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Dainn leaped out of his cot, aware only that someone had entered the cell.

“Dainn Faith-breaker,” Odin said. He stood near the door, the edges of his powerful body blurred, the faint outline of the door visible behind him.

The beast stirred. Dainn pushed it down. He could hate; he could long for the chance to kill Odin for lying to Mist, for threatening Danny, for what the All-father had done to
him
.

But the king of the Aesir still had Danny.

“You come very late,” Dainn said coldly.

“You know why I am here,” Odin said.

“No.”

Odin laughed softly. “One might almost believe that you are still the inscrutable advisor I once permitted to stand by my throne and speak words of wisdom into my ear.”

“I was never a traitor.”

Odin leaned against the wall, becoming more solid as he relaxed. “You
were
a traitor, of sorts. You made the error of falling for Loki’s tricks while Freya believed she was seducing me. I knew all along that they were conspiring against me.”

“Not from the beginning,” Dainn said, “or you would have done far worse to Loki than bind him beneath the serpent to suffer from its venom until the coming of Ragnarok. And Freya would never have escaped unscathed.”

“What I did not know, you told me when you came to me to warn me of their schemes. And there was much I understood that you never did.”

Dainn’s heart pounded behind his ears. “Is it your intention to enlighten me, All-father?”

“Have you begun to remember?”

“Remember what?”

“The time before you came to Asgard. The magic you always claimed not to possess.”

Suddenly Dainn grasped Odin’s meaning. The All-father had seen Dainn’s “new” ability to heal, heard spells chanted in a language he did not know. He had witnessed the use of magic Dainn still did not fully comprehend.

The ancient magic, pulling the Eitr into Dainn’s body.

“I remember no such magic from a time before Asgard,” Dainn said with desperate honesty. “I always had the magic of my people—”

“But this is not elven magic,” Odin said, his teeth flashing through his beard. “For millennia I held the Eitr, but it was lost to me along with the spells to wield it. From the moment you came to Asgard, you burned with its light. I showed you great favor, stranger that you were, waiting for you to transmit your knowledge and power to me.”

“You never asked for such knowledge,” Dainn said. “
I
saw no light. How could I—”

“Why should I
ask
?” Odin snapped. “I gave you everything, and expected so little in return.”

“I had nothing to give you.”

“And yet you have access to the Eitr now, do you not?” Odin asked. “Where did it come from, Alfr? Have you always denied its presence, even to yourself?”

“If I had such abilities, you would have destroyed them when you cursed me with the beast.”

“A beast you cannot control without my help.”

“You would help me control the thing you created to punish me?” Dainn asked with a short laugh. “Perhaps I no longer require assistance.”

“Even if you believe you have mastered it now, do you truly believe it will not escape again?”

“Are you suggesting that you will remove the curse?”

“I am the All-father. I can undo what I have done.”

For a moment, Dainn was almost tempted. Tempted enough to believe that Odin might be telling the truth.

But the price would be too high. And as long as the All-father didn’t know that Mist possessed the ancient magic, as well …

“You know the spells, the chants to obtain and control the Eitr,” Odin said, his words almost wheedling. “You will teach them to me.”

“I do not
control
the Eitr,” Dainn said quietly, praying that Odin would accept the half-truth. “If I drew upon it, I did so in extremity, not because of any discipline or true understanding. What I do not understand, I cannot teach.”

“If adversity inspires you, it can easily be arranged. Your son—” Odin laughed. “Yes, I know he is your son, Faith-breaker. As I know that he, too, has the use of the Eitr.”

Nearly choking on the bile that rose into his throat, Dainn clenched his teeth. “You are mistaken,” he said.

“He has placed a spell on Sleipnir to bar my access to my own soul, and my patience is not without limit.”

Dainn suppressed a shiver. From the moment Danny had fallen into a state so near death, he had been certain that the boy’s desire to protect Sleipnir had greatly weakened him. The fact that Dainn had been able to revive his son was of little comfort, given that Danny obviously maintained the spell even now.

