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“Very soon.” Odin drained his cup and held it out for Anna-Horja to refill. “Have you learned anything more of the Gjallarhorn?”

“My people have been working on it night and day. Do you want me to continue supervising them, or will you put the Einherjar in charge?”

This time he didn’t miss the barb. “You may continue,” he said with a scowl, “but we must have the Horn before the final battle begins.” He stared into her eyes. “And now it is time for you to return the Cloak.”

At first Mist didn’t know what he was talking about. Then she remembered the slight weight hanging from her neck, and covered the little pouch with her hand.

“Can you resurrect Bryn now, All-father?” she asked.

“After Loki is destroyed.” He looked away as if he had become bored with the conversation. “Give the pouch to Horja.”

Her heart heavy with misgivings, Mist pulled the cord over her head. Anna-Horja descended from the dais and took it from her, barely meeting her gaze before she resumed her position.

“You may go until I summon you again,” Odin said with a flick of his fingers.

Mist hesitated. Her instincts still insisted that it would be a mistake to confront Odin about Loki’s presence in the stable. If he was determined to blame Dainn, he wasn’t likely to change his mind, and his trust in her would be further eroded. And if she couldn’t keep his trust, she wouldn’t be able to influence his behavior.

She had to find the answers some other way. If she had to hunt Loki down and hold Kettlingr to his throat, by Mimir’s head she’d—

The door swung open, and an Einherji strode into the hall, his hand on the hilt of his sword. He spoke to Anna and quickly left. Anna bent to whisper in Odin’s ear. Odin raised his head and beckoned to Mist.

“I do have one more task for you,” he said. “We have found the elf. Apparently he was seen wandering about in the camp, and gave himself up without a struggle.” Odin shook his head. “Perhaps there is still some faint spark of honor left in him. It seems only right that you, my most loyal Valkyrie, should end his life.”

*   *   *

Loki let the frenzy claim him again. He smashed every glass in his liquor cabinet. He ranted at his absent daughter. He cursed Odin with the foulest curses that had ever been pronounced among gods or men, drawing Merkstaves on the wall with the blood draining out of the scar on his hand.

He had warned Dainn. He had warned Mist. But Dainn had trusted her, and she had trusted Odin.

And now Danny was dead.

They had been afraid to tell him, afraid he would kill the messenger. In fact, he had. But no thousands of deaths, Jotunar or mortal, could ever make up for the life taken from him.

He fell onto the couch, breathless, permitting himself a short rest before he began again. They had said that the child had been slaughtered by a beast. Dainn’s beast.

Loki believed it. Not that Dainn had done it with any awareness of his actions; when Loki had captured Dainn and the young seer Ryan, he had seen that Dainn had regained the means to mute the beast’s power without the use of the herb, just as he had gained the power to heal.

No. Odin had cursed Dainn with the beast in Asgard; he had witnessed Danny’s power, and rekindled the curse to rid himself of father and son. Dainn, too, would die, the murderer of a child he had loved.

Jumping up from the couch, Loki destroyed every stick of furniture in the room. Then he retired to the meeting room and remained very still until his heartbeat had resumed its usual rhythm and his breathing was almost normal.

Someone knocked on the door, and Loki straightened in his chair. “Come in,” he said.

Vali thumped into the room, took one look at Loki’s face, and stopped.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked.

“I have all three of Thor’s Treasures,” Loki said, feeling a brief moment of satisfaction. “Soon you will have the power I promised you.”

“I will use it wisely.”

“I’m quite certain of that.” Loki leaned back and closed his eyes. “It will take me some time to prepare the spell. If I am not careful, Thor’s weapons may destroy you.”

And that would not be such a bad thing, Loki thought, after Vali had served his purpose.

“I’m not afraid,” Vali said, standing at parade rest with his hands tucked behind his back.

“Bravo.” Loki straightened again and opened his eyes. “Listen well,” he said. “I want you to learn exactly how my son died. I want to know what part Odin played in it. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Vali said. “But if it was the beast—”

“I’m not interested in your speculation. Go.”

