Thorin tightened his grip on me. My ears popped, and the world vanished. Our movement through the æther mirrored the sensation of an ocean voyage in a horrible storm. My stomach lurched, my sense of up and down disappeared, and vertigo swirled my consciousness into a soupy mess. The experience took apart my world and stranded me in the unfamiliar and unknowable. Then Thorin curled himself around me, and he held me close. He was a steadying presence, the calm among the fury.
Val had said I opened Pandora’s Box, and maybe he was right. But Pandora had closed the box before hope could escape. Did that mean she had doomed the world to hopelessness, or had she kept it safe so we’d know where to find it when we needed it most? I chose to believe the latter. I chose to believe we could win.
“Don’t let me go,” I whispered and tightened my grip on Thorin.
Thorin put his lips close to my ear, and despite the roaring winds, his reply cut through the deafening chaos. “I wouldn’t dare.”
MOLTEN DUSK
To my wonderful guys,
for putting up with my flights of fancy
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
—Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, 22–26
Chapter 1
I had toured more of North America in the last few months than I’d expected to see in my entire life, and Lake Tahoe was another destination struck from my list—not that it was on my list of places to visit in the first place. But it should have been. From my vantage point on the patio of Baldur’s home, set high on a ridge in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the distant lake resembled a gemstone, a topaz sparkling in a god’s diadem. In a way, that’s what New Breidablick was: Baldur’s crown, and he wore it proudly.
Somewhere inside the house behind me, Baldur and Thorin went about their business—namely, avoiding me. I hadn’t expressly asked them to leave me alone, but they must have sensed the chip of ice that formed on my shoulder shortly after Thorin and I touched down in Baldur’s living room over a week before. Processing everything that had happened—Val’s revelations about his motives for revenge and Thorin’s questionable culpability—required time and solitude. Thorin seemed to understand my need to resolve my feelings in private, and I hadn’t failed to notice his empathy.
A breeze blew up from the valley below Baldur’s home, stirring frigid currents that rushed past my ears and cheeks, stealing the warmth I’d hoarded under my parka’s hood. High in these mountains, in the first week of December, winter had settled in and taken root. Back home, in North Carolina, humidity often lent weight and substance to winter’s coldness, but here, in the west, dry air leached moisture and heat until my bones rattled like wind chimes.
Smoke spewed from Baldur’s chimney, and the familiar musk of burning wood scented the air. Baldur kept a fire burning in the living room around the clock. Maybe I should have staked out a spot in front of that blaze, those kindred flames and friendly heat, but I hadn’t felt much like a reincarnated fire goddess for the past several days. Mostly, I felt sad, tired, and confused.
Behind me, the patio door shushed on its tracks as it slid open.
“You’re going to stay out here all day?” Baldur pushed the door closed. “One would think you’d had enough of the cold for a while.”
“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.”
