The high vaults of Valhöll had never felt less like a hall of the slain and more like a waiting room before a root canal. Dáinn Herne Cernunnos moved through the grand, echoing space with the grim gait of a man walking a plank. The air, usually thick with the ghostly echoes of mead-hall songs and the clatter of spectral feasting, was currently undercut by the sharp, acrid scent of something burnt and unspeakable. He had just returned from the misty borders of Annwn, having successfully—and with no small amount of effort—corralled the last of the skittish, spectral Cŵn Annwn and shoved them through the gate back to a profoundly relieved Gwyn ap Nudd. The weight of Woden's summons, delivered by his irksome ravens, now sat in his gut like a stone.
The council chamber was a study in controlled, godly insanity. At the head of the massive table of dark, whorled wood, Tsisana Raym Frigga was an island of focused chaos. She was surrounded by drifting piles of ephemera: swatches of fabric that shimmered like liquid mirrors with sequence and texture, photographs of mortal celebrities from the 1960s, and pressed flowers that smelled of forgotten summers. With a pair of enormous, golden shears, she was meticulously cutting a geometric pattern into a piece of leather that looked suspiciously like tanned dragon-hide, her milky-white eyes narrowed in concentration behind her enormous white sunglasses. A half-finished scrapbook lay open, pages filled with what appeared to be prophetic collages of nebulas and fashion runways.
Across the room, Albert Roshan Baldur was silhouetted against a towering arched window, staring directly into the heart of Asgard's sun. He hummed a meandering, atonal melody, his prismatic afro shifting through soft gold and violet hues. One hand traced shapes in the air, as if conducting an orchestra only he could hear. "The feedback… of the dawn… tastes like honeyed brass," he murmured to the empty air, nodding sagely.
From the corner came a steady, grunting rhythm. Dorrin Martall Thor, a mountain of vascular muscle crammed into a shockingly small stringer tank top and even shorter shorts, was executing deep squats with the solemnity of a high priest performing a rite. His quadriceps bulged like boulders in a sack. "Three hundred and forty-eight… Three hundred and forty-nine…" he growled, each number puffing out with exertion. He spotted Dáinn, paused mid-descent, and gave a sharp, acknowledging nod that made his blonde mullet sway. "Yo, bro. What's happening? Just… grunt… getting warmed up over here. It's leg day. Can't let the wheels deflate." He resumed his punishing count. "Three fifty… Three fifty-one…"
Dáinn sighed, a low sound lost in the vastness of the hall. "I hate these things," he muttered to himself, his voice like dry leaves rustling. He chose a seat as far from the epicenters of activity as possible, the shadowy fabric of his cloak pooling around him. The chair felt obnoxiously solid and present.
A tsunami of damp energy announced the next arrival. Adrian Kuro Heimdallr bounded in, shirtless, his skin glistening with celestial saltwater and his board shorts dripping onto the polished stone floor. He shook his head, sending a spray of droplets across the table, and swept his sun-bleached hair back. "Brah!" he announced to the room, flashing a golden-toothed grin and throwing a shaka sign. "How's it hangin'?"
He leaned his massive, gold-colored longboard, Hofund, against the table with a clack, and strode over to Frigga. He planted a wet, smacking kiss on her cheek. "Yo, Mom!"
Tsisana didn't look up from her cutting, but her lip curled in mild, artistic distress. "Oh, honey, you are dripping everywhere. This vellum is pre-Ragnarök Venetian. It does not need a saline wash."
"Sorry, ma!" Adrian beamed, entirely unrepentant. "Had to ride a killer wave to get here. The solar winds off the Bifröst are absolutely firing today." He scanned the room, his nebula-swirled eyes taking in the odd assembly. "Where's the old man, anyway?"
"He will be here momentarily, dear," Frigga said, dabbing at a water spot with a scarf. "He's likely finalizing the odds on something tragic."
Adrian's gaze landed on Dáinn. His face lit up. "Yo! My man!" He crossed the room in two strides, grabbed Dáinn's hand in a complex grip that somehow turned into a damp, one-armed shoulder hug. Dáinn stiffened, his own personal space screaming in protest. "Welcome back! Congrats on the whole hound thing. Nasty business." He leaned back, but kept a comradely hand on Dáinn's shoulder. "So. The human world. Spill. How are the waves?"
