Chapter Twenty-Nine

Vidar waded into the water at Sjáfjord while Aud waited on the sun-dappled slope nearby. The poison was ready. At nightfall he would be on his way to Midgard, ready to begin a lifetime with Victoria. He wouldn't see these valleys and woods for many long years.

He stilled himself and waited for the water to do the same. It seemed such a simple thing that he wanted: neither riches nor honor, nor glory in battle. Just love, just one mortal lifetime. The water became like dark glass around his ribs; he drew the runes and waited. A vision formed of Victoria, her pale skin and hair; she was talking to two men; she looked anxious. He tried to grasp her words as they hushed and murmured in his ears but he could make out little. He studied her face and thought about what the years would do to it. Yes, she would grow old, and he did not mind. He would love her still, and not an instant of doubt accompanied that thought. Yet, he was haunted by what she had said: there's a romance in growing old together, Vidar. If only he could. If only he could swap an eternity as the son and savior of Odin for a mortal lifetime as the lover of Victoria, with the possibility of children and a warm home for them all. The second seemed to him the richer choice by far, for what would he do when Victoria had grown old and died? What would he do the day after he had buried her, still in his young, immortal body? Return to Asgard and go on?

Vidar closed his eyes a moment and collected his thoughts. It wasn't wise to fret about the future when the present was already fraught with worry. He opened the flask with the poison in it and poured it into the fjord.

The image in front of him clouded over. The poison was working.

„ The glassy black water began to bubble and froth. From the measureless depths an eddy of anger swirled upward. Vidar realized too late that he was a dangerous distance from the bank.

"Vidar, get out of the water!" Aud cried.

Vidar turned and began to wade toward the grass. The water sucked at his legs and boiled around him. He lost his footing, fell under.

Bitter water filled his mouth. He struggled upward. Around him the water was wild with blurred colors and images, all the things that had been seen in Sjáfjord over the centuries, blending and boiling together. He shot up, broke the surface and began to swim. A rushing sounded in his ears. From the deepest fissures in the fjord, an angry roar was gathering intensity. The furious current threatened to suck him down. Aud was shouting and waving at the edge of the water. He struggled, moved forward a few feet, then was pulled back. Aud's hand was extended toward him, her other hand braced against a rock. His fingers brushed hers. The current caught his cloak and sucked it from his shoulders. He propelled himself forward, caught her wrist.

"I've got you!" she called.

He heaved forward, got the top half of his body over the rock and climbed from the water to sit back and watch. A whirlpool spun behind him. He watched his cloak disappear into it, dragged into the measureless depths. Death had been close; did he fear it? He tested himself, imagining in detail the sour gush of water into his lungs, the black pressure of the fjord on top of him, squeezing out the light. No, he did not fear death. He feared a separation from Victoria far more. He caught his breath. Aud clutched his arm. A long groan eased out of the water. It began to still.

"Thank you, Aud," he said, panting.

"I thought I'd lost you."

The fjord settled. Its black surface was clouded and dim. Aud glanced over her shoulder, and the sun gleamed in her auburn hair and he realized he would miss her.

She turned back and saw him looking at her, and smiled. "What?" she asked.

"I leave for Midgard at first dark. I will miss you, Aud."

She glanced away, trying to hide a smile. "You'll forget me soon enough," she said, climbing to her feet.

"Wait, Aud," he said, gently taking her wrist, "sit by me a while. I have things I want to say."

. Aud reluctantly sat beside him, her knees curled up to her chest protectively.

"Am I really so frightening?" Vidar asked.

She took a deep breath and glanced around her. Then, seeming to settle on a decision, she met his gaze and said, "I have heard that you were a fearsome warrior in your day, Vidar," she said, "but nobody warned me to protect my heart from your kindness."

"I never sought to hurt you," he said.

"Yet you have," she said quietly.

"For that I am sorry. Have you given thought to what you will do once I'm gone?" She shrugged. "Can't I stay at Gammaldal?"

"You'd be welcome to, but I fear that an envoy from Valaskjálf will eventually come; and then you won't be safe." He leaned back on his elbows in the grass. A bird hopped close to the water and drank from it, as though nothing had changed. "I have cousins in the north, beyond Idavíd. They aren't very well known to me, but I believe they may be good people if you go to them."

"I'll go to Loki," she said.

"Is that what you want?"

Her cheeks flushed and he realized he'd angered her. "No, Vidar, it's not what I want. I want to return to Vanaheim. I want to be with my son. I want…" She trailed off, her eyes glazed with tears.

"Aud?"

"I want you to love me, Vidar," she said softly. "You don't. I can't go home. I can't be with Helgi. I made my choice and am prepared to suffer the punishment, so please don't torture me any longer with these concerns for my future, which I can tell are just afterthoughts to you." Chastened, Vidar bowed his head. His hair dripped onto the rock. "I'm sorry, Aud. You aren't an afterthought."

"But I'm not as important as her."

"I love her."

"Why?"

Ordinarily he would be silenced by such a question, but Aud had opened her heart to him and there could be little harm now in him doing likewise. "She is precious, she is mortal. Her heart beats faster than ours, and her skin is softer, and she arouses in me the tenderest, most passionate, most unrelenting feelings."

Aud's mouth tightened. "I can only wish you happiness then."

"Happiness will be ours for only a short time. Aud, I am doomed to watch her grow old and die. I would exchange anything I had of value to grow old and die beside her." He stopped, uncomfortable with having spoken too much.

"But fate would have it otherwise," Aud said, her eyes drawn to the west.

"Yes."

"We are all slaves," she said, her gaze far away.

"I will leave Arvak in your good care," he said gently. "If you treat him well, he'll always be faithful." She didn't respond.

He touched her shoulder. "Aud? Are you listening?"

She turned and her dark eyes were serious as they met his. "Vidar, if you could ask the Norns for anything, what would it be?"

His body tensed. "What do you mean?"

"Would you be mortal? Disavow your Aesir blood and be a mortal man, to grow toothless and old and stiff in the joints?"

"To be with Victoria? To father children with her?"

"Yes. Would you?"

"I would."

"Then come with me. I'll show you where they live."

He felt excited and frightened all at once. "Aud, are you sure? Helgi?"

"I'm no longer his guardian, Vidar. Helgi is not my child to mind, to fret over, to keep well and happy. I accept that now."

"Is it not your last pleasure to see him?"

"It has not been a pleasure for a long time."

He took both her hands in his and his mind was too overwhelmed for his tongue to form words of gratitude. Finally, he whispered, "Then, Aud, I will accept your offer and be in your debt until the world's end."

"Come, then," she said, climbing to her feet. "Anything is possible now." Aud led him so far into the dark beneath the World Tree that he feared she would lose them both in the passageways, but I as he was framing a gracious way to express his doubts, a faint glow emerged around the next bend.

Aud held a finger to her lips and took his hand. She led him silently around the rocky outcrop and into the grotto where the Norns lived.

There was a moment of peace as he watched them work, their fingers flying over the glittering rainbow threads. Then one of them glanced up and suddenly everything was in confusion.

"Aud! What have you done?"

"I knew we couldn't trust her."

"This is your fault."

"No, it's your fault!"

"She'll never see that brooch again."

"Sisters! Sisters!" Aud cried, hands aloft as she tried to calm them. "Sisters, I am sorry. Let me explain." They huffed and muttered, but quieted.

"Sisters," Aud continued, "I am sorry. I don't expect your forgiveness. I'm a wretched creature, but I could no longer stand to see Helgi and be separated from him. I'm prepared to end our appointments."

"This is your fault, Skuld," Verda muttered.

"I knew no good would come of what you told her."

"You should think before you speak."

"Sisters, listen to me, please. I have brought Vidar to you because he wishes to make a request Whether you fulfill it or not is your decision. I haven't told another soul where you live, and you can move on as soon as we are gone. Vidar is dear to me, and I saw it in my power to help him. I…" Aud faltered and Vidar stepped forward.

"I love a mortal woman," he said. Their dim faces were unsurprised in the gloom, watching him by the almost light of the rainbow threads. "I wish to be mortal with her."

"You wish to be mortal!" Urd squawked. "You wish to die?" Vidar hesitated, a fraction of a moment, then gathered his courage. "I do. At a life's end, as an old man, by my lover's side."

"That will change everything," Skuld said. "You are marked out for other things by your family."

"I have a surfeit of brothers who could take the yoke as well as me, and probably relish it. Give my fate to Vali."

"Or Thor," Aud interjected, glancing meaningfully at Urd. "He would always be grateful to the sister who promoted his glory."

"I am prepared to make a payment, as Aud has," he said, rushing into the thoughtful silence that Aud's comment had aroused in Urd.

"Have you a thousand years to give us?" Skuld said, taking her hands off the thread and pointing a long bony finger at him.

"He can serve his thousand years first," Urd suggested.

"No, no," Vidar said. "I have to be with Victoria now. Tonight." He was growing concerned. It would become dark soon. He had hoped to get away the instant the sun fell behind the world. But the Norns clearly wouldn't be rushed.

"His father's the problem," Urd said knowingly. "After last time—"

"His father is right to be worried if he's standing here telling us he wants to be mortal." Vidar turned to Aud, and whispered, "How long will it take them to decide?" She shrugged. "Seconds, hours, it's all the same to them."

"Why can't you stand up to your father?" Verda asked accusingly, her eye fixed on him.

"My father won't listen to reason," Vidar said. "My father thinks with his sword."

"Grant him the wish, I don't care," said Skuld.

"Give his fate to Thor," Urd said. "He might be grateful enough to visit."

"Oh, you are a ninny, Urd. Thor wouldn't be interested in a wizened old fool like you," Verda reprimanded.

"Sisters, please," Aud said. "Vidar hopes to return to Midgard tonight."

"We won't be rushed!"

"We need an hour to decide!"

Vidar slid to the ground and rested his back against the wall. The chill of earth and stone seeped into his body, making him shiver. It would stay dark for many hours. He still had time to cross the bridge. A new fate gleamed up ahead of him, an ordinary, happy fate. "I'll wait, sisters," he said. "What's an hour? I'll lose more than that if you make me mortal."

The hour turned into two as the sisters bickered among themselves in low voices. Aud sat beside him, her eyes fixed on the floor of the cave. She looked young and vulnerable, a childlike confusion coloring her expression. Vidar wished he felt something more than pity for her. He wished he ached for her. He reached out and squeezed her hand. "Thank you, Aud," he whispered. She offered him a weak smile and a shrug. He wanted to say he was sorry. Instead, he remained silent.

"We have it!" the Norns chorused.

Vidar sprang to his feet. "What have you decided?"

Skuld's fingers were pulling thread up from the floor. "I'm finding it now."

"What do you mean?"

"We've decided to grant your request, Vidar," Verda said.

Vidar's heart lurched in his chest.

"Here it is," Skuld said, her fingertips twitching over an inch of the thread. She looped it over her fingertip and pulled out a small knife. "This may hurt a little," she said, and snapped the blade into the thread. Vidar felt a jerk inside him, but no pain.

"What was that?"

"That," Skuld said, holding out her palm, "is a little piece of fate. Yours and Victoria's." She held three inches of thread, still pulsing with rainbow colors. "It's connected to all the other things you are fated to do, together and apart, ordinary and extraordinary. And it's enough to change everything."

"For everything will change, Vidar," Urd said. "You are used to your immortal blood. You could walk all day and night now, but only a few hours as a mortal."

"Your joints will ache."

"Your stomach will be at the mercy of whatever food you eat."

"You will grow forgetful."

Vidar, poised on the moment of destiny's turning, grew impatient. "I welcome it all," he said. "Victoria and I must be together, at any cost."

"Take this," Skuld said.

He moved forward and she dropped the thread onto his palm.

"You see that the colors still beat in it," Verda said. "That means possibilities are still in play. Once your new fate is decided, it will turn black."

"What am I to do with it?" Vidar asked.

"Keep it safe," Urd said. "Take it to your father."

"My father? I have to see my father?"

Skuld took up the explanation. "My sisters and I are concerned. We believe you are afraid of your father."

Vidar drew himself to his full height in indignation. "I am not afraid of my father. I am afraid of what he will do to those I love."

Urd tittered. "Oh, he's afraid."

"If you are not afraid," Skuld said forcefully, "then it will be no trouble to take this thread to him." Vidar bit down on his pride. "What must I do?"

"You must take this thread to him and declare your intention to be mortal. The change of fate will happen upon that moment."

"My father will be angry. He will still go after Victoria."

All three sisters were shaking their heads.

"No, no," said Verda. "Thor will have gathered your fate."

"Odin won't care. You'll be the least-favored of his sons."

"He'll let you go. He'll forget you."

Vidar looked at the thread, so fine and delicate in his rough palm.

"Now listen, Vidar, for this is important," Skuld said. "We will not ask for your thousand years, as you are giving up far more than that in becoming mortal. However, should you misuse the thread, one thousand years is instantly forfeit."

"You are only to ask for mortality to be with Victoria."

"Don't you dare change any other aspect of your fate."

"You will not like the punishment."

Vidar was only half-listening, gazing at the thread and trying to slow the rhythm of his blood. "Anything is possible," he said.

"Vidar," Skuld warned, closing his fingers over the thread, "the thread will turn black when your fate is decided. Or if either of you dies."

Vidar's head snapped up. "What do you mean?"

"Death is the end of fate's possibilities," Urd said, almost absently, as she resumed her work.

