Mist

Against her better judgment, she knelt beside the man. She expected an indigent, perhaps injured by some thug who found beating up helpless vagrants a source of amusement. But the hand, encrusted with filth as it was, appeared unmarked by the daily struggle for food and shelter, more accustomed to lifting golden goblets of mead than sifting through rubbish in a Dumpster.

She started at the thought. Mead had been the most favored beverage of gods and heroes and elves.

This one certainly didn’t look like any kind of hero. Hesitantly she pulled the blankets aside. A tall, lean form emerged, dressed in torn shirt, trousers too short and wide for his body, and hole-ridden sneakers. He lay on his belly, legs sprawled, cheek pressed against the damp, chilly earth.

And his face . . .

Mist had seen its like countless times in Odin’s hall, Valhalla, regal and stately among the carousing Aesir and warriors, fairer to look upon than the sun. It had always been accepted that the most beautiful of all creatures were the light-elves of Alfheim, allies of the gods.

This man was not so beautiful. His face was a mask of gore and mud, one eye swollen shut and nose covered in blood. Yet his features could not be mistaken.

A frost giant had come to Midgard from gods-knew-where. Now one of the Alfar had arrived as well, against all reason. Against every “truth” she had known, believed for so long.

Mist touched the elf ’s shoulder. “Can you hear me?” she asked in the Old Tongue.

He moved his hand, fingers digging into the soil, and spoke in a voice rough and raw with pain.

“Who . . .” he croaked, opening his one good eye. “How . . .”

There was no doubt, no doubt at all, that he was speaking the Old Tongue with the accent of the Alfar. He was every bit as real as the Jotunn had been.

“Rest easy,” she said, shrugging out of her jacket and laying it over him. “You’re safe.”

The eye, so dark a blue as to be almost black amid the red and brown of blood and dirt, regarded her with growing comprehension. “Safe?” he whispered. With a sudden jerk he rolled to his side, pushing her jacket away. “The Jotunn . . .”

“There is no giant here now,” she said, pushing him down again. “Lie still, man of the Alfar. All is well.”

The sound he made might have been a laugh. He eased himself back down, inhaling sharply, and looked into her face. “Who . . . are you?”

Mist hesitated. The laws of Midgard— the natural, mundane laws she had accepted for centuries— had been broken. She didn’t know what the rules were anymore or whom she could trust, including herself.

But he was of the light-elves, who had fought and died alongside the gods. Even if she’d never had much use for the lofty, superior aesthetes who had been much too grand to spare so much as a glance for a lowly Valkyrie, she badly needed answers.

“My name is Mist,” she said.

In a burst of speed his hand shot out and encircled her wrist, long fingers curling around her tattoo. It seemed to catch fire again, and she wrenched her arm out of his grip. He closed his eye and released a shuddering breath.

“It is as I hoped,” he said.

Mist was too angry and startled to wonder what he’d hoped. “Whoever you are,” she said, “don’t do that again.”

He rubbed at his swollen mouth with his other hand. It was shaking. “Where is the frost giant?” he asked.

“He fled.”

“He did not . . . harm you?”

“No. I think I scared him off.”

“You fought him?”

“He attacked me. I didn’t have much choice.” She leaned closer to the elf, studying his face in search of anything familiar. “What do you know about him? Where did he come from? Where did you come from?”

Wincing, the elf pushed himself up on his elbow. “I will . . . answer all your questions, Mist of the Valkyrie,” he said, his voice regaining a little of the melodic cadences of his kind. “Is it safe?”

Mist shivered as if Hrimgrimir’s icy vapor had sunk deep into her flesh and muscle and bone.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

He stared at her, his sole visible eye filled with mild contempt. “Do not pretend ignorance. It is not plausible.”

“I don’t much care what you find plausible. Who are you?”

“I am . . . Dainn. Dainn Far-seeker.”

Dainn. It was not an uncommon name for elf or dwarf. There were two most famous among the Alfar. The first was Dainn Rune- bringer, who had given the Rune-magic, the Galdr, to the elves, as Odin had brought it to the Aesir after days of bitter suffering. Mist had never seen Dainn Rune-bringer in Asgard, and it was no wonder: that Dainn was said to have vanished many ages before the fall of Asgard.

And then there was the other. Memories of the Last Battle flooded into Mist’s mind, images of bloody conflict and hopeless courage. She and her Sisters had only been present at the start of the fight, but she knew that the Alfar, though they never lifted a single weapon amongst them, had fought bravely with their potent magic. All but one.

He, too, she had never met, but she knew all about him. Dainn Faith-breaker, slain by Thor for the foulest treachery against Odin and the forces of good.

The Dainn before her was as ordinary as any elf could be . . . which would have been dazzling enough if he hadn’t just come out of the wrong end of a fight.

“Dainn Far-seeker,” she said. “The Jotunn attacked you?”

He nodded and gingerly touched the lump on his forehead. “It was not my intention to let him catch me.”

“He was after you, too?” she asked. “Why? What did you mean when you said—”

He held up a grimy hand to silence her. “Do you still have it?”

His voice had taken on an imperious note, which might have been more convincing if he hadn’t been covered with filth and rags that probably hadn’t seen anything resembling soap for years. He obviously wasn’t going to let her get away with playing ignorant again.

Simple, everyday annoyance began to wear the edge off Mist’s shock. “Odin gave me no leave to speak of it to anyone,” she said, “not even the Alfar.”

“You can trust me.”

Sure, Mist thought. But even if an elf had improbably gone over to the dark side, he couldn’t break the warding spell..

“It’s concealed and shielded with magic devised and gifted to me and my Sisters by the All-father himself,” she said. “And now I think you’d better start explaining—”

“What did the Jotunn say to you?”

“You seem to know that already,” she said, lapsing into English.

“You said nothing that could lead him to it?” he asked, his own English like something straight out of an Austen novel.

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “And no Jotunn could get through the wards. It would take a god to do it.’ ”

“And yet you have clearly been unprepared for any attempt to take it from you.”

“I didn’t exactly expect to meet a Jotunn or an elf when I got up this morning.”

He shook out his long black hair— the feature that all Alfar took most pride in—as if he might shed the leaf- litter and dirt that matted it almost beyond recognition. “I cannot fault you for holding true to your duty.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if you disapproved of me,” she said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Now maybe you’ll deign to tell me how you and Hrimgrimir managed to survive the Last Battle.”

Dainn rolled onto his knees and tried to stand, a little of his Alfar’s natural grace returning, then sank back down again with a very unelvish grunt of frustration.

“The Last Battle?” he said. “Is that what you thought it was?”

There was no mistaking his mockery, blandly delivered with that oh-so-superior elvish attitude. “It’s been