I took a step toward him and laid my hand on his arm. "What happened? Who did you give the Mead to?"
"My daughter had been ill for a while. Well, not exactly ill, but there have been . . . complications. I expected the Mead to help her . . . to make her better. But it made things much worse."
"Oh my god! What happened to her?" I was horrified, and terrified that he was about to tell me his daughter had died because of me.
His eyes seemed to look right through me, as if he gazed at the face of his child. His next words were rough, hoarse with a father's fear. "She fell into a strange sleep. We had no explanation for it until we realized the Mead was the only thing she had ingested that day." Worry ran furrows through Steinn's brow, and his eyes darkened with fear and grief. "We need to find a cure for her. And we need to find who poisoned your Mead."
In spite of the fact that my two and two had made four, I realized I'd missed one other vital piece of information. Who would've done such a thing as to poison Aidan's Mead?
Chapter 21
"Brynhildr, you must come to Muspell with me. Now. We cannot delay," Steinn insisted, his golden eyes shadowed with worry and fear. Two emotions that filtered through me as well.
Worse yet, I had guilt to contend with, too. If I hadn't given him the Mead, his daughter would still be well. There was a possibility, too, that Aidan wouldn't have been weakened so much by the Mead, and then he would've been better able to resist Loki's poison.
I didn't answer, knowing he was probably right anyway. I had to go and see for myself what the Mead had done.
"What? Bryn, you cannot possibly be considering going with him!" Mika grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into my flesh.
"I have to go, Mika. You must understand that."
"But what about our responsibilities? We had a Retrieval to do, one that went wrong. Do you not think we should be reporting that to Fenrir immediately?"
I shook my head. "I accept that I have a responsibility to my duties, Mika. And I would never abandon my job. But I'm sure they can wait a little while for us to come back."
She glowered at me, duty and a touch of fear hardening her eyes. At that moment I sorely missed the convenience of a cell phone. How easy it would've been to text Fen and tell him where we were going, and why we'd be late. Something I ought to broach with him, now that he seems to be embracing Midgard technology. Seeing the North African team's setup had impressed me. Very modern.
Only hitch—Asgard had no reception. It was one thing to text Fen in our world, totally something else to ring him up in Asgard. "Bryn, this is a really bad idea." Mika's angular features darkened while her jaw tightened. The moon had ducked behind a bank of clouds, and deep shadows clung to the ridges of her brow and eyes, giving her a very lupine look. Too lupine. Was she about to go all fur and snout on me?
"I'm sorry, Mika. You don't have to come with me." I gave her a way out, so she wouldn't feel obligated. "You can go straight to Asgard and tell Fen I'm fine. Tell him about Steinn and the Mead, and that I'll be back soon with more information."
But she shook her head, anger flaring in her eyes. I'd just offended my Ulfr partner by saying she could go back home.
Way too sensitive, Mika.
She straightened her spine; her anger, almost palpable, rolled off her. "I am not leaving you alone. We are a team, Bryn, and partners do not abandon each other to go into dangerous realms with dangerous creatures that just might attack you when your back is turned."
Mika flicked Steinn a wary glance, and I laughed.
"Steinn is my friend. He wouldn't hurt me." I grinned, but one look at Steinn brought the horror of his current problem right back to me. We both had people we loved who were in inexplicable coma-like sleeps. Ironic, in a way.
I blinked, registering the snowflakes that dotted my eyelashes. The white stuff dappled my shoulders too. That meant my wings would need dusting out. I glared at the sky in frustration. Did it have to decide to pelt us at this very moment?
I flared my wings and shook the snow from them, stretching the cold muscles to ease some warmth into them.
"Come, Mika." I beckoned a hand, ready to loop my arms around her again. "I'll take you back to the Bifrost. Steinn, we can meet you there?"
"You silly child," he said, laughing, his beautiful golden eyes crinkled at the corners.
I frowned. "What did I say that's so funny?"
"I am a dragon, after all. A rather large dragon." Steinn shook his head, and his meaning slowly dawned on me. "I will take both you and Mika to the Bifrost."
"Oh," was all I managed. Cool. Now why hadn’t I thought of that? Sure beat carrying Mika all the way to the Bridge.
"Stand back," he instructed. He stepped away a few paces.
