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But not until she had made very clear that treachery would be punished. For the sake of the world she loved.

*   *   *

“Make yourself ready.
She
wants to see you.”

Dainn sat up. He didn’t recognize the elf who had spoken; at first his guards had been of Konur’s band, not friendly but not openly hostile.

That had changed when the new mortals had begun to arrive. Dainn had listened intently to the few conversations held within his earshot. Konur and his Alfar had apparently been assigned elsewhere—though Dainn had his doubts that Mist had been involved in that “reassignment”—and he’d had no word of Ryan, let alone of Sleipnir and Danny. There was new activity in the camp, a buzz of excitement, the overwhelming sense that something had changed.

Mist,
they said, had changed.

Scrambling to his feet, Dainn lost all awareness of his filthy clothes, the stench of his unwashed body, the misery of thirst, and the humiliation of the spell that still kept him silent. His limbs were heavy as the guard stood aside and she swept into the room.

She
was
different. He saw it in her bearing, the lift of her head, her eyes, the cruelty in her smile. There was no doubt in her, no uncertainty of power or purpose.

“So,” she said. She glanced around the room, her nose wrinkling with distaste. “In the absence of a permanent visit to Niflheim, this seems almost a fitting prison for a traitor of your considerable merit.”

The words, the cadence of her voice, even the sentiment were not Mist’s. She might have deceived every other elf or mortal in the camp. Even Mist’s father, if she had seen him. Perhaps even Ryan.

But she could not deceive
him
.

Freya had finally succeeded. Konur had not protected his daughter, and Ryan hadn’t warned her. That which Dainn had feared for so long had finally come to pass.

This was no longer Mist pretending to be Freya, as at the reception, but Freya within Mist’s body. Not daring, yet, to reveal her true self, because it was still possible that she had not learned to wield Mist’s power well enough to control any who might object to the murder of her daughter.

A great roaring filled Dainn’s head, unimaginable grief, the agony of loss. But he didn’t let her see it. She had to believe that he, too, had fallen for her trick.

She would be his means of leaving this cell and searching for Danny. Nothing else held any meaning for him. Or ever would.

“No words of greeting?” Freya asked. “Oh, but of course. You can’t speak.”

He touched his throat, letting his eyes plead for him. “Mis—” he whispered.

“Konur should not have lied to me about placing this spell upon you,” she said, “but he did me a service. I have no desire to hear your excuses.”

Then why are you here?

Freya flinched, and he realized that he had projected the thought. They had communicated that way a hundred times when Freya was still confined to the Void and he had acted as the Lady’s voice in Midgard.

But it had not happened since her arrival on Earth. And he could not let it happen again.

“Unfortunately,” she said, as if she had not heard him, “I must question you before I decide your fate. I may find it in my heart to end it painlessly if you tell me all you know of Loki’s plans.” She gestured with her forefinger, and Dainn felt the spell released, his throat open again. He coughed, spitting blood into his palm.

“I can … tell you very little,” he rasped.

“You went to Loki of your own free will.”

He sat up on his knees. “I did it to … protect you. The beast had no power then. My magic was gone. I didn’t believe I could be turned against you and your allies.”

“A pretty lie,” Freya said. “You cared nothing for me. For any of us.”

“However it may have appeared to you,” he said, coughing again, “I was never incapable of feeling.”

“Love, perhaps?” she asked mockingly. “The way you loved Freya in Asgard?”

“I was a fool,” he whispered.

“You were
always
a traitor, shifting with the slightest breeze.”

Dainn croaked a laugh. “Did your mother tell you how she and Loki schemed to betray Odin in Asgard?” he asked. “Can there be any greater treachery than that?”

“Betray him?” Freya asked, much too lightly.

“Loki may lie about many things, but in this he told the truth.”

“And he told you many other truths, which I
will
have from you.” A weight of air pressed down on Dainn’s shoulders, heavy as steel bars. “Down, traitor.”

The concrete rose up to meet Dainn, and he toppled. He knew at once that it was not common magic, but touched on the ancient, calling upon all the elements at once.

