27

Six years past and worlds away

Heimdal’s grip on my hand was tight enough to be nearly painful. In an attempt to match his stride, I broke into a trot. My heart thudded faster than my footsteps, but that had mostly to do with the storm cloud expression hanging over Heimdal’s face. I had never seen him like this. Not even when I’d helped Loki escape his execution.

“Tell me what’s going on.” I’d asked already—twice. This time I left off the “please” and put all my effort into making it a command instead of a question.

“We can’t stop to talk.”

Same reply. Heimdal’s jaw clenched, but his pace never slowed.

Night stars spun over our heads, flickering past bare branches of the trees we ran beneath. A cold as brooding as Heimdal’s face whipped my skirts. We were far past the center of the city’s protective enclosure, surely approaching its outskirts.

Running. We are running, both of us. Why?

Heimdal led, but not toward any location I was familiar with. Not toward my bridge stone. Just, so far as I could tell, away. Just… away.

As abruptly as he’d burst into my house and dragged me from my bed, Heimdal stopped and wheeled around.

I pulled up short beside him. He took both my hands into his and stared into my eyes.

My heart thudded more quickly than it already had been. I was so wound up and confused that I couldn’t tell if that was due to the intensity of his gaze or from fear.

Heimdal’s fingers tightened around mine, hard enough that this time, it did hurt.

I inhaled sharply.

Fear.

“Open the way from Asgard.”

Truly frightened now by the urgency in Heimdal’s voice and eyes, I started to shake my head.

“I don’t understand—”

“We must go. Now.”

That stopped me cold, all other questions frozen on my tongue. “Go?”

“Now. From right here. I know you can.” Heimdal leaned closer, until his forehead all but touched mine. His face filled my vision. “Please. Please just do as I ask.”

“Where?” I asked. Why?

Heimdal didn’t hesitate. Whatever his reasons, he’d determined our destination before dragging me off into the woods.

Why had he dragged me into the woods? If we were going someplace, we could have left from the bridge stone clearing. From my house, even.

“The bridge stone in Midgard. The same one where you sent Loki.”

Heimdal didn’t let go of me. Both his hands stayed locked around mine, fingers strong around my wrists.

I fell still, trying to read Heimdal’s face. When I opened my mouth to ask more questions, he cut me off.

“Take us both,” he said. “Do it now.”

He wanted me to trust him. Look at all the things that had gone wrong when I hadn’t.

I steadied myself, drew in the light, and opened a way. Colors alternately brightened and dimmed around us, midnight blue and deepest green and ruby. Faster and faster, they sparked, until with a final brilliant flash, Asgard dissolved around us.

In its place, another darkness resolved. I could feel the difference between the worlds before I could see them. Midgard held a different weight than Asgard. More solid. Less cold and more humid. As my eyes acclimated, I glimpsed streaks of the aurora through branches woven overhead. Clouds skimmed in front of the colors, darkening them. Lightning lanced across the horizon. A heartbeat later, thunder rumbled.

“They call this city Grand Forks.” Heimdal still held my hands. Still held his face close to me. But tension reverberated through his voice. “The stone is in a park along the river.”

He hesitated. Gripped my fingers more tightly in his for a brief moment. Then he straightened, pulling his hands from mine and turning to face half away from me.

“If you walk that direction, you’ll leave the park. There’s a shelter. You can find…” He trailed off, as if his voice had failed him. “People will help you.”

Fresh alarm tingled up my spine. “People will… What are you talking about?”

Heimdal’s jaw worked again. At this rate, his teeth would be ground down to nothing.

This time, I reached for Heimdal. Taking his closest hand into both mine, I turned him toward me. I peered up into his face until finally he looked at me. Anguish rippled across the stony set of his expression.

“No one can follow us from Asgard. Not with me here.” I squeezed his hand. “Tell me what is going on.”

“Frigg has seen something.”

I frowned. Frigg with her fey ways was able to see a great many things. Sometimes the future. But not often.

“And?” I said, carefully, watching Heimdal’s face.

“The Betrayer will bring vengeance to the gates of Asgard.” Heimdal’s words were stilted, as though he quoted what Frigg had been said. “He will… He will use the Bridge to return to Asgard. Then he will kill the Watcher, and begin the war to end all the worlds.”

I stopped moving. Maybe I stopped breathing. The words rang through me, and I tried to make sense of them.

No. I made perfect sense of them. I just didn’t want to.

“The Betrayer. Loki. He will…” I felt the blood drain from my face. I looked around, suddenly afraid.

Loki was in Midgard.

We are in Midgard.

“We shouldn’t be here. What were you thinking?” I clutched harder at Heimdal, preparing to return us. “Loki could get to us here.”

“No!” Heimdal barked the order so sternly that I stopped what I was doing and stared at him. “You can’t do that. You can’t be in Asgard.”

A new thrill of alarm wound through me. Heimdal’s gaze shifted away from me.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Odin believes… He thinks you will allow Loki entry to Asgard. So that Loki can destroy us all—all the gods. All the worlds.”

Shock stilled my voice.

I’d wept over Loki. Even after he’d caused Baldur’s death, I’d insisted on pardoning him. I’d helped him escape certain death and sent him here to Midgard.

Odin had good reason to fear what I might do. I looked into Heimdal’s eyes and imagined I saw the same doubt in him.

Indignation swept through me. Compassion was one thing. Deliberately setting into motion the deaths of others—of the very end of the world?

“I wouldn’t do that.” I’d meant to snap the words at Heimdal. They came out a whisper.

“I know.” But Heimdal still wouldn’t meet my gaze. And a crack of something I couldn’t quite read ran through his voice.

He extricated his hand from mine and stepped back. His expression became that of the Watcher, Asgard’s guardian. Not of Heimdal, the man who might love me. I was abruptly reminded of things I’d managed to forget.

“The Aesir will always come first.”

But Loki lied. And Heimdal always told the truth.

“Walk the direction I told you.” Heimdal’s voice no longer cracked. It commanded. His face betrayed no emotion. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Heimdal?” I felt small, suddenly. And very, very alone.

His expression softened. He stepped toward me again, lifting both hands.

“Trust me,” he whispered. And then, “I’m sorry.”

With one hand, he touched my face.

In the other, he held something. I caught a glimpse of it, a faceted stone small enough to fit the palm of his hand. It should have caught the light, glinting like a prism. Instead, a darkness even greater than the night’s hung around it, an aura of non-light.

Heimdal lifted the crystal and pressed it against my temple.

Light flashed around me, faster and then too-fast. Colors bled like melting pigments, draining away from my vision. I grew weightless with loss and then too heavy. Pain crashed through my head.

My knees buckled. The last thing I saw was Heimdal’s face, his eyes filled with the colors he’d drained from me.

The next time I woke, I was inside. Bright lights and Midgard’s alien architecture surrounded me.

I was alone. Heimdal was gone.

So was my magic.