There was no trace of the Mistborn within Valhalla’s walls, nor had anyone seen him or Anna. Not that the gods, servants, and Valkyries we’d asked had much mind for anything but the chaos left in the wake of Loki’s escape.
“I think we have to consider that whoever took Annabel might have taken your brother as well.” Magni looked at Saga and Bjarni. “We are wasting our time here. I understand that he will be her fifth mate, but without Annabel, there is no point in looking for him. There is no point in anything.”
Saga only nodded. He was leaning against a wall in one of Valhalla’s many internal courtyards, eyes closed and face pale. I didn’t envy either of the Lokissons. I knew every one of us felt our mate’s loss so deep into our souls that there wasn’t room for anything else. If Magni had been missing, I wouldn’t have had the capability to care, and the guilt of it would have eaten up whatever shreds were left of me without Anna.
“We have searched everywhere and found no trace of her,” Bjarni said, despair thick in his throat. “Where do we go next?”
“Trud was searching for Mimir and Freya, was she not?” I said. The faintest thread of hope sparked somewhere behind the thick fog of misery. My sister. She was the cleverest person I knew. “She might have found something that will set us on the right path, either to our mate or the prophet. Or perhaps she will be able to scry for her.”
Magni lit up. “Trud! Of course. She will know what to do.”
“Your sister is a völve?” Saga asked.
“Yes, and a powerful one at that.” I clasped a hand on his shoulder, willing some of my own buoying hope into him. “Have faith. Trud will send us down the right path, brother. We will see our Annabel soon.”
Trudheim’s spire rose toward the sky as proudly as ever, but my usual sense of homecoming at the sight of it was gone. Annabel was my home now, and she was missing. I didn’t greet the servants scurrying about the courtyard as I normally would have, my sense of purpose blotting out any capability of manners.
Inside, my childhood home was as frantic with life as outside. Servants bustled around, most carrying armor and food, and the informal dining table I’d eaten most of my meals at as a young lad was laden with a mixture of platters, leather, and metal.
At its head, my father was on his feet, barking orders and rummaging through weaponry. He looked up at our entry, eyes narrowing at Bjarni and Saga for a long moment before he turned to point a finger at me.
“It is not on your head that the Traitor fled his punishment—you brought him back like I knew you would. But if you bring his spawn into my home, you’d better be ready to wager your own neck that their allegiance won’t waver while we cut down their father.”
He thought we had come to join him in battle—to fight alongside him as he hunted for Loki—like the obedient sons he had raised us to be. For glory and honor.
The band on my bicep seemed to constrict tightly around my muscles as I remembered that desperate moment in Midgard when I had called for him and he had not come.
“Loki is not the Betrayer. He saved my life. Without him, we never would have been able to defeat Níðhöggr. He could have run then, but he did not. If he were the Betrayer, I would be dead.”
My father’s eyes widened—and then his face broke into a huge grin. “You defeated Níðhöggr? Ha! That’s my son!” He turned to the nearest servant and slapped him on the shoulder, nearly sending the poor man to his knees. “You hear that, Gorm? My son slew Níðhöggr! A chip off the old block, that one.”
There was a time his boasting would have filled me with pride. Now I felt nothing but emptiness.
“No, Father. Bjarni, Annabel, Loki, and I slew Níðhöggr, and we very nearly did not make it back. I called for you. Why did you leave me there?”
My father frowned, his smile fading. Gorm had the good sense to scurry out of the kitchen, bringing along the other servants. Everyone in Trudheim had learned to anticipate one of Thor’s infamous explosions.
“What do you mean you called for me?” my father asked, his voice clipped. “Are you suggesting I’d turn my back on my own son? In front of them?” He indicated Bjarni and Saga with a tilt of his chin.
“I am making no suggestions. I am merely asking why, when I captured Loki like you commanded and was stranded in Midgard with Magni’s life on the line, did you dismiss the connection I forged through the band?”
I tapped my bicep to indicate the band hidden there, the one he had gifted me so that I might always reach him—except, as it turned out, when I needed him most.
A look of confusion passed over his face, deepening his scowl. “I have no idea what you’re on about, son. I received no communication from you while you were in Midgard.”
I clenched my jaw as Bjarni’s and Annabel’s speculations about him echoed in my head. There was no way he was the Betrayer. No way he could be. I had known that in the marrow of my bones, and I had defended him fiercely.
And yet… And yet I knew that I had used the band to contact him—and that it had connected.
“It doesn’t matter,” Magni interjected. “We’re here for Trud. Finding our mate is more important than this discussion.”
“You are right. Our mate is infinitely more important than a man whose honor is more valuable to him than his own blood, and certainly more important than fighting an unwinnable battle.”
I turned to the stairs, intent on locating my sister, but before I could take more than two steps, Thor closed his hand around my arm.
“What do you mean our mate?” he growled. I was surprised he’d picked up on that tidbit in the midst of my other insult.
