In the end, it was always going to come down to this. A betrayal. Not mine, even. At least, not exactly.
I feel the magic, thrumming down my horns and into my bones. Runes bending the Wyrd, folding space and time, air around us blurring, then solidifying. Turning from ionized gas into the four-foot-tall, armor-clad shapes of two score dvergar.
No prizes for guessing who's at the head.
I'm not surprised by our sudden company, but Magni and Móði are. From the ground, Móði drops into a combat stance, hands raised and the edge of runes dancing on his tongue. From above, on the pillars, Magni goes to pick up Mjölnir.
"I would not, if I were you." From the throng of his army, Tóki steps forth.
"Dvergr!" Móði never did quite get the notion of people preferring to be referred to by their names. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Step away from the hammer, little godling," Tóki says. "It belongs to the dvergar, you will not have it."
Móði looks to me and he looks to Tóki. Then to the army, surrounding us on every side. His eyes go wide, and I feel the beginning edges of suspicion begin to fray.
"We had a deal, dvergr." Magni does not share his brother's hesitation. "We have no quarrel with you, but you cannot have Mjölnir. Nor can you hope to defeat me when I wield it, no matter your numbers." His gauntlets close around the haft, hefting it upward. All around us, lightning snakes across the heavens.
Tóki's rock-stiff lips crack into the grimace that passes for his smile. "Before you do this," he says, "perhaps you should ask your 'bondsman' if he thinks it wise."
Magni's eyes shift to me, taking in my relaxed stance and utter lack of surprise over our new company. "Jötunn," he snarls. "If you have betrayed us—"
"Oh fuck off!" I've had enough. Really, truly enough. " 'If I've betrayed you'? Of course I fucking have, you brainless piece of shit. Just who do you think I am?" Dragging me across the fucking Realms like a fucking pet. Beaten and chained and tortured.
Magni roars, hefting his new prize. "Then your blood will be the first to spill!"
"Come at me!" I snarl, every feather on my body fluffing out, pulled by the static charge Magni's rage is building in Mjölnir's metal. "Do it! It's what you want, isn't it? To spill the blood of jötnar? To have everyone think you worthy to pick up your father's bloody banner?"
Magni roars, arm raised, ready to loose the storm, when Móði says, "Brother, no! He goads you! Look to the dvergr instead. His hands, Brother. Look at what he holds!"
Magni hesitates, just enough. Just enough to take one look at Tóki.
Tóki, who holds Járngreipr in his stumpy paws.
Magni looks down at his own hands, to where his fingers are stuffed inside the exact same set of gauntlets. He hesitates.
"What's wrong, tough guy?" I snarl. "I'm still waiting for my smiting. Show me what a true son of Thor can do!"
Móði, ever the clever brother, has turned to Tóki. "What betrayal is this?" he demands.
"Your pet came to me," Tóki says. "Offering wicked deals in exchange for its freedom. It would have me forge a new pair of gauntlets for Mjölnir's wielding. False ones, ones not woven with the true runes of Járngreipr." He gestures to the gloves in his hands. "The true gauntlets are with me. And you will not have them."
Móði's eyes widen, his mouth dropping open as he turns to me with "Why?"
I don't even deign him with an answer. If the self-righteous piece of shit can't figure it out himself, then he doesn't deserve to know.
Instead, I pull the memory of a cigarette from nowhere, light it, and take a long and satisfying drag. My mind is thinking contracts and connections, steel and industry and the taste of home, when I hear Tóki say.
"Now die, æsir thieves! For the honor of Niðavellir!"
I stop. "Whoa. Wait, Tóki. What are you doing?"
Tóki snarls. "Silence, jötunn cur! You will die with them."
All of a sudden, the guys surrounding us are looking significantly more armed.
"This wasn't the deal, kid."
Tóki laughs. "I make no deals with oath-breaking scum like you. I am no fool like my uncle was. He sought to please Ásgarðr in his vanity and received nothing for his labor! For my father's labor. Today, I redress this wrong. Take back some of what was once stolen from us, and take blood in payment for the rest."
Oh.
