I handed her the knife I had taken from Baldur’s weapons room. It resembled the blades the Valkyries preferred, and I hoped the rune carvings meant the knife carried an extra dose of lethality, should she need it. “We’ll make sure to change that as soon as possible. You need to know how to protect yourself.”

Nina’s face fell as she studied the weapon, an elegant blade with a hilt that perfectly fit her small hand. She looked up, and a wall rose behind her eyes, but when I started forward again, she followed me. “Sometimes, getting through a single day is like climbing Mount Everest,” she said. “You’re not the only one who dreams, you know. I’ve seen his death.” I knew she meant Baldur because I had seen her thoughts and the way her memories haunted her. “I’ve seen his death played out, again and again, almost every night since he brought me here.”

If I put myself in Nina’s position and imagined the way the world looked through her eyes, from the point of view of a woman who constantly reincarnated with no memory of her past but was haunted by the ghosts from it anyway and who had spent most of her life with Helen Locke for a role model, I could see how her world might be a terribly confusing and frightening place.

“Okay.” I nodded. “So you aren’t an Athena. Maybe you’re a Helen of Troy instead.”

“What does that mean?” she asked as we reached the door leading to the front porch.

“Helen of Troy didn’t fight.” If I could be an incentive for Thorin’s motivation to win this battle, then Nina could do the same for Baldur. “She inspired men to go to war in her name. If anyone needs your inspiration right now, it’s your husband. And if there’s any indecision left in your mind, may I make a recommendation?”

Nina’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded.

“Choose love and family and devotion. Choose the one who has never abandoned you, the one who never will.”

We stepped onto the porch, and Nina’s dark eyes fell on Baldur, who still knelt on the porch, pale, tense and trembling.

“Go to him.” I gave her a little shove. “Inspire him.”

Nina flashed me a hard stare. She locked her jaw and nodded.

Chapter 24

Nina strode forward, dropped to the porch floor beside Baldur, and set down her knife. She slipped her arms around his shoulders, pressed her lips to his temple, and whispered something only he could hear. Baldur responded instantly. His shoulders relaxed. His trembling eased. He remained on his knees, still straining as though he carried a massive boulder, but I worried about him a little less now that Nina had joined him.

“What’s she doing out here?” Grim asked as I handed him the sword.

“Giving Baldur a little more get-up in his go.”

His brow furrowed. “What?”

I rolled my eyes. “Never mind.”

Grim dismissed my sarcasm and strode down the front porch steps into the front yard. He flexed his wrist and sent the sword swirling in an arc of bright flames. I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Did I think it wouldn’t work—that Val had broken it somehow?

I opened my mouth, preparing to ask him what he planned to do next, but a flicker of movement at the edge of my vision stole my attention. A familiar black bird fluttered to the ground beside Grim. After repeating the strange performance that shed his feathers and turned him into a man, Hugh stood before me in all his natural glory.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” Although I joked, his arrival compounded my accumulating worry. Hugh never came bearing good news.

“Don’t worry. What I have to say is short.” He clenched his teeth and rubbed his arms, as if that could possibly ward off the persistent cold. “Embla has Skyla. She’s holding her prisoner at the Aerie. If you don’t come immediately, Embla will kill her. She’ll work her way through all the Valkyries if she has to.”

The fury of Thorin’s storm muted as though I had gone deaf, and the world around me froze. I blinked at Hugh and waited for his words to make sense, but like the screen at the end of an old movie when the film had run out, my mind remained blank.

“Solina.” Hugh waved a hand before my face.

I gasped, and everything came screaming back at me double speed and twice as loud. I cringed and cried out. Hugh grabbed my shoulder and shook it. I shoved him off and rubbed my face. “Oh, god,” I said. “I knew something was wrong.”

“There’s more. The wolf is with her, with Embla.”

I gaped at the raven. “Skoll?”

Hugh nodded. “I would have told you sooner, but I didn’t know.”

I shoved him, pushing hard against his bare chest. “What?”

He steadied himself and scowled. “I. Didn’t. Know.”

“How can you not know?”

A pained look crossed Hugh’s face, and his mouth drew into a sour pucker. “There was something blinding us—a hole in my Thoughts.” His voice cracked, and his eyes watered. “It’s the same feeling I got when I tried to look into your Thoughts here, at New Breidablick. There was a wall, and I couldn’t tell who or what was behind it. Not until she wanted me to know. Not until she set her trap.”

“Rune magic?” asked Grim, who stood beside me, leaning in as if he might strike Hugh.

The raven nodded. “It has to be.”

“Is that something the Valkyries are normally capable of doing?” I asked.

Hugh’s black brows angled down. “The Allfathers were the only ones we ever knew who could block us.”

“Well, Embla is the daughter of the Allfather. Perhaps she has some of his skills?”

“What the hell?” Grim hacked a guttural roar and swung his sword. A stream of fire spewed from the blade and burnt an arc in the grass several yards away. Hugh flapped as if preparing to make his getaway, but I grabbed his arm and held onto him. If he flies away, he’ll have to take me with him.

“One more question,” I said.

Hugh grimaced. “Make it quick. My nuts are about to freeze off.”

I resisted the urge to kick him. “Can we trust any of the Valkyries?”

“As far as I can tell.” He shrugged. “They all seem genuinely interested in defeating Helen.”

“Are they still coming here? Or did Embla change that plan?”

“They’re still on their way,” Hugh said. “They think Embla’s recouping from her injuries at the Aerie and that Skyla is staying with her. They don’t know she faked the whole thing.”

I heaved a sigh. “Thanks, Hugh. Will you let me know if anything changes?”

He crouched, preparing for his transformative leap. “I’ll keep my vows to you, Solina. Beyond that, I can only say I’ll do what’s in our best interest.” He jumped, shifted into his bird form, and streaked toward the horizon.

When Hugh disappeared, I turned to Grim. He studied my face, read the plea in my eyes, and his mouth puckered into a sour expression. With the sword, Grim would have enough power to take me—blip me across space and time and carry me to the Aerie. “Oh, no, Solina.” He shook his head “There’s no way in hell.”

“You made a vow, did you not?” I shoved a finger against his sternum. “You owe me.”

“I vowed not to kill you, to do anything in my ability to keep you alive. Taking you to face Embla and Skoll would be breaking that vow in the worst possible way.”

Fear burned in my heart, panic formed a sea of ice in my guts, and the opposing sensations had created a churning hurricane of desperation beneath my ribcage. “What if we could kill the wolf? Kill Embla and end this whole thing? You know we’ll never get a better chance.”

Grim’s harsh expression wavered. “And leave my brother here to fight on his own? Abandon the Allfather? Abandon your parents?” His lips twisted into an ugly, wry leer. “You of all people would do that? A minute ago, you were ordering me to go help Magni.”