“But the Valkyries use the runes, too,” I said. “They inscribe them on their swords. Thorin has them on his bracelets.”
“Odin gifted those runes to the Valkyries, as was his right. But creating runes that can change a person’s essence or give them powers they never had before or defy the forces of the natural world…” Baldur looked away and waved a hand as if dispersing the rest of his thought, but I picked up his meaning.
“Only you, right? Because you’ve paid the cost, in your faultless death, in your time with Helen, in the way you lose Nanna over and over again. That’s the price of being Allfather and of having the abilities you have?”
Baldur swallowed and bobbed his head.
“Does it hurt you when you do something like this? When you make a rune that can defy the natural world?”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Only a little, Solina. I barely notice it anymore.”
After a disturbing and gut-wrenching flight through the æther, Baldur and I crouched at the edge of a random field, in an indiscriminate rural area near Portland. For the first few minutes after my feet touched solid ground, my vision spun and my ears rang. My stomach swirled and heaved, and my heart skittered around my chest like a demented demon. The last time I had traveled via Aesir Express, I was mostly insensible. After that recent and more conscious experience, I decided I preferred oblivion.
A chill breeze stirred the grass, churning up odors of hay, old leaves, and soil. I tugged my parka’s hood over my hair and huddled into the warmth of its fleece lining. Several hundred feet away, in the gloaming light and early-morning fog, stood Magni Aleksander Thorin, Son of Thor and God of Thunder. He had spread his feet wide, his shoulders were squared, and he kept his hands fisted at his side.
A passing stranger might have commented on Thorin’s incongruous presence in the middle of an empty field, but he was otherwise unremarkable—as unremarkable as a six-foot-five man wearing his long hair in braids could be. His faded jeans fit him loosely, allowing room to maneuver, and he wore a dark wool sweater. I easily pictured him in leather, armor, and furs, and that mental image sprouted goosebumps across my arms.
Baldur and I had watched Thorin for a while, and he hadn’t moved, hadn’t uttered a sound. He made no indication he knew we were there, which was the point. It meant Baldur’s rune was working as planned. As long as Baldur touched me, I could see him. The moment he let go, he faded into mist. Therefore, I planned to keep at least one hand on his shoulder at all times.
I brushed my fingers over the burn on my chest, the place marked by Baldur’s magic. What he had done and how he’d done it remained a mystery, but he’d said the rune-maker’s willpower and intent were crucial ingredients. Baldur’s magic occupied a hollow place inside me, and where my fire felt like an eternal, smoldering ember, the invisibility rune felt like nothing. The sensation wasn’t cold or numbness, just… a notable absence of feeling.
“What do you think he’s doing?” I whispered.
Baldur and I had discussed the possibility of creating a rune that would keep others from hearing us, but we realized we might need to communicate our presence to Thorin in a hurry, possibly to shout a sudden warning. In the end, we agreed a rune of silence might be more trouble than it was worth. Whispering was easy and a lot more flexible.
“Meditating,” Baldur said.
“What—” I started, but a shimmer of light and shadows played across the field, several yards beyond Thorin. Its strangeness startled me and sent all questions out of my head.
The shimmer coalesced into the form of a man. From that distance, the early-morning gloom hid the details of his face, but the dark hair and striking stature gave him away. Seeing Rolf Lockhart again brought back memories of our fight in San Diego. An image of Tre’s crumpled body flashed across my mind’s eye, and my imagination replaced Tre with Thorin. I shook my head, blinked, and pushed aside the image. Tre was no immortal, no God of Thunder, and as if to prove my point, a lightning bolt seared across a sky filling with gunmetal rainclouds. Thunder rumbled an ominous warning, and the already dim light faded, plunging us into darkness.
Rolf brought out the sword, and the light from its flames repelled the shadows falling over the two men, standing face-to-face in the middle of the field. If they said anything to each other, their words didn’t carry over the thunder and whipping winds. I stepped forward, but Baldur caught my arm and pulled me back.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get a better look.”
