But I knew this beach, I realized with a bolt of shock that turned my entire body cold. I knew this place. This is the house Óðinn promised Vali in return for killing Loki. It’s the house where my husband was a child, where his mother Sigyn was so very faithful to his father.
That’s what Óðinn wanted, after all. It’s what he asked Vali to do: kill Loki, and you can come home. And now here I am, in this very house.
“I’m a trap,” I said.
Trap, said the echo of my solitary voice. -rap. -ap.
But that wasn’t exactly the truth. The house was the trap. Hell, Asgard itself was the trap, for all I knew.
I was just the bait.
My stomach surged in protest, and bile rose in the back of my throat. I had just enough time to think morning sickness before bending over and vomiting into the tangle of wild rose bushes.
“I’m pregnant,” I said, as if saying the words would somehow change the situation. “Pregnant, and bait in a trap. What the hell am I going to do?”
I wrapped my arms around my abdomen, cradling the small spark nestled within, that tiny, silvery life. All at once the answer was painfully obvious.
Because Níðhöggr was right. I was a fucking biologist, and I knew how babies were made. Half of this little life came from Níðhöggr, but if the dragon could make a baby alone, he would never have asked for women. No, he needed me, both my womb and my genetic material. That meant the baby growing inside me was my child too.
And I loved her already.
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth.
“Live,” I told the night. “I’m going to live.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“Shit,” I muttered to myself.
I’d been living in Asgard for over a month, and the way the afternoons faded so quickly to dusk still surprised me. After spending half the day under the heavy shade of the thick pine forest, I should have guessed I’d have trouble estimating the time. The sun was already hovering just above the slow, dark undulations of the Asgardian ocean. Frowning, I held my hand to the horizon, counting the fingers between the sun and the sea. Just my index and pointer. Damn, that meant I only had thirty minutes to make it home.
Home. I snorted under my breath. Funny how that little word adapts to fit the circumstances. Just one month ago I’d never have believed anywhere but my little house in Bozeman could be home. Now Asguard, and Vali’s childhood cottage, were not exactly home, but the closest I was going to get.
Gritting my teeth against the slow burning muscle cramps in my calves, I forced myself to walk as fast as I could without actually running. I couldn’t remember the exact wording of the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations about exercising while pregnant, but I thought the gist was don’t push yourself too hard. And something about not getting out of breath.
I huffed loudly. If I hadn’t been so distracted by that damn bird. Today was only the second time I’d seen that species, with its flash of brilliant blue beneath a drab gray underwing, and I couldn’t resist trying to sketch it. I’d followed it for hours through the forest, jotting down observations and making almost a dozen quick drawings. I wasn’t much of an artist, but for all I knew I might be the greatest wildlife biologist in all of Asgard. Snorting another laugh, I paused to adjust the shoulder strap of my leather bag, which was digging into my collarbone.
“My kingdom for a proper backpack,” I said, with a sigh.
Getting this shoddy shoulder bag had been a days-long struggle between me and the bedroom wardrobe. That damn wardrobe was slightly psychic, or at least able to sense my needs in very broad terms. But it seemed to lack imagination. For the first week, all it had given me was velvet dresses and what I guessed were embroidery supplies. Finally, I started standing in front of it with my eyes closed and concentrating very hard on exactly what I wanted.
A backpack, I told the wardrobe. A small, fabric bag with two shoulder straps and a clasp on top.
I opened the wardrobe and found brightly colored thread, hoops, and pale silk. Again, and again. Finally, I kicked the damn thing, hurting my toe in the process.
The shoulder bag arrived the next morning. That night I started asking for paper and pens. A black and white composition notebook. Ballpoint pens or, failing that, regular old number two pencils.
I finally got thin sticks of what must have been charcoal, and reams of thick, tea-colored parchment. Good enough for field work, I told myself.
