“Valkyries,” Brynhildr called out, her voice cracking through the air the way ice over water did in winter when too heavy a weight stood on it. “On my mark.”
Jono watched as the half circle of valkyries all raised their bows and took aim at the boats with a steadiness that never wavered. Patrick’s grip tightened in his, and Jono held on because he would never let go.
When Brynhildr’s count reached one, every valkyrie with a bow let loose their arrows. The burning arrows streaked through the dark sky, bringing fire to the boats and turning them into funeral pyres.
The boats drifted over the Bifröst that glowed beneath the waters of Lake Michigan, their fires growing. In the sky, Hinon followed their route, gliding low over the waters every now again, almost as if he were guarding their passage. Several of the valkyries on the beach mounted their steeds and joined Hinon in the sky.
“There is an edge to every world,” Frigg said into the quiet. “Here, on Midgard, this is one of ours, because this is one of the few places we are remembered.”
“Hinon isn’t of your pantheon. Lake Michigan belongs more to his pantheon than yours,” Patrick said.
“Our stories overlap in ways you could not understand. Hinon will ensure Oniare does not interfere with the dead. The valkyries will guide their sisters to Valhalla.”
“What of Odin?”
Frigg didn’t speak, merely looked up at the night sky that was no longer cloudy. Jono didn’t know when it had happened, but the sky over the beach was clear and full of stars. Jono watched as two black specks grew larger and larger, blotting out the starry sky until Huginn and Muninn landed in all their strange glory in front of their queen.
Frigg knelt and extended both hands to Odin’s ravens. Huginn and Muninn hopped closer to her, gently preening her hair with their beaks as she stroked their feathers. Frigg smiled at whatever they told her that Jono couldn’t hear.
“Odin lives,” Frigg said before straightening up.
Patrick stared at her. “I drove my dagger into his heart.”
“Yes, but you didn’t kill his memory. You merely broke the spell seeking to use him.”
“You just lit his boat on fire. I know what burning flesh smells like.”
“Odin does not burn, even if the valiant dead do. We gods lose our bodies and our lives only when we are forgotten here.”
“Your lives are myths. You’ve already lived your age in the past. That’s why you’re just stories to most people on Earth.”
“Midgard is the heart of the world tree, but sometimes our hearts ache to return home to Asgard.” Thor pointed at the horizon. “Look. The Allfather comes.”
Jono stared at the water and burning boats still drifting across the Bifröst to the edge of the world, lit by starshine. Some of those stars grew brighter, cutting through the sky like a ribbon of the Northern Lights. Jono’s eyes widened in surprise when he finally realized what he was looking at.
Odin’s godhead returning to the immortal vessel that housed it.
The boats never stopped gliding toward the edge of the world. When the shining brightness of what passed for a god’s soul reached the boat Odin’s body had lain in for the funeral, the fire there grew brighter. It flickered red, then orange, then a pure, shining white-gold before getting snuffed out by some unseen force.
Odin climbed out of the boat, standing tall on the Bifröst rather than sinking into Lake Michigan. The Allfather had been dressed in the finest suit money could buy, overlaid with a fur cloak that matched Frigg’s in style and color. The crown he wore was a simple twist of gold that burned like a halo. Heimdallr was the first to greet Odin when the Allfather stepped off the Bifröst and returned to earth. To Jono’s eyes, Odin looked exactly as he had when he’d swung from Yggdrasil’s branch, the pinnacle sacrifice that never truly happened.
“What,” Patrick said angrily, “the fuck?”
“Yeah, what he said,” Wade muttered, staring wide-eyed at Odin. “Weren’t you dead?”
Jono would’ve tried to ward off the argument he could sense was building, but Fenrir beat him to it by clawing back control when Jono least expected it. Odin smiled at them as he drew closer through the snow, his heterochromatic eyes never blinking.
“You have honed your weapon well, Fenrir Lokisson,” Odin said.
“A pity I could not hone my teeth in your skin, but I know what is at stake,” Fenrir said.
“If only your sister and father felt the same way.”
Patrick pulled free of Jono’s grip, and Fenrir let him. Jono wanted to haul him back, but couldn’t. Patrick stabbed a finger in Odin’s direction. “So, what? You gods just reappear if you’re killed like nothing happened?”
“It is not that simple.”
“Then simplify the fucking explanation,” Patrick snarled. “Because Ashanti sacrificed herself on this very same dagger and she’s still dead.”
“Her body turned to ash, and her godhead had nothing to return to. Her myth has never been one mortals have remembered well. Ashanti is worshipped amongst vampires, and they are not nearly enough to call her back. There is nothing to call her back to.”
Jono thought it was a pity Lucien wasn’t there to hear the derision in Odin’s voice. He honestly wouldn’t mind seeing what the master vampire might try to do to the god.
“We are remembered and have been for thousands of years,” Frigg said, not unkindly, but with a warning to her tone Jono knew Patrick wouldn’t heed. “What happened Sunday was not our end.”
“It could’ve been your end because your greed enabled Ethan to try his favorite spell again.”
Go back to sleep, Jono told Fenrir. I want my body back.
Fenrir sank back into his soul with a growling laugh, and Jono shook his head, trying to reorient himself back in his own body. Wade squinted at him before nodding. “Oh, good. You’re back.”
Patrick looked over his shoulder at Jono, and Jono went to stand beside him
