Mist (14 page)

He didn’t even blink. “You are mistaken,” he said. “She could not simply force her way into your mind, even if she were inclined to do so.”

“She’s a goddess.”

“And so will you be.”

“I’m a warrior, not an Asynja.”

“A warrior knows she must use every advantage in a fight. You have inborn abilities you have scarcely begun to explore. It is your magic, not your skill with a sword, that will help us in this battle.” Mist searched his eyes, torn between a desperate need to believe him and the fear that he was still lying to her, that he would never stop lying no matter how many times she threatened him. It didn’t help that she saw genuine concern in his eyes. Regret, sorrow, compassion for what she was going through. Almost as if he’d been in the same situation himself.

“Freya regrets that she never acknowledged you in Asgard,” Dainn said quietly.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” She backed away, putting a little more space between them. “Who was my father?”

“Freya did not—”

“Tell you,” Mist finished for him. Norns knew it could have been one of a hundred Jotunar Freya had lain with. Not all of them were ugly, barbaric monsters. Some had magic well beyond that of an ordinary giant.

In any case,
this
time she believed that Dainn really didn’t know.

“If Freya isn’t just using me as . . . some kind of anchor in Midgard, what does she want from me? Aside from my apparent ability to scare the shit out of Loki without knowing how I did it.”

“Nothing has changed except your knowledge of your heritage.

We must keep Loki from turning the Treasures against the gods.”

“Gungnir didn’t work for Loki.”

“He knows his possession of them is the key to ultimate victory.

That is why we must and will stop him.”

Mist shivered. What if she really did have magic she could use against Loki to get Gungnir back, find her Sisters, and warn them before Loki got to them? Was it really that simple?

No, not simple. She’d have to acknowledge what she was, that she was capable of what she’d done in Vidarr’s office. More than that—

she’d have to accept it completely and make it a part of herself. Become a creature of magic. The prospect was . . .

Terrifying. But she knew something about unpleasant truths: if you didn’t find a way to deal with them, you’d never be able to live with yourself.

And as long as it was
her
choice, she could decide what to do with it. She could find a way to turn the ugly tactics she’d used against Loki into something she could live with. A warrior’s way. “I don’t want this,” she began, steeling herself for the inevitable.

“But if it has to be done, then I’ll—”

She broke off. Dainn’s expression had changed again, his face growing more gaunt, his eyes haunted, his gaze burning and bitter. It was as if something ferocious, unpredictable, and utterly unelflike had awakened within him, shredding his usual nearly emotionless demeanor like tissue in a typhoon.

She had seen that expression twice before, once when they had first met and again in the loft. She hadn’t understood it then, and she didn’t now.

“You need do nothing,” he said. “Walk away, Valkyrie.” Mist laughed to cover her bewilderment. “Walk away? What kind of crap is this? You just finished doing everything you could to
get

me involved.”

“Yes.”

His irises were nearly black, and his upper lip twitched like an angry dog’s. But there were other emotions in his face—that concern she’d seen before, worry, and fear. But not for himself. “I give you this chance,” he said. “Take it.”

“That almost sounds like a threat.”

“It is a warning, and the last I will offer.”

“It isn’t your choice to make, is it? Don’t you take your orders from Freya?”

“She and I are not in constant contact, nor can she read my mind.

By the time we speak again, I will have found a way to deal with her.” He was deadly serious. But he wasn’t making any sense. She’d bluffed about being able to tell whether or not Dainn was lying, but the only thing she
was
sure about was that Dainn was trying to give her a way out of a responsibility she wanted no part of. Before she could speak again, Dainn spun on his heel and began to walk away.

“Dainn!” she called after him.

He stopped without turning around.

“I don’t know what secrets you’re keeping,” she said, coming up behind him, “but I know you’re being more honest now than you’ve been since we’ve met. If I supposedly have so much ‘power,’ why are you afraid for me?”

“For
you
? Perhaps I am the coward you named me.”

Mist reached for his arm and grasped it lightly, feeling his pulse throbbing through rags and flesh alike.