I tried to pay attention to his transformation—really, really wanted to see him change from man to golden scaly beast—but something strange happened. I felt slightly dizzy, and my eyes seemed as if they worked all funny. Steinn's form blurred as his shape enlarged and enlarged until the big blurry blob was again the enormous beast we'd encountered earlier. Damn.
Steinn stomped toward me, taking huge pounding steps that shook lumps of snow off the trees.
"Come on," he said. The dragon leaned forward and straightened a giant golden scaly leg, inviting both Mika and I to clamber up.
I hesitated, and so did Mika. But the expression on the Ulfr's face told me our reservations were not for the same reasons. I was concerned about possibly hurting my friend by climbing all over his body. But Mika looked positively repulsed. I frowned at her, decidedly annoyed at her instant dislike for someone who'd helped me so much. "You don't need to come with me, Mika." Again I tried to offer her the opportunity to leave gracefully, but she shook her head, the short, sharp movement revealing her ragged emotions. She glared at the golden dragon, her dark eyes a whirlpool of conflicting emotions: part fear, part repulsion, part determination. At last, she moved toward me.
"No, I am not leaving you alone," she said. And I heard the last two words she didn't say aloud: "with him."
I gripped Steinn's scaly foreleg and pulled myself upward. I'd expected his golden dinner plate-sized scales to be smooth and cold, but instead each individual ridged piece exuded a comforting warmth. He helped by moving his leg higher, making it so much easier for me to scramble up onto his back. In position at last, I looked down, checking on Mika's slow and hesitant progress. Steinn tried to assist her too, but she let out a screech, and he let her be.
What was it that repulsed Mika so much? And would Fenrir feel the same way? Was there a past Ulfr-Nidhogg conflict I was unaware of? Fen had never indicated any negative feelings towards the Nidhogg in any of our conversations, which made me suspect that Mika's dislike was personal.
She scrambled up behind me, spine stiff, her expression carefully schooled into a resemblance of calm. But she wasn't fooling me.
Steinn took off, spreading great big golden wings wide enough to break off little branches on the trees around the clearing. I gripped a handful of gleaming scales, praying I wouldn't go sliding off his back, taking Mika with me.
Steinn thrust his dragon self into the snowy sky, soaring higher toward dark clouds heaving with impending snowfall. He swerved and headed for the Bifrost entrance, air and snow battering my eyelids. We neared the old shed, Steinn descending so fast that my stomach tightened. I clutched at a clump of scales, hoping they wouldn’t break loose, and threw a sympathetic glance at a white-faced Mika. The broken windows glared at us for intruding where we didn't belong. Steinn circled the clearing once before touching down with the barest of jolts and trotting to a smooth stop, leaving great big dragon prints in the newly fallen snow.
I began to slide off the dragon's back, but Mika beat me to the descent, scrambling and almost tumbling to her feet, seemingly desperate to get off him. She even had the audacity to give a delicate shudder. I noticed, and I wasn't pleased. Nor was I in the mood to be understanding of her prejudices. She'd just gone and insulted my friend.
"We should go, Bryn." Steinn's voice echoed from within a blurry whirlwind of golden dust and scales, and then, in a blink, human limbs materialized as the dragon became a man. I still hadn't been able to see that transformation. Sigh. Missed it yet again.
Mika followed us, hanging back and keeping her distance from Steinn, though making it clear she had no intention of leaving me alone with him.
We stepped toward the small clearing where we'd arrived not so long ago. All traces of our arrival and our failed flying attempts were hidden by new snowfall. We stood, ready and waiting, while Mika still stared angrily at me.
The entrance to the Bifrost opened, at first just a watery shimmer in the air, then widening into a multihued spiral of all the colors of the rainbow. I stepped forward, throwing a last glance at Mika before stepping onto the Bridge of the Gods.
Riding the Bifrost to Muspell was everything I'd remembered. The colors—reds and yellows—swirled like fiery flames, and even the funny feeling in my tummy wasn't as strong. We landed in a cavern, hitting the stone floor in a crouch.
Both Steinn and I were prepared, but Mika wasn't. She tumbled from the bridge, tripped over her feet and hit the ground hard. I winced, but she recovered quickly enough to spring back onto her feet. She was, of course, a well-trained Ulfr; her lupine genes and her eternal practice routines provided good enough training, and it showed.