Shit.
"Brokkr made a fucking deal. It was fair, and he got what he bargained for. Don't fucking pin his greed on me!"
"Why would I need to? Father told me of the fly that broke his concentration on the forge. All know it to have been you, liar and cheat. There was no fair deal. Ásgarðr got what it always did, bleeding the Realms dry for its amusement. Because of your tricks, Mjölnir's forging was imperfect. Now may you choke on the justice of your own demise! Kill them all! For Niðavellir."
Like I said: It was always going to come down to this. A betrayal. The only thing ever really in question was whose it was gonna be.
A thousand years ago, a fly bit at a dvergr as he worked the bellows of a forge. Because of this, the handle of the hammer he was forging was made too short. Because the handle was too short, it wasn't enough to ground the lightning called by the runes forged into the hammer's head. Anyone trying to do so would be fried. And because of that, a separate set of gloves were forged. To protect the hammer's wielder.
So. Here we are. In the place where, it turns out, irony is not just a descriptor of Mjölnir's metal.
As one, the dvergar howl, lunging forward with weapons raised. I take a step back, cigarette falling from my lips, winding up shoulder-to-shoulder with Móði, who growls, "See the price of your betrayal!"
"Fuck you!" I snarl.
Then the dvergar are upon us and there's no more room for talking.
Forty versus three. Skewed odds, but I've had worse.
I also have a secret, and it's time to fess up.
A dvergr lunges at me with an ax and I roll sideways in a flash of feathers, leaving a line of flames in my wake. He steps around them, coming at me again even as ten of his fellows close in from all around. I have fractions of a second before they hit and, in the space between two breaths, I reach inside. Down beneath muscle and flesh and scars, to where a golden heart beats beneath the surface. Burning with the glory and the fury of the sun, and I crack it open and call it do—
Pain explodes on the side of my head, the world going dark as I fly sideways from the impact, trailing streamers of noxious blood. When I hit the ground I roll, over and over, feeling things snap until I finally come to a stop by hitting something hard and armored that goes "Oof!"
My head is still ringing. A morning star, maybe, my thick skull saved only by my horns.
Of course, I need my horns to see and do magic. But hey. What use are either of those things on a battlefield?
Especially a moment later when a sword plunges into my heaving side.
"Hnnuargh!"
The sound of metal hitting metal above me. Through blurry Wyrdsight, I can just about make out the whirling storm of Magni as he murders his way across the Bleed, his own hammer in one hand, Mjölnir in the other. He's using it as a weapon, not to call down lightning, but I don't know how long that's going to last against an army.
From somewhere behind, I hear Móði shouting runes: sól, sól, sól, over and over. Except the dvergar aren't stupid. They know their weakness and they came for war. Their armor doesn't leave much skin exposed, and so they fight.
I do, too, kicking out with a leg and tripping a dvergr who'd been sneaking up on Magni's flank. When it goes down, its fellows notice I'm not yet out of the fight, and then I'm definitely in.
My head is still ringing and I can't see very well, but I'm twice the size of the armored little maggots and I have big claws and sharp teeth and flesh roasts so well inside metal. Not to mention the more the squirming little pieces of shit cut and stab me, the more I bleed caustic blood all over their weapons and armor.
The dvergar are nothing if not engineers, and they figure this out after one or two shattered axes. After that, they stop stabbing and start hitting, which isn't nearly as fun.
I heal broken bones quickly but . . . still. Broken ribs and a fractured leg make dodging a little difficult.
We're losing. That much is obvious. I'm back-to-back with Magni and Móði, the three of us having retreated up atop a basalt column. Dvergar swarm all around, while I lash out with claws and fire and Magni is a red roaring whirl of the berserk. Móði, meanwhile, tries to hold the rune shield that's all that's protecting us from a well-placed arrow to the heart.
It's precarious, and it can't last. So it doesn't.
Móði goes down first. He's so busy concentrating on the runes he doesn't notice the dvergr coming up from underneath. It doesn't take much, just a stubby-fingered paw around his ankle and a yank.
