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All around Mist the pockets of dark Eitr expanded, forming coruscating bubbles that floated up into the evening sky. When she pushed her hand into one, her fingers emerged a mottled gray and something oily and malignant sizzled on her skin.

She flexed her fingers, spraying drops of poison that boiled away the snow and blackened the ground where they landed. She could catch one of those orbs and simply cast it at Vali. It would burn him alive, strip the flesh from cheeks and jaws and forehead, boil his brains inside his skull.

Let it go
. Wasn’t that what Freya had told her? Rick would be avenged. They would
all
be avenged.

Mist!
a voice called. A beloved voice. She turned to look for Dainn, but it was Danny she saw, Danny, running out from behind Odin, his arms reaching for one who could protect him. The beast reared up beside Mist, dropped to all fours, and rushed toward the boy. Odin strode after Danny, laughing, fingers curled to seize and grasp. Danny wailed, and a mass of energy burst from him, striking Odin full in the chest. He rose off the ground, arms flung wide, his face blue and black like an ugly bruise.

Before Mist could get Danny to safety, Loki appeared to snatch up his son. As Loki fled into the storm, Mist heard the sounds of the main battle drawing closer, metal striking metal, the cries of pain and shouts of anger and fear from behind and to either side. The sickly orbs and the thick clouds of Eitr began to converge on Odin like hounds responding to their master’s whistle.

He was
controlling
them. He had regained mastery of the Eitr, and that knowledge could only have come from Danny. Mist could do nothing to stop her former lord.

But she wasn’t alone. The beast charged Odin, teeth bared, kicking mud-blackened snow behind him.

Catching one of the orbs between his hands, Odin cast it directly in Dainn’s path.

The orb exploded against the beast, spitting liquid fire that slicked his heavy coat and set it aflame. The sharp odor of singed fur mingled with the smell of rot. He snarled and yelped and rolled wildly on the ground, but the fire would not be extinguished.

Discarding the dark Eitr, Mist skidded to the ground beside Dainn and drew all the moisture out of the air around them. She shaped it into a blanket and wrapped the beast tightly, smothering the flames.

Even when his fur had stopped smoldering, the foul essence of dark Eitr clung to him like the stench of carrion. Overhead, the sky began to darken again, the stars blotted out by the never-ending storm and the Eitr that leaked from the orbs and began to fill the spaces between. Odin floated to the ground, his boots scorching the earth where they landed.

Mist got to her feet, her fingers buried deep in the beast’s mane, and faced Odin. “Do you know what you’re doing?” she shouted. “You’re bringing the Void to Earth! The Eitr is building. If you release it—”

“Everything will die,” Odin finished, shaking the blood from Gungnir’s blade. “Do you think I am such a fool, Daughter? I once wielded this magic as if it were a toy.” He flicked his wrist, and a pockmarked, distorted sphere of Eitr floated sluggishly toward the battle raging behind Mist. “I shall build an entire new world, as was meant to be after Ragnarok. I will create new forests and fields and beasts, and shape a new mortal Ask and Embla to be the first man and woman. They will grow to love me as their sole ruler.”

“And the other Aesir?” Mist asked. “You never intended to bring them here at all, did you?”

“Why should I? They would only meddle, ruin what I will build—”

“You have lost your way, Odin All-father,” Dainn said. He stood in his elven shape again, his fair skin scorched and lashed with the stripes of burns, but his eyes were nearly black. “The Eitr of creation has gone beyond your reach.”

“I took back what belonged to me,” Odin said. “The boy has nothing left.”

“You are wrong, Odin,” Dainn said. “And I was the one who stole your Eitr from you after you completed your acts of creation, because with it you would have created monsters.”

“So now you remember your past,” Odin said. “You know who you were when you came to Asgard.”

“And why I blocked my memory of the Eitr and the magic that controlled it,” Dainn said. “Some part of me knew you could not be permitted to wield it again. Even now, all you bring is death.”

“And all you ever wished for was peace?” Odin laughed. “All those mortals you killed after I gave life to the darkness you refused to acknowledge … so much blood on your claws.”

“Yes,” Dainn said. “And there will be more, because I will do my best to destroy you.”

“We
will
stop you, All-father,” Konur said, arriving behind Mist with a troop of Alfar.