“It’s bad enough I brought you here, but I’m not going to let you get any closer. Not so you or I can get struck down by some inadvertent lightning bolt. If Thorin needs our help, we’ll reassess. Until then, let’s stay out of his way.”
I shot Baldur a dirty look but did what he said. Whether I liked it or not, he had a point. Thunder and lightning were weapons requiring a wide battlefield.
“Why do you think Rolf brought Thorin to this place that gives him such an advantage with his powers?” I asked. “Tell him he can’t bring Mjölnir, but let him have an open area where he can easily access his thunder and lightning. If I was going to fight Thorin, I’d meet him in an underground bunker. No windows, no place for the lightning to get in.”
As if to support my argument, a spear of electricity stabbed down from the atmosphere, crackling and popping and raising the hairs on my arms and neck.
“There are many things about this situation that make no sense,” Baldur said. “We can only wait and see.”
Maybe the two adversaries had said nothing up to that point because when Thorin finally spoke, his words rose above the storm’s uproar. “That was a warning,” he said. “The next one won’t be. Hand over the sword, Rolf… or whoever you are.”
Rolf smiled, baring his teeth in a distinctly wolfish way. Skoll and Hati were accounted for, and nothing in history or in all our encounters indicated either had a score to settle with Thorin, but countless other wolves peppered the ancient legends. Perhaps the forces that reincarnated some of the Norse pantheon had decided to reincarnate them all.
Rolf rolled his wrist, and Surtalogi spun in a pinwheel of flames, throwing sparks and fire like an erupting volcano. Thorin stepped back and made a gesture, and lightning exploded overhead in a complex web of veins, as if the sky had turned into a massive, pulsing heart, pumping electricity through the atmosphere.
You should run now, Rolf. Run now, if you can.
“There is no justice in letting you die in ignorance,” Rolf said, raising his voice above the storm. “But it won’t come easily for you. If you want to know who I am, you’ll have to fight for it.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
Another motion from Thorin’s hand brought the lightning down, a missile aimed at his enemy. Rolf swung, flames spewed, lightning struck, and an explosion of energy and sound rocked the space around us. It rattled my bones and battered the air from my lungs. I staggered and gasped. Baldur grabbed me and held me up.
Rolf attacked, drawing the sword up from his hip in an undercut. Surtalogi’s fire reached for Thorin, but a gust of wind and a pillar of rain deflected the flames. Surtalogi guttered, its light flickering, but Rolf flashed away from Thorin and whipped the sword into a blazing frenzy again. Another swipe of flames, another streak of lightning, and the two supernatural beings fell into an incomprehensible battle that mimicked the style of Thorin and Baldur’s earlier practice fight.
“I can’t keep up,” I said to Baldur. Wind tugged at my hood, and wayward rain gusts rattled against me like BB-gun pellets. “Who’s winning?”
Baldur’s gaze followed Thorin’s and Rolf’s movements, his eyes flickering as if experiencing a waking REM cycle. “Magni has the advantage in attack, but Rolf is quick in his defense. But he’s tiring. If Magni maintains his strength, Rolf’s defeat will be swift.”
“Could you maybe pop in there and grab the sword?” I asked.
Baldur huffed. “One doesn’t simply ‘grab’ a sword made of fire, Solina. Rolf isn’t going to let go of it easily either. Trust Thorin. Let him do his job.”
Another concussion of light and sound underscored Baldur’s conclusion. Thorin and Rolf stopped several yards before us, both heaving for breath, both wearing matching expressions of viciousness and obstinacy. Thorin stood, shoulders thrown back, fists raised. With his head tilted back, he peered down at Rolf, who stooped on one knee before him, empty-handed. The sword lay several feet away, cold, inert, and as ordinary as an artifact in a history museum.
“Will you tell me now?” Thorin asked. “Have I not earned the right to know your name? Your real name?”
A cold smile formed on Rolf’s lips. “Maybe I’ll tell you when I see the light fading from your dying eyes, Magni, Son of Thor.”
