, but Dainn sensed the substance of her answer.
Get on with it.
He slid a little further in, probing under the Runes and touching what lay beneath.
It was as if he had set a lit match to brittle grass in a droughtparched meadow. Mist’s unconscious will to protect her mind— which he had felt only briefly before, when she had abruptly broken their joining at the loft—burst into a conflagration, a searing barrier that stopped him in his tracks. A violent wind hurled him back, and a great wall of seamless, ice-rimed metal thrust up through the seething flames.
Stunned by the attack, Dainn began to grasp what Mist had done. All unaware, and after only two encounters with his mind, she had learned how to create mental wards stronger than Dainn had believed possible for one without experience or training.
But there was far more to this than the building of mental defenses. Mist had created hers from a perfect joining of the elements. Some of the Aesir, like Thor, could control aspects of Air. The Muspellsmegir, the giants of Muspelheim, could wield fire and never be burned. The frost giants, like Hrimgrimir, commanded the forces of snow and ice. The Alfar and Vanir were the tamers of growing things, and the Dvergar masters of metal and earth. None, save the All-father himself, laid claim to power over all, and even he could join the elements only at great cost to himself.
The cost Mist might pay was as yet unknown, but Dainn knew he might not survive to find out. He fought to hold his ground and threw up a shield against the whirlwind, singing it into retreat with melodies of the hush of dawn and still summer days. But he could do nothing about the ice and flame and metal cutting him off from light, from air, from life itself.
He changed tactics, seeking under the wood and cement beneath him for uncontaminated earth, creating from Rune and elfsong a gauntlet of densely woven vines under a skin of air only thick enough to keep it alive. He eased his spectral hand through the maelstrom, barely brushing Mist’s barriers with gentle fingertips, searching for even the smallest gap. He sang again, as all Alfar did when they made use of the Galdr.
Perthro, of Heimdall’s Aett: the mystery of hidden things, initiation, destiny. Tiwaz, of Tyr’s Aett: willingness to self- sacrifice. Kenaz, from Freya’s Aett: the torch, symbol of revelation, transformation, opening to new strength and power. Uruz, the wild ox, the Rune of transformation, the shaping of power, the discovery of the self.
But the final Rune didn’t obey his will. Mist took hold of the stave and turned it against him. Its angular, simple strokes quivered and rotated counterclockwise, Uruz reversed: lust, brutality, violence. Then the stave straightened, forming a single line with a needle point, and plunged through Dainn’s magic-born gauntlet.
Unerringly it found its mark, passing through his heart and into the battered door within its once-impenetrable forest of poison and thorn, the prison Dainn had kept intact so long. The beast awakened and began to stir, swinging its vast head from side to side in search of the one who had disturbed its sleep.
Dainn gasped, undone by the ferocity of the attack and of the primal force that boiled unrealized beneath Mist’s flesh, the unbridled strength of her unknown father and her mother’s irresistible powers of seduction and desire. She taunted the beast, tossing Dainn’s centuries of discipline aside like chaff before the wind. The creature extended its claws and raked at the wall of thorns, tearing the flesh from its massive paws. The intertwined branches began to shriek like souls lost to the Christian Hell.
In a moment the beast would be loose.
Somehow Dainn resisted, though the energy he was forced to expend seemed to feed off his bones and muscles and organs, eating him away from within. Struggling every step of the way, he drove the beast back into its prison and wove the waist-thick branches anew. With the last of his strength he regained mastery of his physical being, singing it down from the rage of its lust.
He came back to himself drenched in perspiration, every muscle quivering, Thor’s Hammer beating on the inside of his skull. His stomach cramped, and he lurched up in search of a corner where he could empty it of its scanty contents.
When he was done, he wiped his mouth and leaned against the wall until he could breathe without gasping. Mist, only semiconscious, had barely moved from her original position.
She had no idea what had happened, no notion of what she was truly capable of. This was what he had just begun to sense when he had first touched her mind. What Mist had unwittingly shown him had not come only from Freya’s influence or presence within her.
What he had felt was more ancient still—ability gleaned from Freya’s Vanir blood, yes—but with elemental aspects that went beyond the magic wielded by most of the Aesir and their allies. Beyond any magic even the most powerful of the Alfar possessed, more than the Seidr that had existed even before the Runes had come to Odin. It was if she had reached back into the time before time and drawn upon the very force of life itself.