Chapter 17: The Highest Peak
[Midgard — Freya's Sanctuary, Then Mountain Approach — Day 7]
"Jötunheim."
Mímir said the word the way a cartographer would say here be dragons—with reverence and warning braided together so tightly you couldn't separate them. His head sat on a makeshift stand near the cottage hearth, the fire painting his features in shifting amber, the single eye sweeping the room's occupants with the controlled energy of a lecturer who'd been denied an audience for decades.
"The highest peak in all the Nine Realms isn't in Midgard. Never was. It's in Jötunheim—the realm of the Giants. Which, as I'm sure you're aware, is currently sealed tighter than Odin's purse strings."
Atreus leaned forward. "Sealed how?"
"Odin destroyed every known pathway after the Giants' genocide. Bifröst access blocked. Physical bridges collapsed. Even the Realm Between Realms was restructured to exclude Jötunheim from the travel network." Mímir's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "All of which means you need Týr's hidden pathway—the one he built specifically because he knew Odin would eventually close every other door."
"And where is this pathway?" Kratos. Direct. Impatient. A man who'd already endured more detours than his temperament was built for.
"Requires two things. First: the Unity Stone, which aligns the Bifröst to accept Jötunheim's coordinates. It's somewhere in Týr's vault system—the old god hid his tools the way a squirrel hides acorns, in a dozen different spots across the Temple. Second: the Black Rune, which serves as the actual key. That's in a different vault entirely."
"Then we find them both."
"Indeed. Though I should mention that Odin's been searching for these same items for centuries without success, so... temper your expectations accordingly."
Atreus's excitement was visible—the boy's connection to the Giants was still abstract to him, a bloodline he didn't fully understand, but Jötunheim represented answers. About his mother. About his heritage. About the identity he carried without knowing its name.
Ethan sat in the corner of Freya's cottage and said nothing.
He knew where the Unity Stone was. Knew where the Black Rune was. Knew the entire sequence of events that led from this moment to standing in Jötunheim, spreading Faye's ashes, discovering the mural that would change everything. The meta-knowledge sat in his skull like a loaded weapon—accurate, detailed, comprehensive—and he couldn't use any of it.
Not without revealing himself. Not without answering the question that Mímir was already assembling from a dozen smaller observations: how does this man with faint Giant blood know more than scholars who've spent lifetimes studying?
Strategic silence. Let Mímir guide them. Let the journey follow its canonical path. Every time Ethan intervened—reading runes too fast, spotting traps too accurately, opening seals with impossible words—the suspicion tax increased. Each display of knowledge purchased short-term progress and sold long-term safety.
"The Temple vaults," Mímir continued. "We start there. The lower levels contain Týr's primary archive—maps, tools, mechanisms he built for realm-travel. The Unity Stone should be among them, assuming Odin's agents haven't beaten us to it."
Freya had been silent through the discussion, standing near her boar, one hand on its bristled flank. "You should know," she said, "that Baldur has been seen near the Lake. He's hunting something. Or someone."
The temperature in the room dropped. Not literally—Freya's wards held the cottage warm—but the emotional atmosphere shifted like a barometric change before a storm. Kratos's hand found the axe. Atreus's posture stiffened. Even Mímir's eye darkened.
Baldur. Still hunting. Still tracking Giant traces across Midgard. He didn't know about Ethan specifically—the night at the cabin, he'd been focused on Kratos—but Giant blood was Giant blood, and if Baldur caught the scent of the faint Jötnar heritage Ethan carried, the questions would stop being academic.
"He will not stop us," Kratos said. The statement carried the weight of certainty that only someone who'd already beaten Baldur once could generate.
They left Freya's sanctuary at first light. The forest opened into the familiar terrain around the Lake of Nine—grey water, Jörmungandr's coils visible in the distance, Týr's Temple rising from the center. Brok's shop was shuttered, the forge cold. Sindri appeared briefly at the Temple entrance, offered water and nervous advice about the vault's structural integrity, then retreated.
Mímir talked. He talked the way rivers flowed—constantly, naturally, with an undertow that pulled you deeper than you intended. Stories about the Giants. About Týr's rebellion against Odin. About the war that had left Jötunheim sealed and its people dead or scattered. Each story was a piece of the puzzle, and each story was also a probe—casual questions embedded in narrative, designed to measure Ethan's reactions.
"The Jötnar were fascinating people, really. Builders, prophets, strategists. They could see the threads of fate more clearly than even the Norns sometimes, which of course made Odin absolutely furious." Mímir's voice carried from the belt pouch as they walked. "Tell me—have you seen anything of their prophecy work in those visions of yours?"
"Fragments." The safe answer. The always-answer. "A woman speaking about the future. But the specifics are blurred."
"A woman. The same one you mentioned in the Temple? The one who argued with a powerful figure about the elf wars?"
"Yes."
"And you've no notion of who she might be?"
"None."
Mímir hummed. A thoughtful, non-committal sound that could have meant I believe you or I absolutely do not believe you with equal probability. "The Giant women were often the lore-keepers. Prophets, teachers, archivists. If your bloodline connects to one of them, the memories you're accessing could be extraordinarily valuable." Pause. "Assuming they're genuine."
The qualifier dropped like a stone into still water. Assuming they're genuine. Not an accusation—a possibility left open, a door that could swing either direction depending on what evidence walked through it next.
That night, camped on a ledge overlooking the Lake, Atreus couldn't sleep. He sat by the small fire Kratos had permitted, turning his bow in his hands, his young face carrying a weight that looked too heavy for fourteen years.
"Mímir mentioned Loki." The boy kept his voice low. Kratos slept—or appeared to—ten feet away, his breathing deep and regular. Mímir's eye was closed, though whether the head actually slept was debatable. "A Giant who survived. Do you know anything about him? From your memories?"
The irony was so sharp it drew blood. Atreus—Loki—asking Ethan about Loki. The boy who didn't know his own name, searching for a figure he didn't know was himself, reaching for an identity that would eventually reshape the Nine Realms.
"No," Ethan said. "I haven't come across that name."
Atreus accepted the answer with a nod. He turned back to the fire, watching the flames, his bow across his knees. A child carrying a god's name and a trickster's destiny, and the only person in the world who knew it was sitting three feet away, bound by the weight of knowledge he could never share.
The fire crackled. Kratos's breathing held steady. And Mímir's eye—Ethan was almost certain—cracked open for half a second, watching, before closing again.
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