"When fate is no longer in play, it no longer has color," Verda added, picking up her loom.

"Yes, but why do you tell me this?"

Skuld fixed her pale eyes on him in the dark. "Vidar," she said, "do you know where your father is?" Vidar's blood chilled in an instant. "My father…" With sudden terror, he turned to run back through the labyrinth.

"Wait, Vidar!" Aud called. "You need me to help you find the way!" He found it by instinct, retracing their steps until fresh air beckoned ahead. He emerged into the first shadows of evening. Black clouds were eating the stars from the east and thunder growled and shuddered down on the hills and valleys.

"No. Oh, no."

Aud burst from the tree behind him, panting. "Vidar? What's wrong?" The wind howled in the enormous branches above them, the screech of an ancient goddess wronged. Vidar whistled for Arvak.

"Odin," Vidar managed to gasp, handing the thread to Aud who slipped it into her apron. He whistled again. Arvak appeared from the shadows. Vidar searched his pack, hoping until it hurt that this was just an ordinary storm. His hand closed over the flask of seeing-water he had stolen from Odin's chamber.

"Help me, Aud," he said, handing her the flask. The note of despair in his voice set his own nerves loose.

"Pour some of this water into my hands."

She handed the flask back, taking charge. "No, your hands will shake too much." She cupped her own hands in front of him. "Goon."

He poured the seeing-water and Aud held perfectly still while he drew the runes.

"Quickly, Vidar," she said. "It runs between my fingers." Vidar peered close in the dark. Bifrost. Heimdall. Odin on Sleipnir, galloping to the edge of the cliff. He turned, plunged a spear between the two pillars of the Bridge.

"Close it!" he bellowed, though it was little more than a whisper to Vidar's ears. Heimdall said something that Vidar couldn't hear.

"I said close it!" Odin roared. He turned his back and urged Sleipnir on. "Do not open the bridge under any circumstances. No man shall cross until I return with the woman's head."

Chapter Thirty

[Midgard]

I had never felt fear before. I knew that now. At exam time in my university days, unable to sleep or eat in anticipation of that hushed moment when I flipped the paper over to see what horrors awaited me, that wasn't fear. The time I'd been sitting in an empty carriage on the Circle line in the early morning, when a drunken skinhead had lurched on board and threatened to kill me unless I gave him my purse, that wasn't fear. Perhaps those occasions had been worry, concern, anxiety, but fear was something different. When I realized that Odin was on his way, fear split open the world around me and let in a bright, sizzling heat. My body felt so vulnerable and helpless that I half expected it to collapse to the observation deck like a straw doll.

I locked the door behind me and took a moment to still my heart and admit some order to my head. Was it possible, even a little, that this was an aberrant but explicable weather phenomenon? Time grew elastic as I leaned against the back of a chair watching the readouts blinking and bleating in front of me. Skepticism had so long been my default setting that the idea of sounding the lock-down alarm seemed at first preposterous.

The women and children, hanged and burned, like ghastly dolls.

The image came back to me. If Odin was responsible for this storm and sought to repeat history, then other people were in danger too. My skepticism would be no comfort to me if I hesitated too long. I pressed the lockdown alarm and the siren began to pulse throughout the station and out over the cabins. I pressed my face against the glass and could see lights coming on in windows, wondering what I had started, and whether Vidar would come to help us.

One of the computers beeped and I turned to see the urgent e-notification flashing. I opened it. It was from the Institute, but in Norwegian. I typed "translate" and sent it back. Twenty seconds later it was there again. Check your readings, Kirkja.

Presuming they meant the high temperature, I typed, Readings accurate. The white letters flashed onto the screen: Storm cell size? Bomb system?

I flicked my eyes to the radar, and my heart jolted. A storm, two hundred and fifty kilometers across, was approaching from the northeast.

"Dear God," I muttered, fingers on the keyboard ready to reply. Then a brilliant flash and a mighty crack temporarily disabled two of my senses. When I opened my eyes, all the computers were resetting, flashing notification that the cable was down. Lightning had struck the satellite dish.

"What the hell is going on?" Magnus roared, dashing up the stairs.

"It's a bomb cyclone," I said, arms helplessly flapping at my sides. "Two-fifty across. It's going to knock us out."

Magnus threw open the door to the observation deck and gazed anxiously at the sky. Josef and Alex burst in.

"What is it? How big is it?" Alex panted, heading straight for the radar PC.

"They're all out," I said. "Lightning hit the satellite." The others were gathering. Gunnar dived under the desk trying to restore the computer lines. Magnus put on his best calm voice and told everyone to listen. The lockdown alarm continued to pulse.

"It appears we're in the path of a bomb weather system approaching from the northeast. I don't want anybody to panic, as we're sheltered on that side by the forest and this building is designed to withstand extreme weather. But lightning has taken out our satellite dish and—"

Another flash and a crack. Maryanne yelped with fear. Darkness descended and the siren abruptly cut off. My heart contracted and I began to tremble uncontrollably.

"What happened?"

"Somebody get a flashlight."

A beam of white appeared in the dark and lit up our anxious faces. Gordon strode out to the deck and shined the flashlight down on the generator shed. "It's been hit," he said. I ran to his side and peered down. The shed was blasted and black, a gaping hole in the roof. "Oh, God," I gasped, forcing breath in and out of my lungs.

"Our generator as well?" Josef said, bewildered.

"I'll go," Frida said, pulling on a raincoat. "I'll get the backup running."

"No!" I cried. "Nobody can leave."

The hysteria in my voice alarmed Maryanne, who touched my hand with icy fingers. "What is it?" she asked.

Magnus peered at me suspiciously. "Victoria?"

"Magnus, can I talk to you?" I said, eyeing Maryanne's trembling face. "In private." Magnus indicated that everyone else should go inside and slid the door closed behind us. The wind was gathering in power, rushing through the treetops and rattling over the observation deck. The air was thick with humidity and the smell of approaching rain.

"What is this all about?" he asked angrily.

"I sounded the lockdown alarm because I saw someone."

"Someone? Who?"

"A stranger. A man." I reached up to measure his imagined height. "With an axe. I don't want to panic everyone, but I think we're in extreme danger and need to stay locked down." Magnus ran his hand over his face and dislodged his glasses. "I can't believe this," he said. "First the satellite, then the generator. Now a murderer?" He straightened the frames and squeezed my upper arm.

"We have to keep our wits, Victoria. Be an example for Maryanne." I nodded, my throat too dry to speak.

"Where did you see him and where did he go?"

"I saw him near the instrument enclosure, but then he disappeared back toward the fjord," I lied. "He's big and has a beard and looks really mean."

"How on earth did he get to the island?" Magnus muttered to himself. "Come on, inside. We have work to do to secure the station."

Seven faces waited anxiously for us by the light of a waterproof flashlight. Magnus held his hands up. "I want you all to be calm. It appears that there is someone on the island with us." Maryanne slumped into the sofa, her face white. A general murmur passed around the room, drowned out by a roll of thunder.

"Given that we don't know who he is or what he intends, Victoria sounded the lockdown alarm."

"Can't we go out and look for him?" Carsten suggested.

"He may be armed and nobody here is qualified to be a hero. We're scientists. We will do the rational thing. We are going into lockdown, then we will sit in here and wait out the storm." Lightning flashed, momentarily drowning the room in thin blue light. "When daylight comes, we can reassess the situation. Until then, everybody stays inside. Now, let's get to work."

A weird semicalm followed as we made ourselves busy. The black panic that had inhabited me began to withdraw as I concentrated on small tasks: finding kerosene lamps, opening up the linen store for blankets and pillows, helping roll down the aluminum shutters that would protect the windows from the force of the storm, taking charge of arming the rec hall door. The wind's roar intensified and the pines were howling beyond our cocoon of metal and carpet. The violent bang of thunder occasionally shuddered down on us, or lightning would flicker under the cracks of the shutters, but Magnus's plea for us to remain rational was working. We got on with it, and half an hour later we were locked down and hiding in Kirkja Station.

I made an effort to convince myself that the storm was coincidental and not the work of vengeful Norse gods. Physical processes were usually responsible, no matter how extreme the weather. In this latitude, at this time of year, a strong thermal contrast between air masses could develop an intense weather system within hours. Yes, the knocking out of our electricity and communications seemed deliberate, but both were metal and targets for lightning.

The fear continued to bubble underneath. However, until the storm had passed, until morning had come, there wasn't another thing I could do. For the moment, I was safe.

I took refuge for a few silent moments in the female toilets, splashing my face and leaning my sad, tired head against the mirror. My skin looked pale in the glow of the kerosene lamp, which rested on the bench. Where was Vidar? I was helpless. I could do so little here in the mortal world. I needed him to save me, to save all of us, if Odin was determined to repeat history. I had no other resources to draw on. I slumped to the floor, pressing my hands into the cool tiles and letting helpless tears run down my face. I yearned for him, but I also yearned for life and light and safety. I didn't want to die, but to live without him seemed empty.

The door banged open, making my blood jump. It was only Maryanne. She registered that I was crying and began to cry too.

"Oh, Vicky, what's happening?" she pleaded, sinking to her knees next to me and clutching at my hands with damp fingers.

"It's all right, Maryanne," I said. "We're safe in here."

"How did somebody get on the island? It's not a real man, is it? It's a ghost or a demon." I hesitated too long before answering and her face crumpled.

"I should have gone months ago. When you first arrived. That's when it all started happening. I'd only heard the ghosts once or twice before then, but something in you triggered it off." Her words tumbled over each other. "Now it's too late. They're angry with us. He's going to kill us, isn't he? The demon? Is there more than one? You'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

A gust buffeted the building, shaking the walls. The shriek of the wind in the trees was unearthly, like one of Maryanne's demons wailing for revenge.

"Maryanne, hush," I said firmly. "I'm frightened too. But we're safe in here, and if you can stay calm until the storm has passed and daylight comes—"

"Then what? You know what comes after daylight? More night. More shadows for them to hide in and wait for us."

My stomach hollowed. She was right. Odin wouldn't simply disappear once the sun had risen, nor lose interest once a day or two had passed. He would hunt me until he found me and killed me.

"We might be able to get the satellite fixed and call for help," I managed. My fear ignited hers and she fell into helpless weeping.

"Come on, Maryanne," I said, pulling myself to my feet and offering her a hand. "You must pull yourself together."

"I don't want to die," she sobbed.

I reached down and helped her up. "You won't."

"What if he tries to get in?"

"He can't," I said forcefully. "Let me take you to find Magnus. He'll make you feel better." I left Maryanne with Magnus and Gordon, and went in search of Gunnar. Alex and Josef had dossed down on the floor of the control room; Carsten and Frida had unlocked the old tearoom and were attempting to make hot cocoa with tap water. Gunnar had colonized a space under the stairs, filled it with blankets and pillows, and was reading a book by the light of a torch.

"Just like being a kid again," he said as I slid down beside him.

"You'd better preserve the battery. Might be a while before we get the power back on," I said, switching off his torch. The only light came from between the stairs, which formed bars of shadow across us.

"Gunnar, can I ask you something? A hypothetical? Would you sacrifice yourself for the good of others?"

"That's a tricky one. Do you mean would I die for a cause?"

"No, much more mundane. If people… friends of yours, were in danger…" I trailed off, unsure how to finish the question without giving away too much.

"Vicky?" he said.

"It doesn't matter. It's a stupid question."

"I think that good people .know the right thing to do at the right time," he said. "Does that answer your stupid question?"

"Maybe," I said.

"What's this all about, Vicky?"

Hail had started pounding the roof, as though stones were being hurled down on us. "I'm frightened."

"There's no safer place to be in a storm than locked inside a weather station."

"It's not just the storm. Remember the missionaries? The extreme heat?"

"Yes."

"It was thirty-two degrees before the storm started."

"But there hasn't been a frost. And the high temperature probably had something to do with the thermal movement." He smiled at me. "Vicky, I had no idea that stuff had worked its way so far into your imagination."

"It seems so real," I said, but my voice was drowned out by thunder.

"It's just a storm, Vicky," he said.

"And an axe-murderer."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "Did you really see an armed man?"

"Gunnar…" I turned on my side to examine his face in the dark. "No. But I'm almost certain he's out there, and it's too great a risk not to lock down."

"Is it the man you wanted to smuggle off the island?" he asked.

"No."

"But he's got something to do with him?"

"Yes." I held a finger to his mouth. "Don't ask any more questions. I can't answer them."

"Yes, you can. You can tell me anything. I won't judge you."

His gentle assurances disarmed me. I closed my eyes and said, "It's such a mess, Gunnar. I don't know where to start."

"At the beginning."

I weighed up my story in my mind, and tried to draw from it the important threads and separate them from the supernatural details which would have Gunnar thinking I'd lost my mind.

"I've met someone, Gunnar," I said. "His name is Vidar and he's been here on the island. I can't tell you how he arrives and leaves, but he's trying to escape from his family." I opened my eyes and Gunnar's gaze was locked on mine.

"His father is here," I said. "At least, I'm almost certain he is. I've seen the signs…" I laughed self-consciously. "It's all a bit cryptic, isn't it?"

"You're in love with him, aren't you?" Gunnar said. "I can make sense of a lot of things you've said and done lately if it's love."

"Yes," I said. "It's love. I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"I know that you… you know…"

Gunnar sat up and hugged his knees. "It's all right. I don't love you, Victoria," he said. "I thought it might be possible one day, that's all. I've not known you that long, and I'll miss you sorely when I go, but you haven't broken my heart."

