Something exploded nearby and Troy was instantly alert and covering my body with his. I lifted my head and fear constricted my heart at the sight of the Dark Elves in the doorway. Troy stood up and aimed a gun at them. I had no idea where he had pulled it from, but it gave me a moment to reach under the couch and grab my sword.
“You can’t fight us and win,” one of the Elves said with amusement.
“Never know until you try,” I told them and twirled my sword. Inside I was terrified, but I didn’t want them to know that so I was borrowing Loki’s ego for a moment.
They ran forward and Troy shot two of them in the chest. They screamed in pain and stumbled backwards and a third charged me. I sliced into his stomach and he bellowed as the blade burned his flesh. I cut them a few more times and managed to cut off one of their hands, but they were so much faster than me.
“Loki! Thor!” I yelled as I fought against them. Two ran at Troy and overpowered him, taking the gun from him. I tried to attack them, but they grabbed me and forced me to drop the sword.
“Alys!” Troy yelled.
“Let’s go,” one of the Elves said.
“Don’t hurt him!” I demanded.
“We don’t care about this pitiful mortal,” the Elf holding me said. “We’ve got what we want.”
I struggled against their hold, but they were too strong. If only I had powers like the Aesir. If only I wasn’t a mortal. Before I could say anything else to Troy, they transported me to Svartálfaheimr. It was a cold and desolate place that was fitting to the cold, heartless Dark Elves. I felt the coldness creeping into my body and before I could gasp, they chained me to a wall and the frost covered me and froze me in place. They didn’t speak to me and as one, left me alone in the room. The room had one door on each side and there were no windows to let in any light or warmth. It was dark, musky, and cold and it felt too much like a tomb for my comfort.
The leader of the Dark Elves entered and stared at me. It was the one who had come to Asgard. “So, you’re the mortal the Aesir hold affection for? Why? What is it about you that makes you worthy of their attention? They’ve never given a mortal attention before or since. And how was it possible for you to resist my order?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. I was actually hoping he knew how I was able to resist his order.
My breathing slowed, as did the beating of my heart. I was worried I would die, but the elves needed me alive. Didn’t they? I hoped so. I really didn’t want to die.
“You have a gift, I can sense it, but it’s not anything strong. Why else then? Why would Odin bring a mortal to Asgard?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” I told him slowly as I worked to get each word out. “He never explained why I was brought to Asgard. He never told me anything other than my parents were killed and he didn’t want me to die too.” My chest hurt. It hurt to talk. It hurt just to breathe in this cold.
“This is a quandary indeed,” he said and seemed highly amused.
“Why is this a quandary?” I asked.
“Because I can’t kill you or we lose you as our bargaining chip and it would just incur their wrath, but I feel that I shouldn’t keep you alive either. If you are somehow special and I allow you to live, then you might come back and kill us or give the Aesir the power they need to rule over the nine worlds.”
“I don’t have a strong power. I don’t have any power,” I whispered to him.
“Lies.”
“Truth. I was raised with them and beaten by Sif almost daily. I don’t have any power. If I had power I wouldn’t have taken the beatings.” Even though I understood Sif now and I felt nothing towards her except friendship, I still would have gone back and protected myself better if I knew how.
“The girl doesn’t even know her power. How amusing.”
“I’m glad to be of service to you,” I snarled.
“Oh, and she has a temper. That would most likely be from too much time with the Trickster.”
“Or perhaps it’s from living with the Aesir who will come here and slaughter you, so I know I have nothing to fear from you.” I was actually terrified, but my death might be the best thing for everyone else.
He snarled and wrapped a hand around my throat. “You would be wise to keep your tongue in check. I might decide that I can keep your body hidden from them and end your life before I have to worry about what power you might hold.”
“I don’t have powers,” I told him again. “I don’t know why you think I do, but I don’t.” I wasn’t sure where my mental strength was coming from because I would have thought I would be a sniveling wreck at the moment, but instead I just met his gaze. Could it be from Loki’s darkness? Was it allowing me to be so bold and strong?
He released me and said, “We’ll see what the future holds for you, Alys of Asgard.”
I relaxed and wished that Loki was here with his flames to heat me up. Or that I could be back on the couch with Troy. Poor Troy must be frantic right now with no way to find me or travel across the worlds. Hopefully Loki and Thor wouldn’t kill him for failing to protect me. I felt the darkness calling to me and wondered what it could do. Could it help me escape? Or would accessing it while confined just allow it to take over? And even if I broke free of this freezing wall, what then? I couldn’t win in a fight against the Dark Elves. Plus, I had no way of returning to Midgard or even Asgard. What if the Aesir refused to meet their demands and I died here? I didn’t want to die alone. I didn’t want to die at all. I still had so much of my life left and yet here I was chained to a wall in Svartálfaheimr when I should have been cuddling with Troy on Midgard.
“You seem sad,” a Dark Elf whispered as he approached from my left. He was much smaller than the leader, but there was no mistaking the darkness that consumed him. “Don’t worry girl, we won’t harm you, unless the Aesir try to play hardball.”
