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Torsten slung our bags across his broad back and trudged out the door ahead of us. The Arctic gale that poured through the front door blew by hair back and jerked tears from my eyes. It was somehow impossibly colder than it had been only an hour before. I jogged forward, past the throngs of people that followed Torsten. I wanted to face whatever was coming alongside him.
It also put me shoulder-to-shoulder with Fyrcat, which I was less than thrilled about.
“You’re angry,” she said.
“Damn right, I’m angry,” I muttered. “This winter killed most of the people I cared about and it’s Freya’s fault, no matter how you slice it.”
“I do not believe Freya is your enemy, Jovi. Her past with Stormblood is complicated, but she is on a mission of her own. She will not stand in your way if you do not stand in hers.”
“What is Freya after then?” I asked, frowning at her. “Frigg must have started this winter for a reason.”
“Why the winter has started, I do not know,” Fyrcat sighed. “But Freya only wants what was taken from her.”
“Her family?”
Fyrcat nodded. “Thor and Odin know where her husband and daughters are. If they are still alive, then Freya wishes to free them. She wants all of her family. That means she would have to bring Baldr back as well.”
“Can she?” I wondered aloud. “Bring a god back from the dead, I mean?”
“If Eir is not in Valhalla and she is not in Niflheim, then someone must have brought her back.” Fyrcat’s tone took on a bitter edge. “It is proof that once a spirit dies, it can be resurrected. The Vanir were once human, so perhaps they too can be brought back.”
“I don’t understand… Freya has died and been reborn many times. Isn’t that proof enough that it’s possible?”
“No,” the witch stated plainly, shaking her head. “Freya has only died in body, never in spirit. A physical form to a god is nothing more than a shell. But to have one’s soul banished from the realm of the living? That is a true death. The mistletoe that killed Baldr kept him from being reborn like Freya.”
“She’s hoping to find a way to resurrect his spirit and rebirth his body,” I said.
“Yes.”
It was quite an ambitious quest. I understood her motivation, but I had doubts that Freya’s mission could succeed, even without the Winter standing in her way.
“Even if she did somehow find a way to resurrect his spirit, that goes against everything the gods stood for,” Skarde said. “The Aesir would never let her bring Baldr back. His fate has been sealed.”
A cunning light twinkled in Fyrcat’s gaze. “And yet you persist on finding your precious Eir. You’re no stranger to spitting into the eyes of the gods yourself, Fatekissed. Perhaps that is Frigg’s reason for wanting to start the war. Maybe the gods do not want us to believe that we write our own destinies.”
There was definitely something going on between those two, but I didn’t have the time or energy to figure out what, let alone puzzle out my feelings about it.
Watching them together made me feel a little sick. I tried to tell myself it was worry, not jealousy. Torsten loved his brother in his own way, and it would kill a part of him to see Skarde hurt. And I was more than sure that any affiliation with Fyrcat would leave Skarde exactly that.
Yeah, I’d go with that. I wanted Skarde happy and safe. I wasn’t jealous. At all.
The path to the train tunnel was completely unimpeded, which set my Spidey Senses on high alert. There should have been draugr waiting for us. Which made me absolutely certain they were watching and waiting to ambush us.
Ogun shivered as his teeth clicked loudly in my ear. The cold was so bad that I almost missed the fires of Muspelheim. Almost. Fire giants and demons with blazing swords were a deal-breaker. According to Ogun, Muspelheim was like a vacation compared to some of the parts of Helheim.
“The marshes are the worst! Imagine an endless bog stretching into oblivion, the stench of decaying flesh filling your lungs as monsters writhe in the murky waters below.”
“Not to mention Fenrir,” Skarde added.
“Fenrir?” I asked.
Torsten grimaced. “Fenrir is a wolf that makes the fire giants seem tiny in comparison. He is a child of Loki and the means by which Odin will meet his end, come Ragnarök.”
Yeah, Helheim was a no for me. I had no interest in meeting a monstrous wolf or taking a stroll through a marsh. Then again, I didn’t like the idea of facing down zombies. Midgard wasn’t turning out to be a picnic either.
“Pick your poison, Jovi,” I muttered. “But either way you die.”
“What was that?” Torsten asked.