"I'm glad." I knew he was lying.

"Are you sure you can trust him? Vidar, I mean."

"Oh, yes."

"Your plan was to help him get off the island."

"Yes, and take him where his family can't find him anymore."

"Are they really so bad?"

"His father is insane and violent. We're all in danger." I dropped my gaze. "But it's me he wants." Suddenly, a bright torch beam was shined into my face from between the stairs.

"Is that right?" Magnus said. "Victoria, perhaps you'd better come out of there and explain yourself." Maryanne hovered by Magnus's shoulder, glaring at me as though I'd betrayed her. I crawled out from under the stairs and opened my mouth to explain, but found no words for it. Gunnar was beside me. He reached for my hand, but I gently pushed it away. The others had gathered on the staircase to listen.

"You know this person?" Magnus demanded. "There's a violent, insane man with an axe on the island with us, and you know him?"

"I don't know him," I blurted. "I know about him."

"I heard you tell Gunnar you were going to smuggle him off the island."

"No, that was somebody else."

Maryanne's voice rose to a shriek. "She said the demon wants her, not us. We're safe if she leaves." Magnus's voice took on an exasperated tone. "Maryanne, for the love of God, will you calm down. There's no .demon, and I'm not going to put Victoria outside in the storm. I just want to—" His words were abruptly cut short by a frantic banging on the main door. Everyone froze, my knees shook.

"What was that?" Maryanne gasped.

"A branch hitting the door?" Carsten suggested.

The banging again, then a hideous bellow, half-animal half-human.

"What the hell?"

"It's him," I breathed, clutching at Gunnar's sleeve, fear hot in my stomach. Then, rhythmically and violently, a thud-thud-thud against the door.

"He's trying to get in."

Magnus shook his head. "It's just a branch, Carsten's right."

"Magnus, didn't you hear the—"

"It's a branch!" Magnus screamed, and his face flushed deep red.

"There's somebody out there." Josef raced down the stairs and across the floor to the door.

"Don't open it!" I screamed.

"Of course I'm not going to open it," Josef said. "And neither can he get it open. It's double-reinforced iron. I'm just going to take a look." He indicated the spyhole in the door, then turned to peer through it.

"There's nothing there," he said.

The relief in the room was palpable.

I hurried to the door and pushed Josef aside, pressing my eye to the spyhole. I saw a mad fish-eye view of the world outside, the swinging trees and the cabins all silent and drenched on the slab. My heart began to slow.

Then, glass smashing around the other side of the building. The office.

Maryanne screamed, "He's going'tö kill us."

"Stop it, Maryanne, stop it," Magnus shouted. "He can break the windows, but the shutters will keep him out. The entire admin building is secured."

A howl from the broken window. I peered around the corner, saw three meaty fingers hooked around the shutter, blood dripping from them.

" Láttu konuna fara út!" he shouted. He shook the shutter, it rattled but didn't budge.

"What is he saying?" Alex asked over the din.

"Send out the woman," Gunnar translated.

"Then send her out!" Maryanne shrieked.

"We're not sending Vicky outside to confront a madman," Josef said.,

"Victoria, do you know this man?" Magnus demanded. "What have you done? Are we in danger? Why is he here?"

"Listen!" Alex said sharply.

We grew quiet and listened. The shutter rattled furiously. Behind it, nothing.

"The rain's stopped," Josef said.

The rattling ceased abruptly, a weird silence. Not only had the rain stopped, but the wind had died down and the thunder and lightning had ceased.

"That's not possible," Gordon said.

"Upstairs," Josef said. "The observation deck."

"Don't open any doors," Maryanne called.

"I'm not going to open the door," Josef said irritably as he clattered up the stairs, Alex and Frida on his tail. "I'm going to pull the shutter."

Smash.

Another window in the office. I jumped. My teeth hurt.

"Oh, God, oh, God," I said.

"It's all right, Vicky," Gunnar said. "Magnus is right. We're safe in here." The rattling started again, the incomprehensible shouting. I looked at Gunnar and he seemed very young and vulnerable.

"Magnus, you have to see this," Josef called from upstairs.

Magnus and the others left; I followed, then paused at the top of the stairs. Josef and Alex had manually rolled up the shutters on the glass doors to the observation deck. Above us, the clouds were dissolving. I could see stars.

"This is insane," Gordon said. "The storm is melting into the sky."

"I've never seen anything like it," Magnus gasped.

Frida's nose was pressed against the glass. "What is that?" she asked. "Like a white shadow creeping across the grass."

My shoulders tightened.

Magnus shielded his eyes and stared for a long time before turning and saying what I knew he would say.

"It's frost."

I folded my arms around my middle. "This can't be happening," I said, but nobody heard me, so baffled were they with the weather. I stole down the stairs, where the smashing and shouting continued. My stomach felt like water. I unlocked the door to the rec hall carefully, lifted the bar and slipped out. The rec hall was cold and empty, and very silent without the fridges and freezers running. I stopped for a moment to gather my courage. Maryanne was right. Odin wanted me and, hopefully, once he got me, he would leave the others alone. I still held out hope that Vidar wasn't far behind him, but I couldn't allow Odin to beat down the door and slaughter everyone.

But to be so brave was almost impossible. I hesitated in the galley for nearly two minutes, then decided I had to move then, immediately. I steeled myself and opened the door to the outside world to meet my fate.

Chapter Thirty-One

The whole world had begun to freeze. The chill shimmered over me as I stood, peering into the darkness. The ground was carpeted with frost and the raindrops on branches had solidified to silver. Silence upon silence, so eerie after the bang and clatter of the storm. Then, the faint groan and creak of the ice contracting.

A shadow at the main entrance. Odin.

Electricity shot to my heart and I started to run toward the forest. Gunnar had called it a good place to hide, and Vidar had proven it. Perhaps I could elude him long enough for Vidar to arrive. My heart thundered in my ears, but I could hear the monster behind me, roaring in his strange ancient language. I had a hundred feet on him and plunged into the dark of the trees before he could catch up. I pressed myself against a tree trunk and tried to stop my body from trembling to pieces. It simply isn't possible to escape him.

The searing realization nearly knocked me to my knees. In that instant, waiting for him to find me, I didn't know whether to run, to hide, or to give up. I hated every option, and I could hear his footfalls drawing closer.

A cold hand clamped around my ankle and I gasped, then was pulled to the forest floor. I found myself staring at Skripi. He dragged me behind a fallen log, finger to his lips to indicate I should be silent. My hands were cut by broken twigs and my clothes were soaked and freezing. Violent shudders shook me. Odin drew closer. I shrank back against Skripi and wished he was more than a scrawny wood wight. My pulse pounded in my head. He moved into sight, a bare three feet away, huge and powerful as a bear, his features hidden in shadow.

Then he walked right past us.

Skripi leaned against my ear. "Don't move," he whispered. I didn't. I was perfectly still for two whole minutes, and would gladly have remained still for two hours, but Skripi eventually roused me, and said,

"We're safe for now."

"How did he not see us?" I whispered.

"His left eye," Skripi said. "It's missing. If you stay on his left, he can't see you. We must be very quiet. I'm taking you back to my hole."

I didn't want to risk Odin's hearing us by asking for clarification. I just rose to my feet and followed him.

"No, no!" Skripi hissed, turning on me. "You are too loud. He will hear." I thought about Vidar teaching me to move silently in the woods. Your feet have to be as sensitive as your hands. Although he had warned me against removing my shoes, I couldn't see any other way to be as silent as Skripi demanded. I stopped and slipped out of them. With one in each hand, I began to walk. The cold was excruciating, but I could feel every twig and pebble beneath me and negotiated my way over them quietly.

Skripi and I crept through the trees like two ghosts, while the frost spread its wintry fingers over everything. The stillness remained unbroken, as though the forest held its breath. My feet ached from the cold and were bruised on sharp pebbles. At any instant I expected Odin to burst from the trees, axe raised over his head to split me in two. The night took on a surreal cast, as though I were watching myself in a movie. It was 4:00 a.m., with frost and a monster chasing me. Skripi turned and pressed his finger to his lips, and I felt so removed from reality that I nearly laughed.

"This way," he whispered, indicating a hole at the base of a tree trunk.

"What?"

"My hole," he said.

The tree was tall and broad, and two of its roots spread apart four feet before disappearing into the soil. The gap between them was black and empty.

"We're going in there?" I asked.

"Shush. Follow me." He crouched and disappeared into the hole. The scent of smoke tickled my nostrils. My feet throbbed. Skripi's head popped out again. "Come on, Victoria. There isn't time to wonder." I knelt and poked my head into the hole. It led into a tunnel. Skripi was scurrying ahead of me. I followed him on all fours. There was light down there, and smoke drifted toward me. The tunnel opened out into a sort of room about four feet high and ten feet wide. I sat back on my haunches and looked around me. Skripi's home was a subterranean cave, not tall enough to stand in, but certainly large enough to hide in. The floor was covered in mats woven from pine needles and animal fur, warm and soft. The walls were stone, but hung with more mats. The room was circular and pots, pans, sticks and stones were piled up against the walls. It looked like a cross between a medieval kitchen and an animal's den. Skripi threw a log on the fire and it flared to life. Smoke began to fill the cave and I coughed.

"The smoke disappears slowly," he said, kneeling next to me and pushing me onto my back. "Put your feet near the fire, Victoria. Poor things." He clicked his tongue. "Your right foot is all scratched up. I'll fix it for you." He disappeared off down another tunnel and returned a few moments later with a pot of sweet-smelling ointment. He sat near my feet and rubbed it into my skin.

I propped myself up on my elbows. The coldness was withdrawing from my body and the ointment was numbing the pain in my feet.

"Thank you," I said, because I didn't know what else to say and manners always prevail in the strangest of circumstances.

"Thank you," Skripi said. "You killed my sister." The battle with the hag seemed so long ago that I wondered momentarily if I had dreamed it. "I guess I did," I said, and once more experienced the odd sensation of swinging out of my body to watch myself from afar. "I feel weird," I said, pressing my hand to my forehead.

"Lie back," Skripi said.

I did as he said and stared at the roof of the cave while he massaged my feet. Over and over, I tried to make sense of what had happened to me that evening. The hag, the storm, Odin at the door, hiding in the forest. I replayed it and replayed it in a loop, afraid that if I stopped thinking of it I would lose my connection to reality forever and be cut adrift into madness.

Skripi's hands left my feet and he came to sit near my head. "You are safe for now, Victoria. What is making you so pale and fearful?"

"I wish there was an ointment for what's happening in here," I said, tapping my forehead, unable to steady my voice. "I've seen things that I never thought I'd see."

"You're frightened."

"Well, obviously."

"It's more than Odin being here that frightens you. It's the thought of Odin being anywhere, of him existing at all."

I couldn't answer. Instead I sat up and stared at the fire. I took sidelong glances at Skripi, trying to make his odd face and features more familiar. "How certain are you that Odin won't find us here? Won't he smell the smoke?"

"Odin has no skills in tracking or in staying quiet. He has always relied upon force and the wits of others."

"Can he sense us? You know, the prickle you told me about?"

Skripi shook his head.

"Are you sure? If the hag could call up to him, surely he must be able to zero in on us somehow." Skripi crawled over to the other side of the cave and began searching in a sack made of leather. "Would you like something to eat?"

"Why are you changing the subject?"

He held up two pieces of dried meat. "Dried fish or dried rabbit?" The thought of either turned my stomach. "Skripi, why don't you answer me?" He dropped the pieces of meat by his sides and his oily eyes became round and pitiful. "Don't be angry with me, Victoria. It was only a little lie."

"Lie? What lie?"

"The hag. My sister. She couldn't…"

Confused as I was, it took me nearly thirty seconds to catch on. "She couldn't what? You mean she couldn't… she couldn't have contacted Odin to tell him about me and Vidar?" Skripi hung his head in shame.

Anger flared. "Then why the hell did you tell me that? I risked my life to suck her breath out!" Skripi put his hands up in front of him, his spindly fingers reminding me of the rune on the stone around my neck. "I had to, Victoria. I couldn't kill her, because she only appeared inside the building and I couldn't get in. And you've protected your own kind by killing her."

I sagged across my own knees. "Don't pretend you care about my 'own kind.' You did it fox yourself. You told me you can't go home until they're both dead."

Skripi crawled across the floor toward me. "It's true, but if you'd ever seen Idavíd, even once, you'd know why." He sat beside me. "You can still trust me to keep you safe, Victoria."

"But for how long? I can't hide in this hole forever. Is there any chance at all that he'll give up and go home?"

Skripi's eyes grew sad. "Odin has no mercy in his blood."

"I was afraid of that."

"But Vidar will come." Skripi's voice dropped to a gentle whisper. "This is all about Vidar, isn't it? All the horror and the pain. To give yourself to him?"

I sighed. "Yes."

"And if it works? If he overcomes his father?"

"We'll be together," I said, superstitious now about naming my dearest wish.

"That would make you happy?"

"For the rest of my life."

"Returning to Idavíd would make me just as happy," he said. "You see?" I met his gaze for the first time, without flinching. "I see, Skripi."

"Lay your head in my lap, Victoria. I can take away your worry and you can sleep."

"I doubt that I'll sleep," I said, resting my head in his lap anyway.

"Close your eyes. I'll tell you stories of Idavíd."

I closed my eyes. He had a strange smell about him. Not unpleasant, like the smell of wet fur on a beloved pet.