“Whatever you are,” she said, “I know you tried to help when you kept the Jotunar occupied. You gave me a way to fight back when Loki almost had me. And you know I can’t let Loki have Midgard.

The Aesir have to win.”

“Will they be so much better than the Slanderer?” he asked. His words sparked the memory of Loki speaking nearly the same words to her.
“Do you believe the Aesir will tread lightly on this earth, benevolently sparing the creatures here any inconvenience?”
he’d said.
“Do you think they will be better than I?”

When Dainn had told her how the Aesir planned to build a new Homeworld in Midgard, she’d only briefly considered the consequence, having been focused on more urgent concerns. Like staying alive.

But she’d never doubted the Aesir would be better. It would be impossible for a battle between Loki and the Aesir to occur without collateral damage. Certainly the Aesir, who had once frequently interacted and even intermarried with mortals, would take some care to minimize such damage.

Would they conduct the war in some barren waste, where few mortals could be harmed? The Sahara desert, perhaps, or the Australian Outback? Or would Loki force the Aesir into a position of killing innocent bystanders?

Mist knew that if she could make only the smallest difference, she had to try. Not because she owed Freya a bloody thing, but for the sake of her adopted world. And for all those who had fought so valiantly against tyranny.

Like Bryn. And Geir.

“You don’t believe that, Dainn,” she said. “I don’t know why you’ve suddenly decided to convince me otherwise, but I’m involved in this up to the wingtips of my bloody golden helmet. I’m not backing out now.”

Dainn’s shoulders stiffened. “You will help? Willingly?”

“You wouldn’t get me any other way.” She paused, surprised at the clarity of her thoughts. “Look. For a long time I made myself believe I couldn’t have any place in Midgard. That changed when I realized this was the only life I was going to have. Now this world is my home, and I have to defend it.”

“You are fortunate,” Dainn said, refusing to let her see his face. She understood exactly what he was trying to say. “This isn’t your home, is it?” she asked softly. “Even after centuries of living among mortals, you still don’t belong.”

“No,” he said. “I have no home.”

For a moment she was tempted to sympathize with him, even to pity him. She could almost feel his sorrow as if it were her own, feel his loneliness.

Curse it, she wasn’t going to let sentiment cloud her thoughts now. Especially not sentiment about
him.

“Maybe you don’t have any personal stake in Midgard the way I do,” she said. “But you do have a mission. I can’t say I’m ready to trust you completely, but neither one of us is going to get very far if we don’t work together.”

Dainn half turned his head, once again displaying his handsome, haggard profile. “You asked about my magic,” he said.

The non sequitur caught Mist completely off- guard. “You mean about the fact that you use it under some circumstances and ignore it in others, even when the situations may be equally deadly?” Dainn lifted his hand, and Mist saw how violently it trembled.

“As I told you before,” he said, “magic exacts a price. I . . . have not . . . had reason to make use of mine in many years. You may think ill of me for my reluctance to act, and for many other failings.

But I had no choice but to preserve my strength until it was truly needed.”

“So you had to have my help to find Loki,” she said. “Yes. And now . . .” He let his hand fall back to his side. “I cannot be certain how long it will take me to recover. I will continue to require your help.”

Mist had a bad feeling she knew exactly what he was trying to say. “You mean you’ll be crawling around inside my head again, the way you did at the loft?” she asked.

“Yes.” He turned to face her, his eyes still as black as the bottom of the sea. “Choose carefully, Lady. If you ask it, I will leave here now and trouble you no further.”

“I’ve made my decision,” she said.

All at once that strange, almost violent intensity was gone from his face, and he was as composed as if the most taxing thing he’d done all morning was brush his long black hair.

Which, like the rest of him, badly needed a good washing. But that could wait a little longer. “The first thing we need to do,” she said, “is get Gungnir back.”

“Not the first,” Dainn said. “We must dispose of
this.
” He gestured toward the pile of Jotunar, several of whom were beginning to stir.

Mist couldn’t believe she’d been yammering on with a dozen Jotunar still in the room. “This is Vidarr’s problem,” she said harshly.

“He needs to tell me what the Hel is going on around here. Unless he really did strike a bargain with Loki, he’ll be pissed and likely to want revenge.”

