When Þrúðr Þórsdóttir had been very young, Váli Lokason pushed her into a river.

She’d been sitting on the edge when it’d happened, studying the shine of her hair in the water. The only warning she’d had was the sound of wicked laughter, and a single flash of red across the corner of her eye.

The next thing she knew, she’d been wet, some very startled salmon brushing cold scales against her cheeks. By the time she’d struggled to the surface, Váli had been nowhere to be found.

But she’d known he’d been the culprit.

Váli had always been an odd boy, as perhaps befitting his heritage. Long-limbed and gawky, with a mess of loose copper curls twisting too far below his chin to be seemly. Váli’s brother, Nari, had been the luckier of the pair, blessed with his father’s handsome looks and his mother’s gentle heart. But where Nari was kind and pleasing, even to Þrúðr’s eyes, Váli was rough in both personality and in features. A wild and feral thing, more jötunn than áss.

Eventually, Þrúðr had pulled herself from the river and up onto the rocks. Had stripped out of her hangaroc and dried her shift beneath the sun.

There, alone, with only Sól’s gaze upon her, she’d cried. Just a little. Cried, and considered telling Father of the prank.

She’d considered it, but she hadn’t. Because what would that have made her? Eldest of Thor, unable even to handle the least of Loki’s smirking brats? And were it not but for her sex—but for Mother’s disapproving gaze—Þrúðr would have pummeled Váli into the ground for daring to put a hand upon her.

She’d dreamed of it, at the time.

Particularly when, next she saw him, Váli had sniffed the air and mentioned fish.

Þrúðr had wanted to kill him. Instead, she’d plotted. An elaborate revenge, or so she’d thought. To extend a hand of friendship to her foe, only to snatch it from him at the cruelest time. It would not take much to have all of Ásgarðr laughing at the folly of one of Loki’s house, would take less still to have them side with her against its demise.

Váli had no friends, only a brother. And Þrúðr was Thor’s daughter, as radiant and beautiful as her mother. There was no plan of hers that could fail. Not in this.

And so she’d gone into the woods behind Loki’s house, to the one place in Ásgarðr where few æsir dared to tread. And there, as she rounded one crumbling side of the ugly little cottage, Þrúðr stopped.

For there was Loki’s wife, Sigyn, hanging linen out to dry. A young daughter standing by her side.

Even from a distance, even dressed in shift and hangaroc, Þrúðr had not failed to know Váli’s plain, unpretty face.

Þrúðr had fled before they’d seen her. Or tried to, rounding back around the house with such shock she’d barreled into her uncle without knowing. Loki had caught her in his thin hands and stared at her with eyes that burned like poison, even then.

“Tell no one,” he’d said, voice a serpent’s hiss. “And you will be even.”

Þrúðr had nodded, too stunned to do otherwise, and Loki’s dark fingers had unwound from her shoulders. “Go,” he’d said, and she had. Running from the house without so much as a backward glance.

Not a glance, but nor could she fail to hear a delighted scream, voice not quite that of the boy she thought she knew.

“Papa!” it had called.

“Valdís!” had been the response.

Then the sound of three voices, laughing with unselfconscious joy.

True to her word, Þrúðr had never told a soul. True to his father’s, Váli had never touched her again.

Not until Myrkviðr.

----------------------------------------

“Where are our horses?”

The morning of their third day. The forest was an awful place, dark and dank, full of rustling leaves and the vicious stares of scurrying spies, always slightly out of sight.

Þrúðr was sore from sleeping on uneven roots, and from the horses, and hungry from the meal they hadn’t had last night, thanks to the pranks of wicked jötnar.

And now this.

“Oh, right. I traded them to the þursar. In the night. While you slept.”

Loki—Lain—was leaning against the trunk of his tree, corpse-bloat smile bright against the gloom and smeared with fat and blood from the haunch of meat grasped in his claw. Raw and bloodied, and definitely not horse.

Magni turned, blinking. “What?” he snarled. Þrúðr could feel the rage in him, rising like the storm.

“Traded the horses,” Lain repeated. “For food.” He held up the meat-stripped bone in his hand before putting one end between his too-sharp teeth and biting down to get the marrow.

“Liar!” Magni stepped forward, hands clenching at his sides. “Tell me the truth, jötunn.”

