The figure bent over, extending a hand toward me, but I made no move toward it.
"Don't be afraid," he said in a voice like faraway thunder. "Take my hand, Malin."
That's when I realized that I recognized the voice. I knew him.
I blinked hard, unable to make sense of the world, but when I opened my eyes again, I wasn't in the forest. I was in Skarpaker Park, lying on a pile of bones that dug painfully into my back, and Odin was standing over me, holding out his hand.
"I don't bite," Odin tried to assure me. He looked down at me with a warm smile, his one good eye shining brightly, while the left was withered shut.
I took his hand, because I needed him to help me to my feet since the bones made for unsteady ground. The sky above us was still dark and angry, and the park was littered with thousands of broken skeletons and piles of ash. Both of Odin's ravens were nearby, picking at the remains, but I couldn't see any signs of Ereshkigal or Gugalanna.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Ereshkigal used her own blood--along with that of your friend Asher--to unseal Kurnugia, but it was only powerful enough to allow for her, her lover, and the most primitive form of death to make it through," he explained. "She wanted to kill all the Valkyries, and the combined power of all your blood would be enough for her to break the seal for everyone.
"But when you killed her--no, killed isn't the right word. You annulled her existence." He moved his hand vaguely, as if motioning to the ether. "It's as if she never was, and her power to unbreak the seal was removed."
"What happened to Gugalanna?" I asked.
"He is nothing more than a pile of ash," Odin said, gesturing vaguely around to any number of piles of ash around us.
"Why are you here? Why are you pretending to help me?" I asked, but my words came out sounding more exhausted than accusatory.
"Who says that I'm pretending?" he countered.
"I know that you were behind all of this," I said. "The only reason any of this was possible was because you were putting it together. You gave Ereshkigal the means to escape, and you sent Velnias to set up my mother."
He laughed then, a warm sound that resonated through me. "I had far less to do with all of this than you are imagining. Yes, I gave information to Ereshkigal, to Velnias, to you, that put all of this in motion. But that was all."
"Then who is behind all of this?"
"The same one who has been behind every decision that everyone has ever made." Odin smiled. "My wife, Frigg."
"Sloane was right," I realized. "Frigg wrote out our entire destinies."
"Not entirely," he corrected me. "She wrote everything until this moment."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "What does that mean?"
"When you thought I was the one pulling the strings, getting everyone to do my bidding, were you not angry?" he asked pointedly.
"Of course. I was furious. And I'm still pretty angry about what involvement you did have, to be honest."
"But when I said that Frigg has been controlling everything for centuries, you showed no anger?" Odin questioned. "Why were my small actions more upsetting to you than her constant ones?"
"Because..." I paused, trying to understand it myself. "I trusted you. I don't like the idea of anyone controlling me or conspiring against me, but Frigg is just a name to me. You were someone I helped, and I thought you were helping me."
"And now you think I have not been helping you?" he asked, looking down at me directly.
"My mother is dead because of you," I said, letting the venom into my voice for the first time since he'd woken me.
"Your mother was alive because of me, too," he shot back.
"Am I supposed to thank you for that?" I asked with tears stinging my eyes. "Thank you for giving me an angry, severely damaged woman for a mother, who could never love me, and then taking her from me before I had to chance to..."
"To what?" Odin pressed when I trailed off.
"I was going to say until ... I got her to love me. But ... she was never going to love me, was she?"
"No." He shook his head sadly, and his voice was filled with a soft comfort. "It wasn't in her design, the same way it's not in yours to fly or mine to die. I am sorry that life hurts, and I know it's of no consolation, but there can be no joy without suffering. I have tried too often to protect you all from far too much, and it never ends well. Humans crave chaos, even if it is only the illusion of it."
"Yeah," I said as I looked out over the pile of bones. "It's never boring here on earth, I'll give you that."
"I created the Valkyries to protect humanity," Odin said. "The immortals were too powerful, but the other gods dared not strip them of their immortality. It was a precedent they were terrified would take over until none of us were left, and the Vanir gods were no longer welcome. We have seen it happen in other worlds.
"Myself, Frigg, and some of the other gods thought that predestination would be the key," he went on. "We would be the ones keeping the balance, guaranteeing it never tilted in the favor of one side or the other. The Valkyries were merely an illusion of power granted to humans, both to help keep them safe and to put enough fear in the immortals to keep them in line.
"But all too soon it became apparent that we had made a grave mistake." He frowned. "It is impossible for life to flourish without free will. Frigg tried to allow room for creativity, for that inventive spark and curiosity that makes humans so special, but it is near-impossible to infuse when every major event in your lives has already been preordained."
He stared off wistfully before adding, "She tried to give you as much freedom as she could, in your thoughts and emotions, but when your actions and choices are limited--or eliminated entirely--there is no real freedom to be had."
"Where is Frigg?" I asked.
"She yet sleeps, in Vanaheimr, where she has been sleeping for the past five thousand years. She'll be awaking very soon, and I will go to her then. I hope to be able to bring our son with us." He focused his gaze on me. "But that is up to you."
"Me? How is that up to me?" I asked dubiously.
