Chapter One
Everyone lies.
That’s something Father taught me long ago. But too few ask the right questions before they do. Every good liar should think before they speak.
Why lie? For good, for ill, or for personal gain? They each have different considerations.
Is it a big lie? If so, use sparingly or weave together with the truth so they are scarcely recognizable apart.
Who is being lied to? If it is to a lesser being, why bother? If it is to an authority, stay in control of the narrative. If it is to yourself, well, that’s another story altogether.
"Hel." Father's hand folds out toward me with a beckoning gesture. "Come along."
I exhale heavily and brace my hands against the cool stones of the ancient circle, leaning over once more to stare into the black.
Yggdrasill’s heart spring is an ancient well, running through the middle of the Great Tree. It is both the sole source of water and the place we throw our trash.
All gods fear the void, and so do I.
But my fear is not as great as my curiosity, my desire to understand what’s down there.
“We’ll be late,” Father chides.
I shake the dirt off my dress and make my way to him.
He doesn’t need to know why I’m drawn to the well, that the earth itself - a gift of my monstrous mother, no doubt - is the source of my greatest powers. I want to be godly, like him, not something as wild and fleeting as a weed from the ground.
Childhood is a lesson in keeping secrets.
That is not something Father taught me. I learned that lesson all on my own.
I’ve been exploring the well, little by little, only so far as my eyes can adjust to the lack of light.
He caught up to me only after I’d crawled out.
Quietly, I scrape the mud from my fingernails just before I reach him.
I still haven’t found the bottom or even a passageway, only mud and darkness.
Father grips my hand tightly as we rise the circular staircase of root steps encircling the stone and earthen wall of the massive well.
"Are you still cross with me for saying we were too busy to attend the feast in Bilskirnir?"
"They didn't want me there," I say, clutching the front of my dress with my free hand. My words come out steady. The purring creature hidden there gives me the strength to control the tremor in my voice.
Friends? Who needs friends when you have pets.
"They." He hums. "They is a nebulous concept and best examined further at risk of oversimplifying your antagonists. Hother and Odin, yes. They did not want you there and convinced Thor of the same.”
We make our way further up until we reach an atrium. The open-air section is full of golden branches and giant leaves backlit by the sun, a lower section of Yggdrasill whose beauty always takes my breath away.
We must ascend though. The worst day of the month. Valhalla calls.
“Baldr and the ladies, though . . ." Father pushes off.
I take flight beside him. "Baldr is too good for this place."
"You are good." He holds both my forearms as we rise. Twisting up toward the light, we face each other, and he still holds me as if I were a small thing who didn’t know how to fly.
Me, good? "Debatable,” I say.
He grins. "That's my girl."
Letting one hand go, he smooths a tendril of my hair, dancing wildly in the whirling air. He tucks it into one of the two hair pieces tightly braided around my horns. The two large buns are my signature look, but it serves a secondary purpose, to hide my beastly appearance from all but him.
I brush him off. He'll mess it up with his sentimentality. Holding my hand, fixing my hair, telling me what to do and when.
I'm not a child anymore.
I'm thirteen.
Where Father is all charm and winsome cleverness, I am .
. . not. Somewhat ugly, at least by goddess standards.
I don't have his skills at deceit, unable to read social machinations as well as him.
Worst of all, I don't have his powers to transform, always looking shiny and new, shifting into whatever form he pleases.
It must be nice to be whatever he wants.
I can, however, create small illusions, make others see what is not there. It’s as if a lie was a transformation. Not particularly noble, but beggars can’t be choosers.
And for all I lack, I have my own armor. From a young age, the first thing I learned to hide, or rather control, was my face, not letting others see the thoughts and feelings boiling inside me.
Father insists I'm the strongest of us all. That where my brothers failed, I will succeed. That surely I will be the one to help him bring vitality to the world.
The other gods, as far as I can tell otherwise, are quite useless at it.
Humans perish for the saddest and stupidest reasons.
They are born and die in scarcely a moment's breath, meaning nothing, doing nothing, hungering for violence all the while. And it’s all incited by Odin’s promise of eternal attendance in Valhalla.
If only they knew that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
There must be another way.
We reach the top level and turn to the entry hall. I place my hand on top of his forearm, straightening my spine for Odin’s new moon meeting of the gods.