Half risen from her bedroll, Þrúðr shared a questioning glance with Móði. He shook his head in response, catching her meaning; he had taken first watch, and the horses had been present when he’d handed over to his brother.

Lain was testing them. Testing Magni. Þrúðr felt the realization strike her like the lightning of her birthright, like the breaking of the storm that had been brewing since the thing bearing Loki’s name had stepped onto the Bifröst. They’d known he would do this. Þrúðr had known, had tried to warn her brothers, back in Ásgarðr. Tried to prepare them. She’d tried, and she’d failed.

Just as Magni would now fail.

“You beast!” he was roaring, one hand grasped around Lain’s collar as he hauled the jötunn to his feet. “They were ours! Why would you do this?”

Lain grinned his blood-sick grin. “I was hungry,” he said. “Some local kids came down and offered me food in the night. I gave them your horse in return. Yours and Móði’s.”

Magni roared, slamming Lain back against the gnarled wood of the tree. From the other side of the camp, Þrúðr heard the remaining two horses shift and stamp.

Lain had kept her horse, as well as his own.

“Thief!” Magni shook Lain by the collar, the jötunn limp and unresisting in his hands, feathers flickering like wildfire. “They were not yours to ‘trade’! You have stolen from us, I will—”

“You will what?” There was something in Lain’s voice. A kind of jagged edge, similar to the one he’d had the night before, when Þrúðr had accused him of dishonor on his wife. “What will you do, Magni, son of Thor?” Lain was saying. “What did you do, when thieves crept into your camp at night? When their breath ghosted across the pale skin of your siblings, and their sharp blades danced against your neck?”

“Enough!” Magni’s fingers uncurled from Lain’s collar, and he took a half step backward. But the jötunn wasn’t done.

“The whole forest heard you, Magni. The way the very ground shook with your snores. You were supposed to be on watch. You failed. You failed, and it was only my blind eyes that saw the þursar drop down from the trees. Saw them dare each other to cut the curls from off your head while you slept. They have trophies, Magni. And not just of you.” Lain’s milk-blank gaze flicked to Þrúðr, and she couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her lips, nor the way her hands flew up to run across her hair. Over the braid and—

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And—

And there. Right at the end. A single missing lock.

“Hnnuuurggh!”

Þrúðr’s eyes had squeezed shut, but she heard her brother’s roar. And the sound his fist made when it slammed into their monster’s jaw.

When she next dared look, Lain was on the ground, shoulders shaking.

“When I am done with you,” Magni said, stalking forward, “you will laugh no longer. You will know your place.”

“Broken and bloodied,” Lain said, voice cracked with madness and wet from blood. “Quivering at the feet of a Þórsson. Yes, I know my place. But tell me, Magni. Do you? Hurt me all you would, torture me. You have such rage in you, like your father did. Do you think it would please him to see the brute you have become? Do you think it pleases your brother, pleases your sister, while they cower behind you, wondering how long it will be before you have Mjölnir in your hand and you turn that rage unto—”

“Silence!” Magni spat the word, literally, onto his palm, and when Lain howled from the pain of the tattoo, Þrúðr felt the earth beneath her shake.

“Enough! Brother, enough!” And then she was on her feet. Striding forward, heart racing in time to Lain’s wet and ragged breath. “This has gone far enough. I will not allow you to—”

Magni spun, a retort bristling on his tongue.

In the next instant, Þrúðr heard a growl—a twang!—and saw a great dark shape leap forth from the forest, slamming into Magni and sending him rolling across the dirt.

Then everything was chaos, a dozen beasts pouring into the camp from among the trees, trailing howls and the sound of loosing arrows in their wake. One of the latter buried itself at Þrúðr’s feet. Yet another had driven right through Móði’s shoulder as he struggled to drag himself from his bed.

Þrúðr lunged sideways, back to where her own belongings sat, pulling her sword from the ground and rising with it held before her. The tip of it shook in time to Þrúðr’s thunderous heart, her hands damp and clammy on the hilt, and she tried to still her breath and remember the forms trainer Hlín had taught her as a girl.