Several leaves of the parchment were stuffed into the shoulder bag, which was currently cutting into my collarbone, next to the empty leather wine skin I’d filled with water this morning. I hadn’t planned to be gone all day, or I would have brought more than two biscuits from breakfast. Originally, I’d planned on mapping the far side of the river this morning, but then that damn bird alighted on a cattail, and my day took a totally different turn.
The thick, springy grass finally gave way to sand, and I sighed in relief. Almost home. I glanced at the sun, which was now burning red against the dark ocean. I’d been tracking the sunsets since my third day here, when I decided I had better do something other than cry and vomit if I was going to survive. In the past thirty-two days I’d spent on Asgard, I’d only missed two sunsets, and that was due to rain so heavy it obscured the light. I really didn’t want to mess up that streak.
The peaked thatch roof of the little cottage came into view, and I let myself slow down. My legs burned, and my stomach grumbled in protest.
“Sorry,” I murmured, rubbing my belly reflexively. “Dinner’s coming, little one.”
I risked another glance to the ocean. The sun hadn’t yet started to dip below the waves, so I had time to pull open the cottage’s heavy door and shrug off my bag. The candles on the kitchen table sprung to life as I stepped through the door, and the room filled with the smell of rich, roast meat. My mouth ached as I watched my plate fill with food. As always, it was accompanied by a glass of mead. I sighed. I was sticking with the American Academy of Pediatrics strict “no alcohol while pregnant” guidelines, but damned if I didn’t regret it every night. With another glance out the open door, I grabbed a roast carrot and nibbled it slowly, waiting to see how my stomach would react.
My first bite was met with a familiar wave of nausea. I took a few deep, steadying breaths. If I could make it through the first few bites without throwing up, I was usually in the clear.
My stomach contracted sharply, and bile rose in the back of my mouth. No such luck today. I sprinted across the kitchen and emptied the carrot, and what was left of breakfast, into the sink, coughing and gagging.
“Gross!” I said, splashing water over my lips. “Got it. You’re not a fan of carrots, baby girl.”
Feeling shaky and weak, like I always did after throwing up, I staggered across the kitchen and back out the door. I’d set up my observation post on top of the nearest dune, next to an enormous rose bush. The burning orange sun was halfway submerged in the ocean when I sank to my knees and then, after brushing away the twigs, lowered myself to my stomach, shifting slightly around the hard knot in my abdomen. I was still too early in the pregnancy to notice any external differences, but I could feel the hardening of my uterus when I lay like this.
“You get any bigger, baby girl, and I’ll have to dig a pit for my tummy,” I said.
I forced myself to settle down and align my gaze with the flat stone I’d buried here last month. Then, blinking frantically, I stared at the sun as I drew a straight line in the sand with my finger, connecting the position of the setting sun to the flat stone.
“Done.”
I pushed myself back up to sitting. The sun flickered once as it vanished beneath the waves, and I felt an unexpectedly strong pull of loneliness at the arrival of the night. Was this the worst time, then? Just after sunset?
“Stop it,” I muttered, shaking my head. “There’s still work to do.”
I’d left the door to the cottage wide open. The candles flickered happily just inside the o
pen door, making the place seem almost welcoming. Almost like something other than a pretty little trap, with me as the bait. I bit my lip, trying to think about something else. Like where I’d put the parchment tracking the sun’s motion.
“This place could use a bit more storage,” I told the kitchen as I rifled through the stack of papers on the counter. The kitchen smelled better than ever, and my now totally empty stomach groaned in protest.
“Not now,” I told my stomach.
There it was! I pulled one of the largest pieces of parchment from the stack. An array of dots, vectors, and dates lay scattered along the jagged top edge. Insects were singing from the rose bushes as I walked back to my observation post. I lay the parchment atop the flat stone, aligning the dark spot in the center of the parchment with the notch I’d made in the stone. Then I took my charcoal pencil and traced the line I’d made in the sand onto the paper. I dated it 1/31? and stood back, holding the parchment at arm’s length.
