Free Mist by Susan Krinard

awareness washed through Mist as Dainn’s mind brushed hers. Her tattoo flared to the point of agony, and the shock almost made her cry out. When she tried to withdraw, she found that she was caught as surely as Fenrisulfr in the magic rope Gleipnir, lost in the intricate, labyrinthine melody of the song.
    Yet nearly as soon as she felt Dainn’s intrusion, he touched the Rune- staves in her mind, plucking them like strings on a harp, gathering them into a sphere of ethereal light. She “saw” him working as if through foggy glass, deftly manipulating five of the staves and weaving them like the channels of a braided river, giving the Runes power they didn’t possess as individual symbols.
    And beneath it all, far under the surface, Mist felt him. His essence bled through the mental link between them—vivid, saturated colors that resolved into emotion: Anger. Shame. And that sorrow, profound and unmistakable.
    Sorrow for the years of isolation, apart from his own people? Alfar were seldom seen alone. Until she had made the decision to give up the old duties and embrace a “normal” life, the centuries of isolation had gotten to her, too. For an elf it must have been infinitely worse. Dainn might as well be sentenced to solitary confinement in a Third World prison, deprived of light and air and the comfort of even a single elven voice.
    That might account for the anger and sorrow, since he didn’t even remember how he had come to Midgard. But the shame . . . was that because of his failure with Hrimgrimir?
    Without understanding what drove her, Mist let herself fall deeper into his emotions. In an instant she passed from a fog of tangled sensations into a clamoring jungle of twisted vines, thorny bushes, and broad, waxy leaves in every conceivable color of green, the kind of forest that had never existed in Asgard.
    And hiding in the shadows was a thing. It moved within a cage woven of thorny vines—a hideous creature, as mindlessly vicious as the wolves that would swallow the sun at the end of the world. As she swept through the canopy toward the cage, the thing took shape and form, materializing in front of her, a hulking beast with black pits for eyes and razor teeth.
    Hatred, living and breathing and ready to devour anything that crossed its path.
    Mist didn’t wait to get a better look. She clawed her way out of the vision, leaving the darkness behind her, and found herself alone again in her own mind. One by one the staves dissolved, leaving a stark afterimage like the neon tracings of over-bright lights inside her eyelids.
    Shielding her face, Mist jumped to her feet. She staggered toward the door, desperate to shake off Dainn’s mental touch and the thing she had sensed inside him.
    Or thought she had sensed. How could one of the Alfar—or any being allied with the Aesir—harbor such a monster in his soul? Or had she created it herself, out of her fear of the profound contact between them, of her own irresistible compulsion to uncover the secrets she sensed he was keeping from her? Had she shaped that fear into a creature she had some hope of fighting with the skills she knew she possessed?
    Stumbling into the kitchen, she leaned heavily on the table. Yes. That was all it was. Her imagination. And fear she could learn to overcome . . . if she ever let this kind of thing happen again.
    And she didn’t plan on it. Next time Dainn needed this kind of “help” . . .
    She heard his nearly silent footsteps on the linoleum and stiffened. He came to a stop few feet behind her.
    “Are you well?” he asked.
    She couldn’t miss the note of concern in his question, and she didn’t really understand it. She’d walked out on him without a word, probably messing up all his careful work.
    Had he sensed how deeply she’d delved into his mind?
    Turning slowly, she looked at his face. There was no anger in it, only the same worry she’d heard in his voice. Worry and exhaustion, as if the magic had drained what