Mist

She pulled his mouth open and covered it with hers, blew air into his lungs, turned her head away for a count of two and shared her breath again.

It was sweet, this revival, and it almost made him forget the agony of living. He opened his eyes. Mist pulled back, whispering a prayer even the White Christ might have approved.

“You’re alive,” she said. “I thought—” She bent her face to his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Dainn was incapable of responding, though he knew he had suffered no lasting harm. He didn’t feel broken anymore. His lungs functioned. His heart beat as it should.

Had it all been illusion, then, the shattering of bones and the tearing of flesh?

Perhaps that part had been. But not her magic. Yew needles were scattered on the carpet around him, and melting water soaked his clothing. Lingering manifestations that accompanied only the most powerful magic.

“Do you think you can drink?” Mist asked. She left him for a moment and returned with a glass of water. “Tell me if anything hurts.” She positioned herself behind his head and lifted it with utmost care, wedging her knees under his shoulders.

“There,” she murmured, helping him take a swallow of the water. “You’ll be all right. You’ll be all right.”

Dainn closed his eyes again, relishing the feel of her strong thighs supporting him, her loose hair caressing his face as she leaned over him.

She was sane again. But she was not blind. She knew that something incredible had happened and that she was responsible for it. Perhaps he had not failed after all.

But neither had the beast. It had not been badly damaged by the assault, only driven back for a time. He felt it sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion, but it was far from sated. When it woke it would remember his promise. A promise he must continue to resist as he resisted the emotional weakness that threatened to consume him all over again.

“Mist,” he croaked.

“Don’t try to talk,” she said.

“Are you . . . well?”

“Me?” She hissed through her teeth. “Everyone keeps asking me that when I’m the healthiest one around. Aside from wondering what in Hel just happened, I’m fine.”

“What . . . do you remember?”

“Rest now. We’ll talk la—”

“What do you remember?” he repeated more urgently.

“Power,” she said. “Inside me. Something . . . breaking through, wanting to hurt. Fighting . . . fighting you.”

He gathered up the tattered rags of his courage. “Do you understand . . . what I did?” he asked.

The bewilderment in her eyes cleared. “You attacked me.”

Now. Now it would come.

He tried to sit up, and this time she didn’t prevent him. He braced himself on his elbows. “You asked that I . . . show you the barriers you have created within your mind. The only way to make you aware of them, and what lay behind them, was to force you to defend yourself.”

“But I . . .” She moved from behind him and knelt facing him, her expression tight with worry. “There was fire, and ice, and . . . such anger—” She shook her head. “I think I wanted to kill you. I remember thinking of the Runes, the way you showed me. But the rest of it . . . it wasn’t from Freya. It couldn’t have been. And it wasn’t the Jotunn magic I used in Asbrew, either. I never felt anything like this before.” She glanced at the carpet, at the yew needles, at the melting hail on his shoulders. “You said you expected me to become what I was meant to be. What am I?”

“You are remarkable,” he whispered.

She rejected his answer with a jerk of her head. “Maybe you should start by telling me exactly what you did.”

A painful shiver wracked Dainn’s body. Was it possible that Mist had been too absorbed in her counterstrike to understand what she was fighting, the terrible truth of his dual nature?

“That is not important,” he said. “What matters is what you did. I recognized at Asbrew that you had great potential. Now I believe you may have . . . talents even your mother does not possess.” Mist looked at him as if he were mad. “How can I be more powerful than a goddess?”

Dainn knew it would be better to say nothing at all. This was far beyond his skill.

But she needed—deserved—to understand.

“Do you remember when I spoke of an ancient, almost forgotten magic?” he asked.

“Are you saying that’s what I was doing?”

“You may be drawing on abilities that reach back to the very source of Vanir power.”

She ran her fingers through her loose hair. “But the way you talked about it—”

The way he had talked of it had suggested that no living being could wield that magic. Freya had not suspected, or she surely would have prepared him to anticipate greater obstacles. She had admitted that Mist was more than she expected, but could she ever have imagined this?

“I have no explanation,” he said. “Yet the facts are clear. You were capable of driving me out of your mind, and you used both the power of thought and Runic elements to do it, imagery that came as instinctively as the glamour. Even at my full strength, you would have overcome my defenses.”

Mist stood, backing away until the couch prevented her from moving any farther. “And these are the ‘talents’ you expect me to develop?”

“Freya expects me to help you use all your abilities.”

“The glamour is bad enough. I’m not going to do anything that can destroy someone the way I almost destroyed you.”

“As you see, I am not damaged.”

“Don’t give me that, Dainn. I threw you against that wall. With my mind. And water, and pine needles, and spears of flame. Loki’s piss, I could have killed you.” She raised her hands, turning them forward and back. “Fighting with these, or a sword, is one thing. Even getting rid of Jotunar with magic is acceptable, because sometimes there’s no other choice. But there’s evil in this other way, just like there is in making people come to me. Even if I don’t know I’m doing it.”

“It is like any other tool, like the Runes. It is even more essential that you understand how to use it.”

“And how do you know I’ll choose the right path?” She stared down at him, fists clenched and jaw set. “You talked about the danger of misusing the Runes. They shape the magic, right? Did I use Merkstaves against you, Dainn?”

He couldn’t deny it, and Mist clearly saw the answer in his face. “If I’m so cursed powerful, what makes you so sure I won’t use this . . . force inside me to attack anyone who threatens me?”

“There is no wickedness in you, Lady,” he said, meaning it with all his heart.

“But there is something dark, isn’t there? Just like there is in you.”

Dainn laughed silently at his own naivete. He hadn’t escaped after all.

“When you attacked me,” Mist said, “something came after me. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen it, either. When you helped me shape the Rune- staves the first time, it was there in the shadows.” She crouched where she was and stared at him, grim and implacable. “At first I thought it was just something my thoughts invented, some kind of image I made up because I was scared and needed something solid to be afraid of. I didn’t want to believe it was really part of you.

“But it is. And it hates me, Dainn. It hates the whole world.”

14

Dainn pulled himself to his feet and leaned heavily on the wall. “Yes,” he said. “It hates. It hates everything that lives or ever lived.”

“And you sent it into my mind.”