5

The city Asgard contained a multitude of palatial halls, constructions of sweeping rune-carved stone arches and soaring rafters. Deep carpets covered the floors. Heavy tapestries woven in dark, rich jewel tones covered the walls. The halls stood in a great circle around a central clearing, where the age-darkened branches of the Yggdrasil reached gnarled fingers toward the icy sky-dome.

The largest of those halls was Valhalla, which, of course, belonged to Odin. Inside Valhalla’s great dining hall, rushes covered the floor instead of carpets, but the tapestries were finer than any others. The carved wood High Seat belonging to Odin sat a man’s height taller than the benches and tables lining the main floor.

A handful of days after I’d taken him to Alfheim’s ruins, the Allfather sat in his High Seat and stared down at me.

He was still the most intimidating being I had ever faced. There was a weight to Odin—to all the residents of Asgard—that I had yet to become accustomed. The people of this world were truly physically taller and broader, that was part of it. But everyone in Asgard seemed more substantial when compared to the Alfar.

Because we are creatures of light.

Had been. We had been creatures of light. The others were all dead.

The thought brought pain, but it was a dull pain, as if the cutting of grief had left my emotions protected by callouses. The icy calm which had reached into me when I finally understood that my family was dead had remained.

From Valhalla’s sparring grounds outside, a clash of weapons and ferocious cries drifted in. Inside the shield-lined walls, a hush currently resided.

Wooden benches lined the hall, but the Aesir in the room stood instead of sitting. Most of them, like Odin, wore day-to-day clothing. Colors ranged from sapphire to emerald to ruby, but none of them filled my eyes as fully as the colors of Alfheim. These colors did not dazzle. They resonated, but not as deeply as the colors of the Alfar did.

Had.

Golden hair and ruddy cheeks further marked the Aesir as different from my people. The Alfar were wisps of people, with creamy complexions and white-gold hair.

Had been. Had been pale, had been wisps, had been people.

Frigg sat beside Odin, regal even though her dress was a plain dove gray that seemed faded in comparison to the other hues in the room. Unlike Odin and his steel-hued braid, Frigg’s tresses had gone a gleaming white. Her eyes, as blue as any other Asgardian’s, were bright and sharp in an age-rounded variation of Asgard-strong features.

Despite Frigg’s hardy Asgardian features, there was an ethereal nature to her, a fey look in her eyes. With her magic, she could look into any of the Nine Worlds. Sometimes, she even caught glimpses of the future.

Frigg didn’t look at me, standing alone in front of Odin, but I felt her attention.

I felt the attention of everyone in the room.

Baldur stood alongside the High Seat, on his mother’s side. Frigg leaned slightly forward and murmured something down at him. The smile with which he returned her remark seemed to me to be filled with respectful adoration for his mother. Obviously, Baldur was the good son.

Thor stood on the opposite side, with a brittle, golden beauty of a woman alongside him—that would be his wife, Sif. I hadn’t expected her to be so attractive. That Thor would even think to wander struck me as absurd.

Even in this non-martial setting, both of Odin’s sons wore mail shirts and warhammers, although given the amount of decorative bronze and even gold that adorned both, they were more ceremonial than practical.

I stood alone in the very center of the hall, too far from Odin to feel anchored by him even if he hadn’t been too intimidating to offer any comfort. I wore a simple broadcloth robe of deep blue, with no waist and no skirts to make it seem fuller. The scratchy fabric hung straight from my shoulders and felt ten times heavier than the silk I’d have worn at home. Fur-lined slippers protected my feet from the chill floor.

All those gods arrayed around the room stared. At me. Surrounded by their glorious stature, I felt small and insubstantial, a timid peek of moonlight at full noon.

Near Thor, on Sif’s far side, stood Heimdal. I hadn’t seen Heimdal since he’d asked me to take Odin to see the ruins of Alfheim. Not since Odin had sent him off to handle his regular duties, whatever those were. Now, Heimdal stood there like a beam of winter sunlight. His hair, tousled as if he’d come in from outside only moments before, was a little lighter than Thor’s. Heimdal’s resembled the color of straw in the field.

Heimdal watched the center of the hall, staring as unrelentingly as the other Aesir. His expression was purely somber, without a trace of the smile I’d glimpsed when I first met him.

Before my world blew up.

Now that I had my wits more about me, I felt vaguely guilty that I hadn’t thanked Heimdal for saving me from the fire. In truth, I remained unconvinced that he’d done me any favors. The memory of all I’d lost crowded around me, like ghosts sucking the warmth from my limbs and the air from my lungs.