“I mean that Magni’s mate is mine as well,” I bit. My muscles twitched as instincts otherwise buried in sorrow reared up, ready to defend my woman. “I found my soul in Midgard—in her. I found two new brethren in her other mates. I found my purpose—my true purpose—and it is not to stand by your side as Ragnarök swallows all nine worlds.
“But she is missing, and I do not have time to argue with you, Father. I hope to see you on the other side of this madness, but if I do not, may your death be honorable.”
I pulled free of his grasp before he had a chance to respond and headed up the stairs with the others behind me.
We found Trud in her room. She was perched on a chair facing the window, but instead of taking in the pretty views surrounding our home, she was staring intently at the pages of a large, worn book.
She jerked her head up at our entry, and I halfway expected her to scold us for not knocking like she had so many times when we were kids, but she just expelled a deep breath, relief crossing her face.
“You’re here. Things have been… difficult while you were gone.”
“Things are difficult now,” I said.
A vague smile pulled at the corners of her lips, but as she swept her gaze over our group and our worn expressions, it withered. “Where is my sister-in-law?”
I grimaced at the pang from the hollow in my chest. “She is gone, Trud. We need your help.”
My sister stood so abruptly the book in her lap flopped to the floor. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”
“Someone took her,” Magni said, his voice raspy and pained. “We woke up, and she was… gone.” He pressed a fist to his chest, against the hole. “It feels like she is dead, but we are still here, still alive, so she can’t be. Right?”
Trud’s face turned ashen. “Annabel is gone? No. No, she can’t be. You would be dead too.” She swept her blue gaze over us, as if ensuring we weren’t ghosts returned from Hel to haunt her. “What do you mean, it feels like she is dead?”
I breathed through another painful flare and stepped toward my sister. “It will be easier if you…”
She nodded and placed a hand against my chest. I felt the jolt of connection, reminding me of how it had felt to blend my magic with Annabel’s, but where my mate had brought elation and warmth, Trud’s magic was paltry by comparison.
The second her power touched where my hollow bond rooted, she gasped and jerked back, severing the connection between us.
“Stars above, Modi,” she whispered.
“Can you find her?” I asked through gritted teeth, because I knew if I accepted the empathy radiating off my sister, I would break.
She hesitated for a moment, and Magni, croaked, “Trud. Tell us you can find her.”
“I think… I think she is where Freya and Mimir are,” she said quietly. There was regret in her voice now. “I have been scrying endlessly for the goddess and the prophet, and they are… somewhere dark. And lonely. So lonely. That touch of Annabel’s essence still within you… it feels the same.”
“Where are they, then?” Saga asked, impatience coloring each word. “Tell us where our mate is and we will retrieve her.”
“I am not sure.” Trud looked to the floor where her book lay. “It makes no sense.”
“Woman, I don’t care if it makes sense or not. All I care about—all any of us care about—is that you tell us where Annabel is,” Bjarni rumbled, an uncharacteristic edge to his voice.
“Hel,” she said softly, sending a shudder of icy horror through each and every one of us. “I think… I think they are in Hel. But it makes no sense; the Queen of Death bows to no one. Why would she agree to hold them captive? She is beyond our petty squabbles, beyond any power held by any other god. And Annabel… Annabel is mortal. If she were truly there, you would all be in Hel too. No human can cross the barrier without succumbing.”
“And… And if she weren’t… entirely mortal?” Bjarni asked.
“What do you mean?” Magni demanded.
“If she… ate one of Idunn’s apples. Would she be capable of entering Hel without dying?” the blond Jotunn asked.
Idunn’s apples! I remembered the golden fruit he had casually fed our cranky mate as we passed over Bifrost.
“Bjarni Lokisson, you magnificent god among gods!” I blurted as I jerked back around to Trud. “Would that explain it? Is that why she is still alive? She is in Hel—but immortal?”
Trud frowned, her lips pursing. “I… I don’t know. Perhaps? I have never heard of such a thing—a mortal eating one of Idunn’s apples. And it does not explain why Hel would agree to imprison the goddess and the prophet. Nor does it bring back your mate. If she is truly in Hel, then I do not know how to retrieve her.”
“Then who does?” Saga demanded. “I don’t care if we have to burn Hel to the ground to get her back. I don’t care if we have to give our own lives. If that is where our mate is, then that is where we will go.”
Trud hesitated. “You don’t understand. If someone has made a bargain with Hel—”
“It does not matter,” I interrupted her. “I do not care if it is Loki. I do not care if it is our own father. Nothing matters until Annabel is returned to us. If you know of someone who can help us, please, sister. Tell us.”
She shook her head slowly before she looked at me—at all of us. “I know of one creature who might be capable of untangling the thread of an undead mortal stuck in the void between Fate and Death. Seek out the Norn Verdandi and plead for her aid. In the meantime, I will track down whoever is behind this. Few would have the power to negotiate with Hel herself. In banishing your mate, they may just have given us the clue we need to bring him into the open.”