Through Rota, Mist had assured him that Danny would be closely watched—as yet, most of the allies, elf and human, knew only that an unknown boy had been brought into camp—and that any sign of illness would be dealt with immediately. Dainn never doubted that she would do almost anything to save Danny. But as long as Danny continued to protect Sleipnir from Odin, he was as much at risk as if Odin directly threatened his life.

He will have Sleipnir’s soul by any means necessary
, Dainn thought.

But he would
not
have Danny.

“You want me to convince Danny to release the spell,” Dainn said.

“Convince or compel, yes. But then you and I shall begin working together, as Mist and I did when we sought Sleipnir. You will let me into
your
soul, Faith-breaker, and show me what you claim you cannot teach.”

Shadows closed in around Dainn, exuding a thousand tiny needles that stabbed through his clothing into every raw nerve. His palm flared with pain.

“You do not know what you ask,” he rasped. “You cannot take the Eitr by force.”

“But you will
give
it to me. If saving your son is not enough motivation, you may also think of Mist. Or are you prepared to sacrifice her to your own arrogance?”

Blood began to drip sluggishly from between Dainn’s curled fingers. “Why should Mist suffer because of me?” he asked.

“Her loyalties are divided. She has some affection for you, and for your son. I can easily do without her if she—”

“But you cannot,” Dainn said. “You will fall without her at your side.”

Odin strode up to him, seizing his wrist. “The oath you swore with Loki,” he said, Dainn’s blood running over his hand. “Why does it bleed?” He twisted Dainn’s arm. “What do you
see
?”

Dainn bared his teeth, and the beast stirred under his skin. Odin jerked back, scraping his bloody hands across his pants. Struggling against his darker half, Dainn calmed his emotions and let the beast fade away.

“I will ask Danny to release Sleipnir,” he said. “But I warn you. The Eitr can destroy as well as heal, and it will not be compelled. Take great care, Odin All-father.”

“I suggest you follow your own advice, Faith-breaker.”

Making a great deal of noise about it, Odin stomped out of the cell. Distantly, Dainn heard the All-father’s hoarse commands. He exhaled slowly.

The door to the cell was open.

The Alfar guards ignored him when he walked out, wrapping a scrap of one of his clean shirts around his hand. He made his way to the stable, his senses taking in everything around him, gathering information he might need when he went to warn Mist. The shadow of the Eitr nipped at his heels like a beast still hungry for his blood.

Sleipnir laid his ears back and pawed the ground when Dainn opened the stall door. Danny was already on his feet. He seemed healthy and alert, bearing no mark of his trauma.

“Danny,” Dainn said, his voice cracking.

“Papa,” Danny said. There was wariness in the word, as if he already suspected why Dainn had come.

And why should he not, when Dainn had tried to do it before?

“I’m sorry, Danny,” Dainn said, crouching just out of range of Sleipnir’s hooves. “You have to let Sleipnir go.”

Grabbing a handful of Sleipnir’s long mane, Danny shook his head. “No,” he said.

Dainn looked up at the horse. “I know you understand me,” he said. “You have permitted Danny to aid you, at some cost to him. If you do not give yourself to Odin, you will only postpone what must be, and surrender the life of the one who protects you.”

Nostrils flared wide and ears twitched forward and back. Sleipnir understood him well enough.

“I beg you not to fight it,” Dainn said. “I beg you to save my son.”

Sleipnir lowered his head, his muzzle nearly touching the ground. It was a gesture of agreement, of sorrow, of defeat.

“No, Slippy!” Danny said.

The horse dropped to his knees and rolled onto his side. Danny draped himself over Sleipnir’s barrel. Dainn felt a sense of release, as if a boat had come unmoored from a pier. Fresh blood soaked through his bandage and into his sleeve.

“Danny,” he said, hiding his hand behind his back.

With strange, almost jerky movements, Danny straightened. He lifted his head to meet Dainn’s eyes.

“You’ve made a mistake,” he said. “You’ve given Odin everything, and left yourself with nothing.”

“Loki,” Dainn said. He scrambled to his feet. “Where is my son?”

“Here.” Loki reached behind his back and pulled Danny out from behind him. The two were identical in every possible way, but Danny was limp, as if lost in a deep sleep.

Dainn considered for less than a second. “Can you take him with you, now?”