“Do you trust him?”

That nasty little word again. Had Vid feigned submitting to Loki?

It wouldn’t be much like him to use subtlety and deception where more direct action would do— in that, he wasn’t unlike Thor, another of his half-brothers—but she didn’t see any other explanation for his behavior. Including the fact that he hadn’t tried to help her until it was safe for him to do it.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “I trust him.”

She glanced around the room. Vidarr and Vali were either still in the office, or they’d sneaked past her and Dainn without their noticing. They probably had enough functional magic left to do that, but it would look very, very bad.

She was just starting for the shattered office door when the half- brothers emerged. Vali went straight to one of the tables near the wall, bearing a bottle of Scotch and a shot glass. Vidarr leaned against the doorjamb, his expression locked as tight as a frightened virgin’s thighs on her wedding night.

Mist walked briskly across the room, skirting the Jotunar—none of whom had yet managed to lift themselves off the floor—and came to stand before Vidarr. He didn’t seem to be aware of Dainn at all.

“What happened, Vid?” she asked.

The muscles in his jaw worked as he glared at the opposite wall. “He . . . don’ wan’ to talk about it,” Vali said from the table, his words slurring as if he’d been drinking hard since he’d last spoken to Mist.

Vidarr turned his hot stare on his half-brother. “Shut up, Val.”

He met Mist’s gaze, head lowered and shoulders hunched like an angry bull, which he somewhat resembled even on his best days.

“What do you
think
happened?” he asked. “I invited him in for tea?”

“No,” she said, reminding herself that she had long ago stopped letting herself be intimidated by his bluster, Odin’s son or not. “He obviously breached your wards and caught you by surprise.”

“Tha’s right,” Vali said.

“Shut up,” Vidarr repeated, though he continued to stare at Mist.

“If you’ve got something to say to me, spit it out.”

“You started to tell me something just after Loki disappeared, something you wanted me to believe.”

“I don’t give a damn what you believe.” Vidarr smiled unpleasantly.

“You think I’m supposed to be impressed that you’re Freya’s daughter and spoke with her voice for a few seconds? Did you cry for Mommy to rescue you?”

Mist ignored the jibe. “Did
you
know who I was before?”

“No. And it wouldn’t have made any difference if I had.”

“For the gods’ sake, we don’t have time for this. I just want to understand what happened.”

“Then you’ll just have to live with your ignorance.”

Mist realized that he wasn’t going to be reasonable at the moment, and there wasn’t much point in pushing him now. She gestured behind her at the Jotunar. “This is your place. What do you want to do with them?”

“Kill them.”

That was the obvious solution. It certainly had the advantage of removing a few of Loki’s servants from the field, and it could be done with only a minimal use of magic.

But Mist knew why she was resisting the idea. She couldn’t forget she was half-Jotunn. Vidarr
knew
who his giantess mother was, and she had been an ally of the Aesir. Any of the giants here might be Mist’s kin. A cousin. A brother. Even a father.

She wouldn’t believe that. A father wouldn’t try to kill his own daughter. No one had ever claimed that the worst Jotunar didn’t love their own. It was everyone else they hated.

“There must be another way,” she said.

“What other way?” Vidarr growled, pushing away from the wall.

“Throw them out in the middle of Market Street and hope they all get hit by a bus?”

“
I
don’t slaughter things that can’t fight back.”

Vidarr snorted. “You were always so proud that you taught yourself to fight after all those centuries playing dress-up like a little girl wearing her Mommy’s pretty dress. You said you fought the Nazis, but—”

“I prefer to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”

“Just like Freya. All peace and love, all the time.”

“I’m not Freya.”

“No? Then why don’t we wake the giants up and offer to challenge them one-on-one? I’m sure Hrimgrimir would like another shot at you.”

Mist had had enough. “I can understand why you’re feeling so bloodthirsty, Vid,” she said. “Your ego has always been a little on the tender side.”

Vidarr started toward her, fists clenched, his shoulders straining the seams of his shirt. Mist tensed. In spite of their contentious history, she’d never have believed that Vidarr would actively try to hurt her.