“You have traveled far, child.” Odin spoke suddenly, startling me even though I’d been waiting for him to speak. His voice boomed, but it was not unkind.

I dragged my attention away from Heimdal and stared at Odin through a fog of lingering grief, unsmiling.

Odin lifted one hand, palm out. “Sadly, not even we can bring back what once was. Alfheim has been destroyed. You are the last of the Alfar.”

Had his words been a surprise, perhaps a shocked murmur would have rolled through the onlooking gods. As it was, the same chill silence remained. The fog of numbness surrounding me remained, too, as if the quiet judgment of the watching gods were ice that encased me.

Odin raised his other hand and turned it palm up as well. “This will become your home, now. You will become a child of Asgard.”

Odin paused and waited expectantly, as if his declaration should have stirred some emotion in me.

A child of Asgard. What should I feel?

Gratitude. I should feel gratitude now. I should express it.

I’d been raised to have manners. But instead of thanking Odin, I risked a glance away from his one-eyed gaze.

People filled the room. Golden braids. Pink cheeks. Blue eyes, although variations of sky blue and not the indigo of my people. The eyes of my people held midnight and stars and the dancing colors of the aurora within them.

None of those non-Alfar eyes met mine. They either watched Odin or returned their gaze to him when I looked their way. Only Heimdal didn’t lower his eyes, but neither did he smile.

I wasn’t one of them. I never would be. I was a lingering ghost of a people who existed no more.

When I returned my gaze to Odin, his eyes had narrowed and his expression flattened.

Judging my thoughts from my face. I should at least try to appear gracious.

I couldn’t think of a thing to say, but I forced a glimmer of a smile.

In response, Odin’s mouth tugged up at the corners. He seemed slightly less terrifying, then.

“To mark the solemnity of this moment, we will gift you with an Asgardian name.” Odin’s voice never held anything less than pure command, but I imagined it had softened around the edges. “In light of your particular gifts, you will be known as ‘Bivrost.’“

Bivrost. “A glimpse of rainbow.”

The name was appropriate enough. Lovely, even. Despite that, and despite Odin’s title of Allfather and his obvious attempt to be kind—or at least generous—something new sparked in my chest. This new something was as sharp and fierce as the grief that had claimed me during my first few days in Asgard, but more immediate. Heat flooded my face.

That is not my true name.

Hadn’t I lost enough already—now they wanted to take more from me?

A breath gathered in my lungs. Before I could blurt out my objection, though, the solemn set of Odin’s face triggered my sense of reason.

He thought he was bestowing an honor. He saw this new name as a gift, not as a taking-away of the old.

Around the circle of gods, eyes darted and heads turned. Some exchanged glances. Others merely stared at me. All of them waited to see what I would say.

Papa had sometimes slipped and referred to Alfheim by its name from the older days, the days before our world had joined the Nine Worlds. When called on it, he would only shrug it off.

We are who we are, whatever they name us.

That thought brought with it a grounding warmth. I felt suddenly stronger than I had in days.

So I straightened my back and lowered my chin in as dignified a bow of my head as I could manage.

“Allfather.” I spoke the honorific as sincerely as I could. These are not my people. They never will be. But they were what I had left. “I am honored.”

A fresh round of exchanged glances swept the room, accompanied this time by a quiet murmuring. I dared to hope the Aesir sounded approving.

When I lifted my head, still no one would meet my gaze. Odin’s eyes had again narrowed. His mouth pressed into an odd line. Perhaps I hadn’t said quite the correct thing, after all.

“Heimdal.” Odin turned one hand and beckoned without looking.

Off to the side of Odin’s High Seat, Heimdal’s head lifted. His face turned toward Odin. After a second’s hesitation, he strode forward, a lean form in silver and black. The horn that hung from his belt curled against his hip as if made for it.

Despite the cloud of numbed emotion that wrapped me, my breath caught at the grace of Heimdal’s form and movement. Immediately, I chided myself. My world had just died. Was I no better than Thor?

“As a ward of Asgard, Bivrost will require a guardian.” Odin lowered both hands and turned his head as Heimdal stepped forward.

Heimdal glanced toward me. Our eyes met only briefly. No smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. In the days since Alfheim burned, I’d had little room for any rational thought. But I wondered now if Heimdal’s warmth that first hour or so of our meeting had been no more than a fluke—an idle and momentary attraction. Or maybe he’d been less flirting with me than teasing me.

Whatever kindness Heimdal had shown since, it likely had more to do with me being the only remaining bridge than in any personal interest.