"Imagine you are a bird," he said. "The air is full beneath your wings and you slice through the sky like the edge of the moon cuts the night. You look below you and see a green so wild and deep that it makes your heart ache. Mist hangs still around the treetops and collects in the valleys and you dart down through it and into the trees. The shadows are long and dark, and only a little sun breaks through to make patterns on the ground."

Miraculously, my anxiety was easing, as though Skripi's words were medicine to my mind.

"Inside the wood is the bustle and thrum of life, of my kind making their homes among the trees, of our children playing in the long grass and running down to the lake to swim where the sunshine can find them. So imagine now that you are a fish, and you slip into the water with a flash of your silver tail. Beneath the surface are graceful drifts of weeds pulsing in the watery sunlight and schools of fish darting around in patterns. The water is cool and clear. Come out of the water and walk on four feet; be a squirrel and climb high up in a tree because winter is coming and the sky is grey; snow pitches down and ice hangs on the branches but the pines stay green, so even the glittering white carpet of the cold season can't hide the wild color."

He stopped for a moment, then dropped his voice to a whisper. "But there is more. Magic lives in Idavíd. Imagine yourself in your own body, standing between the trees on a mild spring day. If you close your eyes and hold your breath… do you feel it? The pulse of magic throbbing between the trees. Spiders spin their webs and catch the energy on the silver threads. The forest is alive with it. And we are right there at the center of Asgard, right in the heart of the land, and the Aesir don't know about the magic because they have never stopped for a moment to close their eyes and hold their breath." For a long time I waited for him to speak again, listening to the crack and pop of the fire. He stroked my hair, and said, "Sleep, Victoria. Vidar will be here soon, I know." Vidar. Thought of him drew a smile to my face and I slept.

It seemed I slept for a long time, and I woke ravenously hungry and with a bursting bladder.

"What time is it?" I asked, sitting up groggily. "I'm hungry."

"It's late afternoon," Skripi said. "I'm making you food."

"I need to… you know…"

"You'll have to go up to the forest. Be very careful."

The fear crept back into my body. I pulled out the runestone around my neck to show him. "Is this any use to me out there?"

" Eolh is little protection against Odin."

"Then it's useless?"

"Almost." He shrugged. "Odin is mighty."

I hesitated.

"Go on," he said. "Quickly."

I crawled back up the tunnel until I saw daylight ahead of me, paused near the opening and peered out. The world had turned white. Frost laced the undergrowth and the trees were encased in silver-white like frozen giants. The sun glinted off the ice and frost, making diamonds. It stole my breath, I had never seen anything so beautiful and so terrifying.

I listened for Odin, but heard only the sea, faint and far away, and the gentle creak of the ice. I quickly climbed out and relieved myself, then hurried back down into Skripi's hole. He put a bowl of soup in front of me, but the shiny floating black things in it drove away my appetite.

"You told me you were hungry," Skripi said, sitting cross-legged next to me.

"I was."

"Try to eat something."

I tasted the soup bravely and tried not to think about what was happening above ground. What if Odin became so annoyed at not finding me that he went back to the station? Would the doors hold him off forever?

"This is such a mess." I sighed. "I can't see a way out of it."

"Let us wait. Vidar will come for you. He's a powerful man with the blood of giants."

"Really?"

"So the stories tell us. He will save his father from the jaws of Fenrir." Skripi smiled, his face creasing into uncanny shadows in the firelight. "There is another story about Vidar. About how he renounced his family for the love of a mortal woman."

I smiled too. "I can't believe it's me," I said. "I don't believe in anything. Or, at least, I didn't. And all along—"

"Once you've known a great love and lost it, it's easier to condemn happiness than it is to believe it will come again." He cast his eyes downward. "That's what my siblings did. When we were first sent here, they swore they didn't want to return home, but I never gave up hope. And now, thanks to you. I'm a little closer to my dream."

"Well, I'm not beheading the draugr for you," I muttered.

"No. But Vidar is coming."

I couldn't help but smile. "Ah, I see. All this concern isn't just for me."

"I do care, Victoria," he protested earnestly. "We help each other."

"Yes, we do. Thank you. And thank you for the soup. It's delicious. Just don't tell me what's in it." I lay down on the soft floor in front of the fire after our meal, and Skripi sang me songs of Idavíd and I thought about the future, waiting for me just beyond this trial. If Vidar came, I could be safe. Somehow, maybe, we'd be together. An ache of longing overcame me, curled up like a forest creature underground, a longing for something that I had known and then lost. Slipping away and supping away from me. Hours passed, Skripi didn't tire of singing. Then, abruptly, he stopped. His head cricked to the side, like a bird listening for something.

"What is it?" I asked. My tired heart wanted to race but hadn't the energy.

"I felt a shiver."

"Odin?"

"No. A shiver in the night. Bifrost has opened."

I started upright. "Vidar?"

"I hope so."

I pulled on my anorak.

"No, Victoria. We can't go out. We'll wait here for Vidar to find us."

"I have to see him."

"But Odin—"

"I have to see him before he does something foolish." Such as agree to go home with Odin and never see me again.

"Victoria, it's not safe."

"I don't want to lose him!" I cried, turning on Skripi. "You don't have to come with me. I'll be careful. I'll stay on Odin's left, I'll move silently. Vidar will be looking for me, I know it." Skripi touched my hand and I felt that unearthly calmness emanating from him. "I won't stop you," he said. "May good things come to you. And should you and Vidar have a chance to speak, ask him about the draugr."

"I will. May good things also come to you." _ I crawled up the tunnel and emerged into the early evening. Lights from far away filtered through the trees. The electricity was back on at Kirkja. This knowledge gave me confidence. Yes, Isleif and his followers had succumbed to Odin's power, but this was the twenty-first century.

I climbed to my feet, looking right and left, watching the fog of my breath disappear into the dark. My bare feet were frozen, but I couldn't be quiet any other way. Which direction? Vidar usually camped near the northeast. I took two steps. A noise behind me stopped my heart. Before I could turn, a massive meaty hand had clapped onto my shoulder and wrenched me around.

I found myself, for the first time, face-to-face with Odin.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Vidar watched the water run between Aud's fingers. He was numb with shock.

"I'm sorry, Vidar," Aud said.

"It can't be."

Aud tried to touch his hand but he flinched away.

"It can't be!" he screamed to the stormy sky. Already, as Odin left Asgard, the clouds were drawing away, the branches of the tree began to calm, but in Vidar's blood the storm continued.

"I'm going after him," he said.

"You can't. He's closed the bridge."

"I'll make Heimdall open it."

"How? Reason with him? It's too late, Vidar."

"It's not too late," he roared, turning on her. "Where is the thread?" Aud pulled it from her apron and held it out on her palm. "Here."

"You see, the colors still shine. Fate is not decided. She is not dead."

"Stop to think, Vidar. Heimdall is a mighty warrior, used to fighting off giants who want to cross Bifrost. Even if you picked up a sword, you couldn't defeat him. Victoria is easy prey. Odin will find her and it will be over."

"Don't say that! Victoria is intelligent and resourceful. She knows the signs, she'll be on her guard. It's not like the first time, when they only had a church to hide in. Their buildings are made of metal and stone; they have locks that no key can open. She'll wait for me, she needs me." Aud shook her head; the clouds dashed and dappled over the moon to illuminate her pitying face. "Vidar!

The bridge is closed, Odin is in Midgard, Heimdall is undefeatable. You must accept it." Vidar's eyes drew downward to the tangled roots. Down there, a thousand years ago, he had buried his sword in the tree with a violence known only to those who disavow a hated part of themselves.

"I am sorry, Vidar," Aud said.

And deep in the fens of Jotunheim, Jarnvidja was raising a wolf named Mánagarm with teeth and claws that were certain death to Aesir.

He turned to her and grasped her upper arms. "Aud, I accept nothing. Will you help me?" She looked surprised, perhaps even frightened. "Yes, of course. But I think—"

"She'll be safe until I get there, I know it. I have to circle a little way around the tree. Wait here and mind the thread for me. It may take me half an hour."

Aud looked puzzled, but nodded and waited.

Vidar began to move around the huge trunk, eyes flicking over the knots and roots to find a familiar mark. Aud was right. He would never defeat Heimdall with his own swordsmanship, especially as it had been a thousand years since he had felt the weight of Hjarta-bítr in his hand, but if the troll-wife could be bullied into giving him just one of those poisonous teeth, he would be formidably equipped to force the bridge open. Fleetingly, he felt a shiver of guilt. For love, he had sworn away from violence, but this night he had more fears than hopes. The bark of the tree was rough beneath his palms as he traced his fingers over its swollen curves. Aud disappeared behind him. The tree had changed and grown in the last thousand years. The roots were a snake's nest of confusion. He peered into the shadows. To kill would not be necessary; to persuade with threats would. There would not be time for him to win Jarnvidja over with his story, as he had won Hel over all those years ago. Although he believed Victoria would be safe in the short term, locked in that steel box, Odin's anger would intensify the longer he was frustrated in finding her. He was a powerful man, and cunning when sober. The journey to Jotunheim and back would cost Vidar most of the night. He crouched and leaned into a gap in the roots. He remembered a curious knot in the wood, like an old woman's face, but in this half moonlight all the knots and twists of the tree were grotesque faces.

Then the clouds parted on clear sky and the moon's full brilliance frowned down. He saw the glimmer of steel. He dived on it. His hands closed over the crosspiece and, with a mighty heave, he drew it from the flesh of the tree. Friction, a blockage, then a clang as it came free, still gleaming. The faint glow of red radiated from it in the dark.

He hurried back to Aud, holding the sword in front of him.

"I have never seen you bear anything but hunting weapons," she said.

"I am a desperate man," he replied, sliding it into his belt. "Where is the thread? Do the colors still shine?" She held out his dark cloak, flipping up the lower corner for him to see. "I have sewn it into your cloak so that you don't lose it. You see, the light of possibility is still in it. I fear if you do battle with Heimdall, it will turn black and neither you nor your mortal lover will be around to talk of your love."

"I'm not going to Heimdall. Not yet. I'm going to Jotunheim."

"Jotunheim? Now?"

"I have no time to explain. I will not be your master before this night is over, but I ask for one last service from you. Wait at the top of the ridge with Arvak." He pointed up the wide, steep stairs. "I will return before first light and I need him to be rested for the journey to Valaskjálf."

"You'll never make it in time," she said, then seemed to realize that her pessimism was unwelcome. "I'm sorry, Vidar. I will take Arvak up to the ridge immediately, and we will wait there for you until your return."

Vidar pulled on his cloak, the feeling of invisibility a familiar one. Desperation lit his muscles and spine, and he began to run, to bleed into the darkness, on a frantic journey to the outlands. Aud led Arvak up the steep stairs in the moonlight, then encouraged him to lie down in the long grass to wait for his master. She sat next to him, her back resting against his as he drew the deep regular breaths of sleep. She shrank under her cloak against the cold and gazed out at the high branches of the World Tree and beyond it to the plains that marked the border of Vanaheim.

Vidar would lose his love, of that she was sure. It was her fault, and he would find that out. Somebody would tell him: Loki, Odin, perhaps even Aud herself. So she retained no hope that he would come to love her once Victoria was lost. She worked on shutting down that part of her heart; there was no future for her and Vidar. Whatever happened on this night, she would need a new place to live. It would probably be Loki's house.

Beyond the flat grasslands lay still fjords and gentle hills. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the long reeds at the water's edge moving quietly under the impetus of the breeze, the moonlight's silver glow, and grey shadows shifting over empty spaces. Somewhere, her son was sleeping, warm and curled around himself, lashes long on his cheek. The starlight that saturated her skin also glimmered above the house where he lay, and for an instant Aud felt a jolt of connectedness to him, as though sharing the same sky was equivalent to holding him. The instant passed and she dared not open her eyes for seeing how alone she was in the world.

Arvak's rhythmic breathing and warm hide soothed her tired body and brain, and she fell at length into a light doze. The sound of hooves approaching from the east roused her, and she stood to see the shape of horse and rider emerging from the dark.

Loki.

"I thought I might find you here," he said, drawing to a halt beside her.

"How?"

"I waited at Gammaldal for hours. Then I guessed that if you and Vidar were somewhere together, your guilt must have persuaded you to take him to the Norns. Is. that where he is now?"

"I won't tell you another thing."

"I'm right, aren't I?" he said, dismounting and setting Heror to wander. "You hated yourself for telling Odin and had to make it all better."

"I didn't tell Odin!" she shouted. "You did."

"I was just the messenger," he said, hand over his heart.

"You have ruined everything for Vidar. Odin has closed Bifrost and gone after the woman." Loki's face twisted into a sneer and he threw his hands apart expansively. "What do I care? What do I care for a mortal woman or for Vidar's heart? I care no more for them than I would care for a worm I see eaten by a bird. Life isn't fair, Aud. Why should Vidar be the one who gets the better of it?" Aud trembled in front of him, hearing sense in his words but unable to reconcile what she had done. "I hate that it's my fault!" she cried. "He's so unhappy."

Loki shrugged.

She slid to the ground again. "He will despise me. I have to leave Gammaldal."

"Are you asking me to take you in?"

She looked up at him, steering herself for what she must do. "I can't go back to Valaskjálf. Vidar says he has other relatives in the north."

"Come to me, Aud. I'll take care of you—until I get bored with you, which will happen very quickly if you continue pining for Vidar."