And there was a darkness in it, pain that rushed into Dainn’s nostrils and mouth like noxious gas. The wound in his palm split open, and blood spiraled up into the air.

Just as it had with Danny in his bedroom. The
Eitr
. Freya controlled it, wielded it, as she had previously been unwilling or unable to do since her physical arrival from the Shadow-Realm in Ginnungagap.

Now it was poison, swirling through vein and artery, heart and gut. His body fought to expel it, and as he struggled he felt the nature of the stuff change inside him, as if his organs had taken the magic and leached it of all malignancy. Almost …
almost
he could grasp it, like a weapon to be turned about and hurled against its original wielder.

But he stopped before he could follow the instinct, because as the Eitr changed it also gave up the secret it had been hiding, the unique signature he would have known even to the end of all things.

It did not belong to Freya. The Lady had
failed
.

Moisture flooded Dainn’s eyes, and he kept his face averted. Freya was gone. He felt emptiness where a connection had once existed, and wondered how he ever could have mistaken it for the living goddess.

Did Mist know what had happened? Did she understand the horror of what had almost been done to her? Had she fought for her life, forced to destroy before she was destroyed?

Dainn didn’t dare ask her now. Mist’s mind was sullied, murky with dark dreams. Freya’s presence might have vanished from the world, but a part of the Lady was still with Mist: a ghost, a shadow, a malign revenant that had not yet been fully dislodged. As long as she remained …

Fixing his eyes on the ground, Dainn clenched his bloody fist. Mist had to be shocked out of her dream before the malignancy grew and made her a mirror image of her mother.

“Who are you, Lady of Darkness?” he asked.

She struck him with a little more force than he had anticipated. He wiped the blood from his cheek and grabbed her callused fingers.

“Whose hand is this?” he asked as she tried to pull away. “Does it belong to the goddess who mated with both Jotunn and Alfr to produce a daughter fit to be her sword against the All-father? Did she even understand what she was creating?”

“What … Alfr?” she asked, squinting at him as if her vision were failing her.

“Konur. He told the secret to me and Ryan after the boy came to find me and tried to help me escape. You have two fathers.”

“It isn’t true,” she said, wrenching her hand from his. “You have said enough.”

“But I thought you wanted a confession.” He rose onto his haunches. She didn’t stop him. “Look into my mind, Mist. I know you are capable of it, as you are capable of controlling your magic as you never could before.”

He felt the slight push from her mind, instinctively resisted, and then gave in. He let her see what was necessary, and when she was finished she rocked back on her heels, her eyes the color of ice.

“What will you do with this knowledge, Mist?” he asked, relentless in his fear for her. “Will you accept it, or will you escape into Freya’s malicious influence to avoid what you cannot face?”

The shock of his words did as he had hoped, and he was prepared for the attack. The ancient magic, swelled by the Eitr, reared up again to punish and consume, but he cast it back and aimed his thoughts to strike at the very heart of her being, as he had done months ago when he had first sought to break down the mental barriers that prevented her from accepting his help and recognizing her magic.

You are not Freya,
he said.
You can never be
.

Her fingers blackened and burned like live coals in a fire pit, and she raised her hands to fling the fire at his face. He leaped at her, holding the beast in check with all the magic that had been restored to him along with it.

They came together in a tangle of limbs, and he dragged her to the ground. He pinned her there, and a flash of memory took him back to that moment when he had driven Freya from her body with a kiss. He wanted her, even as she met his gaze with disgust and hatred.

But he could never touch her again. He had been tainted—not only by the beast, but by his months as Loki’s captive. He had let himself be used in every way imaginable. His love for Danny held no cure for what he had become. Only now, as he saw the contempt in Mist’s eyes, did he realize just how deep the corruption had reached.

He rolled away, and Mist sprang to her feet, panting harshly. Dainn rose and put his back to the wall.

“Konur is your father,” he said. “He served Freya, but he chose you.”