"There… are no waves where I was," Dáinn said flatly, trying to subtly extract himself.
"No waves? Bummer, brah. Flat spell." Adrian's expression was genuinely sympathetic for a second before turning conspiratorial. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a stage whisper that echoed. "How about the ladies, though? They like I remember?" He wiggled his eyebrows, which were bleached nearly white.
An unbidden, sharp image flashed behind Dáinn's eyes: Eris, not with fear or awe, but with a stubborn, chaotic light in her eyes, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and a retort on her lips. He shoved the memory down, a foreign heat prickling at the back of his neck. "The ladies," he ground out, "are as you would expect."
Adrian nodded with his entire body, a full-bodied gesture of understanding. "Wicked." He finally released Dáinn and plopped into a chair, swinging his bare feet up onto the table. "Still, must be a trip. All that… carbon-based life. So squishy."
The double doors to the chamber burst open with a sound like a thunderclap. Herrick Hymir Týr marched in, a portrait of militant hospitality. His bald head shone under the hall's light, his goatee bristling with enthusiasm. In his golden prosthetic hand, now shaped into a giant serving tray, was a platter heaped with blackened, smoking… lumps. The smell that preceded him was aggressive, a combination of seared fate and profound culinary regret.
"Pack!" he boomed, his laugh a sharp, cheerful cackle. "The energy was dipping! I could feel it from the kitchens! So I took command of the situation!" He slammed the platter onto the center of the table with a finality that made Frigga's scissors jump. "I present: 'Fenrir's Folly Flambé'! A tactical reduction of shadow-beast marrow, glaciated with tears of the Norns, and finished with a blowtorch of pure justice! Who's hungry?"
A frozen, silent horror descended upon the room. The only movement was Dorrin Thor, still squatting in the corner. "Three hundred and sixty-two… Sorry, bro," he grunted, not breaking rhythm. "Strict diet. Really watching my macros. That looks… anabolic, though."
Adrian slapped a hand over his perfectly toned abdomen, his face paling beneath his tan. "Whoa, brah. Heavy. You know what they say—gotta wait twenty minutes after surfing before you eat. Can't risk a cramp out there on the rift." He pointedly turned his chair to look out the window, whistling a tuneless tune.
Herrick's blinding smile fixed on Albert, who had now closed his eyes and assumed the lotus position, a faint, glowing nimbus surrounding him. "Brother Baldur! You understand the spiritual fuel of a hard-won meal!"
Albert didn't open his eyes. "Dig the energy, Chef, truly. But my chakras are fasting today. They're tuning to a higher, more citrine frequency. Solidarity, though."
Herrick's eyes, burning with forced cheer, swiveled to Frigga. "My Queen! A palette cleanser between visions!"
"Oh, darling, I would love to," Frigga said, her voice sweet as poisoned syrup. She gestured vaguely to the sugar cube necklace at her throat. "But my sources tell me I'm developing a rather specific allergy to… heroic portions."
Herrick's smile began to look like a grimace. His knuckles whitened on the edge of the tray. The Uru metal of his hand gave a faint, mechanical whir.
Salvation, of a sort, arrived with the sound of bare feet slapping on stone. Richard Harla Woden strode into the chamber, and the atmosphere didn't so much change as shatter and re-form around him. He was gaunt, intense, a black mock turtleneck hanging on his frame, one piercing blue eye scanning the room. The sleek, black glass patch over the other gleamed. The scent of expensive cigar smoke and single-malt scotch cut through the smell of burnt doom. He took in the scene: the avoided platter, the squatting god, the dripping surfer, the meditating light-show, and the huntsman looking like he wanted to melt into the shadows.
Herrick drew a breath, likely to launch into a renewed culinary campaign. Woden's singular eye locked onto him.
"SIT!"
The word was a crack of divine authority. Herrick's jaw snapped shut. Every god, including Dorrin who abandoned his squatting exercises, scrambled for a chair. Adrian's feet hit the floor. Albert floated down from his meditation cushion. Dáinn merely straightened. The collective, unspoken relief at being saved from 'Fenrir's Folly' was a tangible force in the room.
Woden braced his bare, calloused hands on the table, leaning forward. The silence was so deep they could hear the distant, ghostly cheers from the main hall of Valhöll. He looked at each of them, his gaze lingering for a heartbeat too long on Dáinn.