Aud shook her head. "I won't pine for him. I have yearned for too many things that aren't mine to possess. I will live out my sentence in acceptance and submission if you take me in." Loki crouched next to her and touched her hair. His voice was cruel. "Acceptance and submission will suit you, Aud," he said. Then his voice grew tender. "The moonlight suits you too." He stood and gazed down into the valley. "I'd better go and see those hags before the night is over. I expect you've warned them."

"No," she said, "but they were very angry about my bringing Vidar. They'll be on the move before long." He whistled for his horse. "Heror," he said, patting the horse's nose, "you head home without me. I'll come back on foot."

Aud watched as Heror galloped off into the distance. She turned to see Loki looking at her.

"You're not going to stop me?" he said.

"No. I doubt that I could. What will you ask them for?"

He rubbed his chin. "Hmm, I'm not certain. I haven't had long enough to think of a good favor, and now I'm so rushed, I hope I don't do something rash." He laughed, then pushed Aud with his toe. "Where have you hidden your sense of humor?"

"I don't care what you ask them for," she said, leaning her head against Arvak. She meant it; what happened next hardly mattered.

"You should," he said, turning away from her and moving toward the stairs.

"What do you mean?" she asked, but he didn't answer and she was left to wonder and to wait for Vidar throughout the long night.

The sprint across the valley made his legs ache, the water of the bay was freezing, the swim gouged his lungs and made his shoulders burn, but Vidar did not slow. He called on every drop of his giant's blood to give him the strength to continue. The big muscles in his thighs begged him to pause when he climbed out of the water, but instead he pushed himself up the slope and started running again. The cloak woven from Heimdall's cloth was dark around his shoulders. From time to time he would pull up the corner to check that the rainbow colors still glowed in the thread of fate. On each occasion, the fear that he would see it turn black urged him on, as fast as he could go.

The cloak disguised him from the predators in the woods, and he turned off the track toward the marshy ground where Jarnvidja made her home. Given he was already dripping and cold from the long swim, the boggy ground didn't bother him. Sedge scratched at his legs and the moon reflected in puddles and gullies of water. He sniffed the air. Smoke from the west. He pushed on. Cold and tired and lungs bursting and despair in his heart, he pushed on.

Jarnvidja's home beckoned in the distance. A wolf howled, sending a shiver up his spine. He paused a moment to catch his breath, ankle deep in a pool of muddy water. He advanced more slowly, gathering his thoughts, allowing his muscles to restore themselves. The hilt of his sword waited beneath his frightened fingers. His hand closed over it and drew: lighter than he remembered. The house was made of mud, the roof of turf, behind it a mudbrick enclosure. The smell of animals was strong and hot in his nostrils. His blood thundered past his ears as he threw back the cloak and pushed open the door. A round, hunched woman blinked up at him from the fire. One of her eyes was greatly smaller than the other, milky and half-lidded. A filthy scarf covered her hair. She lifted her nose and sniffed the air, an expression of contempt crossing her mouth. "Aesir," she said.

He raised the point of his sword and pressed it against her chin. "I won't hurt you if you give me what I want," he said urgently.

"What do you want?" she asked, her eyes narrowing to slits.

"First, I want you to call your wolves and pen them where they can't hurt me."

"And after that?"

"I will tell you in my own time," he said, dropping the point of the sword and pulling her to her feet. "Now hurry."

Despite her appearance of age and feebleness, she moved quickly and easily, and Vidar told himself to be wary. He stood at her shoulder, sword at the ready, as she lit a lantern at the door of the house. She opened her mouth and howled, a long series of notes and yelps. Her voice echoed out over the fens and touched the trees in the distance. Dark shadows began to slink toward them.

"Come," she said to him, "I'll take them to the enclosure." One by one the wolves came, and she spoke to them in a strange, guttural half language of words and dog sounds. The lamplight reflected in puddles. The wolves eyed him suspiciously, but followed her orders as she ushered them into the pen. When the last was through she moved to drop the bolt.

"Wait," he said, "which one is Mánagarm?"

Jarnvidja turned her face to him and growled low in her throat. "Who told you of Mánagarm?" Vidar touched the point of his sword to the soft flesh at her side. "Bring her out." Jarnvidja emitted another strange noise and one of the wolves split off from the pack and came toward her. She was grey and black, hunched in the shoulders, with a long, heavy tail. She looked no more dangerous than the others, but Vidar kept his distance anyway.

"Bring her inside and chain her," Vidar said, stepping back. "I'll instruct you what to do next." Jarnvidja shot the bolt and guided Mánagarm ahead of them into the house. By the firelight, she fetched a chain and chained the animal by her back leg to a carved pillar. Mánagarm seemed too placid to be the fearsome wolf his mother had told him about and Vidar grew suspicious.

"Is this really the mighty Mánagarm?" Vidar asked.

"It is."

"With teeth and claws deadly to Aesir?"

"Yes. Because Aesir are pitiless scum and are less trouble when dead." Vidar didn't respond to her insult. "She looks no different from the others."

"Look a little closer, Vidar. First, the others are all female. This one is my son." Vidar allowed himself a little smile for not spotting the obvious difference. "I see."

"Second, if you give me an object that belongs to your family, I will show you what my son is capable of."

Vidar reached into his pack and found the carving he'd packed as a present for Victoria. He flung it to the dirt floor at Jarnvidja's feet. "Go on."

She spoke to the wolf, who lifted a paw and brought it down on the object. One of his claws scratched the wood lightly, and the carving suddenly blew into pieces. Vidar ducked as a flying splinter flew past his face.

"So you see," Jarnvidja said, "that Mánagarm is indeed mighty against Aesir, though I expect you now wish to kill him."

"No, you misunderstand me. I mean no greater harm. I only want one of his teeth." Jarnvidja grew pale. "No, no," she said, shaking her head. "We cannot anger him so."

"That is why he's chained."

Her voice became plaintive. "Then let me go to the fens and gather herbs for a sleeping medicine. We can't pull his tooth while he is conscious."

"There isn't time," he said. "You are his mother. He will allow you to do it." Vidar lifted the sword again, pointed it at her heart. "You cannot refuse, troll-wife."

She locked eyes with him in the dim room, while the wolf waited at her feet. "So I cannot," she said at last, "but I must warn you that anger makes him grow."

Vidar tasted a hint of unease. He dropped his voice. "I need one tooth, then I will leave you and your wolves alone forever."

"He doesn't look different from the girls, but they eat chickens and he eats anger."

"Just the tooth, Jarnvidja."

"I give him a little every day, tell him stories about your father and brothers, even some about you. He thrives on it, it keeps him alive. But too much anger and—"

"Enough!" Vidar cried. He was tired, and brutally aware that the night was slipping away. "I don't care if he's ten feet tall tomorrow, for I leave this place tonight. Get me a tooth, and wrap it safely in something of yours, and I will leave you be."

Jarnvidja crouched forward, speaking in a low, comforting voice to the wolf. She pulled a ribbon from her apron and encouraged the wolf to open his mouth. Vidar kept his sword steady on her back. The wolf snarled, the snarl grew into a yelp, into a howl. Vidar took a step back. A splatter of blood hit the floor and Jarnvidja fell backward, holding the tooth aloft.

Vidar could hear nothing over the hideous howling. The animal snapped its jaws and shook its head right and left. Mánagarm tilted back his head and Vidar could see the bloody gap where the tooth had been. His jaws opened wide, his body shuddered and, easy as taking a breath, he swelled, becoming three inches taller in seconds. A fierce yellow light crept into his eyes and he shook at his chain angrily. Outside, the other wolves had started to bark and howl.

Vidar was so amazed by this sight that his notice was momentarily diverted from Jarnvidja. Movement from the corner of his eye jolted him back to attention. Too late he saw that she clutched the bloody tooth in her hand, ready to strike him with it. A white-hot urgency gripped him. Without a moment's shadow to think, he brought up his sword and thrust it between her ribs.

A gasp. His or hers, he did not know.

He pulled the sword out, was horrified by the slide and the friction, once so familiar to him. Blood began to flow. She dropped the tooth and clutched the wound. Mánagarm's growling abruptly stopped.

"Fool," she wheezed. "You set in motion your family's fate." She fell to the ground with a thump, dead.

Vidar turned. Mánagarm stared at Jarnvidja, looking for all the world like the son she had claimed him for, bewildered at his mother's death. He turned his eyes to Vidar and howled. Vidar untied the scarf from Jarnvidja's head. She was almost bald beneath but for some wispy white hairs. Using the scarf, he carefully picked up the tooth and wrapped it, then tied it into the corner of his cloak. The howling intensified. He glanced over his shoulder to see that the monster was growing again. Jarnvidja's words-echoed in his head and a cold sense of dread overcame him. He turned and ran, leaving Mánagarm to strain against the metal cuff, which would pinch him and make him angrier, make him larger, and pinch him all the more. No energy could be expended thinking about the future, nor about the vow to himself he had broken. There was only the energy to ran, on and on into the night, racing the sunrise.

He hit the water in the dark, swam until his muscles felt they would explode, pushing himself as fast as he could go. He refused to look up, as though the sky would stay dark as long as he wasn't watching it, but when he dragged himself to shore, the deeper shades were giving way to blue in the distant east.

"It's not morning," he called to the indifferent sky, stumbling forward and falling to his knees in hopelessness, as the first beam of orange sun hit the shadowy branches of the World Tree.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Aud waited for him at the top of the three hundred and thirty-three stairs. He collapsed on the grass and stared up at the dawn sky.

"I didn't make it," he said, hopeless and despondent.

"The night will come again," she said, fetching him the water flask. "Do you have what you need to force Heimdall to open the bridge?"

Vidar sat up and took a long draught of the water. "I do, but I fear Victoria may not still be alive by evening." He struggled to his feet. "I must goto Valaskjálf and wait near Bifrost. The moment that the sun falls behind the world I'll—"

Aud's hand was on his shoulder. "Don't be a fool. You need to rest. You can do nothing during daylight, so return with me to Gammaldal. Eat, sleep and prepare yourself."

"I won't sleep, Aud," he said, "not while there's a chance this thread will turn black when my eyes aren't upon it."

"Well, eat and prepare yourself." She whistled for Arvak, who was sniffing in the grass a few yards away.

"You told me that Victoria is locked behind metal and stone. She will be safe until tonight. You look as if you might drop dead if you don't rest."

Vidar felt fatigue seep into every muscle and bone. "Yes, yes, I must rest," he conceded, "and I must think about how to use this new weapon. You will help me, Aud?"

"Of course," she said. "Now come. Back to Gammaldal."

He lay, almost catatonic, by the fire for two hours, while Aud made him a meal, found him fresh clothes and hung his cloak to dry. Every ten minutes or so, he would ask her to check if the thread were still colored, which it was. Each time, he took comfort that Victoria was still safe, but agonized over the fear and bewilderment she must be feeling.

"Something went wrong," he said to Aud as she sat across from him and broke the bread. "Odin found out."

Aud didn't meet his gaze. "It matters little where he found out. Now that he knows, we have to deal with it."

"You didn't tell anyone, did you, Aud?"

She shook her head and handed him a cup of wine. "I said nothing." Vidar swallowed the wine dispiritedly, thinking about the previous night in the woods of Jotunheim. How easy it had been to pick up a weapon and kill. How natural. As though it were in his blood.

"I despise myself," he said, slumping forward.

"Why, Vidar?"

"I killed the troll-wife."

A half instant of silence alerted him to Aud's surprise. "You did what you had to do," she said evenly.

"I swore I'd never kill again. After last time."

"It's true, then?" she asked. "That you killed Odin's servants out of spite?" He put his face in his hands. "Not spite. I killed them because they were there in front of me, Aud. That is the person I used to be."

A long silence drew out between them and the fire crackled in the quiet room.

"But you are different now," she said softly.

Vidar looked up. Her dark eyes were fixed on his, patient and tender.

"I thought I was," he said. "But last night—"

"You were desperate. You were mad with anxiety, and tiredness, and—"

"I killed her. It was instinctive, born into me." A shudder seized him. "I cannot escape my family."

"If you get to Midgard tonight, you can change all that."

"And if I don't? Let me ask you something, Aud. I killed Jarnvidja for a tooth from the wolf Mánagarm, poisonous only to Aesir. His anger made him grow and it will continue to do so. I left him chained up, there in the hut in the fens. The troll-wife said to me before she died that I had set in motion my family's fate. What do you think she meant?"

Aud considered for a few moments, her eyebrows drawn down.

"Vidar," she said. "What is the name of the wolf that the stories of men say will swallow Odin at Ragnarök? The one you are fated to save him from?"

"Fenrir," Vidar said.

"The fen-dweller," Aud said, nodding. "Then it's him?"

"Grown to monstrous size. He will lurk in the fens for thousands of years, then finally break his bonds and unleash the evil from Jotunheim."

"It's too far distant for you to consider," she said. "Think of the present, think of tonight." She came to crouch next to him and touched his cheek. "Don't despise yourself, Vidar. A man's character is not decided in one act, nor is it necessarily decided in his past. In each moment, you can be a good man, a kind man. You have been kind to me."

Vidar felt tears prick his eyes and quickly turned away from Aud. "Thank you, Aud," he said, forcing his voice to be smooth. "I have rested long enough and now I must be active again." He pulled himself to his feet, tested his aching muscles by taking his weight first on one leg, then the other. "I need to make a weapon that will turn Heimdall's blood to ice when he sees it." He handed her his cloak. "Aud, you are Vanir. I can't touch the tooth for fear of death. Could you unwrap it and help me to set it in the end of a spear?"

