The Guile of Odin (ebook)

The stairwell bored through the glacier, down into the frozen depths of the fortress. Etheric wisp light was infused into the ice, giving off faint illumination, like the iridescent bands that streaked the northern skies, obviating any need to carry flame here. Skadi’s footfalls rang lightly as she descended, down to the cells where her father’s dissenters were kept. Though, in truth, the woman Vafthrúdnir had sent her to interrogate was no political foe of great Thjazi, but rather something far more dangerous: a symbol.
The dungeon, like the stairs, was carved straight from the glacier, a crystalline work of wonder and shimmering light. Skadi strolled down the ice corridor, sparing bare glances at various jötunnar held within. They could trust the cells to hold the bergrisi and saejötunnar, but other hrimthurs were sometimes bound in orichalcum chains to prevent them from using cryomancy to escape. Not that all frost jötunnar had such gifts, but Father could ill afford to take chances, could he? Still, such fetters were priceless treasures, and she supposed it was most times easier to kill one’s prisoners than bind them such.
This day, though, neither Beli’s folk nor treacherous Ægir’s held much interest for her, and even less so her own clan. No, she had come here for no jötunn, but a Vanr, and thus paused before one of the cells. Pillars of ice thick as her torso formed bars of that prison. Skadi lifted her hands and pushed them out to either side, cryomantically reshaping the ice. The bars cracked and moaned as they bent sideways, allowing her ingress into the cell.
No one bothered with infusing wisp light into a cage, so the prisoners’ confines were darker, and the woman whimpered at her entry. She scooted back into one corner, clutching the rent tatters of her dress around her, though Skadi suspected ’twas more against the cold than out of any sense of modesty. The woman’s black hair spilled around her bare, tan shoulders, further concealing her, but Skadi thought she could espy numerous bruises. Certainly, there was dried blood crusted upon the Vanr’s lips.
Skadi considered reshaping the ice bars to seal them both inside, to ensure this woman could not try to escape, but from the look of her, she had little fight left. Almost, Skadi pitied the woman. Almost. Save she was a Vanr, and her king had murdered Mimir, had started the war. Her people had destroyed the great empire of Brimir, broken the jötunnar, and banished Skadi’s people from the Middle World.
Or tried. They had not accounted for jötunnar like Skadi’s father, who could take the form of an eagle and fly over the accursed Midgard Wall.
“So,” Skadi said, infusing her words with as much disdain as she could muster for one so broken already, “have you found life as Father’s concubine much to your liking, Vanr?”
The woman looked up sharply, her eyes flashing more fury than Skadi had thought was left to her. “Yeah,” she said, teeth chattering, “well, hospitality here seems … somewhat lacking, you know? Truth told, a bit of … a chill … in my room.”
Did the Vanr imagine leaping to her feet and throttling Skadi? Did she, in dark and pointless fancies, think she might fight her way free and escape from the glacier? Again, Skadi found herself torn between pity and scorn for this creature before her. “You are Idunn, yes?”
Despite her situation, despite what Skadi’s father had clearly done to her, the Vanr snorted. “Don’t think maybe you ought to have confirmed that before … the abduction, assault, and imprisonment? Yeah, or … maybe it amuses you to ask … questions you know the answers to.”
Skadi crouched before the Vanr. “They took apples of Yggdrasil from you.” It wasn’t really a question, either, given Father had granted Skadi one of those, and it had fortified her Megin beyond all prior known bounds. Her power had broken through to new heights, and a new reality unfolded before her.
“Heh. Those were actually just painted gold. Yeah … not real at all.”
Skadi crooked a finger under the Vanr’s chin, lifting it, forcing her to meet her gaze. “What did you intend in Midgard, with apples? Would you have granted them to Men?”
Idunn squirmed, tried to look away, but Skadi seized her chin. “D-don’t touch …”
“You prefer my father’s gentle caress?” Skadi snapped, which was, of course, unworthy of her. It was not that she approved of what he had done to this woman … But the anger was there, for what the Vanir had done to the jötunnar. She released the woman, who scooted further back and averted her eyes.
“Tell me who, outside the Vanir, you granted those apples to.”
“Why? Looking to eat them? Maybe being an icy bitch isn’t enough … and you want to try becoming a troll, too?”
Well then. Skadi backhanded Idunn and sent her sprawling. Before the woman could recover, Skadi seized her ankle and yanked her close, raising her foot toward her mouth. Idunn shrieked but had no power to break Skadi’s grip. “Think you I have never once tasted Man-flesh? Think you I would hesitate to gnaw off a few toes from my father’s latest whore?”
“Stop! S-stop …” Idunn was weeping now, mayhap from terror, though Skadi suspected rather the weight of all she had suffered in recent days was at last crushing her, as it must anyone subjected to such things.
A rush of shame flushed Skadi’s cheeks and she dropped the woman’s foot and allowed her to scramble away, to cover herself once again. Skadi swallowed, sick at what she’d done, and vexed at herself for feeling that way. The Vanir were the enemy, they had destroyed her people’s civilisation. Why care the least for them? “I can have a blanket fetched for you.”