12

Six years past and worlds away

I could hear the shouting even before I pushed through the heavy oak doors and into Valhalla.

“—too far!”

Thor stood at the foot of Odin’s High Seat, his overly-large face clenched and reddened. I had long ago decided they called Thor “the Thunderer” as much for his habit of bellowing at people as for any use he made of his hammer.

Odin appeared unperturbed by Thor’s raging. He sat in his massive, intricately-carved oaken chair, with crossed swords and long-shafted spears decorating the walls around him, and leaned his chin in one hand.

I edged toward the hall’s outer rim, intending to skirt the commotion on my way to the far end of the room. The hall was not overflowing, but several Aesir had taken their meals to table. The smoky-sweet aroma of roasted pork filled the great room, along with a light murmur of chatter that underscored Thor’s commotion.

Heimdal was among those at that far end of the hall. Firelight sparked in his pale gold hair as he lifted his head. When his eyes found me, I smiled. Knowing that he could hear when my pulse responded to his presence was one thing. Controlling it was another thing entirely.

Before I could hurry past the High Seat, Thor jabbed a fat forefinger at someone standing to his side. “He presses his luck, further every day. When will you do something about it?”

My heart sank, even before I followed Thor’s point and discovered Loki at its receiving end. Loki stood with slumped shoulders and lowered head, auburn curls falling across his forehead and into his eyes.

Loki lifted his head and spoke quietly in Odin’s and Thor’s general direction, although he didn’t look anyone in the eye. “I only thought—”

“No!” Thor roared. “You didn’t! You never think, you little fool!”

Loki lowered his head again, the picture of meekness. But I swore a hint of a smile ghosted across his lips.

I stopped walking.

A third figure stood with Thor and Loki before Odin’s High Seat, I realized. With her face shadowed by a cowl she’d draped around her head, Sif stood so still that I hadn’t noticed her at first.

Loki muttered something.

“What was that?” Thor turned toward Odin, face no less red than before. I didn’t think it could turn more red, not unless the boorish fool intended to simply explode. “Did you hear what he said?”

“No.” Odin’s face remained placid to the point of boredom. Only a clenched jaw indicated he was somewhat less placid than he appeared. “Repeat yourself, Loki.”

“I said.” Loki jerked his face up toward Odin. His mouth twisted into an ugly line. “That it’s better to be a little fool than a big one.”

Childish words. From both sides, in my opinion—for gods, some of them barely behaved like grown men. But my heart sank further because I—and everyone else, for that matter—already knew who’d lose this debate, however childish.

Oh, Loki. Stop poking the bear. Aren’t things difficult enough for you as it is?

Thor took a heavy step forward, one hand lifting as if to reach for Loki.

If Loki’s expression had hinted at canary-swallowing cat a second before, it didn’t now. His head jerked up, his eyes widened, and he flinched back.

“Stop.”

At the sound of Odin’s command, Thor ceased his forward movement. But before his hand lowered to his side, it clenched into a fist. Loki glanced toward it.

Jaw still tight, Odin glanced between the two of them, eyes narrowed and lips not quite pursed.

“You are not children anymore,” Odin finally said. “There are repercussions to your actions which go far beyond this hall and this city. This world. You would do well to remember this.”

Odin shifted his gaze to Thor.

“If too much physical punishment is inflicted upon Loki, his government will have something to say about it.”

Odin paused, then. The angry lines of Thor’s body relaxed, nearly imperceptibly. An odd feeling passed through me, as if I’d just witnessed some silent conversation between father and son that I only half understood.

Odin looked to Loki, who was still watching Thor. At Odin’s words, his mouth twisted into a fresh sneer.

“You do your race credit, Loki.” Sarcasm dripped from Odin’s voice. “They are surely proud of how you’ve turned out.”

Loki tore his gaze from Thor and glared at Odin. “Not without help from you and yours, Allfather.”

Then Loki’s gaze flicked away from Odin and landed on me. The ugliness in his face melted into something that more closely resembled shame. His gaze dropped again toward the rush-covered floor.

Thor uttered a strangled curse. Before he could come up with any words, Odin lifted a hand toward him.

“Sif.” Odin gestured with the same hand. “Let me see.”

For a moment, Sif didn’t respond. She stood stiffly beside her husband—which wasn’t anything new, exactly. When Thor was on Asgard, Sif was at his side, her perfect complexion and gorgeous golden tresses and her stiff posture suggesting that hers was the perfect husband, perfect marriage, perfect life.

I understood how far from the truth that was—if there’d been any doubt, my accidental witnessing of one of their private moments had dispelled that. I even understood, in theory, how Thor’s treatment of Sif might have led to her treatment of me. That didn’t prevent me from being less than enchanted by Sif in general.

Then Sif unwrapped the cowl from around her head.

For a second, I couldn’t comprehend what I was looking at. When I did, a startled laugh burst up from my chest and into my throat. I tried at the last second to choke it back, so what came out sounded like a combination of snort and gasp.

Sif’s lovely blonde hair was gone. Well, not entirely gone—what remained stuck in short tufts from Sif’s scalp, bristly and uneven in length.