With a cry, he tumbles from the column. The shield around us pops and, in the next instant, I'm rolling sideways in a fireball as a hail of arrows presses its advantage.
I hear Magni call his brother's name. I try lunging toward him, but trip on the still body of a dvergr we slaughtered earlier, going down with a thud and lasting all of half a second before I've got six more around me, trying to hammer my bones to dust.
"Fuck!"
I roll onto my back, kicking the nearest maggot in the face and sending it flying. Up above, in the sky, the clouds begin to swirl.
Magni has Mjölnir raised.
I hear Móði cry, "Brother! No!"
But, really? What other option is there? When it was always going to come to this.
I lunge for cover, such that it exists. Mostly this involves putting as many dvergar and rocks and basalt between me and the sonic boom that's coming in three, two, one . . .
Now.
Ground zero at a lightning strike is very, very loud. Heat and pressure, the rush of expanding and contracting air. I have my hands clamped over my ears and my hind claws digging between the cracks in the basalt, and I'm still sent flying. So are the dvergar, living and dead alike.
Everyone with eyes is blinded by the flash. I remember those, from back when I could see. They aren't fun, either.
Nothing about Mjölnir is fun. Not the thunder, not the lightning, and not the way the heavens open after and piss down rain in endless, razor-edged sheets.
Fire doesn't burn very well in the rain. And wet feathers are fucking awful.
I have half a heartbeat to think of this before my entire body goes rigid, tattoos bursting to electrified life. Somewhere, outside the spasms, I hear Magni howl.
With the fake Járngreipr, Mjölnir's lightning had nowhere safe to ground. So it did what lightning usually does, jumping from the hammer to the rock by means of Magni's hands.
The tattoo Móði left there, sympathetic magic that it is, does not fail to notice this occurrence and, therefore, neither do I.
This irony of this situation is not lost on me, even through the crackling pain and the jerking spasms of my limbs.
And then it's over, and my mouth tastes like dirt and iron.
"Magni!" I hear Móði's boots against the stone, the first thing on the shattered battlefield to move. Crying his brother's name, over and over.
Magni is on the ground, hunched over. He's breathing fast, voice keening through the sobs, armor burned in fractals down his body.
His hands he has cradled close, fingers twisted into claws, hammers discarded on the ground.
Despite the rain, there's smoke coming from his gauntlets.
His melted gauntlets.
Magni. You fucking idiot.
The three of us are crowded around a rise of basalt. Magni is out, I'm not doing much better, Móði is exhausted. We're surrounded by dvergar bodies, broken and thrown into grotesque rag dolls by the physics of a lightning strike. Among the corpses, however, others begin to rise.
Tóki is among the living. Because of course he is.
"Not enough, boy," he sneers, boots clanking over stone burned and cracked by the same mad patterns as Magni's skin.
Móði gets halfway to a crouch, sword in his hand and runes on his lips. "Stay back!"
As befitting the threat, Tóki merely laughs. "Ásgarðr's ruin is long coming," he says. "Undone by pride, greed"—he flashes a look my way—"and bad allies. You've fought well enough. Now. Submit, and take the deaths that you deserve."
Behind him, half a dozen bowmen raise their bows.
Gods are, in general, not all that susceptible to death. Not permanent death, anyhow.
Still. If it ever does come, it comes for us like this. And if Móði surrenders—if he's slaughtered outside of battle and washes up on Náströnd's corpse-lined shores . . .
Well. Let's just say Helheimr is no place for an áss.
I see Móði think the same, feel the swirls of Wyrd as he calls another rune song to his lips. Better to die fighting, and all that.
Tóki grins. "As you wish," he says, raising his hand to signal his men.
The gesture signals someone, all right. One minute Tóki's hand is raised, the next it has an arrow sticking through it.
Tóki howls. Around him, his men fall into panic, whirling to see what new attack besets them.
I feel them first, a pull on the edge of the Wyrdsight. A smell like dark forests and freshly spilled blood.
Jötunn blood, and it comes from all around.
The rocks are crawling with them, dark shapes sliding through the sluicing wet, claws and blades flashing in the gloom. A whole second army, slipped into the Bleed when the rest of us were distracted.
