The journey down from the highest peak of all the realms was a brief one, since every one of the travelers could fly, and Kratos was still getting used to the return of his own powers. As they retraced the path they had taken to climb the peak, Zelos remembered the favor they had agreed to carry out for Ratatoskr, and what he had asked for in return. He looked over at his father, who still wore his usual stoic expression, while Atreus glided ahead without a care in the world. The dragon wings that Zelos had given him moved as naturally as a limb.
"Do you know any weapon makers who could help with my situation?" Ragnir suddenly asked, breaking the silence of the flight, since there were not many topics left to discuss.
"We know the makers of Mjolnir. Perhaps you would be satisfied with being left in their hands? Mimir has been urging them to mend the rift between them, so you might even be the first project they share in a long while," Atreus answered.
"Oh, you know Brok and Sindri? Well, that is to be expected. The axe your father carries reeks of the same forge magic that was bound into the fat dobber's hammer. But I am more curious about your wings. They are made from true dragon wings, yet they seem so woven into your being that they might have been part of your body since birth. Judging from the essence, they clearly belong to Hraezlyr. Did Brok and Sindri make them as well?" Ragnir asked, truly interested in the wings of Atreus.
"No, Zelos gave them to me. We fought that dragon you call Hraezlyr, and when it was over, Zelos took the essence of its eyes and wings. I received the wings, and Father received the eyes," Atreus answered truthfully and openly. It was like a child boasting about his own greatness, which was exactly what Atreus still was.
"Really? Now that is an interesting magic. Say, can you not do that to me? Separate my essence from this accursed hammer and free me, so that we do not have to trouble ourselves with visiting your friends?" Ragnir turned toward Zelos, who had been listening quietly to their conversation.
"I can, but I will not," Zelos answered briefly.
"Why?" Ragnir asked.
"There is no deeper reason except that I do not want to. But let us say that I want the hammer repaired as well. Despite my expertise, I have not practiced that kind of separation much, and I could end up damaging the hammer," Zelos said.
The answer kept the silence of their flight intact, and it did not take more than a few moments before they reached the gate that the three of them had entered through.
"There is a barrier here that reaches beyond the boundaries of Yggdrasil. You must be careful. Whoever created it is no easy opponent," Ragnir said in a solemn voice. He studied the barrier and was surprised to find it completely cut off from being breached from either side of the portal.
"That would be me, peanut brain. It is the severing rune I laid down when we crossed. How are you so skilled at seeing essence, yet you cannot recognize the true nature of it? Should those two not be the same?" Zelos answered.
"No. I was not there when you cast it. Perspective is always a key factor, and seeing a barrier from the outside is very different from standing beneath it," Ragnir replied.
They walked toward the entrance while the barrier slowly cracked open, revealing the scenery of the highest peak in Midgard. It was the place where Mimir had once been imprisoned.
When the four crossed over, Zelos immediately felt the difference between Jotunheim and Midgard. Midgard seemed so much thinner in ambient mana than the rich, untouched air of Jotunheim. But the longer he stayed, the more he realized that something was wrong. He looked around and saw that the sun was being covered by a thick cloud.
It was not a normal cloud. It spread across the sky far too quickly, swallowing the light in slow, heavy folds, and the mild air that had greeted them a moment ago turned sharp against their skin. Zelos raised a hand and let his perception spread outward, reading the temperature, the moisture, and the flow of mana around the summit. None of it carried the patterns that natural weather would have left behind.
'This is not weather. Something is pressing down from the branches,' Zelos thought.
"Brother, do you feel that?" Atreus asked as he landed beside Zelos and folded his wings behind him. The boy rubbed his arms, and his breath was already turning to mist in front of his face.
"Yes," Zelos answered simply.
Kratos had not spoken, but the eyes that Zelos had given him were fixed on the sky. He was watching the way the light bent and thinned as the cloud closed over the sun, and his jaw tightened.