"Frigg only wrote the predestiny until the moment that Ereshkigal was killed," he explained. "We both wanted to give the Valkyries enough time that humanity would have a chance to survive among the immortals. The time also allowed for the Vanir gods to grow complacent, forgetful, and distant from the earth, so they would care little about what happened to it."
"Are you saying that you're going to kill us all?" I asked.
He grinned broadly. "On the contrary. All of this work, all these centuries of planning, it was all done so that one day you could all be free. Not just the Valkyries, but the humans, the immortals, everything on this earth."
And that's when it finally hit me. "The Drawing of the Nine was never about stopping Ereshkigal."
"No. It has always been our secret fail-safe, a back door into free will. The other gods would never allow it, and they would have been furious if they had known what we were doing. So we had to give the power to you," he said. "And, fittingly, this choice cannot be made by me or Frigg or any of the immortals. It must be made by you."
"What choice?" I asked.
"Come." He held out his hand to me again. "We should return to your friends, and you can decide then."
EIGHTY-NINE
Traveling with a Vanir god was much cooler and easier than any other form of travel. Odin pulled me into his arms, and within moments we'd been transported from the park to the roof of the Evig Riksdag.
We appeared near the edge, off to the side of where everyone else stood gathered in the center. There were a few bones strewn about, which meant they'd had to fight off a few skeletons while I'd been gone, but they all seemed to be okay. Valeska was flying around--I wasn't sure if she was taking in the carnage or if she was looking for me, or both.
It was Oona who spotted me first, letting out a squeal of delight and rushing over to throw her arms around me. I had stowed the spear back in my waistband, so I tilted a
way from her hug as much she would allow.
"I knew you weren't dead," she insisted, but the ferocity of her hug contradicted that. "You can't die."
Asher was right behind her, and once she finally released me, he pulled me into a much more gentle embrace. "It wasn't until you were gone that I realized that I never made you promise to come back to me."
"I thought you knew," I told him honestly. "I'll always come back."
Valeska returned to the roof just as everyone gathered around me and Odin, demanding to know what had happened. It took a few minutes for me to explain, with only a few contributions from Odin. Everyone still regarded him warily, particularly Valeska and Sloane, and their distrust did nothing to calm my nerves about the situation.
"Why wasn't I told of any of this?" Samael asked Odin, once I'd finished my explanation as best I could.
"Because Frigg and I worked tirelessly to ensure that this would happen, and I have spent five thousand years away from her for this," Odin said. "I could not risk undoing thousands of years' worth of work and loneliness, for if word got to the other gods or the wrong immortal, all this would be for naught."
"We have to do it," Valeska said, speaking up now. "Why would anyone turn down a chance to be free?"
"It sounds too good to be true." Sloane pursed her lips. "You keep saying 'free will' like it's this tangible thing that can be handed to us. What does it mean? How would it work with immortals? What will become of the Valkyries and Eralim?"
"Free will does come with a price," Odin answered. "In order for this to work and be fair and for humanity to have a real chance, immortality will be a thing of the past."
"How?" Quinn asked. "All the immortals will die?"
"No, no, no one will die, not from this," he clarified. "All beings with supernatural powers--Valeska's wings, Malin's strength--and even the magic of this world, like Oona's sorcery--all of that will remain. Only no one will live forever any longer. They will get one lifetime, and that's it.
"There will be no more Kurnugia or Zianna," he said. "Only earth, and the time that you have on it."
"What is one lifetime?" Teodora asked. "What that means for a dragon cannot be the same for a mouse."
"It will vary from being to being, but bodies will deteriorate and grow old in a way comparable to the beings of their kind," Odin explained. "The average immortal will have about a hundred years, either from the day they are born or from today, when their immortality was removed."
"A hundred years," Samael repeated softly. He was the only one among us who had immortality to give up.
"What about you?" Quinn asked Odin. "What becomes of you and the rest of the Vanir gods?"
"I cannot take away immortality from anyone in Vanaheimr, not because I'm unwilling but because I am unable," he said. "But we have free will, and we are already so far removed from you, I don't see it as being an obstacle."
"How long do we have to decide?" Sloane asked. "I mean, the idea is that we currently have free will, because we're being offered a choice. What happens if we do nothing?"
"If the ceremony is not performed by the time the sun sets, everything will revert to how it has always been," Odin said. "I will return to Vanaheimr, where Frigg will awaken to continue writing your destiny, if that is what you wish. There will be a great mess to clean up here because of Ereshkigal, but beyond that, nothing will change."
"So it's up to us?" Asher asked. "The nine of us get to decide if there can be free will for the entire planet?"
Oona folded her arms over her chest. "It doesn't seem right that we have to make such a drastic decision that will affect every living thing."
"How is it any different from how they--we--have already been living?" Valeska argued. "Well, except everything was decided by only two gods."
"Life has never been fair," Teodora said.
I looked to Samael, who had been mostly quiet as we talked.
"Would you give up immortality?" I asked him. "If you got to choose all on your own, which choice would you make?"