Underneath the rain, I hear a sound very much like the gallop of hooves. Then a shape—like a horse but not at all—appears on the crest of a nearby column. It rears, forelegs rippling in the air like ghosted video.
There's no roar, of course. Instead, a bright light shines out from the raised hand of the beast's rider, and a voice says, in very, very familiar English:
"Nobody move! This is a bloody rescue mission."
And it is the most beautiful sight I have ever known.
Tóki is less enthused, yanking the arrow from his hand and snarling, "This does not concern the þursar!"
"It concerns me." Another voice, and another shape lumbering out into the rain. This one short and squat, rippling with displeased light. "Lay down your arms, Tóki," Uni says. "Do not do this."
"Magni!"
It seems like Sigmund brought the entire gang along, Þrúðr darting out as well, slipping on wet stone as she falls down beside her brother.
Meanwhile, I hear my own name called, so I raise a hand and say, "Hi!"
A moment later, I hear the sound of too many feet coming my way. Then Sigmund's presence descends on me like melted chocolate.
"Lain!"
"Hi."
"Lain!"
"Yup."
Sigmund's hands flutter anxiously over my wounded skin, but it's still pissing down rain and in the end he takes the risk, grabbing me around the head and holding me tight against his shoulder.
I sigh, closing my eyes, and for a moment the only thing in all the Realms is him. He smells like sweat and leather and wet wool, dressed in ridiculously old-fashioned clothes, and I bury my nose against his neck and inhale, long and low and slow, while he peppers kisses over my brow.
"Jesus," he breathes. "Lain."
"One of two," I manage.
Somewhere behind us, gods and armies wait. They can continue doing so.
"I g-got your message." There's a hitch in Sigmund's voice. If some of the rain that runs down his cheeks is salty, who's going to mention it?
He's clutching his phone in his hand, sheltering it, LED still blaring brightly.
"It was a good entrance," I say. "Very hot."
Sigmund laughs, one short, wet bark. "Jesus. Lain. I just— Fuck."
He holds me tight enough to hurt and his mind is a maelstrom rivaling the one above us. Not all the thoughts in it are good, but, right now, relief and joy overwhelm everything else. I might be spending the night on the couch later, but not just yet.
"Can you stand?" His fingers brush over my smashed-up horn. "Someone whacked you in the head?"
"Yes and yes." I prove myself liar on the first count by stumbling, ending with one arm slung over Sigmund's shoulder and a heavy head nudging into my back.
Sleipnir, Jesus.
"Thank you," I tell Slippy. He huffs, stamping a foot.
"I found him in Ásgarðr," Sigmund tells me. "Chained up in a stable. Sigyn was, uh . . ."
I can imagine. Old wounds, and all that.
"Also," Sigmund adds, eyes scanning around the rain-soaked shapes surrounding us. "Um . . . you kind of have a lot of kids, you know that, right?"
"Long life," I say. "It happens."
Up ahead, I see two shapes, watching. One is big and huge, all feather and claw and horn. The other is small and slight, bow hanging limply from her fingers.
I've seen them both before.
"Vala," I say, then glance at the girl.
"Eisa." She raises her chin, as if daring me to deny it.
I just close my eyes, feeling an ache deep inside that doesn't belong to me. Not truly.
"You look so much like your mother," says Loki.
Eisa bites her lip, fighting down too many emotions as she clings against her sister's side.
There's a lot more I should say. A lot more I—Loki—wants to say. Just . . . not here, on a rain-soaked battlefield, among the corpses of the fallen and the wary eyes of the defeated.
Not far away, another family struggles through their own reunion.
"Do it! Do it now!"
Magni's voice is strained, harsh and broken beneath the roaring of the storm.
"There must be something you can do? Please?"
Þrúðr is on her knees, dress soaked, hands fluttering over Magni's hunched and smoking back. Móði stands nearby, all oozing broken anguish.
He looks at me when I approach. "You!" he says. "Please, I— Help me. He needs healing."
Shit.