"Ahh, there you are! Finally!" a familiar voice called out from behind a cluster of rocks near the fallen tree.
Mimir stepped out with his cloak wrapped tightly around him, looking as if he had not slept in days. He hurried toward them, and the relief on his face was so obvious that it made Atreus grin.
"Mimir! Did you wait for us here the whole time?" Atreus asked.
"Where else would I go, laddie? You slammed a door shut between us and left me standing on a mountain with only the wind to talk to," Mimir said, though there was no real anger in his voice. "By my count, more than a week has passed. I was beginning to think the Giants had decided to keep you."
Zelos noted the number without comment. It confirmed what he had suspected, that time in Jotunheim ran much slower than in the rest of the realms.
Mimir's eyes then landed on the floating weapon beside Zelos, and he stopped mid-step. He leaned closer, squinting at the cracked metal, and his expression shifted from confusion to disbelief.
"That is a hammer. A talking hammer? And it smells like..." Mimir began.
"Ragnir, if you please. I no longer answer to the other name," Ragnir said dryly, hovering higher as if to look down on him. "And yes, I know exactly who you are, silver tongue. Last I saw you, you were much better dressed and much less sober."
"I am a hundred winters sober, thank you," Mimir replied, but he was smiling. "Ratatoskr. A piece of him, in a hammer. I must hear this story."
"Later," Kratos said. His voice was low, and it made both of them fall quiet at once. "Mimir, what happened here while we were gone?"
Mimir straightened, and the humor drained from his face.
"Three Aesir dropped out of the sky not long after the gate closed," Mimir said. "One of them was the son of Odin who came to your cabin, brother. I hardly recognized him. Something had been stripped from him, for he walked like a mortal, and he was missing his right arm. He screamed at the sky for a while, and then a light carried him off like a falling star, straight toward the forests."
Kratos frowned. "He had two arms."
"Baldur had both arms when he came to our home," Atreus said quickly. "I remember his fists."
Mimir blinked at them. "Both arms? Lads, that man has been one-armed since the day he was born. Every song, every scroll, every soul in the realms would tell you so." He looked between the two of them, then at Zelos, and rubbed his temple. "How odd. Now that you say it, I feel as if I am forgetting something."
Zelos kept his face calm. 'Father and Atreus are tied to the World Tree, so they remember. Mimir is not, and Voltan's rewriting has held,' he thought.
"It is a long story. I will explain it once we are somewhere quieter," Zelos said. Kratos gave him a look that made it clear he would hold him to that.
"The other two would not say a word," Mimir continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "I tried to speak with them, and even taunted them a little. They opened their mouths and nothing came out. It was as though their tongues had been tied by something older than either of them. They only glared at me and staggered down the path."
"That was expected," Zelos said calmly. "They will not speak of Jotunheim to anyone. Not even to Odin."
Mimir gave him a long look, and then slowly shook his head, as if he had decided not to ask.
"And that?" Kratos asked, pointing his chin at the sky. "Was it here before we left?"
"No. It rolled in this morning, and it has not broken since," Mimir answered, and his eyes drifted upward. "I have lived long enough to know the old stories, lad. There is only one time in all of them when the sky looks like this. Before the winter that does not end."
Atreus's face paled. "Fimbulwinter? But it is too early. Mother told us that it only comes after..."
He stopped, and his eyes went wide as he turned to look at Zelos.
Zelos did not answer. His attention had turned inward, and what he found there made his stomach sink. The conceptual heart that had turned white when he took Baldur's divinity was pulsing steadily in his chest. It was reacting to the dimming light, pulling toward the darkening sky like a tide answering the moon.
'I killed the God of Light and took his place. The light of the world is dimming because the one holding it is not the one who held it before,' Zelos thought. He felt the pull grow stronger, as if the sun itself was asking him a question.
"Zelos," Kratos said. He had noticed the change in his son's expression, and he turned to face him fully, his hand tightening on the handle of the Leviathan Axe. "What have you done now?"