Goddess of Fate

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  Odin fed and entertained his army, and loved them like a father. In return they spent their days training in preparation for that final battle at the end of the world.

  It was a strenuous life, a manly life, as befitted a warrior in the almighty Odin’s army. Daily, after Luke had dressed and put on his war gear, he went out into the courtyard with his brother warriors, where they battled one another in one-on-one combat for sport and to keep in good practice for the ultimate fight. Odin looked on with his two ravens, Thought and Memory, perched one on each shoulder, and his two wolves, Geri and Freki, crouched on each side of him.

  Often the Allfather himself would lead the Einharjar through the skies on the Wild Hunt, mounted on his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, wearing a gold helmet and an intricate coat of mail and brandishing his spear, Gungnir.

  At night Luke and the other warriors sat in the dining hall at long tables and feasted from a boar which was cooked every night and every day was made whole again. The mead they drank came from the udders of the goat Heiðrún, who fed all day on the leaves of the tree Læraðr, and produced so much mead that it filled a vat large enough to satisfy all the warriors’ thirst.

  And it was the beautiful and tempestuous Valkyries who served the warriors their meat and mead and happily serviced other requests. The Valkyries were one of the great perks of the hall. Every warrior had his own personal Valkyrie; Luke’s was a dark-haired and fiery beauty, Valeria.

  Each day Luke used his whole body and cunning in the battle and the hunt; he enjoyed testing his power and strength to the limits and knew he was in the most superior fit. He was favored of Odin; he had all the food and drink and sport and pleasure he could ask for and the admiration of his fellows. All was exceedingly well.

  Yet there were times in the midst of the mead drinking and revelry and recounting of the day’s hunt that Luke would feel restless...and he would step outside the hall and look up at the moon...and it seemed to him that there had been another feeling once, some purpose. Sometimes he was even sure there had been something very important that he had been doing, or trying to do, and there was someone, too, someone important. If only he could remember...

  And then the hunt would be sounded and he would ride off with his brother warriors. Or Val would come bearing plates of meat and tankards of mead, her eyes glinting with promised delights, and the feeling would pass.

  But tonight Luke was feeling that restlessness, and he left the table to go out on the balcony and watch the sun set in waves of red and gold.

  Red and gold, like the shimmering hair of...

  Luke grasped at a thought that was just out of reach.

  Of who?

  There was a sense of a presence behind him and he tensed...until he felt soft hands on the back of his neck, kneading his shoulders, his biceps, with strong, experienced fingers. He felt himself dissolve with pleasure.

  He turned to see Val looking up at him from under those long, dark lashes. She wore a silver breastplate that bared her arms and the sides of her body, providing tantalizing glimpses of the lush swell of her breasts. She’d hooked her long skirt into her belt to show off her long, long legs. “I couldn’t find you,” she said in that throaty voice. She slid her arms around his waist and he could feel her fingers under his tunic, moving teasingly on the skin of his back. “You’re very quiet tonight.”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “What are you thinking?” she coaxed him.

  The problem was, Luke didn’t know what he was thinking. He was just feeling that something was missing.

  “Did you know me in Midgard?” he asked abruptly.

  Val’s fingers on his back paused slightly. “Of course I did. I was always watching over you. Why?”

  Luke moved out of her embrace and looked out at the sun glimmering on the horizon. “I don’t remember anything about it. It vexes me.”

  Val laughed lightly. “Oh, my lord. You don’t remember because there’s nothing much to remember. Midgard is a dreary and mixed-up place, easily forgotten.”

  Luke looked out at the sinking sun on the fields gleaming off the golden leaves of Glasir. “But I don’t remember myself.”

  “What does it matter? Here you are Odin’s favorite...and mine, as well.” She stepped close to him and brushed his lips with her fingers, parting them. “What more can you want?”

  She lifted the cup of mead to his lips.

  “Come and drink, and I will tell you what you are to me.”

