“Bringer of the Futhark,” she said slowly. “Teacher of the runes.”
He raised himself higher and sat up with a wince. “Yes.” There was a great weariness in his voice. “I have been gone a very long time.”
Gone. The memories flooded back, images of bloody conflict and hopeless courage. The elves had fought beside the Aesir, and died beside them.
All but one. Dáinn the Wise, who had walked away when Heimdall had sounded the call to arms. Dáinn the coward. Dáinn the cursed.
Mist drew away from him as if he were Fenrir himself. “Is that why you’re here?” she demanded. “Did you flee to Midgard when you ran from the great battle?”
The álfar had always been proud, but Dáinn made no effort to refute her accusation. He began to rise, a little of his elvish grace returning, then sank back down again like the faithless weakling he was.
“The great battle?” he said. “The final destruction of the gods?” He sighed, gazing into the darkness. “Does it seem to you that the world has ended?”
Mist couldn’t pretend that she didn’t understand his question, and it stung all the more because she had been thinking the same thing that very morning.
“Have you seen Baldr return from Hel?” Dáinn asked, relentless in his strange detachment. “Where are Vídarr and Váli and the sons of Thor?”
She could have told him that Vídarr and Váli were alive in this very city, one the owner of a Tenderloin bar and the other a common drunk. The sons of Odhinn were living proof that the prophecies had failed. They had known all along how useless it was to cling to the old ways. Mist had finally admitted they were right.
Now she knew they had been very, very wrong.
“There was an ending, yes,” Dáinn said into her silence. “The Aesir and their allies were scattered, sent into limbo and robbed of their power. But there was no Ragnar?k. The gods did not die. And their enemies—” He broke off, and when he spoke again it was in plain English. “Their enemies still live.”
Mist felt the shock pass through her body and settle in her gut, roiling and churning like worms in a corpse. Somewhere the gods lived on, forgotten by men. Freyja, Heimdall, Tyr. Odhinn himself. The Allfather, who had passed Gungnir to her with his final breath.
“Go to Midgard,” he had said. “You will not fare alone. Each of your sisters will bear a weapon that must not fall into the hands of the evil ones. As long as you live, you will guard Gungnir. Until…”
He had died then, slain by Fenrir, and with the other valkyrjur . Mist had left the dying to their fates. She had believed she would have little time to guard the spear, since she, too, would be obliterated in the final destruction.
The joke had been on her. Odhinn himself hadn’t believed the prophecies. He’d known that the world to come would be just as cruel as the old; riven by war, greed, and suffering. He’d known that his enemies would survive.
“They have returned,” Dáinn said, struggling to his feet. “The j?tunn Hrimgrimir has come to Midgard in search of the treasures. I was sent ahead, but he—”
“Who sent you?” she demanded, gripping his arms. “Have the Aesir also returned?”
“The Aesir have no power here. Not yet. Freyja came to me in a dream.…”
Freyja. Freyja the beautiful, the Lady, who received half the slain warriors chosen by the valkyrjur . Mist remembered the other things Hrimgrimir had said before his attack.
“Sow’s bitch,” he had called her. Syr, the Sow, was another name for Freyja. But Mist had always been Odhinn’s servant. It was for him she had fought, for him she had abandoned the honor of death in battle in favor of an immortal life of solitude.