"Of course," Aud said warily, peeling back the scarf to reveal the tooth. Vidar fetched his hunting spear. "We'll need to bind it tightly," he said, then a loud crack echoed around the room. The spear had broken. "What happened?" he said.

"As soon as the tooth touched it, it split," Aud said.

"Because it belongs to me," Vidar replied, nodding. "Of course."

"What will you do?"

"Go outside and cut a new branch."

"The trees are Asgard trees, they belong to the Aesir," she said. "The same thing will happen."

"Then what can I build a weapon from? I can't hold the tooth in my hand."

"My loom," Aud said, indicating where it stood in the corner. "It was made in Vanaheim. Take off the crossbeam. We can glue the tooth into the hollow at the end. It may not look like a fearsome weapon, but it will serve the purpose."

Under Vidar's instruction, Aud dismantled the loom and set the tooth in the end of the crossbeam. It looked ridiculous, too short and thick for a spear, the tooth set off center and the glue congealed around the end, but there wasn't a more powerful weapon in Asgard at that moment, and the afternoon shadows were drawing long. The hope had started to beat in his heart again, the morning's despair evaporating into the cool sky.

"Will you come with me to Valaskjálf?" Vidar asked as he pulled on his shoes and cloak. "I might need your Vanir hands if the tooth comes loose, and you can bring Arvak home once I've gone." She forced a smile. "Do you really need me?" she asked hopefully. He stood straight and met her gaze. "Your company would help me, to steady my hands and remember my breath," he said softly, "and I would like a last fond memory of Asgard to take with me."

"Then I will come."

All the way to Valaskjálf, snuggled against Vidar's back on Arvak, Aud allowed herself one last sweet fantasy. He loved her and belonged in her arms, the late-afternoon sun and the waving fields of spring flowers blessed their .union, and they were heading to the beach to make love on the warm sand. As the woods deepened and the shadows dimmed, reality was upon her once more and this time she bowed to it.

Vidar was going to Midgard to become mortal and love a woman named Victoria. Aud was to return to Loki and make the best of things with him, until he grew tired of her. After that? It didn't pay to think of it, but she was through with struggling against life and fate. Once Vidar was gone, she intended to turn her heart to stone until her exile in Asgard was over.

"We will wait here," Vidar said, pulling Arvak up.

The hump of Valaskjálf's back was just visible through the trees, the sea roared, and one of Bifrost's pillars caught the sun. Vidar dismounted and checked the corner of his cloak for the hundredth time. He helped Aud down and she sat on the forest floor. Low beams of sun shot through the trees, deepening, by contrast, the shadows that circled them. She watched as Vidar unpacked Arvak, his strong hands working and his shoulders moving against the material of his clothes. Then he leaned against the horse's neck and patted him vigorously.

"I will miss you, old friend," he whispered, and Aud had to look away. It seemed too vulnerable a moment to watch.

Vidar sat with her. He was pale, and his hands trembled.

"Are you frightened?" Aud asked.

"Yes, of course."

Aud glanced toward the pillar. The sun's stain was fading from it. "Will Heimdall come out? If the bridge is closed?"

"If not, I'll go in and get him."

The shadows drew longer; the night insects in the forest began to chirp. Aud's heart quickened. She had only minutes left. He stood, readying himself.

"Vidar," she said, swallowing hard. "I know your mind is on other things…" He tilted his head to consider her. "What is it, Aud?"

"Is it hard to leave, Vidar? Is it hard to leave home, and immortality, and everything you have ever known?"

His eyes grew sad. "Yes. And no."

"I loved you, Vidar."

"I know. I am sorry."

Aud slid her arms around him. "Hold me, just one moment. It is all the comfort I will have for a thousand years."

He embraced her, and said, "I'm not equal to such a responsibility. You must try to find comfort in other places when I'm gone."

She stepped back, alone again, a solitary soul inhabiting a solitary body in an empty space far from home. "Farewell, my own, my true love," she said, and tears brimmed and ran down her face.

"Good-bye, Aud." He turned and pulled up the hood of his cloak, and melted into the shadows. Heimdall sat with his back against the northern pillar, picking his teeth with a fingernail. Vidar watched him from the rim of the trees, then pulled the edge of his cloak to his lips and kissed the bright thread.

"Soon, Victoria," he said, gathering resolve. The fresh sea air was salty in his nostrils as he strode from the forest, and the water's draw and pull echoed off the cliffs and gusted up toward him. He was nearly upon Heimdall before he slipped out of his cloak and made his presence known. Heimdall scrambled to his feet, surprised. "Vidar! Where did you come from?"

"Open Bifrost," Vidar said. The wind off the sea caught his cloak and sent it flapping behind him. Heimdall laughed. "Certainly: Shall I carry you down to Midgard on my shoulders, too?"

"It isn't a joke."

"It should be. Odin ordered the bridge closed. You see his spear?" Heimdall indicated the spear, buried halfway into the ground at the exact midpoint between the pillars.

Vidar strode to the spear and drew it from the ground. He snapped it over his knee and threw the pieces over the cliff. He turned and called, "Can you see how little I care for Odin's orders?" Heimdall approached, still smiling through his beard. "It hardly matters what you think of Odin's orders, because only I can open the bridge."

"Open it and I will spare your life."

Heimdall pulled himself to his full height and puffed up his chest. "I kill giants, puppy. Now run along back to Gammaldal and live like a gelding until you can be of some use to your family."

"You are not my family," Vidar snarled. "I disavowed you long ago. I go to Midgard to be cut free from you all, finally, and I vow tonight that nothing will stop me. I will be with Victoria." Heimdall shrugged. "If you wait long enough, Odin will be back with her head. Is that not enough to keep you warm at night? It's said that you wouldn't know how to use the other parts." He began to .walk away and Vidar watched him for a few moments, summoning his bravado. Just past the northern pillar, Vidar grasped Heimdall's shoulder and turned him around.

"I possess the most powerful weapon in Asgard," Vidar declared over the roar of the ocean below, "and I will use it on you if you do not open the bridge."

Heimdall's eyebrows twitched momentarily, but soon the bluster had returned to his voice. "Is that right?

Well, let me see this mighty weapon and the negotiations can continue." Carefully, mindful not to let the tooth touch anything he owned, Vidar drew the crossbeam from his belt. Heimdall doubled over with laughter. "The stories about you are true, then! You have become more woman than man. You threaten me with a loom. Oh, I quake, I quiver!"

"You see what it does to the land of the Aesir," Vidar said, and he turned the rod so the tooth pointed downward and drove it hard into the ground.

A shudder moved underneath them, as though miles below the soil a mighty giant had awoken and stretched. Vidar saw Heimdall's shoulders hunch in fear. Where the tooth had entered the ground, a crack appeared and began to widen. As it did, a dreadful roar emerged from the fissure: Asgard crying in pain. The crack ran farther to the north and Vidar realized that his demonstration would have more serious consequences than he'd imagined. He jumped over the fissure to the stable side of the cliff, and Heimdall did the same. The scar opened and a huge chunk of the cliff face dropped and crumbled, sending rocks and dirt tumbling into the sea below.

When the dust had cleared and the roar had ceased, Vidar turned to Heimdall. He was still staring at the broken cliff face.

"Will you do as I say?" Vidar asked.

"What is that weapon?"

"Will you open the bridge?"

"Odin ordered it closed."

"I will kill you, Heimdall," Vidar said, and suddenly knew it wasn't an empty threat. The certainty turned his stomach over, dragged back the tide of self-hatred. If Victoria was murdered, his family would pay, all of them. Heimdall first, but then every other swine and whore in Valaskjálf, then he would wait by Bifrost for Odin to return and plunge the wolf's tooth deep into his father's heart. Heimdall licked his lips. "If you kill me, I can't open the bridge and the woman is dead anyway."

"But at least I get to kill you."

Heimdall tried a smile. "Your eyes unnerve me, Vidar. Are you still sane?"

"Open it. Let me cross."

Heimdall hesitated a moment and Vidar raised the crossbeam.

"Yes, yes," Heimdall said, "but don't bring that weapon back into our world."

"Once I am gone, Heimdall, I will never return."

Heimdall strode to the northern pillar and touched it with his palm, then jogged to the southern pillar and did the same. A hum began to buzz on the air and a glimmer of rainbow light licked over the pillars before silence and darkness returned.

"It's open," Heimdall called, and his voice was nearly whipped away on the wind. The sea roared below and the wind gusted over the cliff. Vidar collected his cloak and stepped up to the edge between the pillars, and gingerly put out his toe. Light flared beneath it. He turned. Heimdall stood, a still, white statue passive in the distance. Below him, his father waited. Victoria waited. With a deep breath, he stepped onto the bridge of colored lights.

Aud did not want to wallow in memories and imaginings. She left Arvak outside the house at Gammaldal while she went inside to pack. She kicked over the fire and searched through her things. The loom was useless without a crossbeam; Loki would have to steal a new one for her. Clothes, a basket of dyed wool, her sewing box. She paused near the dying fire and saw a half-finished carving Vidar had been working on.

Her fingers reached for it without her brain's consent. She sat and gazed at it in the grey shadows as the room grew cold and dark and empty. Although she wanted very much to take it with her, she resisted. It was over. There was no energy left in her for yearning, only submission.

Aud placed the carving on the table and collected her thoughts. A few favorite pots and pans, and the rest she left for the dust and the years. Outside, she opened the gates to set the farm animals free, then she packed Arvak and climbed onto his back.

"Well, Arvak, we belong to Loki now," she said, urging him forward. "We must make the journey to whichever fate awaits us."

Arvak seemed to know which way to go.

Chapter Thirty-Four

[Midgard]

I screamed. Odin laughed and it turned into a snarl. He was easily six and a half feet tall, and as solid as a side of beef. His clothes were filthy and stank of alcohol, and his beard was overgrown and stained and unkempt. His arms were bare except for spiraling gold arm rings, jammed on so tight that the skin puffed out in the gaps. A round helmet was pushed down on his wild yellow hair; a metal piece rested on his nose between his eyes. One eye was pale blue and fixed on me, the other was an empty socket, which I instinctively avoided looking at. An axe and a club hung on a belt across his hips. His bared teeth were crooked and yellow, and spittle hung in his beard. He looked like a man who would eat babies, and all this registered on me in the split second it took him to reach for his axe. I struggled against him, but he shook me and I fell down. He towered over me and shouted.

" Kona, hvers vegna blótuthu fjölskyldu minni?"

"I don't know what you're saying," I replied, hands defensively over my head, wriggling backward.

" Tjádu thig fyrir mér áthr en thú deyrr!" His voice was harsh and loud, and echoed and cracked in the frozen forest around me.

He raised the axe and I scrabbled away from the blow and pulled myself to my feet. His axe hit the tree behind me and he took a second to free the blade. I ran as fast as I could. My bare feet gripped the icy ground, giving me an advantage, because he slipped and had to steady himself before following me. I dived behind a row of bushes on his left and willed my heart and breath to be still. I could hear him approaching, but Skripi had said he couldn't see with that left eye. So I shrank back into the leaves and waited.

He drew into sight and I held my breath. He walked past me and ten feet farther up the path and I let my breath go again. He turned.

Now I wasn't on his left, I was on his right, and his good eye had discovered me. Strangely, I found that I couldn't move. Or didn't want to move… or… something. In studying his gaze, I had connected with the dark void under his helmet where his left eye should have been, and I was like a rabbit in headlights. I thought I saw, within that black space, a swirling sickly light.

I thought I saw a great emptiness connected to the icy reaches of the universe. I thought I saw the full weight of my own mortality, dragging me inexorably toward it. The sound of branches cracking roused me. No, the sound had made Odin break his gaze and I was set free from its hold. I kept my head down and ran. I pelted through the trees, away from Odin, heading back toward the station, tripping, skidding, stumbling, but moving as fast as I could. Still he drew closer. I could hear his panting and smell his sweat and knew that I would run out of energy long before he would.

He had the edge of my anorak and then it slipped from his hand. He was big and clumsy, I was small and desperate.

I ran.

I burst through the trees and found myself in the clearing.

He dived and caught me around the feet, bringing me crashing to the ground. And so it was all going to happen again.

I kicked at him, got a little way from him, toward the anvil-shaped rock, but then realized I didn't want to go there, not again. It had already been painted with my blood. In my moment of hesitation he flipped me flat on my back, then sat on my ankles and raised his axe. I flung one hand out to try to struggle into a sitting position. My fingers brushed the head of a soil thermometer that Magnus had inserted into the ground. I yanked it from the earth and sat up, plunging it into Odin's empty socket. He screamed and fell backward, dropping his axe. I didn't wait to see if he would get up. People do that in movies and end up dead. I got to my feet, snatched up the axe and kept running, wondering when my legs and lungs were going to give out. The clatter of metal on stone alerted me to the fact that he'd got the thermometer out of his eye. His screams and bellows echoed through the forest like the sounds of a monster being tortured. I almost didn't hear the other voice, faint and far away.

"Victoria!"

It was Vidar. "Here, here!" I called.

His voice was closer this time. "I'm coming, I'm coming."

"Quickly, Vidar." I stopped and looked around. Odin was nowhere in sight but I could hear footsteps all around me and didn't know to whom they belonged. So I stood perfectly still and hoped Vidar would get to me first.

