I'd always assumed that I would be the reason why I died. I'd muddled through life by hiding in corners and hoping that whatever monster I'd pissed off this time wouldn't try to finish the job.

But as it turned out, that wasn't how it started. I wasn't sent to Odin at the hands of a sadistic elf or an arrogant witch.

I met Odin thanks to a poorly-timed gust of wind.

It had been such a nice evening, too. I'd spent the night dragon-watching with a kind and lonely girl my age atop an ancient clock tower. The cold was biting through our clothes, and even though Lucet was an ice witch it was getting a bit much for both of us, so with a gesture and a spell she created the precarious icy handholds that we used to climb down the tower.

And as the wind picked up and the slippery ice shifted, I fell.

I hardly had time to think Really? before I slammed into the courtyard below and blacked out.

When I awoke, the world had the eerie, black-and-white quality of the shifting sparks I saw when I closed my eyes and rubbed them hard. I tried opening my eyes, found they were already open, and tried closing them instead. Nothing changed.

"We're in your soulspace, kid. Eyes aren't what you see with here," a man's amused voice said from behind me.

I tried to spin around, but even though I could swear my body was moving, nothing changed. The man walked into my field of view, and he was tall and barrel-chested and draped in Redlands furs.

I frowned at him. "Am I... dreaming?"

"You could call it that."

The memory of the fall replayed in my mind, and I bit my lip. "Am I... dead?"

His lips quirked up infinitesimally. "You could call it that," he repeated. "I'm Odin."

He paused, as if expecting me to... I don't know, bow? Squeal in excitement? Truth be told, I had no clue who the barrel-chested man was, and I told him as much. "I have no idea who you are," I said.

His eyes flashed in irritation, but he reined himself in. "You could have the rest of your life to learn," he said.

An odd turn of phrase for someone who was maybe-dead, but that sounded like he wanted something from me. I was used to that. I could play that role. "I could also tell you to go jump in a rift," I said on reflex. Something about the man set me on edge.

"There it is," the man said, a satisfied smirk on his face. "That self-destructive instinct that you've been choked by your whole life. Look at you. You're completely at my mercy, and yet you still insist on threatening your only chance at salvation in order to spit in my eye."

"I don't want any salvation you're offering—"

"The Academy," Odin interrupted, walking to one side. Idly, he studied the black, sticky thorns that seemed to grow from nothing in the soulspace. "They took you from your homeland and taught you the art of using emotions to fuel magic. Happiness to create light. Passion to create heat. Freedom to make wind."

"Odin to make bullshit," I muttered, but the man proceeded as if he hadn't heard.

"But you have such glorious reserves of the fell emotions," Odin continued, wrapping the thorns in my soul around his fist. "Your self-hatred. The enemy you've battled all your life. It can be a tool, a weapon, instead of something to be locked away and ignored."

Odin walked forwards and put a single hand on my shoulder. "I want you to become one of mine. Swear to find me in Valhalla, and I shall restore you to health. The Academy has done you no favors. See what me and mine can do for you instead."

I met Odin's eyes, and... well. I'd be lying if I said he didn't have a point. I did hate myself. I did hate the Academy. And there were some days that I felt like burning it all down, shrinking it into a point and crushing it in the palm of my hand.

But I didn't hate everyone.

"Hold on, Cienne! The nurse is coming!"

And not everyone hated me.

Odin's eyes narrowed as... something else... entered my soulspace. Crystals, blossoming from nowhere and shoving aside the thorns of self-hatred.

"I've got you. Keep breathing. Ice. Ice is good for after."

"Thanks for the offer, old man," I said. "But you forgot one th—"

My eyes flew open, and I was in the Academy infirmary, Lucet white as a sheet to my left, a stern nurse to my right.

They'd brought me back from the brink of death before I could deliver my one-liner to Odin. Ah well. I meant what I would have said, and that was what mattered.

My self-hatred is mine. Not a weapon for you to use. You cannot take this from me.

"Are you okay, Cienne?" Lucet asked.

"His heart stopped. Legally, he died back there." I noticed I was undressed, sat up to try and grab my binder, but the nurse firmly shoved me back down. "And he would've died if you hadn't cooled him down as quickly and evenly as you did. He should recover with rest and magical therapy."

Lucet weakly smiled, and I caught her eye. "Hey," I said.

"Hey," she replied, relieved.

I hesitated, then lowered my voice, and asked, "Can I ask you a question?"

She shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Who... or what... is Odin?"

###

"They have gone by many names, over the course of their existence. Scholars name them The Dealmaker. Demons call them a fool. But those who they reach out to know them by one name only: Odin." —A Compilation of Essays on the Demonic Form, Laiwen Shannel et al. 103 AR.

The Silent Academy for Witches held knowledge on every conceivable topic, even one as taboo as demonology. Granted, most of it was restricted, and it was all heavily biased against anything from outside the Silent Peaks, but if there was something I could honestly say I'd benefitted from during my stay in the Academy, it was the massive reservoir of knowledge that was the Library.