“They’ll kill you,” I whispered.
“They won’t attack us and risk your death. They’ll meet our demands to get you back.”
“They’ll attack you and if you kill me, they’ll torture you.”
“You seem pretty sure of yourself. How do you know these gods will even care what happens to a single mortal?”
“Because I’m Alys of Asgard,” I told him, “and my father will come for me.”
“Your father? Odin is not your father, girl. You’re born of two Midgard mortals.”
“He raised me and he claimed me as his own. That means more than who I was birthed from.”
“You don’t know how long I have waited to hear those words,” Odin said from behind the Elf. He killed the Elf before he even turned around and walked up to me. “Daughter, what have they done to you?”
“Told me I needed to chill out until you came,” I joked.
He waved his hand and the ice disappeared, freeing me from the wall. I collapsed into his arms and he pulled off the wolf pelt he wore around his shoulders to wrap around me. “Are you injured?” he asked.
“No, just cold and very tired.”
“Here, give me the child,” Jord ordered Odin. He obeyed, handing me over to the goddess who was scowling. “I’m very upset with you, Alys.”
“I’m sorry, Jord,” I whispered.
“Lectures later, Mother,” Thor said. “We need to get her to safety.”
“Thor!” I called happily, although with a weak voice.
He smiled at me and asked, “Did you think I wouldn’t come for you?”
“I thought you might be beating up Troy for failing to protect me.”
“We contemplated it,” Loki said. “But what could a mortal do against a Dark Elf? We knew that it was simply beyond his abilities.”
“Plus, it would have wasted time that we could have used to find you,” Thor added.
“How did you find me?” I asked the group of gods in the room with me.
“I had a vision,” Heimdall said as he stepped into the room carrying the head of a Dark Elf.
“Hei
mdall,” I greeted him cheerfully. I realized that greeting a friend warmly while he held another being’s head was not something the mortals would consider sane
“Lie still so I can heal you,” Jord ordered me. She pressed her hands to my chest and warmth began to seep into my body.
“What kind of vision?” I asked him.
“I saw you hanging in chains in a dungeon and a Dark Elf torturing you.”
“Thankfully that wasn’t happening yet,” I muttered. I didn’t think I could have survived the cold and torture.
“Although the wrath that would have caused from The All Father would have been something glorious to witness,” Jord said with a smile.
“Why aren’t you out there fighting them?” I asked.
“The others are fighting them. We came to secure you,” Loki said. It seemed odd that they would all come to find me if they knew where I was and we all knew that it didn’t require more than one or two of them at most to rescue me.
“Did you know that the humans have a movie where Thor is part of a team that protects Midgard and Loki is a bad guy who keeps trying to usurp Odin? And Heimdall is a very very dark-skinned man?” I asked them all.
Heimdall laughed loudly. “Dark-skinned? How could that detail have been so wrong?”
I shrugged. “Not sure.”
“And why would I try to usurp Odin? I don’t want to rule Asgard. Do you know how tedious that is?” Loki asked with a look of disgust on his face.
“No, you would rather go off and start wars for me to try to stop and give me work,” Odin said with a scowl.
“A team to protect Midgard, huh? That sounds boring,” Thor said.
“In the movie, there are lots of bad guys with superpowers like you gods. I didn’t get to finish the movie because the Dark Elves attacked, but it was pretty good. Thor and Loki were very handsome.”
Thor and Loki straightened their shoulders and Jord laughed softly next to me. “Of course they would be handsome. Our boys are very handsome.”
“And what about me?” Sif asked as she walked into the room splattered with black blood and holding a blade that dripped with Dark Elf gore.
“You’re described as the Goddess of War and fight alongside Thor to help him with his…” I stopped talking because I realized what happened in the movie was too close to comfort. Thor dating a mortal caused issues with him in Asgard. It felt like confirmation that we couldn’t be together.
“Help me with what?” Thor asked.
“Help you protect someone,” I said vaguely.
“I might have to watch this…movie,” Thor said.
“Children,” Odin said, “let’s focus.”
“Yes, let’s go kick some Dark Elf butt!” I yelled. They looked at me quizzically and I amended, “You should kick some Dark Elf butt.”
“Midgard has the oddest phrases,” Sif whispered.
“You don’t know the half of it,” I told her with a soft laugh.
My body was about halfway warm and I smiled appreciatively at Jord. “Are you certain that you won’t come home?” she asked me.
I set my hand on top of hers and said, “You were the mother I never had and while in my perfect dream I would stay with you all forever, it is time for me to go to Midgard where I belong.”
“Are you happy there?” she asked me.
I nodded my head. “I’ve made friends already and a man is courting me.”
“A man is courting you already?” she asked in shock.
“Things move quickly in Midgard because our lives are so short,” I reminded her.
“It is a different world after all.” She sighed and then looked at me seriously, “If you marry a Midgard man, you must invite us.”
“Invite the Norse Gods to Midgard for the wedding?” I asked her with wide eyes.
She nodded her head insistently. “Yes.”
“I don’t know if the people of Midgard could handle all of you there,” I told her honestly.