Pounding feet, running through the trees. I raised the axe, knowing I was pitiably unable to wield it. If this was Odin, I was just going to have to stand there and take what was coming. A shadow emerged from my left and I collapsed to my knees.

It was Vidar.

Vidar threw a cloak over us both and crouched on the ground next to me, his arms around me.

"Victoria," he gasped, covering my face in desperate kisses, "I've found you."

"He's right behind me."

"He can't find us under this cloak. Come with me, we'll find a safe place to hide where we can talk." He helped me to my feet and I leaned on him heavily. The cloak was made of some weird dark material that seemed to bleed into the shadows of the forest; I almost couldn't see us. Vidar led me to the beach. The frost hadn't held on the sand and my feet sank into the fine grains gratefully. The wind was cold, but the sand was soft and Vidar laid me down and stretched out next to me, making sure the cloak covered us from view.

"He won't look for us out here," Vidar said. "He'll run around in the trees for a long time before he'll think of heading for open space."

"I thought I might never see you again."

"I thought the same."

Vidar's face was close to mine. I touched it lovingly. "What happened?"

"I'm not certain, but I'm here now, and I have something to show you." He wriggled so his left hand was loose and showed me his index finger. Around it, he had tied a piece of colored thread. It glowed gently in the dark.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's our fate. I have to confront Odin to change it. One of my brothers will become my father's protector, and he won't care where I go or what I do."

"So we can be together?" I said, hope swelling in my heart.

"Yes. More than that, we can have children, and grow old together, and be buried next to each other. I'm going to become mortal."

On top of the fear and the fatigue, his words undid me and I began to sob. "No. It's too much." He smiled; his dark eyes were so dear to me. "It's too late. That's the bargain I made. If I misuse this thread, I'm sentenced to a thousand years in servitude." He dropped his lips to my cheek. "You're stuck with me, Victoria, For life."

The tide surged in my chest. I brought my tears under control. "Why, Vidar? Why me?"

"Because the stars wished it to be so," he murmured against my skin. He kissed me, his tongue gently touched mine, and I felt a shiver of longing and fear.

"Vidar, we have too much to lose," I said. "We're vulnerable." His warm fingers were in my hair. "I'll protect you, Victoria. Whatever happens."

"So what do we do next?"

"I have to find Odin. Nothing can change until I have spoken to him." I realized that his voice no longer sounded confident. "You don't want to speak to him, do you?" He tried to smile, but failed. "Victoria, would you think me less of a man if I told you I'm afraid of my father?"

I gazed at him a moment and realized that he was anxious about my answer.

"Of course not," I said. "He's a monster."

This time he did smile, though only weakly. "Let's not waste another moment," he said. "You stay by me. We'll find him together."

Vidar's fingers were like a vise holding my hand as we made our way back through the trees.

"Don't leave my side," he said. "He'll want to get you away from me. Stay by me."

"I will," I said, checking that Odin's axe was tucked firmly into the waistband of my jeans.

"He'll be angry. He'll shout and wave his club about. Don't be afraid."

"I won't."

He caught his breath. "Can you hear that?"

I strained my ears. "No."

"Somebody coming toward us."

"Odin?"

"Not heavy enough."

I looked around, thought I could make out a light approaching between the trees. A moment later, Gunnar appeared, wielding a kerosene lamp and his fake Viking sword.

"Gunnar!" I gasped.

"Victoria! You're safe!"

Vidar stepped forward. "Nobody is safe. Odin walks the forest. You must return to your metal box." Gunnar's expression was one of utter bewilderment. "Who?"

"Gunnar, you have to go back to Kirkja. Right away. There's nothing you can do here." He was looking Vidar up and down, registering the details of his dress. "What's going on?"

"Go, Gunnar. I'll explain it all in the morning, I promise you."

Footsteps in the undergrowth.

"Go!" Vidar hissed. "Go now."

Gunnar turned and Odin hulked out of the trees at the same moment. Vidar shouted something in his own language, but Odin raised his club and ran at Gunnar.

Gunnar dropped his sword and lamp and started to run. Vidar took off after him. I snatched up the lamp and followed in his wake. Branches whipped me and the cold bit my feet. Moments before, I'd been certain about what would happen next. Now chaos had been reintroduced. The light bobbed ahead of me. I kept my eyes on Vidar's back and ran as fast as I could. Still he drew away from me, and I had to redouble my efforts not to lose sight of him.

Up ahead somebody cried out in pain. Gunnar. I wanted to scream. The trees thinned. We were approaching the lake. I burst from the trees to see Gunnar's body lying twisted and insensible over a rock near the edge of the water. Odin stood over him with his club raised. Vidar, suddenly aware that he had created too big a gap between us, was coming back up the slope for me. Gunnar was easy prey. I didn't think, I just pulled the axe and threw it. It bounced off a branch and landed on the forest floor, at least ten feet from Odin.

He turned and snarled at me. Vidar stepped between us.

Odin began to bellow, not words, just a horrible insensible shouting that echoed around the forest. The lake was covered in wide shards of ice, and cracks appeared in them as Odin's shout went on and on. I couldn't leave Gunnar lying there. What if he was dying? I slipped out from behind Vidar and ran down the slope to him. Vidar saw me, moved to cover me, putting himself once again between his father and me. The shouting went on, just as Vidar had predicted. It was a terrifying noise, but I tried to block it out. I set the lamp on the ground next to Gunnar and felt for a pulse at his throat. He was still alive. I pulled the rune off my neck and wrapped it around his wrist. Despite Skripi's lack of faith, I had to believe the rune might be some protection for him.

Odin's shouting had turned into words now, more of that strange-guttural language they spoke. Vidar tried to reply but Odin roared over the top of him. I glanced over my shoulder. Vidar, dark-haired and gentle-voiced, smaller than his father yet bravely holding his ground. Odin, wild and fair-haired, shouting him down over and over again. Vidar raised his hand. I saw the gleaming colors of the thread. Odin howled. Then abruptly stopped.

The thread still glowed. What had caused his silence?

I noticed he was gazing over my shoulder. And smiling.

Vidar turned. Called out, "Victoria!"

Seaweed and pale fingers around my waist. I screamed. The draugr threw me in the lake. Ice-cold. My breath stopped. I tried to call for Vidar, but sour freezing water rushed into my mouth. A confused set of images: weeds and eyes and the lamplight watery in the quiet lake. I pushed upward, away from the draugr's clutching hands. I hit ice. I tried again. More ice. I was trapped. My lungs grew solid. That's all I remember.

A wide, black gap exists in my memory at that point, as if I lost myself for a short time, but then light and sound and life rushed back on me, and I opened my eyes somewhere very bright and very warm.

"I've done this before," I said, and noticed that my throat wasn't sore, as it had been the first time I had been under with the draugr.

I was in bed in my cabin. Carsten was nearby, and Gunnar too.

"She's conscious."

"Where's Vidar?" I asked.

"Victoria, you've had an accident. What can you remember?"

"Where's Vidar?" I asked again, growing desperate. I sat up and tried to throw off the bedspread.

"What's going on?"

"Rest, Victoria," Carsten said.

"I don't want to rest. I'm fine."

"You shouldn't be," he huffed. "You should be brain-dead. You were under the ice for four minutes."

"She's perfectly well," Gunnar said. "I told you."

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" I shouted. "Where is Vidar?" Gunnar said a quiet word to Carsten, who nodded and left. I waited, horrified at the possibilities. It was daylight outside.

"Vidar's gone, Vicky. I'm sorry."

I couldn't make sense of what Gunnar meant by gone.

"Is he coming back? What did he say?"

Gunnar shook his head. He had a graze on his forehead. "He's not coming back."

"How do you know?"

"He spoke to me before he left. You have to let me tell you what happened." I slumped back on the bed. "How can he be gone?"

"You were dying, Victoria. He did something… I don't understand all of it." I began to cry, suspecting what had happened. "Just tell me."

"The draugr took you under the ice. I came to. I saw you go under. Vidar dived in, couldn't find you. The big fellow… Odin?"

"That's his name."

"He was laughing. They were speaking Old Norse… I couldn't make it all out. But I think he said, 'She's dead by now. It's over.' Vidar dragged you out of the water and you were blue." Gunnar glanced away, a puzzled expression on his brow.

"Go on."

"That's when the thing came out of the water."

"The draugr?"

"Maybe I imagined it. I'd had a blow to the head."

"What did it look like?"

"Just like the stories say. A bloated man-monster, covered in weed. He was crawling along the ground like one of those lungfish." Gunnar tried to imitate the movement with his hand. "He was coming for me. There was an axe on the ground, and I picked it up and…" He looked up and smiled weakly. "This is all crazy."

"I know."

"I remembered that you're supposed to cut off a draugr's head. I flailed out, his head came clean off. Then it wasn't a draugr at all, just a pile of pondweed and you still lay dying in Vidar's lap, not breathing, pulse growing weaker.

"Odin left, he shouted some insults at all of us. Vidar was bent over you, trying to breathe life back into you. He was getting more and more frantic, calling your name. And then… I don't really understand what happened. He held up his hand and said something in his own language. Something about you, and about living and old age. There was a flash of color on his hand, and then it dimmed. You breathed. He laid you down in the mud and buried his face in his hands and cried."

I felt my heart drop into my stomach.

"He gave me this." Gunnar felt in his pocket and pulled out an animal's tooth. I took it from him. "He said to use it if Odin came back, that he had to go and that you'd understand why. He said to tell you to get away from the island and that he loved you forever."

I stared at Gunnar. Vidar had used his one chance to change fate to keep me alive. And that meant that we weren't going to be together after all. A wave of despair and yearning crashed over me. It also meant he had to serve the punishment.

A thousand years.

"I'll be dead before he can come back," I said.

"Vicky, I don't understand. Who were those people?"

"You know. You've read about them."

He stood up and ran his hands through his hair. "It's my fault, isn't it? If I'd never turned up, like an idiot…"

I looked at him. He was right. In a sense.

"Can you forgive me, Victoria?"

Or was it really Gunnar's fault? Or my fault for not warning him what was really going on? Or Vidar's fault for wanting too much, as those in love always do? Or Magnus's fault for bringing me to the island in the first place?

I saw the blame vanish backward into a long chain of cause and effect. Events that had seemed so casual, decisions I had made so carelessly, had actually been carving my future in stone. It seemed searingly important that I make the right decision in that moment.

"Victoria?"

"I can forgive you, Gunnar," I said, "if you'll take me to the other side of the world with you."

Chapter Thirty-Five

[Asgard]

As Vidar approached Gammaldal, two black shadows in the night sky circled him. Hugin and Munin, his father's ravens. Odin would never again let Vidar out of his sight; once was an accident but twice was a pattern, and Odin was afraid of his own fate. Vidar picked up a stone and cast it into the sky. It clipped one of the birds on the wingtip, but neither of them slowed.

Bad enough to see Heimdall's smug face at his return to Bifrost Or to hear the taunts of his assembled brothers who had come down from Valaskjálf on Odin's urging. How he despised them. If the Norns went through with it, made him spend a thousand years in the company of his family's enemies, it would not be such a bad thing.

His blood was hot and his brain was hotter. He had to find Aud, make her take him back to the Norns. He could not accept this fate. To be apart from Victoria after all he had suffered… it was impossible. The Norns would have to be forced to fix things. He would do the service in Vanaheim, even if he had to do it as an old man once Victoria was gone. They had to let him go back to Midgard and be with her. Watching her breathe again, on the shore of the lake, had been an agony. He couldn't stay to kiss her lips and tell her he loved her, for fear that the Norns would take back their favor if he lingered too long. The house waited in the dark. No smell of smoke rose. He pushed open the door. The room was in darkness, the fire had been kicked over. Aud was gone.

A moment of emptiness shivered over him. Alone.

Then a shadow moved in the dark. A woman, cloaked in black, emerged from an alcove between pillars. She pushed back her cowl.

Vidar peered into the dark. "Verda?" he asked.

"Skuld," she corrected him. "You made your deal with me."

"Why are you here?"

"My sisters felt we hadn't been clear enough in our negotiations. None of us expected you to return to Asgard."

"Things went badly for me." Vidar dropped to his knees and touched the hem of her skirt. "I beg you to give me another chance. You see, I've kept the thread." He held out his hand, the black thread still tied around his finger.

"There will be no other chances, Vidar," Skuld said, drawing a deep breath. The darkness moved over her face eerily. Vidar sat back on the floor. "My sisters and I have moved our residence, much deeper inside the World Tree, and we don't intend to make any more bargains with anyone. Least of all you." She crouched in front of him and tilted his chin upward so he had to meet her gaze. "I am very disappointed. We gave you great power and you misused it."

"She was dying."

"You will pay the price."

Vidar dropped his head and let the hopelessness claim him. "She is lost to me, then?"

"A second time. Have you wondered, Vidar, whether you are not meant to be together?"

"I know we are. I feel it like…" He wanted to say the Midgard word "electricity," but found no counterpart in his own tongue. "Clearer than lightning, hotter than the sun." Skuld rose and sat on a bench. "Sit with me, Vidar."

He did as she asked. His joints felt stiff and his heart felt tired.

"You made a bargain with us, Vidar," she said. "If you don't adhere to the terms of the deal, I have to take back what I've done. Victoria will die."

He set his teeth. "I know. I'll take the punishment."

"How do you feel about the punishment?" she said, and a cruel smile touched her lips.