From her left, Þrúðr heard a growl, and she spun. A great wolf crouched there, dappled gray fur bristling as it bared its wicked teeth. Behind it, Magni grappled with another, this one huge and rusty red. Two more circled Móði, and from above came both strange birdcalls and the hail of piercing arrows.

“Please,” Þrúðr called. “We mean you no harm. We are travelers, only. Passing th—”

The wolf before her lunged. Þrúðr tried to sidestep, but her foot caught against a root, and next she knew she was on the ground, beast’s claws pressing into her chest and the fetid stink of its meat-rot breath upon her face.

She shrieked, bringing her arm up beneath the wolf’s neck to keep its fangs from her throat. She’d dropped her sword as she fell and her free hand scrabbled for it now, feeling worms and insects scurry between her fingers as she pushed them through the loam.

Above her, the wolf snapped, pressing forward, and Þrúðr yelped as its teeth grazed against her cheek. Then, finally, she found steel and leather, and with a cry she brought the sword up, grip backhanded and awkward, but enough to twist and drive the blade into a heaving flank.

Now it was the wolf’s turn to yelp, ears flattened as Þrúðr heaved with all her might, with the strength of her father and the will of her mother, sending the beast backward across the dirt.

She got no time to savor victory. Not when another wolf shape went hurtling past, thrown by Magni with a roar. Behind that, Þrúðr could see Móði working runes that had frozen a third wolf in place, while another prepared to leap on him from the side. And behind that, Þrúðr saw a girl.

A girl. An ásynja girl, with olive skin smeared by dark blood, and feathers woven in her flame-red hair. No more than a child, and Lain had said there were children in the forest, but he’d called them þursar, and this girl was not.

She also held a bow, and was aiming it at Móði.

“Móði! Behind you!” Þrúðr cried.

“Alu!” At Móði’s word, a shimmering barrier coiled around him. From the forest, the girl let loose her arrow, which flew straight and true and shattered harmlessly against the magic. “Ýr-kaun!” Móði added, even as the strange girl prepared to nock another shaft.

When she drew the bow, however, the wood snapped in two.

She hissed, then was gone. Back into the trees, even as Þrúðr lunged forward with a “Wait!”

A girl. In the forest.

“Sister!”

Magni’s voice, and Þrúðr turned, bringing her sword up just in time to meet the fangs of the red wolf.

Or . . . not a wolf, perhaps. Because it was too big, with too-large forelimbs and claws that almost looked like hands.

Claws like hands and ears like horns. Red fur that clumped and shifted and looked so very much like feathers. And above a jagged grin stained dark with Magni’s blood, a pair of too-familiar eyes.

“Blood for blood,” the not-wolf snarled. “A brother for a brother. Which one shall we take?”

“Please,” Þrúðr begged. “We’ve done nothing to you!”

“Liar!”

The voice was loud enough to shake the trees, broken by pain and fury. Whatever this attack was, it wasn’t about the forest. Not something so impersonal as territory or land. This was something else, some other treasure from the heart of this strange beast and the girl who flew among the trees, shooting arrows from the boughs.

A brother for a brother, the beast had said, and these were þurs lands.

And Þrúðr, born from a legacy stained dark purple with each of her mighty father’s kills.

“Please,” she said. “Whatever has been done to you, I am truly sorry. But killing us will not bring your brother back, it will not undo the pain that has been done.”

The beast bared its teeth. Behind it, Magni and Móði fought back-to-back against the others.

“No,” it said. “But it will stop you from doing more.”

Then it lunged.

“Valdís, no!”

Sword pressed against a red-feathered throat, one huge claw inches from her skull, and in that moment, time froze.

“Vala, enough.”

So close, Þrúðr saw the beast’s eyes draw wide, rings of white around the color.

And, behind it, she saw Lain. Standing, free from his chain and a single shackle, blood running from a deep claw gash in his arm.

His eyes, Þrúðr thought, looked not unlike the beast’s.

One moment, nothing more. In the next, the ground beneath the beast exploded, sending it flying backward and away from Þrúðr’s reach. Móði’s magic, followed soon after by Magni’s hammer, slamming into flesh.

The beast whimpered, cowering beneath the blow, its pack-mates lying scattered and bloodied against the trees.

“Die, monster!” Magni lifted his hammer, aiming for the head.

“No!”