Heimdal’s shoulders pulled back as he turned toward Odin. He planted his feet and tipped his head to one side.

“Allfather?” For all his athletic beauty, Heimdal’s voice was quiet, low like the rumble of a sleepy bear. But it was all business. No sunshine touched his words today.

“Bivrost is the last of the Alfar. She alone holds the power to open the way into and out of Asgard.” Odin paused, as if allowing the importance of his words to sink in.

The last of my kind. They need me.

“She requires a guardian, someone to see to her living arrangements and teach her our ways. You carried her from Alfheim.”

In truth, I had carried Heimdal. I had opened the way. An odd feeling settled over me, tentatively rebellious.

If Heimdal was thinking what I was thinking, he didn’t say it out loud. He kept his silence as Odin finished speaking.

“The honor of duty should fall to you. Will you take the task upon yourself?”

Odin may have placed his words into the pattern of a question, but I doubted anyone in the room heard it as such.

A guardian. Did they think I couldn’t take care of myself?

A formality. I don’t know their world yet. They don’t know me.

Even so, Heimdal turned his head to once again look toward me. This time, his gaze locked with mine and didn’t dart away. Even from a distance, I could see how very blue his eyes were.

Sapphire blue. A deeper shade of sky, not at all like my own.

“I will.” No emotion inflected Heimdal, voice or face. He spoke as somberly as an obedient student.

Odin smiled, an oddly satisfied turning of his mouth. I couldn’t imagine he’d entertained any doubt that Heimdal would agree.

Or that I would, for that matter. I was struck anew by the realization that my old life was gone. This new one was not mine, and I had little control over it.

They’re taking me in. Welcoming me. This was not home, but maybe it wouldn’t be terrible. Maybe it would be all right.

Lurking grief surged anew into my chest. Tears rose behind my eyes.

Nothing will ever be all right again.

Odin stood and made a sweeping gesture with his arms. “Welcome, Bivrost. I hope you will come to consider us family.”

No murmur swept the room, no voices swelled to welcome me. Heads bowed and nodded in my direction, but still the Aesir did not look directly at me. Did they fear me? Consider me somehow less than they?

They need me.

Or maybe they were merely uncomfortable in the presence of my grief. That was, all things considered, an understandable reaction.

“You must give people the benefit of the doubt. It is our way.”

Our way. The way of Alfheim’s ruling council, the way of my father. And now, I supposed, it would have to become my way. I was the only one left to carry it forward.

Only as the hall began to empty did the Aesir speak amongst themselves, murmurs accompanied by the rustling of wool cloaks and tromp of booted feet on the plank floor. The gods who had crowded among the benches began to disperse.

Odin stood, preparing to step down from his High Seat. Taking her cue from him, Frigg stood as well. Immediately, Baldur stepped forward and offered his mother a hand down the short steps. Then he took her arm and escorted her to join the others who were departing.

Odin paused long enough to say something to Heimdal that I didn’t hear and to which Heimdal only nodded. Then Odin followed his wife and son from the great hall.

Heimdal remained motionless a moment longer, still staring toward me from beside the High Seat.

“Perhaps it won’t be as bad as you think.” The voice came from beside me, pitched low. I turned my head.

The man beside me had hair the color of shadowed rubies, and his eyes were black. It was as if a piece of darkest night had wandered into this golden realm. Where the other Asgardian faces were ruddy and square-jawed, his features were dusky and sharp.

Jotun. Alarm crackled beneath my numb resignation. My eyes widened.

The Jotun’s mouth quirked into a hint of a smile, a bitter-looking thing. He leaned closer.

“You’re not the only ward of Asgard who is not like the others.” The bitter smile canted up on the other side. The lines around his dark eyes softened into something that resembled sympathy. Or perhaps sadness. “Take heart, little rainbow. You’re not completely alone.”

“Iris.”

This voice was not pitched low. It carried firmly, straight at me. I glanced toward the man who accompanied it, broad-shouldered and golden and obviously perfectly at home in Asgard.

As Heimdal strode toward me, he glanced at the Jotun beside me. A frown creased his handsome face.

“Should you ever need a sympathetic ear, come looking for Loki.” Loki tilted his head and raised a single eyebrow. “You can find me dodging the blame for everything that ever goes wrong around here.”

Loki’s smile quirked again, that strange, sad curve of his thin lips. Then he slipped away, darting one quick look in the direction of the approaching Heimdal.

Loki.

He was Jotun. I should fear him. And yet, in spite of speaking with him for less than a single minute, I felt an odd kinship with him.

He’d seemed as lost as I felt.