Loki’s mocking expression was a travesty on Danny’s face. “You’ll give him back to me?”

“To save him, yes.”

“And hand me the victory.” He laughed. “I knew this would come, if I remained patient. You were never anything but transparent, my Dainn.”

“
Loki,
” Odin’s voice rumbled from the doorway. “I did not believe you had the courage to come here without Hel’s skirts to shield you.”

The All-father’s voice sounded strangely uninflected, almost mechanical. But Loki responded before Dainn could get between him and Odin.

“You have no hope of killing me without Sleipnir,” Loki said, “Danny still protects him.”

“No,” Dainn said, edging closer to the unnatural twins. “Sleipnir is yours, All-father. Laufeyson, take Danny and go.”

“I never expected anything but treachery from you, Faith-breaker,” Odin said. He sketched Rune-staves in the air with callused fingers: Merkstaves, Wunjo reversed, joy turned to
berserkr
rage and frenzy. “Again, I curse you.”

Dainn endured a moment of terror, and then the beast took him. His body expanded as if it would fill the entire room, heavy black pelt covering taut muscle, claws and teeth like daggers.

The sacrifice
. The fading, rational part of Dainn understood, then. The beast considered Danny a threat to his existence. Danny could stop him, control him, prevent him from becoming what he believed he was destined to be. He was the darkness seeking to smother the light.

There was no room for both boy and beast in Dainn’s soul. Losing the last of his rationality, he sprang at Danny. At the last moment he turned and bore Loki to the ground, seizing the false child’s neck in his jaws and shaking until it snapped. Sleipnir screamed, rolling to his feet, and lashed out at the beast, kicking him hard in the side. The beast caught Loki’s foot and dragged the godling with him to the corner, half-whimpering, half-snarling as he stared up into the eyes of the All-father.

But Odin made no move toward the beast and his slaughtered prey. His pale eye stared into the stall, where the horse whinnied over and over again like a weeping mother.

Dainn’s consciousness flared inside the beast’s skin. He felt the Eitr eating its way through his misshapen body, the taint of poison that fed the evil within it.

But the space between the beast’s paws was empty. No blood, no broken body. Loki was gone. A boy lay on the mat a dozen feet away, his small form sprawled and his lifeless arm stretched as if he were reaching for something he would never touch.

Acting without thought, the beast leaped up and flung himself at Odin. He struck the wall hard where the All-father had stood an instant before and slid to the floor, the air knocked out of his lungs.

When he opened his eyes, the beast had left him, and Danny …

Crawling on hands and knees, Dainn found his way across the floor, unable to make a sound. He reached Danny and touched the still-warm body with a bloody hand.

There was no other sign of injury on the boy, no broken bones, no torn flesh. Yet he was as dead as if the beast had torn him apart.

I killed him
.

Dainn pressed his face to the mat, listening to the horse kicking at the wall until it began to crack. He clung to Danny’s ankle, struggling to find his voice. One blow from those iron hooves …

He lifted his head. The little body didn’t move, but something remained within it, something very small. A mote of life Dainn could almost feel passing from Danny into himself.

And then it was no more.

Dainn pulled Danny into his arms, cradling his son and crooning words he didn’t understand. Sleipnir slumped against the wall, his legs buckling, and stretched his neck toward Danny.

“He’s gone,” Dainn said, stroking Danny’s hair away from his forehead. “He’s gone.”

Sleipnir wept.

27

Mist knew that Hel could outrun her. She knew that the goddess of death could simply disappear if she wished. Mist had already seen it happen.

It was not so easy for the dead.

At least a hundred loped ahead of her toward North Beach, abandoned by their mistress, given physical form and the prospect of a permanent extinction. Mist might have pitied them, knowing that many had probably been forced to obey, and that others, like Geir, were rebelling.

But there was no way for her to separate the good from the evil, and she could only hope that Geir and his resistance had been able to do it for her.

And hope that
she
could save the living who got in the way of her enemies.

Running as swiftly and lightly as an elf, Mist had almost caught up with the stragglers when clawed fingers seized her heart, stopping its beat and robbing her of breath. She fell to her knees, overwhelming grief and denial drowning out the horror that lay just ahead of her.