"Oh my god." Beside me, I feel Sigmund hitch back a gag as the smell hits him. Even through the rain it's strong, like burned bacon. Magni got hit by a lot of lightning. It melted the gauntlets onto his hands and scarred his skin. Mostly, it charbroiled his insides.
Gods are tough; we don't die easy. But Magni's not doing too well right now. He's holding his broken hands out, begging. For Móði to amputate, I think. And there's something else, too. A hum, just on the edge of hearing. A well of magic that's almost right to burst.
I look at Magni, just for an instant. Remember the feel of his boots in my guts and his spit through my skin. A sneer boils over in my heart, black and filthy, but it's Baldr who says:
"I can help him."
"D-don't need your help. Beast." Magni looks to Þrúðr. "Do it! Quickly."
Þrúðr looks at her brother, then she looks at me. All around us, the rain sluices down like tears.
I meet Þrúðr's gaze, and she meets mine.
"It is his will," she says.
Then grabs Móði's sword, and swings.
"Oh Jesus." Sigmund buries his head against my chest, eyes jammed shut and trying not to gag.
It's over in a blood-soaked heartbeat. Þrúðr is strong, and she knows how to use a sword. She's tearing up her dress an instant after, makeshift bandages to tend to her brother's bloodied stumps.
Móði's eyes are wide, his mouth wider. He can feel it, now. Þrúðr's deft cut severing that one last final thread.
"What have you done?" Móði says. I don't know whether he's talking to me or to his sister.
In the next moment, Magni howls, head thrown back, arcing from a pain that has nothing to do with his now-missing hands.
Þrúðr falls backward from the shock, on her ass in the wet. Móði stumbles away, too, runes of protection dancing on his tongue.
Something's shifting under Móði's skin. Beneath his clothes, beneath his hauberk, wool and metal bulging in some horrific, churning way.
Beside me, I hear Vala's startled breath. She knows what this is, and she turns to me.
"Father—?"
"It is what it is," I say. Old oaths, broken open by steel and lightning. "I don't think they know."
Actually, I know they don't. One of Odin's dirtiest little secrets.
I was there when Þrúðr was born. I was there when Thor was, too. Truth be told, I have more memories of the former. The latter is a blur, hazy with blood and screams. Live births don't come easy to the jötnar, but that's our curse when we lie with featherless things.
That's what the þursar are: half-breed descendants of the risar, of my people, and the æsir. And that's what Thor was, too.
He had a tail when he was born. A tail and stumpy little wings, the spikes of new feathers lined like teeth along the edge.
Odin hadn't liked it. He'd stared down at the baby and given an ultimatum: three months. Then he'd weave the skin curse. In the interim, no one in Ásgarðr could know what had happened. When we brought Thor back into Odin's hall, it was minus a mother and his feathers, and plus one ugly tattoo.
Same tattoo I've got, somewhere beneath the scars. Same tattoo Sigyn never really forgave me for passing down to our kids, in the same way Thor passed it down to his.
And that same tattoo whose magic is finally breaking open. First for Vala, then for me.
And now for Magni.
The transformation is . . . not pretty. Electricity, lifting up from Magni's heaving, building skin. His clothes tearing, mail splitting.
When the limbs break through the flesh of his back, Þrúðr screams. She has her sword raised, and I throw my hand out in a gesture for her to stop.
"W-what—?" she manages, as Magni howls.
"His true self," I say. I'm not sure if Þrúðr hears me.
The transformation does do one thing, and that's give Magni back his hands. After a fashion. The claws that regrow are twisted and broken. Flesh shiny from the scarring, fingers gnarled and painful. Magni claws them at the ground, then at his face, howling as his siblings lunge toward him, holding him down.
He doesn't turn on them. Instead, when the transformation's done, he slumps beneath them on the stone, hopeless and defeated. Þrúðr and Móði call his name, stroking red feathers and a mass of endless fractal scars.
All around, dozens of bright-eyed þursar bear witness to the one truth Odin never wanted told. So, for that matter, do a host of dvergar.
Meanwhile, a hammer lies forgotten in the rain.