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All the Windwracked Stars (Edda of Burdens, Bk 1)
All the Windwracked Stars - Edda of Burdens, Bk 1 Author:Elizabeth Bear In the beginning was the end of the world. — The children of the Light and the fallen Tarnished met at the edge of the great ice, and there they warred and died. Brother fought brother; lover slew lover. And when it was done, and the snow drifted over the blood, three were left: "the one who fled, the one who stood, and the one who walked away."
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Muire is a waelcyrge, an immortal maiden of the shield, sworn to defend the Light and to hold a place in the world for the return of the All-Father. But the All-Father never came. And Muire was not like her sisters--she was a historian and a poet, a sculptor and a thinker, littlest and least of her kind. A sparrow among falcons. From afar and quietly, she loved the greatest and brightest of the einherjar, the chosen warriors: Strifbjorn. But her courage failed her, and on the Last Day she fled the armies of the Tarnished, and did not die with her love.
Kasimir is a valraven, war-steed of the choosers of the slain. Two-headed, great-hearted, winged and horned for battle. On the Last Day, his rider was killed, and he wounded unto death. But that great heart remains indomitable in defeat as it was in victory, even as it pumps his life-blood into the snow.
And Mingan--
Mingan is the Grey Wolf, last child of a dead god, grandson of giants. Mingan is old, older than the fallen children, older than the young and dying world. This is not his first apocalypse.
He would prefer it to be his last.
The Edda of Burdens is the story of these three, and of dead Strifbjorn, and how the end of the world transformed them and everything they touched. It's a dark and dreaming story of a steampunk alternate future, in which battered demigods roam the streets of ancient cities and heroes--mortal, immortal, and doomed--do what terrible things they must, in the hope of life and the face of the end of everything.« less