  * * *

  The dark bowl of the cosmos was studded with the stars of a million galaxies above, and those same stars were reflected in the black water of the vast ocean below her. Aurora moved across the glowing white path arching across the eternal starry blackness from Midgard to Asgard. She had somehow made it onto the Bifrost, but she had been traveling forever, it seemed. As a mortal, or at least as someone who was turning into a mortal, she felt so heavy and clumsy, everything took so very much longer than it had when she wasn’t flesh.

  She was never going to get across the bridge in time. She wasn’t even sure that she might not just fall right through the bridge to the dark sea before she was halfway across. And time was running out.

  She stopped on the bridge, so luminous under the moon, looking at the vast and seemingly uncrossable length of it...and knew what she had to do.

  “Loki!” she called, looking out over the cosmos. “Loki, I need you!”

  Her voice echoed back to her from the starry blackness, and she felt frightened and alone.

  She turned to call again, and gasped. The trickster was right behind her, hands on his hips, grinning with that maddening grin.

  “I always knew eventually you’d see reason,” he preened.

  “I need your help,” she clarified quickly.

  The look on his face changed and he studied her, perplexed. “Are you ill? It almost seems...” He stopped.

  “I’m mortal, Loki,” she said softly. “I’m turning mortal.”

  A stunned look flashed across his face, which he quickly covered. “It certainly looks that way,” he said, and circled her, looking her over. “You are a mess, aren’t you? Those human bodies don’t hold up well.” He shook his head. “But you got this far, I’ll give you that. Relentless is what you are.”

  She didn’t bother to argue with him. She looked behind him, toward Asgard. “Is he there?”

  He waved a hand dismissively. “Of course he is. Isn’t Valhalla where those gloriously slain in battle go? Or is that ‘slain in glorious battle’? I can never keep it straight.”

  “I don’t see the glory,” Aurora muttered.

  “You haven’t the warrior spirit, love. It takes a certain—” he paused, ostentatiously searching for the right word “—thickheadedness to appreciate the finer points of mead drinking, gaming, fighting and whoring.”

  She turned to him, resolute. “I need to see him. I need to get in.”

  “Aurora, he’s dead,” Loki said, surprisingly gently for him. “He chose. He went out valiantly, but once he made his choice to die, Val had every right to take him.”

  “But my day isn’t over yet,” she said desperately. “The Eternals gave me a day. I still have until dawn. He could choose again.”

  “Hmm. That’s an interesting loophole,” Loki admitted. “Clever girl. It might just work.”

  “Only I can’t even cross the Bifrost in this...condition.” She gestured vaguely to her body.

  Loki raised an eyebrow. “I see the problem. I’m just not sure I can do anything about that.”

  “I don’t want anyone to do anything about it,” she said with fire. “I’ll be human if it means I can be with Luke. I just need to get to Valhalla. I know you can help.”

  “Even if I could, you seem to have forgotten that he won’t remember you. None of the slain ever do. Odin makes sure of that—the Valkyries keep them drunk and happy so they’ll be there to fight in the end with no pesky distracting thoughts about love or goodwill or perpetuating
the species or some such nonsense. He hasn’t been here a day, but he already feels like he’s been here forever.”

  “If I can just see him, talk to him, I know he’ll recognize me.” Even as she said it, Aurora was remembering how long it took Luke to remember her in mortal life. But she pushed that thought away. “Please, Loki?”

  Loki pretended to think about it, taking his time in a way that made Aurora want to shake him, but instead she stood meekly and patiently, until he brightened as if just struck by inspiration. The big fake, she thought.

  “I have a plan.”

  “Oh, Loki, thank you,” she gushed insincerely.

  “Of course, I’ll need a favor of you.” He shrugged. “Not now, no time soon, really, but at some point.”

  “A favor,” Aurora repeated suspiciously. “What kind of favor?”

  Loki tried to look innocent and failed utterly. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. So to speak.”

  Aurora didn’t like it but she didn’t have much time, and consequently not much choice.

  “All right,” she muttered.