"We," he stated, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that promised no good news, "have a situation."
The silence that followed Richard Harla Woden's declaration was the kind that felt expensive and fragile, like a priceless vase teetering on a ledge. He pushed off from the table, the soles of his bare feet making a soft, dry sound on the stone. He began to pace, a lean, restless shadow trailing the scent of peat smoke and aged oak.
"I have received reports," he said, each word dropping into the quiet like a stone into a dark pool, "that Fenrir has been taken."
The name hung in the air, sucking the warmth from the vast hall. It wasn't just a name; it was a checklist for the end of all things. The great wolf, the engine of the prophecy, the beast destined to break his chains and swallow the sun. Dorrin Thor stopped his grip exercise mid flex, his hand tight on the hand dynamometer, his muscles quivering not from exertion but from sudden, primal awareness. Adrian's perpetual grin faded, replaced by a look of genuine, unvarnished shock. "Whoa," he breathed, the word lacking its usual stoke.
Woden's pacing halted. He turned his head, that single, ice-blue eye fixing on Dáinn with the force of a spear-thrust. "After I received reports that a gate had been opened to the Human Realm. And that one of the descendants of the Pantheon and Herla's Gathering not only knew about it… but also stepped through it."
All other eyes in the room swiveled to the huntsman. Dáinn felt the weight of centuries of expectation and scrutiny settle on his shoulders. He exhaled, a long, weary sound, and the legs of his chair gave a sharp screech against the floor as he stood. "Your Highness. I was in—"
"Sit down!" Woden snapped, slicing through the explanation with a gesture of his hand. The command was so sharp, Dáinn found himself seated again before he'd consciously decided to move. "I am aware of the circumstances. What I am not aware of is how it was done! Who was able to defy the old laws and break the seals? And what, in the name of every rune I ever carved, is their motive?"
Herrick Hymir Týr shifted in his seat, his chef's apron rustling. "I have concerns about Fenrir," he boomed, his voice trying to fill the fearful quiet. "How could he be missing? The bonds were crafted by the dwarves, blessed by the silence of the forgotten gods! Even with this new gate, who would have the capability to—" He was cut off not by a voice, but by a sound like a mountain cracking.
WHAM.
Woden's fist connected with the tabletop. The massive slab of ancient wood, which had survived the wars of giants and the arguments of deities, rattled as if struck by lightning. The platter of 'Fenrir's Folly Flambé' jumped an inch into the air, and a particularly charred lump rolled off onto the floor with a thud.
"My point exactly!" Woden snarled, his voice low and dangerous. "Now that this gate is active, we will need to reinforce our watch on every weak point in the tapestry. The wolf is not a stray puppy! He is the opening act of the final performance!"
Adrian, ever the one to try and surf the tension, raised a tentative hand. "Brah. Is it, like, that serious? I mean, what's the human realm even like now? Maybe it's chill. Maybe Fenrir just… needed some space."
The collective gaze of the Pantheon Council returned to Dáinn. He sat rigidly, his face a mask of stoic reserve, but the fingers of one hand were pressed so tightly together the knuckles were white.
Dorrin Thor, finally abandoning his grip exercises, his hand dynamometer making an audible thud as he leaned on the table, his massive frame blocking out the light from a nearby brazier. "Bro," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. "What can you tell us? We're running blind here."
Dáinn sighed, the sound escaping him like a prisoner. "It is not as you remember. Or as any of us remember." He chose his words with the care of a man walking through a field of buried blades. "They have their own magic now. Not like ours. It doesn't smell of ozone or sing with old power. It is silent and cold and lives in glass and light. They consult a great library they call 'A.I.,' and carry devices to call forth anything they need—knowledge, faces from across the world, songs from decades past. They have no need, and no use, for the old ways." He paused, his blue eyes distant. "Or the old gods."
Albert Roshan Baldur, who had been tracing the pattern of the wood grain with a glowing fingertip, looked up. His halo of hair had dimmed to a worried, dusky violet. "If this is the case, man… why initiate a gate? If they've moved on, why poke the sleeping wolf? Literally."
Tsisana Raym Frigga's scissors paused mid-snip. Without looking up from her dragon-hide collage, she spoke, her voice crisp and clear. "We are assuming it was the humans who opened the gate." She set the shears down with a soft click. Every head turned toward her. "Not every creature we left behind was human, darlings. The soil of that world is thick with the bones of things that predate their cities. Things that remember the taste of older magics."