"When soulspace entities first crossed through the rifts, humanity encountered The Dealmaker. Legends say that as a Demon of Empathy, they consider harming one whom they've bonded with to be harming themself, and as a result, will never renege on a deal if they have the option." —Musings on Primitive Mythology, Kanne, 2 AR.

The classes that I'd taken on how to properly research something—say, the name of a demon—had come in handy, too. With Lucet as my research partner checking out books for me, I made index cards and mind mazes and all the lovely organizational techniques Witch Aimes had drilled into me. Bit by bit, like pulling the spines of a star-cactus from bleeding palms, I extracted the drops of restricted knowledge that I was able to access on the entity known as Odin. A demon. A dealmaker. A person of their word, no matter how terrible that word was.

"Despite a century of accumulated empathic experience, Odin is not truly human. Their approximation of the humanoid mind is flawed, at best, and what they truly desire is often difficult to discern." Are Demons Truly Alive?, Daiol Utennt, 80 AR.

The texts I had access to were frustratingly vague, and sometimes I went days without finding anything useful. But I had to know. I had to know what The Dealmaker wanted with me when he'd showed up in my dreams.

I had to know what would happen now that I'd refused.

"The Dealmaker has gathered a cult following among mortals in the years since the rifts began. Their pattern is familiar and simple: they target those shunned by society and offer them something they cannot get anywhere else." The Case for Minority Re-Education, Falo Chentrenne, 120 AR.

I snapped the book shut and stood, stretching. It had been weeks since my research project had begun, slogging through texts that were half-academic, half-propaganda. My back still ached and I had to visit the nurse twice daily, but school at the Silent Academy for Witches was on midyear break. I had no pressing obligations at the moment.

So it was time to pay a visit to an old friend.

Lucet was trying not to make Iola any angrier than he already was, so she was staying in the dorms—and even if I didn't agree with her, I sure as hell wasn't going to force her to change her mind. I didn't exactly have any other friends in the Academy, so after a quick dunk in the showers, I wrapped myself up to protect against the snow and left the Academy grounds alone.

Jiaola's house wasn't far. The old witch had built it right smack in the center of the Silent City. It was as if he and his husband were giving a massive "fuck you, we exist and we are here" to the Silent Parliament every day they continued outliving the government that had wanted them "re-educated."

There was a reason I liked Jiaola.

Small animals turned their heads as I passed, but I ignored them. I was on break; the Academy had no hold over me. They could stalk me all they wanted through the eyes of crows and blink-kittens. They might disapprove of me, but they already did.

I knocked on Jiaola's firm, old door—real wood, imported from the Redlands—and waited as Jiaola called "Coming!" A moment later, the old witch's wrinkled but unbroken smile greeted me as he opened the door.

"Cienne!" Jiaola's eyes twinkled merrily. "Come in, come in! Here to beat me at Kingmaker again?"

As much as I wanted to continue our board-game tournament, I had more pressing matters to work out. I shook my head. "Not this time, old man. We should take this inside."

Jiaola's gaze sharpened, and he reflexively swept the street with both eyes and soul. "Understood. Do you want to use the safe room, or...?"

I shook my head. "No use burning all those enchants. We can just talk in the living room."

Jiaola nodded and shuffled aside, letting me in before shutting the door. "What can an old bat like me help you with?"

I bit my lip, then leaned in and whispered, "Have you ever been contacted by a demon called Odin?"

Jiaola froze.

Then he let out a weary sigh. "So they've reached out to you as well?"

I nodded. "They wanted to use me as... some kind of champion? They promised to take me away from the Academy, at the very least." Which I wouldn't mind in and of itself, to be honest—I stayed at the Academy because I had nowhere else to go if I wanted to get food and shelter. "And from what I've heard, they're good for their word."

"They are," Jiaola said, eyes focusing on something I couldn't see. "I haven't thought about Odin in years, but... yes. The Dealmaker gave me what I wished for."

I didn't ask what Jiaola had been given. The old man would tell me if it was relevant.

"So if the Dealmaker's taking you out of the Academy..." Jiaola raised an eyebrow. "Is this the last time we'll see each other?"

I shook my head. "I turned their offer down."

Jiaola did a double-take. "You what?"

I did not like that reaction. "Yeah, actually, that's what I came here to ask you. I couldn't find anything in the library on what happens when Odin gets refused—"

"Cienne—argh!" For the first time since I'd met the witch, he seemed genuinely afraid. "You don't get it. The Dealmaker upholds their end of the offers they make, always, no exceptions. Even when the person in question doesn't accept the deal."

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

Jiaola grabbed my arm, steel in his eyes. "Get yourself into the safe room. I'll notify the city guard. If Odin said they were taking you out of the Academy, then Odin's coming to take you out of the Academy."

He paused as he reached the door, then turned around, his gaze intense as it met mine.

"The Dealmaker is coming for you, Cienne. Stay strong."

And with that, the old witch turned to the street and sounded the alarm.