And then Lain was there, exploding in a fireball against Magni’s flank. They both went flying, rolling over and over like a falling star. When they came to a stop, Magni’s fingers were locked around Lain’s throat.

“Traitor!” He hauled himself upright, Lain unresisting in his grasp. “I should kill you!”

“Brother, no!” Too much death, and Þrúðr would not see more.

“If he dies, then so do you!” growled the wolf-beast, hackles raised even as it struggled to its feet. “I will tear you limb from limb and feast upon your entrails.”

“You cannot best the sons of Thor.” Magni’s eyes blazed bright and mad within the darkness of the forest. “Nor will you take this wretch.” A shake of Lain’s unresisting form. “Normally I would gladly let you have him, but today? Today he owes us dowry. My sister is to be wed and Ásgarðr’s gift to her new groom was with our horses. The ones this thief”—another shake—“stole from us while we slept.”

Lain muttered something Þrúðr couldn’t hear, and earned another shake from Magni for his trouble.

“Brother.” Þrúðr stepped forward, hands outstretched in placation. All around her, she felt the eyes of wolves watching her every move. “Enough. Whatever you think—”

“I think I am the eldest son of Thor,” Magni said, voice as hard and blunt as Mjölnir. “I think this decision is mine to make, to uphold the honor of our family.”

This time, when Lain spoke, Þrúðr could not fail to hear it.

“This is not honor.”

“This is obligation,” Magni said. “Mine, and yours. You will serve well enough as Þrúðr’s dowry, in lieu of gold and trinkets. I’m sure the dvergar would take a jötunn slave in recompense for their loss.”

“No!” Þrúðr’s voice was drowned out by the beast’s, as it lunged forward. “I will die before I let you do this wretched thing!”

“Vala, no.” Lain again, speaking the old tongue. Shoulders slumped and face downcast. “I’m sorry. I— You must go. I’m sorry.”

The beast stopped, hesitating, feathers flattened and eyes wide and beseeching. “I—”

“Listen to the traitor, whelp,” Magni said. “Take your pack and go. If I see you again, I will show you just how close Loki’s bindings hold him. For every leaf I hear that rustles, every flickering shadow, I will give him pain a thousandfold. Until the forest is nothing but his cries as he begs and mewls for mercy. And the only one who can give succor, in your absence, will be you.”

When the wolf-beast growled, Þrúðr felt the sound echoing in her heart.

“Monsters,” the beast snarled. “Ásgarðr should have burned. That any of you wretches live is a curse unto the Tree.” But it was backing away, hackles raised. So were the others.

“Run, dog,” Magni said. “Be grateful I have more mercy than my father.”

A moment later, the beasts were gone. Slunk back between the twisted boughs of the Myrkviðr.

Þrúðr stepped forward, “Brother?”

But Magni wasn’t listening. Instead, he had thrown Lain to the ground. Lain, who was no longer chained or bleeding, and was missing a single shackle. Lain, who broke the silence with a sigh. Dusting himself off and making as if to stand.

“Well. That worked. Though I’m not sure what we would’ve done if they hadn’t called your blu—” He was cut off by a fist against his face.

“No!” Þrúðr felt the ice settle in her gut. This was wrong. All wrong. “Magni, stop this madness. You cannot be this cruel!”

“Silence, Sister!” When Magni rounded on her, Þrúðr couldn’t stop the flinch, couldn’t stop the half step back. She’d never been frightened of her brother. Never. No matter how big or strong or angry he could be, he was still her little baby Maggi.

“Magni . . .”

“Enough. I have no more patience for your simpering.” Little Maggi, every day except today. “Do not forget who brought us on this ill-fated journey, Sister. Do not flinch now that your callow woman’s heart has seen the truth. This is the place of men, to make the choices you and yours cannot. Hard choices. Cruel choices. You knew this. Now you will have it.”

This was not the way things should have gone, not the way they had gone, in Þrúðr’s mind. Nothing should ever be this broken, this vicious.

She looked at Magni, burning and furious, then Lain, broken and defeated. And finally Móði, who would not meet her eyes.

Þrúðr swallowed, straightened her spine, and met Magni, gaze for gaze.

“I understand, brother,” she said. “It will be as you say.”

Somewhere deep within, Þrúðr felt the storm begin to rise.