Sif turned a chilly stare on me, and I flung both hands in front of my mouth.

Do not laugh. Just don’t.

Beyond Sif, Loki peeked from beneath a fringe of ruby curls at me. His dark eyes glittered.

“It’s not amusing.” Heimdal spoke quietly from beside me.

I hadn’t heard Heimdal approaching at all. I cut a glance to the side and found him frowning at me, a storm brewing in his eyes.

For once, the rugged line of his jaw and the cut of his shoulders failed to distract me. Irritation flared in my chest. Lowering my hands from my mouth, I frowned right back at Heimdal.

“Of course it’s not,” I replied. “But…”

But what? But if anyone deserved to be taken down a notch…

But the way Thor treated her. Any hint of remaining amusement died. I should be ashamed of myself.

“But I was startled. I apologize.”

Sif’s stare did not relent. Heimdal kept frowning.

“He should be banished.” Thor had finally cut back on the shouting, but his voice still carried.

I jerked my attention back to Thor.

“For cutting off her hair?” My voice wavered. “You’re not serious?”

“Iris.” Heimdal spoke my name only loudly enough for me to hear. His fingers touched my elbow.

Loki’s head lifted. An odd and wondering expression lit his face. Hope, I thought. Or maybe something closer to disbelief.

Maybe he only needs a friend.

Thor turned to gape at me. Beside him, Sif’s chill stare continued. Up on his High Seat, Odin studied me with mildly elevated eyebrows.

“Do you ever listen to yourselves?” I was no longer sure where I was going with this, but words kept spilling out. “When was the last time any of you treated Loki like anything other than a dog? You treat him like dirt and then act surprised when he responds badly. You assume—”

“We assume the worst.” Odin cut in but his tone was as bland as his expression. “Because Loki has proven the worst to be true. Time and again. You do not know all the details, of this incident or of Loki’s history. This is no concern of yours, Bivrost.”

Odin’s use of my Asgardian name wasn’t unusual—he’d called me nothing else since declaring me adopted by this world. But it underscored Odin’s blatant reminder that I was no longer Alfar. Attempting to reconcile the differences of others was no longer my job.

Feeling an odd muddle of chastened and angry, I was startled to feel tears forming behind my eyes. Instinctively, I glanced up at Heimdal.

Heimdal was studying me, his brow furled in concern. Or maybe confusion. His jaw worked. Finally, he sighed, and he looked instead toward Odin.

“She perhaps has a point.”

Quiet as ever in tone, Heimdal’s words still earned a response of utter silence. The three gazes previously fixed on me shifted to Heimdal.

“Isn’t it possible that we view Loki with more prejudice than is warranted?” Heimdal’s gaze shifted toward Thor as he added, “That we’ve nursed his grudge against us with our own behavior?”

Thor’s face faded to a lesser shade of red. His expression hardened.

Right along with the others, I gaped at Heimdal. While I was processing his words to Odin, I started once again to notice the fine blond whiskers along his jaw and the cords in his neck. And the fact that his fingers still held lightly to my elbow. A tentative smile overwhelmed my near-tears.

A low chuckle drew my attention away from Heimdal.

Loki was staring at Heimdal, too. His eyes widened overdramatically, and his mouth curled into a parody of empathy.

“Yes, Allfather. Poor, poor Loki.” Loki minced the words into the most mocking tone I had heard yet from him. “If even the wool-headed Watcher manages to notice, then most certainly I’ve been wronged. It’s not as if the great and good Heimdal would refuse to speak up in defense of the innocent.”

My heart didn’t sink this time. It froze up and threatened to shatter.

No, Loki. Just keep your mouth shut for once?

Odin still looked toward Heimdal and me. One of his eyebrows twitched higher than the other. In the same moment, Heimdal’s fingers tightened on my arm. Both gestures clearly telegraphed silent I-told-you-so’s.

Loki’s gaze shifted from Heimdal to me. With my eyes, I begged him to silence and waited for the bitterness to smooth again from his face, as it had when I’d first come in.

His black eyes bored into me. Nothing about his expression smoothed. If anything, his sneer turned even sharper and brighter.

“They’re right you know, little rainbow. As I’ve warned you myself, I’m a wicked man.” Loki’s stare challenged me to cling to my belief to the contrary. “And I certainly don’t need you trying to reform me. Simpering child.”

My breath caught. The tears returned to my eyes. The disdain dripping from Loki’s voice cut as deeply as his words, tearing to shreds my certainty that he only needed understanding. My certainty about everything.

Loki leaned slightly forward. His next words drove across the room at me like physical blows. “Go play the compassionate Alfar negotiator somewhere else, Bivrost. I don’t need you.”

Even through my pain, I glimpsed Loki’s—a certain tightness around his eyes, a bitter undertone to his words. I grasped that he was less sincere in his insults than he was determined to drive me away.

I couldn’t find the strength to prevent him from succeeding. I gathered myself with as much dignity as I could muster. Then I turned and walked as calmly as I could from Valhalla, before the tears that everyone on Asgard regarded as weakness could begin to fall.