His skin rippled beneath my grip as he tried to change form, but it was as though he could not grasp other shapes, mutating between half-formed beasts with no reason to them.
My breathing was ragged, the world spinning in and out of focus and my heart stuttering.
We were both dying—it was only a matter of who would pass first.
You can do this,I silently chanted.You can stop him for good.
Harald went still.
He’s dead. You did it, he’s dead.
My strength abandoned me in that moment, my grip loosening onhis body. I’d defeated Harald, and not a moment too soon, because my own end felt near.
His corpse shuddered.
I stiffened, praying to the gods it was nothing more than muscle spasms after death.
But then Harald’s body began to lengthen.
Elongating into a horrifying mix of man and serpent, it slithered onto the bridge. Re-forming, Harald coughed up blood. “You cannot win this.”
And the moment to try to defeat him was over, for the gates to Helheim had opened and Hel emerged. As before, her enormous form began to shrink as she walked away from her realm, and she was human-sized when she reached Harald.
“Aid me, sister,” he begged. “Please.”
Hel cocked her head, the living side seeming bemused though the dead side of her face was impassive as always. Instead of answering him, she growled, “I have not forgotten that you stole from me, daughter. You owe me a debt. You owe me your soul.”
My throat moved as I swallowed, for I had known this was the risk. Not just to be parted from Bjorn in life but in death as well. “If you agree not to aid him, you can have me.”
“You are in no position to bargain. Your mortal life fades, and I will take what belongs to me.”
“Freya does not belong to you,” a female voice said from behind me. “I made sure of that twenty-one years ago when I tempered your blood with my own.”
Hel’s amusement fell away even as shock struck me silent.
For striding toward us was a warrior goddess. Her blond war braids hung down to her waist, a shield resting on her back and a sword belted at her side.
It was like looking into a face I’d known all of my life. Like looking into the eyes of my mother.
“Hlin,” I croaked out. “You’re here.”
The goddess’s mouth curved up in a half smile. “I once told your mortal mother that if you were only given avarice, your words would be curses. But if you were gifted altruism, what divine power you might make your own was a fate yet unwoven. Except my blood was no more a gift than Hel’s, was it?”
Hlin knelt on one knee before me, then her hand curved around my cheek. “To care for others is a burden, but you have shouldered it better than I dared to hope. You tore apart the grim weavings the Norns had for this land and its people beneath the rule of Loki’s son, and their fingers work swiftly on their looms to rebuild the tapestries of fates around your thread, which shines silver-bright. I am proud to call you daughter, Freya Born-in-Fire, for you have honored my blood.”
Her expression cooled as her gaze returned to Hel. “That you fell for Freya’s trick does not put her in your debt. If you want her soul, you must fight for it.”
“Fight whom?” Hel’s mouth twisted in a sneer. “No one else stands ready to claim her and you have no hall for the dead. Freya is mine.”
Hlin didn’t answer, only smiled.
The ground quivered, enormous figures appearing all around, and the air seemed to compress with the weight of so much divinity. It seemed as though every one of the gods had come to witness this fight, just as they had all come that night on Fjalltindr.
Hel’s lips pursed in irritation and, reaching down, she touched Harald.
In a heartbeat, he was made whole.
Snickering, Harald stood with his hands on his hips. “You still lose, Freya.”
