“You can’t be here,” she said.“But I am,” Geir said, deep sadness in his dull blue eyes. “I am dead, Mist.”“You can’t be with her,” Mist said, letting her hands fall. “Not with Hel.”“But I died of old age,” he said. “Of sickness and my body’s failure. I was never bound for Valhalla.”She tried to touch him, but her hand passed through him and emerged coated with ash. “You were never a follower of the ancient religions,” she said.“I was Norse,” he said. “And Hel took many who should never have gone to her.”“Took from where? The Void?”“I do not know where I was before. The laws of life and death are out of balance, and there is no means of telling where any who die will come to rest.”“Out of balance?”“Hel can claim nearly anyone she chooses, including every mortal who dies in this war.”His story was so unexpected that Mist could hardly accept it. She had always assumed that those who died following any particular faith would go to the place they believed in, though she had often hoped that there would be some justice for the good and evil.This was wrong.