Even accounting for human error, my lines marking the sun’s descent marched steadily across the page. Each day, the sunset shifted about an eighth of an inch westward on the horizon. Without my phone, watch, or any other timepiece, it was hard to tell if the days were growing shorter, but this felt like irrefutable evidence that the axis of this planet was definitely tilted.
“And there you have it, baby girl,” I said, wrapping an arm around my belly. “I’ll have to submit my findings to the Asgardian Journal of Science. Maybe I’ll get another publication out of it.”
Smiling at my own stupid joke, I turned back to the candlelit cottage. Dinner was waiting.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
I ate slowly, partially to avoid another vomiting spell, and partially to fill my time. If I was being honest with myself, filling the time was the bigger challenge. During my first pregnancy I’d had my doctoral dissertation to finish, with the very real deadline of childbirth to inspire me. It seemed like every time I blinked, another trimester had flown by. But here on Asgard, I had exactly zero obligations.
I hated it. Feeling useless was fucking miserable. I’d spent my first week on Asgard huddled in a thick blanket, sitting on the beach as my body slowly healed. The scrapes and bruises closed and faded while I watched the ocean, the shifting lines of foam, the dance of the waves, and the brave little seagulls, diving into the cold and emerging with tiny, silvery fish in their beaks.
Once I could move without wincing in pain, I realized I had to find some way to fill my time before I went completely insane. First, I tracked the setting sun, trying to determine if its position on the horizon was static or in flux. Two days later, after the wardrobe provided some reasonable supplies, I started mapping.
I began with the beach. The mouth of a large river was about two hours’ walk from the cottage, and dedicated myself to mapping its progress. That was where I saw river otters for the first time. Transfixed, I spent an entire afternoon sitting on the broad banks of the slow, wide river, watching two otters leap and dive in the stony rapids.
That night I’d started another project: Asgardian wildlife inventory. The inventory was, by and large, quite satisfying. I’d noted almost one hundred species, mostly birds, and almost all of them were new to me. In lieu of any colored writing utensils, despite my repeated mental pleas to the wardrobe for pastels or oil paints or even a good old box of Crayola crayons, I had forced myself to pick up the discarded embroidery hoops and spools of colorful thread. I was halfway through a pathetic embroidered rendition of a strange orange and purple song bird which liked to hang out around the rose bushes. Sewing, I had to admit, wasn’t a bad way to pass the long evening hours between darkness and sleep, that time when the normal humans back on my world were doing the dishes, or watching TV, or reading a book.
Or making love.
My chest clenched. I set down my fork. The plate before me was still half-full, but my appetite had faded with the sunlight. I glanced at the windows, now filled with darkness and the strange, smudged reflections of candlelight, and a familiar stab of anxiety shot up my spine, making my heart race uselessly.
Yes, this was the worst time. This, and first thing in the morning, when I roll over in the bed I once shared with Vali and find myself alone. Again.
Goddamn it, I missed people. I missed hearing about Zeke’s bar fights, and telling Colin he’d have to take a shower at least once a week if I was going to let him teach the freshman biology lab. I missed my job. I missed—
“Stop it,” I said, slamming my palms down on the table. The plate jumped, then vanished.
“That’s all over and gone,” I hissed to myself. “Over. Gone.”
My voice fell flat in the empty room. I shivered. Not a great habit, talking to yourself. Almost as bad as letting myself think about Montana State University, or Zeke and Colin. It was almost February now, if time tracked here the same way it did in our world.
Almost February. I was halfway through the first trimester of my pregnancy, assuming a half-dragon gestated like a normal human baby. And I’d been entirely alone now for over a month.
I sank into the rocking chair by the hearth and closed my eyes. Well, not entirely alone. I’d seen Óðinn exactly once since he brought me to this very kitchen before enigmatically and somewhat rudely vanishing. It was just after I decided to map the coast. I’d walked south until I discovered the massive cliffs where, a lifetime ago, I had found Vali after Níðhöggr tortured him with memories of his brother.