21

Mist sank back to her knees, no longer raging but bewildered and lost. “What do you mean he chose me?”

In a matter of seconds, Dainn relived the confrontation behind the warehouses, when Konur had spoken of secrets that must still be kept. When he’d promised not to hurt his own daughter.

“Over the Lady,” Dainn answered slowly, watching Mist’s face for any sign of rejection. “He must have known that only one of you would survive.”

Her skin blanched, and she raised both hands to her mouth. “Sweet Baldr,” she whispered. “I killed her.”

It was not a sudden realization, Dainn knew, but a fresh acceptance. She remembered everything, and he felt the shock of that memory in his own mind.

“She is gone?” he asked.

“I … destroyed her body. But not all of her. Not until now
.”

“She was powerful,” Dainn said. “Her spirit was strong, and—”

“You
knew,
” Mist said suddenly. “I saw it in her mind. You knew what she planned all along.”

Dainn closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said.

“You always intended to help her.” She scrambled up, stumbled back, and slammed into the door, leaning against it heavily. “
That
was why you were sent to me … not for the Treasures, or because I was supposed to lead any kind of resistance against Loki.”

“I was wrong,” he said, striving to keep his voice level. “I realized it not long after we met. But I was too much a coward. I feared you would cease to trust me.” He swallowed. “For a long time, even when I was with Loki, I convinced myself that you had grown strong enough to hold your own against her. Only after the protest, when you—” He broke off. “I made an unforgivable mistake.”

Mist shook her head wildly. “No. At the garage, you
did
try to warn me. Konur silenced you.”

It was, Dainn thought, as if she were grasping at any excuse to absolve him. He was unable to speak.

“You said he chose me, but he let me fall into Freya’s trap,” she said, a bitter edge in her voice. “My own—”

“I know Konur will have a reason for his actions,” Dainn said, though in that moment he hated Konur as much as he hated himself. “He had ample opportunity to do more than silence me. Perhaps he always knew you would win.”

Mist began to laugh, a strange, high-pitched moan. Someone approached the door from outside, and she pressed her palms flat against the door. It turned to ice.

“Konur was with me, after it happened,” she said, the laughter dying. “I was in and out of consciousness for days. I told him that Freya was lost when we were working together to find Sleipnir—he was in the room when she asked me to do it. He didn’t seem to grieve for her at all.” She seemed to notice what she had done to the door and tucked her hands under her arms. “You’re right. If he knew, he must have thought I would—Gods.” Mist dragged her hand over her face, smearing tears across her cheeks. “Is there anyone left I can trust?”

“You must make your own peace with Konur,” Dainn said, bowing his head. “I will tell you what little I know of Loki’s plans, though he did not often confide in me. I will not ask for your forgiveness.”

“Still the noble elf,” she said, though her contempt rang hollow.

“Never noble,” he said. “There were many times I wanted to die. I told you once that the beast would not permit it. But the creature was gone almost all the time I was with Loki, as was my magic.”

“In the garage, you said—”

“I said that without the herb, the beast would return.”

“And Edvard provided you with that herb, before he left us.”

“He claimed it was used by his people when one of them suffered an illness that interfered with their control of their own beasts. For a short while, when I was still with you, the herb was effective. But on the steppes—”

“The beast tried to kill Danny. At Freya’s command.”

“Yes. I feared I could not stop, so I took the remainder of the herb I had brought with me, and it silenced the beast. When I was with Loki—” He slid down to the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees. “They continued to feed the herb to me without my knowledge, waiting until Loki found some use for the beast again. But even if I had known, I would have taken it willingly.”

“Odin’s balls,” Mist said, teeth clenched. “Why did Edvard go to Loki in the first place?”

“I do not know. I never saw him at Loki’s house. I only realized the part he must have played when I saw him in the parking facility, and understood that they wanted the beast to create havoc while they stole Sleipnir.” He bowed his head. “I believed you were Freya. I meant only to protect Danny.”

Mist ran her hands through her hair. “Loki knew I was Mist all along.”