“You’re damned right,” Vixen said, the tracks of tears evident across her mud-streaked face. A pitiful few mortal warriors joined her, but they, too, were not alone. Rota was still alive, and Hel had returned at last, her warrior dead drifting around her, semitransparent shapes bearing ghostly weapons.

“You have far fewer Einherjar than you did fifteen minutes ago,” Captain Taylor said, wiping a big hand across his blood-smeared jaw. “I don’t think Hel will be running again.”

The goddess of death looked considerably worse for wear than she had the last time Mist had seen her, the black-and-white hair disheveled and dirty, her gown torn and her face stark with anger.

“Send your warriors to me, by all means,” Hel said to Odin. “I shall be glad to have them.”

The All-father didn’t answer. Each misshapen orb around him seemed filled with wriggling rods and spirals like oversized bacteria. He lifted his hands with a discordant Rune-song, and the Eitr began to spread, bursting free of the orbs to form inky streaks across the sky. Vixen, Taylor, and the other mortals began to cough and gag.

Mist took Dainn’s hand. “We can’t let them die for us,” she said. “I’m going back to the dark Eitr.”

“No,” Dainn said, his lip curling like an angry dog’s. “I can take him down.”

“Even if you give yourself over to the beast completely,” Mist said, “you will never defeat him. I won’t let you do it.”

He looked into her eyes. “And if
you
lose yourself?”

“You once made me promise to kill you if you lost control of the beast,” she said. “Can you do the same for me?”

He tipped up her chin and kissed her on the lips. Vali stomped through the allied troops, swinging Mjollnir left and right as regularly and precisely as a machine.

The screams woke Mist from her brief respite. She jumped back and summoned one of the Eitr spheres. With a wild cry, she brought lightning down from the sky and pierced the sphere in a dozen places, mingling the electricity with the poison of the dark Eitr. As Dainn leaped at Vali’s legs, tearing with jaws more powerful than those of the biggest jaguar, Mist redirected the toxic lightning at Vali’s chest.

The Hammer swung erratically as Vali staggered under the assault, his clothing sizzling with oily burns. Blood coursed down his legs to pool at the tops of his boots, but still he didn’t fall. He cursed and turned Mjollnir against Dainn, catching the beast in the ribs. Mist heard the crack of breaking bones and screamed as she raised and slammed a half-buried boulder into Vali’s body.

Vali crashed to the ground. When the smoking fumes cleared, he lay on his back, sightless eyes staring at the sky, Mjollnir’s handle still in his slack hand.

Mist felt no pity, no regret for the friendship they had shared in another life. He had made his choice; she had made hers. She knelt beside Dainn, who lay panting on his side.

“Can you hear me, Dainn?” she asked. She buried her hands in his heavy coat. “Don’t leave me now.”

His breath hitched, and his animal’s eyes were filled with sorrow.

Mist jumped to her feet. She called Hel to her side and plowed through the Einherjar standing between her and Odin, flinging their bodies directly into the waiting hands of Hel’s dead.

It wasn’t enough. Odin was still beyond her reach. She transformed the Eitr into boiling acid that she cast into the faces of their enemies, indifferent to their cries of agony as they clawed at melting flesh.

“No,” Konur said. He slipped up beside her, laying his hand on her arm.

“No,” Captain Taylor said, gripping her other arm.

The Einherjar fled beyond her reach. She stared into Konur’s eyes.

“Release me,” she snarled. “I
will
kill you.”

“Freya did not create only an assassin, bound to fall into darkness,” Konur said.

“We know you,” Taylor said. “We know what you can be. I couldn’t be prouder of you if you were my own daughter. And you almost are.”

“Taylor’s ancient ancestor was one of your sires,” Konur said gently. “He was a hero of his day, a noble man. Svardkell was a Jotunn who strove for peace among our peoples. The dwarf Freya chose was no less a hero and leader of his people.”

Laughing with contempt, Mist knocked Konur aside, snatched up an abandoned sword, and lifted it to kill Taylor. A small hand came to rest on her leg, and she looked down.

“You have to choose,” Danny said. He glanced behind him, where the beast lay watching. Waiting. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Afraid,” Loki said, appearing behind his son. His voice was rough and thick with something like grief. “You don’t understand, do you? Odin has already stolen some of the Eitr from Danny, and now he will lose the rest.” His voice broke. “He is returning it to its rightful owner. Dainn will never need fear the beast again.”

