Mist

“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