Woden stopped his pacing, his hand rising to stroke his salt-and-pepper beard. "An old enemy," he mused, the words hanging in the air like a challenge. "But why now? What changed? What allowed the locks to be picked?" His mind was visibly racing, calculating odds only he could see.
Herrick slammed his golden fist—now in its default, hand-like configuration—onto the table, making everyone jump. "What would you have us do? Should we investigate? We must retrieve Fenrir! A lost asset is a vulnerable asset! A compromised asset is a catastrophe!" He stood, the legs of his chair scraping back leaving steaks on the floor. He marched to where Woden stood, the aura of aggressive nurture rolling off him in waves. He dropped to one knee, the chain of wolf teeth around his neck clinking. "Allow me to serve the realms once again! I will search out the wolf and bring him home! I rehabilitated him once; I can do it again!"
Woden looked down at the kneeling god of war and justice, a flicker of something—calculation, perhaps, or grim amusement—in his eye. "Yes," he said, the word a decree. "You will. Since you are the one who first 'tamed' him." His gaze slid back to Dáinn, pinning him in place. "And you will accompany him. You are the Huntsman. And you have already… familiarized yourself with the new terrain."
Dáinn's throat worked. He gave a single, stiff nod, the movement feeling like the fall of an axe.
"Righteous!" Adrian said, trying to inject some energy. "A retrieval mission! I can, like, scout ahead on the Bifröst currents, maybe—"
"The gate," Albert interjected, his gentle voice cutting through Adrian's hype. "Is there anything to be done about the hole in the world? Should we… try to mend it?"
"We post guards," Woden cut him off, his tone leaving no room for debate. "No one goes through, no one comes through, without my direct say-so. We find who did this." His voice dropped, becoming cold and quiet, the sound of ice forming on a deep lake. "And we have them dealt with. Permanently."
Dorrin Thor crossed his arms, his biceps swelling. "Do we intend to close the gate, or… is this a new permanent fixture?"
Woden's eye narrowed. "Before we consider renovations, we must first learn who the architect was. They will be the only ones who know how to unbuild it." His stare was a physical pressure. "Secrets have weight. They bend the fabric around them."
As if pulled by a string, every eye turned once more to Dáinn. He had gone very still, his lips pressed into a bloodless line, one hand slowly rubbing his chin. The image of Eris—fierce, foolish, mortal Eris with her second sight and her catastrophic curiosity—flashed behind his eyes. The contract with Camilla, a silent hook in his soul. The unspoken truth was a boulder in his chest.
Albert, peering at him with luminous, empathetic eyes, leaned forward. "You know something, Huntsman. The light around you just… spiked. It tasted anxious. Salty, like tears."
Dáinn's jaw tightened. He scanned the faces before him: Woden's impatient intensity, Týr's fervent loyalty, Thor's blunt concern, Heimdallr's distracted curiosity, Baldur's gentle probing. Frigga had set her scissors down entirely and was simply watching him, a faint, unreadable quirk at the corner of her mouth, as if she were appreciating the drape of his cloak or the tragic cut of his conscience.
He considered the truth. The name. Eris Sylvie. It would be a death sentence, delivered from Woden's own lips. She was a loose thread, and the All-Father's solution for loose threads was a sharp pair of shears.
"It is a mystery," Dáinn said, his voice flat and final, a door slamming shut. "My focus while there was the hounds, and nothing else."
Tsisana Raym Frigga's lip quirked higher. She picked up a sugar cube from her necklace and began rolling it between her thumb and forefinger, her milky eyes seeing nothing in the present room and everything in the tangled future.
Woden watched Dáinn for a heartbeat longer, the silence stretching thin. Then he gave a short, sharp nod. "Fine. Then do it again. Find the wolf. Herrick, you have the lead. Dáinn, you have the trail." He turned to address the rest. "We will begin our own investigation here. The gate is a crime scene. Someone left fingerprints on destiny."
He swept his gaze across his pantheon, his family, his board of directors. "Ragnarök isn't a prophecy you wait for. It's a deadline you manage. And as of this moment, people, our project timeline just got moved up. Consider yourselves all on double-overtime." He snatched the untouched tumbler of scotch from where it sat on the table and drained it. "Now get out of my hall."