  “Stand back, then.”

  Loki shimmered, and became larger, his legs and arms thinning and elongating and his body thickening. His nose lengthened into a snout, and his hair grew to a mane, and when the shimmering and shifting ceased, a magnificent white horse stood before her. It ducked its head and Aurora mounted, holding fast to its mane, and the horse kicked up its heels and galloped across the bridge, toward the huge shining disk of the moon.

  The motion was rhythmic and exhilarating as they rode over the moon bridge, across the universe, with the infinite stars all around. Aurora breathed in with sheer pleasure. It was magical, and suddenly she felt a pang.

  As if he knew what she was feeling, the horse nickered softly.

  “This is what you’re giving up, you know. No mortal will ever experience any sight the likes of this. Is it worth it?”

  “Luke makes me feel this way every moment,” she said softly.

  “Oh, my, you do have it bad.” He whinnied and galloped on.

  As the horse came in sight of Heimdallr’s guardhouse, the horse slowed and stopped, and Aurora scrambled down as she felt it start to shift again.

  In an instant, Loki stood before her, smoothing his tunic and his hair. “You should go in on your own. Best not to let the Aesir know I was in on this, don’t you think? Might not help your cause.”

  He was right; Loki had long-standing feuds with too many of the gods to keep track of.

  “Thank you, Loki,” she said, and meant it.

  “My pleasure,” he said as suggestively as if she’d ridden him in an entirely different way. And then he vanished.

  She stepped through the shimmering darkness at the horizon line and into the gatehouse of Heimdallr. The god stood from the throne of the guardhouse, his gold armor gleaming, and began his customary bow. “My lady...”

  And then he stopped, midbow, and the look on his face was so shocked that Aurora realized that she really was changing; anyone could see now that she was not what she had been.

  Heimdallr looked stricken. “I’m afraid I cannot let you pass, my lady. Mortals are not allowed in Asgard.”

  Aurora felt a spike of fear. She had to get through.

  “But I have come this far...”

  “Not on your own, I venture,” he said sadly, with a hint of reproach. “I am very sorry, but you cannot pass.”

  Aurora suddenly recalled the last time she had stood at this gate, and the way the guard’s face had softened when he looked at Lena.

  “I see how you look at my sister, sentry,” Aurora said suddenly, and was rewarded by the startled look on his face. She moved closer, spoke urgently.

  “I feel the same way about the mortal who has recently passed through your gates. I love him. I must go to him. The rules can’t keep us apart. I beg this of you—let me pass.”

  Heimdallr looked very far away. He was silent for so long Aurora feared the worst. Then he sighed and gestured with a hand, ushering her through the guardhouse to the other side. Aurora walked with him quickly, her head buzzing.

  He hesitated at the guardhouse door. “Fortune be with you,” he said gravely.

  “I thank you,” she said, feeling light with relief.

  She stepped through the arch of the guardhouse door into a bloodred sunset.

  Just sunset in Asgard. I have the evening. The realization gave her a rush of hope.

  She stood inside the gates, looking out at the gleaming golden splendor of Valhalla. The tree Glasir with its red-golden leaves was a thing of exquisite beauty, but Aurora had never liked the palace—not that she’d spent much time there or wanted to. It always seemed foreboding.

  She was just working up her nerve to go forward when she heard a voice right next to her ear. “Aurora.”

  She turned...and was stunned to see Luke was right there, leaning against a tree, his long and perfect body just as she remembered, almost more handsome in the heavy warrior leathers and armor.

  Her breath stopped in her chest as he straightened and looked at her, as if struck senseless by her presence.

  “My goddess, it’s you,” he said in that deep and thrilling voice. “How I’ve missed you.”

  But already Aurora knew something was wrong. There was a cockiness there that wasn’t Luke, not her Luke, who was confident but never arrogant. Could he have changed so much in the afterlife? she wondered with a sinking heart.