That place sucked me in. I’d spent all afternoon pacing those great, dark cliffs, lost in a fog of despair. It was late at night when I finally found my way back to the cottage, and I’d crawled under the covers still in my clothes, trying desperately not to think about how terribly much I still loved Vali. The next day I was too nauseous and depressed to eat; I hardly left the bed. Some distant part of my mind began contemplating the best way to leap from the ocean cliffs, and I didn’t seem to be able to stop those images. How easy it would be to walk to the border where the green grass faded to a sheer, dark wall. And then to take one more step. A little step, even. Like a move in a dance.
Óðinn appeared in the bedroom that night, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. I screamed and jumped back so hard I bashed my head on the wall
“What the fuck?” I demanded, yanking the covers over my chest although I was still wearing the blue dress I’d put on the previous morning.
“You’re not eating.” Óðinn said. He frowned and folded his arms across his chest, looking like the world’s most disapproving father.
“I’m pregnant,” I growled through clenched teeth. “It’s called morning sickness, you fucking idiot.”
Óðinn pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. For a heartbeat, he looked like a very old man. Then, without warning, he vanished, leaving the air in the room swirling. As I stared at the empty space where he had been standing, my heart seized so violently I felt like a chasm had opened in my chest, a vast, dark crevasse of loneliness.
I sobbed until my entire body hurt. Sleep finally claimed me, curled up like a kitten in the heart of the great bed I had once shared with my husband. The nauseous churning in my stomach woke me hours later and forced me to vomit thin, acidic bile for twenty minutes before I could stomach any of the scrambled eggs, hard biscuits, and smoked fish the kitchen table offered me.
That night was the worst. My first night here was pretty bad. The second night, the night when I realized no rescue was coming, or even possible, was worse. But the night when Óðinn appeared and vanished, teasing me with the possibility of companionship, was the new record for Worst Night on Asgard.
I did not return to those cliffs. Once I started mapping the northern coast, and tracking the wildlife, it was slightly easier to forget those high walls, with their whispered promise of a swift, painless death. I curled an arm around my waist, pressing slightly to feel the ripening bulge of my uterus.
“Stop it,” I whispered to myself.
I had considered not eatin
g again, just to bring Óðinn back. But my thoughts hadn’t gone any further than idle speculation. Even if I did bring Óðinn back, what the hell could I say? Would I beg him to stay and chat with me for a few hours? To take me back to wherever it was he lived?
“Stop it,” I said again, more forcefully this time. The candles flickered slightly.
I bent over and grabbed the stupid embroidery supplies. Usually trying to do a freeform needlepoint of a new species took all my mental effort, leaving plenty little time for feeling sorry for myself or fretting over the impossibility of what came next. Squinting, I threaded my smallest needle with bright orange thread. The little bird had a brilliant orange chest with a purple-capped head. Right now, I was trying to fill in the breast, although it was already slightly lopsided. I jabbed my needle into the silky fabric, pulling the thread taut.
The candles on the table flickered again. I frowned. The windows were all closed. My skin crawled, shivering with the delicate prickle of electricity. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled.
“Hello?” I said.
The air in the room shifted, as if a door had opened behind me.
Loki stood before me, almost touching the kitchen table. His wild red hair fluttered and settled around his shoulders. His cold, blue eyes widened when they met mine.
“No!” I screamed, jumping to my feet. Spools of threads and embroidery hoops went flying. “Loki, it’s a trap!”
The air swirled. The candles sputtered. Thin gray wisps of smoke rose from the few candles whose flames had just vanished, overwhelmed by the sudden motion. My entire body shivered, and my skin felt like it wanted to crawl away from my body.
“Loki!” I screamed.
Another figure appeared behind Loki’s tall body. Loki’s pale eyes widened even further, and his lips parted silently. A bloom of red appeared in the center of his chest, spreading across the dark green fabric of his shirt. I stared, transfixed, as the green of Loki’s clothes turned black.
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