“They’ll have to. I refuse to allow a Daughter of Asgard to be married without her family there,” she told me adamantly.
“Very well, Jord.”
“Good.”
“I think she’s a little young to discuss marriage yet,” Odin said angrily.
“She wasn’t discussing marriage, but I had to ensure she knew my wishes beforehand,” Jord told him.
“How’s the battle outside?” Thor asked Sif.
“Over with. They have the leader waiting for Odin’s punishment.”
“Over so quickly?” I asked her in shock. “I thought you were all worried about them and their strength? I thought you said those on Alfheim wouldn’t be able to defeat them.”
“It would seem we were wrong about their strength. Either that or they’re hiding the rest of their army somewhere else. That makes no sense, though, since we’re wiping out this part of their army and its leader,” Thor said.
“Let’s go speak to this leader,” Odin said to the room with a smirk. Odin walked out of the room with Sif and Thor following closely behind. Loki hadn’t spoken or moved since I mentioned courting Troy.
“Loki,” I whispered. “Will you come hold my hand?”
His shoulders tensed, but after a moment he came and sat on the other side of me, picked up my hand, and held it in his lap. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m still cold, but Jord is working on it.”
“I sense the darkness stirring in you,” he whispered and stroked his thumb across the back of my hand.
“It tried to get me to use it to escape when I was chained to the wall, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to free myself from the darkness’ hold and it would just take me over, so I didn’t use it.”
He paused a moment as he looked at me. “That was a very smart decision,” he whispered and resumed rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand again.
I closed my eyes and relaxed as I was healed and enjoyed what would most likely be my last moments with Loki. He seemed to feel the same and after a few minutes he moved so that I was resting with my head in his lap, which was infinitely more comfortable. He stroked my hair and I could feel his darkness being pushed further and further down while more light grew at the top. I was worried for a moment that he was taking more of mine, but he was simply creating his own.
“You are a very special person,” Jord whispered to me. “There are very few beings who have the ability to grant light to another.”
“I thought it was just because of the love we have for each other,” I whispered to her. “Are you telling me that I’m actually creating it?”
She smiled and said, “No, you are creating it within him. Your love for him is accelerating it, but you have the ability to grant light to any creature. It’s a very rare ability.”
“So this was the gift that the leader was talking about,” I whispered in shock.
“He sensed it in you?” Jord asked. I nodded my head. “Most likely because they are a dark race and there is no light within them. It must have been frightening to be near you and not know what you could do.”
“Could she give them light and turn them?” Loki asked.
Jord nodded her head. “Yes. In the old days, a being such as her would be taken to a temple and protected for the rest of her life. People would travel from all over just to be granted a moment of time with her.”
“I don’t want to live in a temple,” I complained.
She smiled. “We won’t be doing that to you. Midgard will be safe enough for you because none there have any of the gifts now.”
“They used to though, didn’t they?” I asked.
She nodded her head. “There was a time when those with gifts outnumbered those without. The Midgardians grew too greedy and obsessed with power and eventually killed each other off and the gifts faded away.”
“How come I have this gift?” I asked.
She looked away from me and said, “I believe Odin felt it and that is part of why he brought you to Asgard.”
“He never mentioned it to me.”
“It is not my place to speak for the All Father,” Jord whispered and I knew that was her way of telling me to drop that topic of conversation.
“Can I give a being light from afar?” I asked her.
Loki looked down at me and I knew he understood what I was asking.
“It would have to be someone you are connected with, but yes, it is possible.”
“You really are my light,” he whispered to me.
“And I will provide it to you even from Midgard.”
“Will you not allow me to see you?” he asked me angrily.
“I would not deny any of you from visiting, but I only ask that you limit your visits.”
“How much will you make me limit it to?”
“Do you really want me to give you a specific number?” I asked in shock.
“Yes.”
“What is the point of me living on Midgard if you still visit me every day or every week?” I asked him angrily.
“Alys.”
“Once a month at the most,” I finally decided.
“That’s not very often,” he whispered.
“You should be spending your time finding a goddess to court,” I told him.
“And what restriction will you give Thor?” he asked me as though I would give Thor a different option.
“He has the same restrictions as you.”
“What of Odin?”
“Odin, Jord, and Heimdall do not have restrictions. Only you and Thor have the restrictions.”
“Why? Why do we have to be restricted from seeing you?” he asked me and his body began to heat with his anger.
“Because we must learn to love others and if we see each other more often, then our love would never fade or allow us to move on,” I explained sadly.
“My love for you will never fade,” he told me sternly.
“It must,” I whispered. “Or Asgard and the Aesir are doomed.”
“What would you have me do?” he asked. “Would you have me forget you and find a woman to replace you?”
“Loki,” Jord chastised. “She never said you had to forget her or that she wanted to forget you.”
“She already did once,” he snapped.
“Part of me never did. I still felt connected to you when you visited me. I felt like I knew you and I felt safe with you even when I did not know who you were.” I admitted.
Magic and Shadows: A Collection of YA Fantasy and Paranormal Romances Page 140