  And then as he put his arms around her and bent to kiss her neck, she knew from the first touch: he wasn’t Luke at all. “Loki,” she said, and pushed him away hard. “Take that off this second.”

  Luke/Loki looked injured. “I’m only here to help, love,” he said, and it was so strange and wrong to hear that trickster voice coming from Luke’s face that she felt she was going to cry. “You don’t think you’re going to get him away from Val without some help, now do you? Someone’s going to have to distract her somehow. And what better distraction than this?”

  Aurora stopped to consider this. Infuriating as it was to acknowledge, he was right.

  Loki must have sensed her caving because he said, “Admit it, you were fooled there, at first.”

  “All right,” Aurora said finally, knowing she was going to regret it. “Just...just be careful.” She started off again, and heard his voice behind her.

  “Aren’t you forgetting a tiny detail?”

  She turned back to him.

  He was smirking. “Only Valkyries allowed in the hall, you know that.”

  Aurora’s heart dropped. He was right. “So you’re going to have to glamour me,” she said.

  Loki feigned shock. “Another favor? So soon?”

  “It’s such a little thing, Loki.”

  “Glamouring? Is a little thing?”

  “It’s a little thing for you. You can do it,” she said as sweetly as she could manage given that she was boiling with impatience.

  He looked her over, his eyes lingering to the point that she turned away, and he laughed. “I guess it might be fun to see you as a Valkyrie. Bring out that dominatrix side. All right. Here’s what we’ll do.”

  Chapter 20

  The mead had done its job and Luke was caught up in the spirit of the hall once more. The day’s hunt had been good; Luke loved racing his steed across the sky, the earthy sensation of being one with a magnificent beast, and the freedom of flight. All the men were in good spirits, and the more freely the mead flowed, the grander the memories of the hunt became.

  Luke’s brother warriors sprawled at long plank tables and benches. Musicians played a rowdy tune and Valkyries in their breastplates and riding skirts circulated among the men, draping themselves over shoulders and plopping down on laps. They fed their warriors the good roast meat with their fingers and licked the foam of mead from their lips. The whole hall was illuminated by the roaring fire in the house-size hearth, and glimmering swords hung from the rafters; some even shimmered in m
idair.

  Luke gazed around him at the revelry and thought that his life couldn’t be more perfect.

  Except for whatever it was that was missing. He frowned.

  But before he had time to think on that, Val had wound herself around him.

  “You must be starving,” she purred with all the double entendre she could muster.

  “I could eat,” he agreed.

  She pushed him slowly back on the bench and straddled his legs as she offered a plate heaped with steaming meat, taking up a juicy morsel to feed him.

  He ate from her fingers, and she looked down on him, gleaming dark eyes, shimmering dark hair. It couldn’t be more clear what Val was intending for dessert. And suddenly Luke felt...what he felt was irritated and a little lost. It was all such a given. Why didn’t he feel satisfied? He felt...

  Lonely.

  * * *

  Aurora slipped through the vast corridors of Valhalla, following the distant roar of voices toward the feast hall. She felt like—well, Loki was right. A cross between a dominatrix and a slut, in a breastplate that somehow managed to look like a corset and skirts that clung to her thighs and revealed flesh in long, enticing slits. But she did look like a Valkyrie, on the outside at least.

  Glimmering swords lit the passageways around her. The rafters above her were fashioned of spear shafts. Instead of tapestries and paintings, the walls were hung with shields emblazoned with war stories, and Aurora grimaced as she passed them. She found the pervasive warrior theme excessive and troubling. Valhalla literally meant “the Hall of the Slain.” Everything about it was so warlike.

  But it’s like Luke’s heroic fantasy, isn’t it?

  She remembered Val’s words again, and felt a chill. The whole Gladiator thing, in the flesh.

  Maybe this is where he wants to be.

  * * *

  Inside the dining hall Val took Luke’s cup from him and drank a deep drought of mead. When she raised her head her lips were shining and wet. Luke knew she was aware of the effect she was creating.

  “You were magnificent out there today,” she said.