Chicks Kick Butt

He laughed and sneered at her bravado, and yet he hesitated. Vídarr’s eyes fixed on hers, as if he were trying to tell her something important. Something that might change the game completely.

“What are you afraid of, Slanderer?” she taunted. “My sword is out of reach. You need have no fear of a fair fight.”

Loki’s face contorted with rage. “Pick it up,” he snarled.

Mist dove for the sword before he could change his mind. In seconds she had snatched it up, secured her grip and was ready for attack.

Her enemy wasted no time. All at once Gungnir itself was in Loki’s hand, and he was aiming straight at her heart. The Swaying One hummed in his grip as he let fly. Mist swung Kettlingr with all her strength, desperately singing the runes that might make the difference between life or death.

She wasn’t fast enough, but no cold metal pierced her chest. Gungnir pierced the door behind her shoulder. Loki’s mouth gaped in disbelief as she struck, her blade sinking into his left arm.

She knew it was little more than a distraction. He would heal almost instantly. Still, she brought Kettlingr to bear once more … and froze as Loki’s burning hand clamped around her neck.

“You have tried my patience once too often,” he said into her face, his spittle spraying her cheeks.

“And you’ve … tried mine.” She wheezed a laugh. “You were never … as good as you thought you were. In anything.”

He shook her like a child’s straw doll. “Perhaps I won’t kill you first,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll take you one last time, and show you just how good I am.”

A shudder of loathing drained the strength from Mist’s body. To die was one thing. To suffer such humiliation after what she and Eric had shared …

No. She stared into Loki’s eyes. “Try it, and I’ll roast your balls like chestnuts.”

Loki flinched, and his grip relaxed. He’s afraid . It made no sense, none at all, yet she could feel it, see it in his face.

But what was the key to his fear?

“Freyja is the key.”

Dáinn’s voice, speaking inside her head. This time she was grateful for the intrusion. She shaped an urgent question out of her thoughts, but Dáinn heard it before she was finished.

“Loki has always feared and desired the Lady,” he said. “He taunted and mocked her and called her whore because he wanted her but could not have her.”

But that had nothing to do with Mist. Loki’s grip had tightened again, and Mist felt her breath stop in her throat. It was over. She had nothing left with which to fight.

“Halfling,” Dainn’s silent voice whispered, unraveling like thread caught in a kitten’s claws. “A jötunn was your father. Your mother…”

Dáinn’s presence faded, but he left in her mind a single image. An image of a face she knew, a beauty beyond compare.

Mist silenced her disbelief. She had nothing to lose. She met Loki’s gaze, letting him feel every last particle of her contempt.

“Is that why you pretended to be an honorable man and lied your way into my bed?” she wheezed. “If you couldn’t have the mother, you’d take the daughter?”

Loki’s fingers loosened again. “She was a whore,” he said, his voice not quite steady. “She lay with every álfr and god in Asgard, every giant and dwarf in Jötunheimr and Svartâlfheimr. You’re nothing but a—”

He broke off, his face blanching under his shock of red hair. The illusion came over Mist without any effort on her part, a radiant warmth that filled her with a peace she had never known. Loki dropped her and stumbled away.

“Freyja,” he croaked.

Mist raised her hand, and Kettlingr flew into it like a tame sparrow. “It is you who have the choice, Laufeyson. Come back to us.”

Loki’s face slackened. “I … I want—”

Vídarr slammed into him, and Loki staggered. The spell was broken. Loki knocked Vídarr aside with a sweep of his arm and leaped up on the desk. He crouched there, hatred in every line of his body.

“You haven’t won, bitch,” he said. “It isn’t over. In the end you’ll come begging at my feet, eager to service me like the whore you are.”

And then he was gone, vanished into the shadows, the stench of his evil dispersing like a frenzy of roaches exposed to the light.

Mist closed her eyes. The warmth and joy and power were already abandoning her, leaving her an empty sack of skin and bone.

“Mist.” Dáinn came up behind her, breathing hard. “Are you well?”

She turned on him, letting anger erase her despair. “Where were you, coward? You had words in plenty, but where was your magic?”

Dáinn said nothing. He simply walked away. Vídarr got to his feet, popping his shoulder back into its socket.

“Mist,” he said. “You have to believe I never—”

Váli came into the room, grave and utterly sober. “There will be time for explanations later,” he said. “We have more urgent concerns, including a heap of jötunar to deal with.”

Mist didn’t ask what he meant. She pulled Gungnir from the door, sang it small again, and strode past him into the other room. There literally was a heap of giants, most unconscious and the rest groaning in pain.

“ He did it,” Váli said, jerking his head toward Dáinn, who stood quietly in a corner. “I helped a little. But he kept them from interfering while you dealt with Loki.”

Laughter choked Mist’s reply. Had she dealt with Loki, or had it been Freyja all along?

My mother . Mist wasn’t just half jötunn. She was half goddess as well. It would take some time to digest that knowledge and understand what it might mean to her. And to the battle that was coming.

She walked slowly over to Dáinn, who refused to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said.

But it did. She’d thought of Dáinn as a traitor to his people and to the Aesir. And he had left her during her fight with the jötunar. Still, she might have to revise her opinion. So much was changing. The world was growing dark, and her sisters had to be warned. She couldn’t do it alone.

“It isn’t over,” she said, swallowing her pride. “I need you.”

He finally looked up, his mouth quirking in a weary half smile. “I have nowhere else to go.”

She nodded and looked over her shoulder. Váli was busy with a bottle, and Vídarr leaned against the wall, his expression locked as tight as a virgin’s legs on her wedding night.

Maybe they’d help, too. Vídarr still had some explaining to do. But now they had a little time. Maybe it was enough.

“Well,” she said to the room in general, “let’s get this rubbish cleaned up. It stinks in here.”

BEYOND THE PALE Nancy Holder

Who rides, so late, through night and wind?

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Erl King”