"They fear you," Father whispers. “That is the only reason you were not invited.”
Oh, the feast. Where all the gods made merry except me, it seems. Who says I wanted to go?
"I know how well we are liked,” I say. “Which is not at all."
"They are obstacles to overcome, daughter. I'm working on— "
"I believe you,” I whisper quickly. “Can you be quiet for once?"
Rather than chastise my disrespect as most fathers would, he snickers and pats my hand. "Don't want the guard dog to hear your secrets?"
My eyes cut to him. How does he—?
A growl rumbles ahead of us, and I feel it straight to my gut, quiet at first then gaining ferocity as we near the doors of Odin’s great hall.
“Ah, there he is. Your friend,” he chuckles at his own joke.
One of Odin’s guardians. A large wolf. I bare my teeth at him and growl back. Not ladylike, but he won’t see me shrink.
His eyes sparkle.
That one is a problem. Different in a way I don’t understand. Unlike the other hounds that guard Valhalla with crimson eyes of flame, his eyes are an unnerving brown like a . . . well, like a person.
“He stinks.” Father lifts the back of his hand to cover his nose as we pause at the entryway, crowded as each god is announced in turn.
It is the scent of death, but . . . nice. Petrichor, dried apples, a winter wind rushing over the husks of crops.
But to Father, I say nothing, just lift my chin and keep my eye on the hound as discreetly as possible in my periphery.
He watches me still. Despite having an entire hall of guests to consider, it is me he growls at with single-minded focus. The attention is unnerving.
“There’s something strange about that one,” Father says.
I agree, but I also don’t want him to worry and treat me like a child. I can take care of myself. He needs to understand that.
“You like strange,” I say to throw him off.
The hound is too strange by half, so strange I can’t stop puzzling over why he sleeps in the field where the rest sleep at the hearth, why he watches me so, why he growls every time I approach his master’s hall.
The other hounds don’t mind us, some are even friendly. This one hates me like he’s of the same mind as the rest of the gods.
Freyja’s name is announced ahead of us; in a swirl of silk and rose-scented mist, the love goddess alights to the gleaming mosaic floor from her chariot.
The hound guarding the opposite door slavers as she approaches.
Its long tongue rolls out of its giant maw with a hungry, half-lidded smile on its face.
A scarlet mist leaks from his eyes as the golden goddess, sparkling and verdant in every way, saunters toward him.
She scratches under his chin with a dove’s coo.
Its giant head turns as she passes the threshold, dazed and desperate for more of her.
Its nose makes it just over the threshold.
A flash of lightning cracks across the room to snap at its muzzle.
“No beasts in my hall,” Odin booms, seated on his throne within.
The lovesick hound whimpers and turns back.
The other hound, the strange one, grumbles at the scene, a half snarl on his face when he locks eyes with me once more. Not lovesick. Not charmed. Some darker emotion clouds him.
Everyone hates me. Why does a dog feeling the same disturb me so?
Father pulls me forward and up the stairs to the shadowy overlook. This is where we stand at Valhalla gatherings. Each god has a dais, spaced in a circle around his high seat.
The round room ensures no one is first or last. All gods have their place.
Well, except for Father and me.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. We like it better that way, perched high in the balcony above. They won’t give us a seat? We take the higher ground.
Our presence makes them uncomfortable, which Father relishes in. They fear you, I hear his voice in my ear. This time, the thought bolsters me.
They should.
“It’s only fair we have a dais of our own,” I say to him.
“Life isn’t fair,” Father says, eyes flashing silver. “It’s a game.”
Behind the cover of the banister, Father’s hand flicks to the side, fingers pointing to a spot in the rafters. In a mist of smoke, the small mass of brown fur twists in distress.
“Poor little rat.” I bite my lip seeing Ratatoskr, the messenger squirrel on his way about his business, transformed into a bat just to entertain my father.
My fingers tighten over the pouch sewn against the front of my dress while my other arm clutches the column nearby, a branch of Yggdrasill itself.
Father’s gaze darts to me.
“Loki, god of tricks.” Odin’s lip curls in a sneer. His head turns slowly in my direction. Somehow, the disdain hardens, though I’ve done nothing wrong. I never do. “Keep your monstrosities outside.”