Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Twenty-Nine

The crowd is roaring when I step down from the stage. Crying, cheering. Demanding more. It's been a while since I played, and never in front of such a big audience, and feeling all that energy—that worship—directed my way is . . . intoxicating. I want it. I want to bask in it, to sing my passions to the sky, to beat to the pulse of the crowd for eternity, because what god could ever ignore his people?

Well. This god, for one.

"You were pretty good."

Sigmund greets me on the ground, arms going around my waist and lips pressing against my cheek. I grin, accepting the affection, sweeter and better than the cheering of a thousand audiences.

"Nah," I say. "I'm okay." It's not false modesty. I have a good voice, and a long life means a lot of time to learn chord progressions. But I could never be a musician. Gods can't do creative things. Creativity is strictly the domain of mortals, and Wyrdborn only recycle, even if we recycle well.

It's a curse. I'll live.

I look down at my hands, flexing my fingers. I have blisters from the strings. Good thing they didn't burst. If I'd bled on the wires they would've snapped, and that would've made for one short concert.

Behind me, the mic crackles as Hel steps awkwardly in front of it. When she opens her mouth, her voice echoes out all over Ásgarðr, calling for peace and treaty.

I don't think a single soul watching misses the fact she's holding Gungnir when she says it. Least of all Forseti, standing atop the Wall, watching his war fall into tatters.

* * *

When the gates open, we end up back in Ásgarðr. Me, Hel, Sigmund, Em, and Wayne. A lot of einherjar stare at us as we walk, escorted by Heimdallr's idiot sons.

We get taken into a hall I don't recognize, one of the new ones built after Ragnarøkkr. Actually, there's not a lot here I recognize, at least not from my last flight out the back roads, dragged along behind Magni and Móði.

And Þrúðr, who meets us at the door, Mjölnir held before her in both hands. More a symbol than a weapon.

"The þing will hear you," she says. To Hel, not to me. I'm just here as escort, really. So I fluff my feathers and do honor to my daughter.

* * *

The country of Iceland has the single oldest parliamentary system on the planet. That's what the þing is, and this is how it started. Old men bickering in a circle, making pretense to wisdom. It's not democracy, not exactly. But it is something, if you'll excuse the pun.

Forseti is there, sitting at the head of the table. The other æsir keep shooting him nervous glances, and he himself leaks madness and fury like a wound, pus and bile festering only just beneath the surface.

Next to him is his lance, bright and sharp as steel.

Nanna. Baldr's wife.

My wife, I guess. Sort of.

Sigmund won't look at her, and he won't look at me, either. Not until I take his fingers in mine and squeeze, just once. When he squeezes back, it's with a sad smile curving on his lips.

He likes Nanna. I can feel it, seething beneath his skin. She was kind to him and he doesn't want to hurt her.

Neither do I, really. But.

Well.

Sometimes someone has to be the villain.

* * *

"You have made your war and have your audience. Now speak your poison and take your vile brood from our door. Let us mourn our dead in peace."

It's not, maybe, the best opening gambit Forseti could use. Everyone knows it. That much is clear from the way the other gods mutter into their beards, hands wringing in their laps.