“And the boy?” Mist asked with distant curiosity.

“He may cease to exist. But he knows what he is. Do you?”

“I know what I—”

She never finished. Danny patted her leg and turned toward the beast. Dainn rose shakily to four legs and tried to retreat, moving stiffly and in obvious pain. But Danny didn’t stop. Ignoring Dainn’s snarl of warning, he flung his arms around the beast’s neck. When they came together, there was blinding light that cut through the dark Eitr like an archangel’s sword.

Danny was gone. Dainn stood at the center of the light as it faded away, his eyes closed and his hands spread palm-up as if he were accepting a gift from the gods. He opened his eyes and looked directly at Mist.

“Come back, Mist,” he said. “This is not who you were meant to be.”

“Get out of my way!” she shouted. “Where is Odin?”

“Hiding behind his men,” Konur said softly, struggling to his feet. “When you face him again, he will expect to meet his equal in darkness. Will you give him what he desires?”

Stabbing at the sky with stiffened fingers, Mist drew the Eitr down around her. Konur and Taylor sank to their knees. The allies began to wheeze, choking on air that had turned thick as tar.

“Odin will fall,” she said. “And when
I
rule—”

“Mist,” Dainn said, wrapping his hands around hers and working the sword’s grip from her fingers. He let the weapon fall. “You told me to kill you if you lost yourself. Do not force me to destroy another thing I love.”

“You cannot…” She trailed off, looking into his eyes. They were mesmerizing, changed almost out of all recognition: still indigo, but layered with emotions and thoughts she couldn’t begin to interpret, a deep wisdom countered by a very mortal need.

“Danny has returned all the power I had lost,” he said, his voice heavy with sorrow. He took her hand. “Let me take your anger, your hatred, your darkness. I can defeat it now.” He kissed her left cheek and then her right. “I love you, Mist.”

A great shudder took Mist, shaking her from the soles of her boots to the top of her head. Words were not enough. Words could never be enough. But Dainn rested his forehead against hers, and she felt the madness begin to dissolve, the lust for power drain out of her heart.

Dainn fell to his knees. Immediately Konur was beside him, and Gabi came running out from among the women who had appeared among the allies.

“Gabi?” Mist stammered, remembering her last sight of the girl lying still in Ryan’s arms.

The teenager dropped down beside Dainn and touched his chest. His breathing was ragged, his skin nearly transparent.

“You have the cure, Mist,” she whispered. “If you want to keep him alive, give him what he gave you.”

Give him?
Mist thought in confusion. She had nothing to give him. He was an ancient one, born at the time of creation.

“Tell him,” Gabi insisted. “Tell him,
idiota
!”

So she spoke the words. And a great space opened up in her heart, big enough to take back the anger and hatred and hunger for power, take it back and swallow it up. Dainn sat up slowly. Loki stood behind him, his red hair sparking, his face taut with rage.

But not at Dainn, or Mist.

“I let you have what you wanted,” he said. “Now give me Odin.”

“Konur,” Dainn said, taking Mist’s hand. “Get everyone away.”

As Konur and Taylor moved to obey, Dainn touched his chest and smiled at Mist. “We will do this. Together.”

*   *   *

Many as one
.

Odin hid among his Einherjar—those not taken by Hel and her dead—who huddled close about him, still bold and courageous but well aware that they would be throwing their lives away by attacking now.

Many as one
. Odin cursed himself, though it was as foolish an act as the Christian God swearing upon his own name. The second prophecy had seemed so clear. There would be no true Ragnarok. He who was also many would bring about a new world, destroy all that would stand in his way, and assume absolute rule of a pristine paradise.

He had always assumed that “one” was him. He had not simply waited for the prophecy to be fulfilled. He had placed his soul into twelve Treasures, knowing they would one day be reassembled. Many as one.

But now he knew he had been blind to the obvious. Perhaps it was because he had never taken the Gjallarhorn, leaving that smallest piece of his soul unclaimed. Whatever the cause, he had not seen what should have been so clear: Mist, the product of five fathers—including Odin All-father—was also many as one. Dainn Rune-bringer, with his beast and the child, were three as one … and there had been no number set to the “many.”