Vali went. Loki called the kitchen and ordered a bottle of Bowmore Islay. When he won this war, he would make the All-father suffer as no god had suffered before. There were places even more terrible than Niflheim, dimensions where the torment was endless, far worse than the Christian Hell.

And Dainn …

He would make it quick. Even now, he couldn’t bear the idea of the elf dying in fear and pain. No, Loki would put him out of his misery gently, if Dainn had not already taken care of it himself.

Mist’s death would lie somewhere in between. But he would most certainly take pleasure in it.

*   *   *

“How are you going to help Dainn?” Rick asked.

Mist’s council—or what had
been
her council, before Odin had made clear that she didn’t need it anymore—waited in silence for her answer. They were meeting in secret, though Mist didn’t think the Einherjar were observant enough to notice a few mortals, Valkyrie, and Alfar wandering around the corner to Third Street and finding their way to the almost deserted coffee shop.

“They wouldn’t let me see him,” she said. “And they aren’t going to let any Alfar near him again.”

A flicker of anger passed across Konur’s refined face. “Odin assigned elven guards to watch Dainn for a reason,” he said. “In spite of Dainn’s alienation from my people, Odin anticipated their collusion in his escape.”

“Because Odin knew I would ask them to help me,” Mist said bitterly. “It was all a test, and now he’s got me right where he wants me.”

“But you said they found Dainn wandering around the camp.”

Mist pressed her lips together. From all she had learned, that part had been true. Dainn had deliberately abandoned the cover she’d created for him and let himself be caught.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “The final test will be the same. I will be expected to kill Dainn.”

Everyone around the table fell silent. “Look,” Rick said, “we know Dainn made things right with you somehow, I mean about Loki. How can you be so sure that he didn’t kill—” He broke off and stared down at the table, flushed and angry.

“I’m not convinced that Danny is dead,” Mist said.

“What?” Vixen said amid a wave of murmurs.

“Supposedly, the body disappeared,” Mist said.

“What does that prove?” Rick asked, lifting his head. “How did it ‘disappear’?”

“I don’t know,” Mist said. “It may not be easy to find out. Odin has reduced my authority over the allies just as he’s reduced yours in running the camp. I was never supposed to remain a leader after the Aesir showed up. I didn’t want to.”

“Bullshit,” Rick said. “I don’t believe that for a second, and I don’t think you believe it, either. This guy just expects you to kill someone who … someone who means something to you, after all you’ve done to make things ready for him?”

Mist swallowed several times. “In his mind, he has to execute a murderer, or he can’t keep order.”

“He’s scared he’s gonna lose it, with all these punk Einherjar hanging around?”

“He must stand firm,” Mist said, “or admit that Loki was in the stable with him.”

All the council members began talking at once. Mist held up her hand. “No one knows about this but Dainn, me, and Odin, and Odin doesn’t know
I
know. I might think Loki was responsible, except that I don’t believe he’d harm Danny, either.”

“Whatever occurred,” Konur said, “it is obvious that Odin fears Dainn too much to let him live.”

Mist glanced at Konur, remembering every word of their conversation about Dainn and his abilities. “Why he wants Dainn dead doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m not going to do as Odin commands.”

Captain Taylor leaned over the table. “You’re speaking of what Odin will regard as treason.”

“Yes,” Mist said, “though I hope he won’t figure it out right away.”

“Forgive me, but why follow him at all when he so clearly doesn’t deserve your loyalty?”

Mist met Taylor’s gaze. “I’ve served Odin all my life, and—”

“Did he slaughter innocents in Asgard?”

“I didn’t finish, Taylor. I had few direct dealings with Odin in Asgard. He was a legend, even to those of us who served him.” She lifted her chin. “Now I have seen what he’s capable of in his quest to rule Midgard. I don’t think he’ll let anything stop him, not even if he has to rid the world of half its population to achieve the paradise he envisions.”

For a full minute there was no sound at the table except quiet breathing and uneasy shiftings of position.

“What are you suggesting, Mist?” Rota asked.

“Rebellion,” Hild said darkly.

The word echoed through the diner just a little too loudly. Mist waited until she was certain that the few mortal patrons weren’t listening. “When it comes down to it,” Taylor said, “you have the loyalty of all the recruits, the seasoned fighters and the Alfar.”

