“It doesn’t bother me.” I snatched at the tiny dots bobbing on the breeze. Frozen flecks melted in my palm—minuscule snowflakes. The specks of precipitation came and went, itinerant visitors lacking the conviction to gather into something permanent. “I was thinking about Mani.” My brother had loved the cold and adored snow. He was my complete opposite. “I wonder if he would have been able to generate ice the same way I make fire.”
Baldur stepped to the railing at the patio’s edge, and his big shadow fell over me. The patio was more like a huge balcony, supporting a fire pit, seating area, hot tub, and outdoor kitchen all done up in natural stone. The patio’s edge dropped off like a cliff, and anyone unfortunate enough to stumble over the railing would fall several hundred feet before splattering on the rocky ground.
“I didn’t know your brother in this most recent incarnation, and I regret it. But from what I’ve heard, he and the original Mani had a lot in common.”
“He suspected something,” I said. “It was why he went to Alaska in the first place—because of my dreams and premonitions and his own hunches. He was more open minded than me. I was in denial about the whole thing from the beginning.”
He nodded. “I remember.”
“I have a lot of strange dreams, you know? And they aren’t always about me.”
He leaned over, braced his arms on the railing, and knitted his fingers together. He stared out over the landscape. The Lake Tahoe sky, peering through patchy clouds, matched the blue in his eyes. “I am aware. Yes.”
“I recently had one about Skyla. It involved you.”
His posture remained relaxed and impassive, but he studied me—hard—from the corner of his eye. “I know what you’re going to say.”
I clutched the patio railing tighter, and my white knuckles stood out against skin that had gone pink with cold. “And?”
Baldur stood straighter, squaring his shoulders. He folded his arms across his chest, braced a hip against the railing, and exhaled. “And it’s true. She’s my granddaughter.”
My heart rolled a somersault. I trusted my visions and dreams, but Baldur’s confirmation solidified everything and made it real. Essentially speaking, Skyla was Aesir. The truth would blow her mind. Hope it doesn’t end up breaking her heart. “Have you always known?”
“I sensed she was something other when I healed her, after she was shot in Helen’s warehouse. Her blood, her healing, her body’s response to my magic... It was all uncanny. But there, in the cabin at Rainier, after I’d brought Nina out of that hospital, after we had recovered you from Grim, after I saw Nina and Skyla together for the first time...” Baldur swallowed and shook his head as if shooing a pestering fly.
“You’ve been withholding the truth from her since then?”
His face contorted into a pained smile. He raised his eyes to mine, and as always, his otherworldliness pressed upon me like a physical weight. I hadn’t bowed to him before, however. Why start now? “You don’t want to hear my excuses, do you?”
I huffed a small chuckle. “No, but I can guess them. We’ve kept you busy, and you’ve been very single-minded about Nina. But you have her back now, so no more excuses. Skyla needs to know.”
“Why haven’t you told her yourself?”
“Not my story to tell. Besides, it would only piss her off more, coming from me. If you tell her the truth yourself, I think she’ll be more inclined to understand and give you a break. She has one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever known. She just wants a family and someone to love. If you let her, I bet she’d love you.”
Baldur pushed off the railing and strolled toward the end of his patio facing the valley that housed his horse herd. No surprise, the Aesir’s attachment to four-footed steeds, especially considering their history with horses in the legends—Odin’s eight-legged horse being an exceptional example, of course. “I know it’s no excuse, Solina. I failed my daughters after Nina’s last death. The Valkyries came right away and offered to raise them, teach them, train them, and it was easy to believe the girls were better off without me. You’d think after losing Nina so many times, over and over, I’d be numb to it.”
He spun and faced me. His eyes burned as if he had a fever. “But it doesn’t work that way. Each time, it gets worse. It hurts more and more. When Nina died after Skyla’s mother was born, I was worthless—a zombie, as modern people like to say. I was in no state to raise three little girls, but I know it’s no excuse. I neglected them, and Embla has made it clear she hates me for deserting her. I don’t blame her. She asked me to leave her alone, and I’ve respected her wishes.”
Baldur stepped closer to me. He rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair until strands poked up around his head like a prickly seedpod from a sweetgum tree. “Maybe that’s why I’ve hesitated to say anything to Skyla. I’m afraid of her rejection. I’m afraid of hurting her more with the truth: that she has a family, and we abandoned her.”
I squeezed Baldur’s shoulder. “Skyla forgave Embla for keeping her distance for so long. She’ll forgive you. Just don’t wait until it’s too late. Don’t regret the time you could have been together with no secrets between you.”
Baldur swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’re right. But I should tell her face to face.”