He didn't answer right away, instead staring thoughtfully at the roof at his feet. "I have been alive for three hundred and thirty-eight years. I have just learned that in that entire time, I have never made a choice that wasn't predestined, one that was my own. And here I am, being given the first true choice of my entire existence. It seems to me that it would be a travesty if my first and only choice I ever made was to give up the ability to choose."
"It's going to be total chaos," Quinn said, shaking her head. "There will be so much anger. People will die over this."
"People will die anyway," Asher said gently. "This way, they get to live."
"Whatever you decide, it must be your choice," Odin said. "For now I will return to Vanaheimr to see my wife, and I will let you do whatever it is you need to do."
NINETY
The nine-pointed star had been messed up during the scuffle with the skeletons, so Oona carefully went over it with her ash-and-herb stick until it was fixed. Minerva directed us to each of our points on the star.
Oona stood at the northernmost point in the first position, holding Thrud with its carnation-pink blade. To her left going around the star was Asher with his blood-red Hildr, Teodora with burnt-orange Gondul, Minerva with lemon-yellow Skogul, Sloane with forest-green Olrun, Valeska with bright teal Mist, Quinn with sky-blue Eir, Samael with dark indigo Rota, and finally me, with purple Sigrun, standing on the point between Samael and Oona.
Above us, the dark swirling clouds finally parted enough to let the sunlight through. The smallest beam of light landed right in the center of the star.
"So, we're all going to hold up our swords, pointing them toward the sky," Oona said, going over the plan one final time before we began. "Samael will read the incantation in the original language, while I will say it in English, and then you can all repeat after me."
Samael was the only one saying it in the original language, because he was the only one who could pronounce it properly. Oona believed that it didn't matter what language we said the incantation in, as long as we said it, but she also thought it wouldn't hurt to have someone reading the original text in its written language.
Then she took a deep breath. "Is everybody ready?" she asked, and we all nodded.
"Let's get this done," Valeska said and held her sword up high over her head, and we all followed suit.
"Gang ut, ut fana themo marge an that ben," Samael began.
"Get out, away from the marrow to the bone," Oona translated, and when the rest of us echoed her, our swords began to glow.
"Ut fana themo bene an that flesg."
"Away from the bone to the flesh."
"Ut fana themo flesgke an leben."
"Away from the flesh to life."
The swords had begun to glow almost blindingly bright, and Sigrun trembled in my hand.
"Ut fana themo leben an that tod."
"Away from life to the death."
"Ut fana that tod an thesa strala." Samael was nearly shouting now, to be heard over the rumbling of the sky. The sun still shone through, but the clouds were swirling, and a strong wind had picked up.
"Away from the death and into the atmosphere!" Oona gripped her sword with both hands, as most of us had started to do since they had begun to shake.
"Uuodan, uuerthe so!" Samael yelled the final line.
"Odin, make it so!"
Suddenly beams of light shot out from the swords, meeting in the center of the star in a solid rainbow beam that blasted up to the sky. Wind was blowing from it, pushing us all back, but we held strong and would not be moved.
Lightning crackled across the sky, and a twisted, screaming howl blasted through the wind, sounding as if a million demons were screaming all at once. The loudest thunderclap I had ever heard rattled through us, shaking the earth along with it.
Then I had the strangest sensation, as if something were being pulled from within me. Like wisps of weight and pain, flowing through me, away from me
, out into the air.
I had lived my whole life with a vise wrapped around my heart, squeezing it so hard it could barely beat, but I'd never even known that it was there. I thought that was how life felt.
Now it was breaking away, being ripped from me, and my heart pounded harder than ever before. It was really beating, for the first time, entirely on its own.
And then whatever it was, all the invisible shackles inside me were gone. The ceremony was over, and we all collapsed onto the concrete, gasping for breath.
"So that's it?" I asked, looking over at Oona. "We're free."
She smiled tiredly, but the happiness was evident in her eyes. "Yeah, Mal. I think we're actually free."
NINETY-ONE
Classical music was still piping in through the speakers in the elevator as Samael and I rode down alone. Everyone else had gotten off two floors above us, where the Seraphim and head Eralim were scrambling together to figure out what had happened.
An interrogation by the Evig Riksdag was still in store for Samael and myself, but I wanted to check on Bowie, hidden away in Samael's panic room, and we wanted to get Gungnir safely locked up before somebody else could get their hands on it. Plus I could really use a moment or two to breathe before being bombarded with questions and paraded through meetings with officials.
In fact, the very first thing I did after the elevator doors closed on the chaotic scene unfolding on the highest floors of the Riks--one that quickly swallowed up all my friends, who gave me rueful looks over their shoulders--was lean back against the wall and exhale deeply.
"You can say that again," Samael said with a tired laugh.
He leaned against the copper wall beside me, his hands shoved in the pockets of his dirt-and bloodstained pants. His wild curls had come loose from their bun and the wind had wreaked havoc on them. The expression on his face was more weary than anything else, and I didn't know that I'd ever seen him look so disheveled and lost.
"How are you holding up?" I asked him.
"Okay." He thought for a few seconds before elaborating, "It's hard to say. How about you?"
"Same, I think." I shrugged. "Do you feel any different?"
His brow furrowed. "I feel ... exactly the same and entirely different. My heart feels like it's beating so much harder now."