"I do not relish being a servant to the Vanir, but I hope to find some pity and good work to fill my time." She laughed. "You're not going to Vanaheim," she said. "What made you think that?" Vidar was puzzled, hopeful even. "What do you mean? I believed I would receive the same punishment as Aud—service to my family's enemies."

"Tes, the same punishment as Aud," Skuld said. "A thousand years of service to the Aesir." His blood turned to ice. "What?"

"Surely you knew you'd be drawn back to them eventually?" She stood and pulled the cowl back over her head. "Pack your things, Vidar," she said. "You leave immediately for Valaskjálf." Aud stirred and wondered why she was awake. The sun wasn't up, she was warm. She turned over. Loki was not in bed next to her. Outside she heard the whinny of a horse.

She closed her eyes and tried to slip back into sleep, but curiosity kept her awake. What was he doing outside with the horses? Especially Arvak, who was hers to keep.

She pulled a blanket around her and cracked open the door.

"Good, you're awake," he said. "We have to leave soon." He was tightening Arvak's saddle, and leading a rope between him and Heror.

"Leave? Where are we going?" She fought the disappointment. If half a warm night in Loki's bed was all she was destined to receive, then she would take it gratefully and ask no further questions.

"I'm taking you somewhere. Somewhere you've never traveled to before."

"Why?"

"Because it's time. You can't stay here with me, I like living alone."

"But where am I going?"

He turned to her, wringing his hands and fluttering his eyelashes. "Where am I going?" he mocked. "What will happen to me?" He gave her a push. "Go on, inside. Get dressed. Timing is everything." Aud dutifully returned to the house and pulled on warm clothes. Each time her mind turned to worrying thoughts and protests, she shut it down. How many years, she wondered, until that shutting-down became a natural reflex? How many before it became irreversible? Loki knew she had to stay in service to the Aesir, so she was either heading north to the cousins Vidar had mentioned past Idavíd, or east to Valaskjálf.

"I'm ready," she said, emerging from the house.

"Come here," he said, dragging her toward him and pulling out a scarf. "I must tie this over your eyes."

"Why?"

"Because I am your master," he said, tightening the knot It caught a strand of her hair, but she didn't cry out.

He kissed her lips gently. "You are in the dark now, Aud. You must trust me. Let me help you onto Arvak's back."

Blindfolded, she found her way into the saddle and leaned forward to clutch Arvak's mane. "May all the stars have pity on us," she said to him quietly, and he whickered in response. Loki made an urgent noise and they were away, galloping toward an unknown location. As the hours passed, and Aud grew more adept at shutting down the unhappy part of her mind and its endless protests, Loki sang her songs and told her bawdy stories, although she didn't smile or laugh. She clutched Arvak for life and comfort, and wondered how much longer she would be blind to the world around her.

The sun came up. She felt the warm glow and saw through the blindfold that the light had changed. Definitely not heading east, the sun was behind her. Which meant they were heading west, and now she was completely confused because they had been riding for hours and…

"Loki," she gasped, gripped by panic, "don't tell me you've led me to Vanaheim."

"And what if I had?" he said.

"I'm not allowed back here. The old fate will be restored and Helgi will die."

"I couldn't let that happen," he said, adopting the mocking voice again. "Now sit still. I told you, we're going somewhere you've never traveled to before."

Accept, accept. She drew a deep breath and relaxed in the saddle. Time passed. At length, they drew to a halt and she heard Loki dismount and approach.

"Are you ready?" he said.

"I am," she replied.

He helped her down and unpicked the knot in the scarf. "Look, Aud. See where we are?" The blindfold fell away from her eyes and she was standing in the apple orchard near her home in Vanaheim. Her heart filled with air.

"No, no, Loki!" she cried.

"Shush, girl. Listen," he said sternly, "those hags owed me, you remember. I told you I'd bring you somewhere you'd never traveled to before."

When she turned puzzled eyes to him, he leaned close and said, "Aud, it's the past."

"The …?"

And then she heard it. In the distance. Helgi crying because he'd woken up alone. The sound she made echoed loudly in her ears: a gasp, a sob, a whimper.

"Go, then," Loki said. "I'll untie Arvak. You see, I'm not so bad, am I?" But she barely heard him, because she was running, running so hard that her knees shuddered under her weight and her blood sizzled with heat and longing. She burst into the house and there he was, three years old, huddled by the bed.

"Helgi, my darling Helgi," she cried, and the alarm and surprise in her voice made him cry harder. She clung to him and he soaked her shoulder in tears and the world stuck in her throat.

"Mama, Mama," he said, "you were gone for so long."

"I know, my darling," she replied, pressing him tight against her, "but I'll never be so foolish again."

Chapter Thirty-Six

[Midgard]

Wellington is right at the bottom of the north island of New Zealand. It's beautiful here in late summer, and it's a long, long way from Othinsey, from Bifrost, and from Odin himself. A long way from Vidar, too, I know. But I'm a practical girl—in the last life, in this one, and in any more to come. Gunnar pulled every string he could to get me a job here. In the end, all the Meteorological Service could offer me was sixteen hours a week hosing out the hydrogen chamber and mopping up the storeroom. I'd prefer to be busier. The empty hours get inside me, hollow me out. Gunnar keeps me occupied: if he's not making jokes about how ridiculous I look in waterproof overalls, he's leaving his clothes and books all over the little flat we share, for me to pick up.

But we're not lovers. Gunnar would like it very much if we were, and I am so very fond of him. But I've known a love infinitely greater, a love potent enough to eat the sun. I know that that love is gone and cannot return for a thousand years. I know a thousand years is longer than I can imagine, that it takes me beyond the horrors of old age and death and decay and the wide nothing after it. I know all this, and yet I save my heart.

I often dream of Vidar, when I'm burrowed down in sleep. We're together, his hands on my hands, on my body. His eyes are dark and serious, and he says to me that he will be mine forever. No matter what happens, he will make certain that we are together, and that I'm not to be afraid of death, or silence, or his father. That he'll find me and bring me back to him. I die a little when I wake, and lie there a long time, empty and nauseous, and wonder if it's just a dream. Then I rise and check in the little box under my bed: a wolf's tooth, a rune, two wooden carvings and a shard of a thousand-year-old axe blade. Proof that impossible things happen.

Why shouldn't impossible things happen, after all? We travel through our weary lives with an illusion of secure places and choices, because to acknowledge otherwise would make living unbearable. But the elements are still in play, all the time, a collection of glowing rainbow colors that fall into black precisely when we don't expect them to. There was a time, not so long ago, when I thought I could explain everything. Yet it never occurred to me that I couldn't explain even the basics. Life, love, fate. What I do know are these things. Love is mighty. Souls, once they touch, always save an imprint of one another. The sun rises and sets on my world and on his.

I wait and I hope. Foolish hope. It's all I can do.

Epilogue

[Seven Years Later]

Vidar's fingers worked expertly, fitting the gate into the lintel. He ignored the occasional snarl of Odin's dogs; they were annoyed to be tied up so long while Vidar mended the gate. It was dusk and they were keen to be free, to be hunting in the woods. Vidar took his time, testing the latch and adjusting the hinge. Hoofbeats from the edge of the forest barely registered. Visitors were always coming and going from Valaskjálf. Such visits had little to do with Vidar, who had spent the last seven years in service to his family. The drunken fools had barely noticed the signs that Vidar had noticed: a dark cloud gathering in the west, the distant howling echoes that traveled on the wind, the boiling seas and the long, harsh winters. A thousand years might yet pass before the long twilight that signaled the end, but it was coming. Without doubt, it was coming.

Vidar stood back, realizing that the hoofbeats had not thundered down the path to the stables. He looked around. A chestnut stallion. Two hooded figures on his back, one adult and one child. He peered into the semidark. "Arvak?"

Vidar dropped his tools and began toward the hem of the forest, where the two riders sat motionless. The dogs began to howl, realizing that their freedom was still suspended. Vidar checked around him nervously. Nobody watching. In the shadow of a mighty spruce, he stopped and reached a hand for the horse's nose.

"Dear old friend," he said, surprised to find himself so choked on emotion. He had thought his heart hardened to stone.

The first rider pushed back her hood. It was Aud, her body ripened by womanhood and happiness, with the elaborate tattoos around her eyebrows that indicated her full initiation into the Vanir magic. She was a seidhr princess now, the most powerful of her family.

"Vidar," she said slowly, smiling. She turned to the boy behind her. "This is my son, Helgi." She glanced around, nervous. "Join us in the woods. I would talk to you without the eyes or ears of Valaskjálf to witness."

Vidar followed her into the trees, puzzled. Night deepened overhead, and the shadows in the forest pooled to black. She dismounted at a small clearing overgrown with tiny saplings. Vidar sat on a flat rock while she helped Helgi down. His hood fell back to reveal a solemn-faced, blond boy, who stood protectively close to his mother.

"How did you find each other?" Vidar asked.

Aud shook loose her long, dark hair. "Fate, it seems, is not so immutable as I had thought." A barb of pain to his heart. Fate had treated him cruelly.

"I'll be quick, Vidar, because I know that your family will miss you if I keep you too long. You are well?"

"As well as I could be. Given my situation."

"Good. Good." She smiled, and an unaccountable glint of excitement came to her eye. "These last seven years, I have thought of you every day. Not because I love you. Those feelings have long since grown cold. I have thought of you, because I played a part in the awful mess…" She trailed off and wouldn't meet his eye. "I have borne a burden of guilt. All my magic, all my hard work in seidhr training, has tended toward one thing."

Vidar waited, expectant, puzzled. In the distance, the dogs barked on.

"Rescuing you, Vidar."

He shook his head. "I can't be rescued. I'm bound by fate."

"Listen now. Have you seen your brother Thor in the last few days?"

"No. He went riding. Hunting, I think."

"I know where he is." She smiled again, as though she could barely keep inside some delicious secret.

"He's with the Norns."

His confusion made him unaccountably irritated. "Aud?" • She grasped his hand in her cool fingers. "Urd loved Thor. I always remember her speaking of him, so fondly, so tenderly. Seven years ago, the Norns hid themselves from me. I knew if I wanted to deal with them, I had to have the right bait. Two days past, I put Thor under an enchantment—he thinks he loves Urd—and I set him to wander in the World Tree, following him secretly." She giggled. "You should have heard him: drunken love songs echoed through the roots for days. Finally, Urd caught him. And when she did, I caught her." Vidar's heart was starting to speed.

"I made a deal, that if she would grant me one change of fate, I would leave Thor under the enchantment for as long as it would last. If she refused, I would remove the enchantment immediately. By that stage, he had taken her spindly hand and was pressing his lips into it fervently. She agreed."

"What fate have you changed?" he asked, trying to still his blood, which pounded so fast past his ears that he couldn't hear the sounds of the twilit forest around him.

"You know, Vidar. We tried it once before." She reached into her cloak and pulled out a length of colored thread. Stepping forward, she began to wind it around his wrist.

He stared at it, hot with anticipation.

"You will be a man, Vidar. The moment you step onto Bifrost. You will be mortal, you will grow old, you will die. Your fate has gone to Vali. By the time Odin notices you're gone, the new destinies will be in place and he'll remember you only as the son who disappointed him greatly, who he is proud not to miss." She tied a knot in the thread. "But the enchantment on Thor will not last forever. My magic is not yet that strong. I hope, for your sake, that it may last a mortal lifetime. But you must live your life with Victoria, knowing that it could all end at any moment." She patted his wrist and her dark eyes met his.

"And in that lesson, lies the real truth about being mortal."

Vidar felt tears prick his eyes. That morning, there had only been the crushing weight of fate upon him. Now, a path had been opened, unexpectedly, sweetly.

Aud handed him Arvak's reins. "I wish you luck, Vidar. She is a long way from Odin's Island. But you found her once before, in the depths of Niflheim. I'm sure you will find her again." Vidar finally regained his ability to speak. "I haven't words to thank you, Aud."

"There is no need for them, Vidar. I treated you badly. This is restitution." She turned to her son. "Helgi, as we discussed?"

Helgi nodded and Aud tousled the boy's hair. "My son, it seems, has enough elvish magic from his father's side to make us quite an unstoppable pair. Give us five minutes to go ahead and distract Heimdall. Then go, and don't look back."

They raised their hoods and scampered off. Vidar's hands trembled as he adjusted Arvak's stirrups. He realized he was panicking; if Heimdall would not let him pass, this new promise would be broken. He didn't know if his tired heart could endure that again.

Vidar mounted Arvak, leaning forward to pat his neck. "I'm glad to have you with me, old friend." He turned the horse toward Bifrost.

Thundering down the path, he saw the tall pillars. At the north pillar, two hooded figures stood next to a statue. No, it wasn't a statue, it was Heimdall, frozen. Aud gestured that he should move, and quickly.

"Go, Arvak. Forward."

The ground shuddered beneath him, the colors on the thread around his wrist glowed. The air seemed to tremble around him, the sweet weight of mortality pressing itself into his immortal flesh. The cliffs edge loomed ahead, the night sky opened.

With a flash of hot colors, the ground dropped away and the stars exploded at Arvak's hooves. The thread turned black, and Vidar was on his journey.

About the Author

Kim Wilkins was born in London and grew up at the seaside in Queensland. She has degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing, and has won four Aurealis awards for fantasy and horror. Her books are also published in the UK, U.S., and Europe. Kim lives in Brisbane with her partner, her son, and two spoiled black cats.

You can write to her at mail@kimwilkins.com, or find more information at www.kimwilkins.com.