“Sounds reasonable.” I offered a conciliatory smile. “And maybe you’ll get your chance, sooner than later.”
Baldur arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Is Skyla coming here?”
“No.” I shook my head. “We’re going to her.”
He blinked at me. “We are?”
“I spoke with her a little while ago. The Valkyries are already in Vegas, looking for leads. It’s time I stopped hiding out here. I’ve got a wolf to kill, and it’s not going to happen as long as I stay holed up in this fortress.”
Baldur frowned. “Are you sure? If it’s too soon—”
“It’s been a week.” I’d overdosed on self-pity during my stay at New Breidablick, and I didn’t need more sympathy from Baldur or anyone else. “If I learned anything from Mani’s death, it’s that there is a time to mourn and a time to dance. I’m done mourning. Val doesn’t deserve any more of my grief. Now it’s time to dance, and preferably on some graves. Skoll’s will be my first.”
Baldur’s lips curled into a cagey smile. “Thorin will be glad to hear it.”
“I don’t care what Thorin’s glad to hear.” I was still trying to figure out how I felt about the God of Thunder after learning of his participation in Loki’s torture, Narfi’s murder, and Val’s abuse. Did something that happened eons ago matter anymore? Did I have the right to judge any of them after I’d murdered Mani’s killer myself and would have done worse, given the opportunity? Did I have the right, when I was still seeking to kill Skoll and possibly Helen Locke and anyone else who threatened to harm me or those I cared about?
Baldur snorted and rolled his eyes. “Keep telling yourself that, Solina. You’re the only one who believes it.”
That night, as I had for many nights since arriving at New Breidablick, I dreamed of blackbirds, thunder, and rain. Dark places, roaring rivers, and darting fish. Fire and pain. The images swirled together, never coalescing into anything sensible.
A thunderclap woke me. Because thunder rarely occurred in winter, I attributed the phenomenon to Thorin expressing some unspoken sentiment. Frustration? Anger? He’d given me lots of space for most of the week, and I had a feeling he was losing his patience with me.
I stared at the bedroom ceiling and traded my questions about Thorin’s emotional status for questions about the visions in my dreams. I’d lived much of my life with this ability to foresee and yet see nothing at all. What value was foresight without comprehension? Maybe I understood why the oracles in the legends always spoke in vague and quizzical terms. Without context, my visions had little worth.
From past experience, I’d learned the visions might become more specific over time, as I drew nearer to the event inspiring the premonitions. But that left me playing catch-up too often. Every task I had undertaken since Mani’s death had come from a reactive position rather than a proactive one. Perhaps that would be my downfall, the undoing of us all.
I needed something more from my premonitions. I had to do something more to get those answers. My visions, no matter how stilted and unreliable, were a gift—one I had squandered for far too long. Perhaps, like a muscle, my psychic skills required training and exercise. As the development of my fighting and self-defense abilities had depended on the help of experts like the Valkyries, so too would my clairvoyant tendencies. But whom did I approach for that sort of training—Zelda, the palm-reading astrologist who worked from the little purple trailer on the outskirts of my hometown? Hmm, I think not.
If my abilities were real, maybe others like me existed—others with the same source of power: runes or ancient magic or Aesir blood. I simply had to find them, somehow. But not tonight.
I rolled over and punched my pillow, searching for a comfortable position. Nearly half an hour later, though, when I still hadn’t managed to fall asleep, I slid from the bed and went in search of distraction.
Somehow, I found myself in Baldur’s kitchen, studying the contents of a refrigerator stocked with enough provisions to supply a small army. After taking a water bottle, I backed away from the fridge and ran smack into Thorin. I squealed, flinched, and dropped the bottle. Thorin snatched it before it hit the ground and presented it to me.
“Sunshine.” He bit back a grin.
My hands trembled as I took the bottle. “Thorin.”
His closeness unsettled me—his dynamic presence, his body heat, and his fragrance of storms and summer winds. His casual elegance undid me. Long hair softened his warrior frame. His T-shirt stretched across imposing shoulders. His jeans sat low on narrow hips. My attention settled on his bare toes, peeking from ragged jeans cuffs, but even that set my heart racing—God of Thunder, barefoot and relaxed, unguarded. The familiarity of his presence was too much.
I stuttered something nonsensical, an excuse, an apology, and tried to push past, but Thorin held his place. When the son of Thor refused to move, he usually got his way.
“Don’t you think you’ve avoided me long enough?”
I swallowed. “I wasn’t—”
“Don’t lie.”
“It’s easier,” I blurted. Then I clamped my mouth shut before I said anything else I didn’t mean to say.