“As you have ours,” Hild said, nodding to Rota.

“And he’s only got his Einherjar,” Taylor said. “And four Valkyrie,” Mist said, “and his own considerable magic. Apart from the fact that I’m not willing to risk your lives in a revolution, nothing would please Loki more than to see a deadly conflict break out among the allies. And Odin is still the only one who can defeat him.”

“Are you so sure?” Taylor asked. “What you did to Hel’s followers—”

“I’m not proud of what happened during that battle,” Mist said, looking away.

Taylor shook his head. “It’s not just about what happened with Hel. What are you really denying, Chief?”

“That she defeated Freya when the goddess tried to kill her,” Konur said, “because she is far more powerful than she will ever admit.”

There was another explosion of voices, quickly muted as Konur quietly and efficiently told the others a truncated and much-modified story of Freya’s jealousy over her daughter and her mad attempt to claim Mist’s body and soul for her own. When he was finished, everyone stared at Mist as if they’d never seen her before.

“Shit,” Rick said. “I’m … we’re all really sorry.”

Murmurs of agreement circled the table, offers of sympathy and regret. “Now we know why you were acting so strange after you said Freya went away,” Vixen said. “I wish you’d told us, so we could have—”

“The subject is closed,” Mist said. She stared at Konur. “Whatever my abilities, new or old, I’m still no goddess, and never will be. There’s still a chance that Odin can be persuaded that mortal lives can’t be thrown away like trash.”

“And if you don’t succeed in convincing him?” Konur asked. “How will Odin rule beings he regards as expendable?”

Mist was gathering a reply when the pain took her. She doubled over, gasping for breath as the muscles in her belly contracted and the bile rose in her throat, threatening to choke her.

She had never been with child, but she had known thousands of pregnant women in her life, and what she felt now was like the kick of a fetus in the womb, reminding her that she was not alone in her own body.

The beast,
she thought. But the pain stopped, and what came after was a question, a plea, and a soothing warmth that erased even the memory of pain.

When she had taken the beast from Dainn, she had taken something else … something he had saved without realizing what he did.

Now it was time to give it back.

“Mist?” Vixen said, kneeling beside her. “Are you all right?”

Mist looked up. “Yes,” she said. “Now I know what I have to do.”

29

Odin had always had a flair for the dramatic.

The execution was to occur at dawn. Newly armored Einherjar stood guard, as solemn as the handful of mortals who watched from behind them. Ryan, shivering in a thin jacket, observed from among Odin’s immediate attendants, including Anna. Not a single elf was present except for Lord Konur, who looked on with a ferocity in his eyes rare in any of the Alfar.

Mist stood over Dainn, the blade in her hands. Many times Dainn had felt her try to reach him with her thoughts since she had walked inside his mind. He had blocked her at every turn, knowing that she would suffer even more deeply if they came together again.

He had surrendered himself to the Einherjar, but he had never anticipated that Odin would force Mist to carry out the execution. Now she had to complete it, because to refuse would turn Odin against her. If she lost her influence with the All-father, no magic in the universe, not even the Eitr, would prevent Loki and Odin from tearing the world apart.

Closing his eyes, he listened for the sound of the waves slapping against distant piers, the call of a bird in the nearby park, the ceaseless wind. The sky had grown so thick with clouds that no trace of light could penetrate it. He could smell the ozone and feel the crackling of electricity on his skin.

A thunderstorm was coming. The hair rose on the back of Dainn’s neck, and he knew that it was not a natural one. Odin had the power to summon such a storm.…

But so did Mist.

No,
he thought.
This is what I wish
.

He felt rather than saw her start at the touch of his mind. She tried to answer, but again he prevented her.

“Commence the execution,” Odin said.

Dainn glanced at the All-father from the side of his eye, noting with faint amusement that the god had already warded himself against the weather. So ruthless in some ways, so cowardly in others.

Soon he would no longer be obliged to look upon that arrogant face again. He felt the parting of air as Mist raised Kettlingr to strike, and permitted himself to think of Danny, wondering if it was possible they might meet again in some other plane, beyond Hel or any mortal afterlife. If he had but one more chance …