Vali. That must be Vali, the son with the golden eyes and the disarmingly handsome smile.
“Damn,” Sigyn muttered.
My gut twisted. They had to be talking about Óðinn’s ravens.
“Well, it is a little weird for Nari to be spending so much time here,” Vali continued.
“He’s caring for your father,” Sigyn answered.
Vali snorted. “They can’t stay here forever, you know.”
I coughed softly to alert them to my presence, and the conversation stopped. Making a bit more noise than necessary, I walked into the warm glow of the kitchen. Vali and Sigyn sat together at the table, sharing a platter of sliced bread and jam and two cups of steaming tea. The faint scent of blackberries drifted through the air, mingling with smoke from the fire. They both turned toward me as I approached.
“Sol,” Sigyn said, giving me a smile I felt I hardly deserved. “How is he?”
I swallowed. “He’s awake.”
“Hey, great!” Vali said. “How about Dad? Is he still dead?”
Sigyn’s lips twitched into a reluctant smile. “He’s...recovering. You know he hates for anyone to see him when he’s—”
Vali brushed his fingers across his lips in a gesture I didn’t recognize, then grimaced. “Yeah. All gross.”
Sigyn’s smiled widened. “Exactly.”
I sat at the table and sighed aloud when a steaming mug of tea appeared before me.
“And how are you?” Sigyn asked, settling into a chair opposite me.
I took a long sip of the tea, then frowned as both twins kicked the inside of my ribs in response to the warm liquid. My heart ached at the visceral reminder that there would soon be four of us. I watched steam swirl above the amber colored tea. What in the Nine Realms would we do once the babies arrived?
“I—I’m—” I began, hesitantly.
“I killed Týr,” a voice barked from behind me.
Vali, Sigyn, and I spun toward the hallway. Fenris stood there, a thin, dark blanket pulled around his hips, his eyes wide and livid. In the firelight, his ribs stood out like roots cresting through thin soil. I pushed away from the table and walked toward him.
“Fenris,” I began, trying to keep my voice level.
He shook his head fiercely, sending his long hair flying. “I remember! I remember the taste of his blood, Sol!”
I reached for his arm. “You’re still sick.”
He pulled away from my touch and plunged his hands into his hair, yanking violently. “No. No, tell me what happened, damn it!”
Tears gleamed in the corners of his pale eyes. Sigyn and Vali stared at me, their expressions unreadable.
“You...” I stammered, took a deep breath, and continued. “You bit off Týr’s hand. He begged you to do it.”
Fenris moaned in a low whimper, like an animal in pain, then hunched his shoulders and buried his face in his hands. I reached for his arm and ran my fingers over his skin. He felt almost cold beneath my touch.
“Týr saved me,” I continued. “He took me from the island and hid me from Óðinn. He...he may have survived, after that.”
Fenris trembled beneath my hand. “Fuck,” he whimpered.
“Please,” I said. “Come, sit down. Have some water.”
Fenris shook his head again. “Fuck!” he cried. “I killed my friend. I killed the man who saved you!”
He pulled away from me, crossed the kitchen in long strides, and grabbed the door.
“No!” I yelled. “Fenris, we can’t!”
Fenris had almost wrenched the door open when Vali crashed into him, sending him slamming against the wall.
“You can’t go outside!” Vali said. “You’re on Asgard, damn it.”
Fenris’s face contorted as a legion of emotions chased each other through his eyes. “Who the stars are you?” he finally said.
Vali eased back, letting Fenris stand on his own. “I’m your brother.”
“I don’t have a brother,” Fenris said.
“Vali Lokisen,” Vali said. He raised both hands in the air before him, showing he was unarmed. “You’re in my folks’ house.”
Fenris turned his frown to Sigyn, who gave him a tired smile.
“But, why?” Fenris asked.
Vali shrugged. “Family. Am I right?”
He bent to the table, grabbed a slice of bread, and threw it at Fenris. Fenris caught it and stared at it as though it were an alien artifact from another world.
“Eat something,” Vali said.
Ignoring him, Fenris turned to me. His pale face was thinner, I noticed, and his cheekbones were so prominent they looked almost sharp. Dark circles beneath his eyes made his expression nigh unrecognizable.
“I can’t stay here,” Fenris said. “Asgard is the worst place in the Nine Realms for me to be. Why would you try to hide me in Óðinn’s stars-damned backyard?”
Fenris crossed the room with his shoulders hunched, moving as if his joints were made of glass, and placed the slice of bread gingerly back on the table. His hand shook above the polished wood.
“I need to leave,” he said.
“There’s a place for us,” I said. “It’s on Midgard. Nari can take us there in the morning.”
“No.” Fenris shook his head again and stepped away from the table. “I need to leave. Alone.”
I clenched my hands together in front of the swell of my stomach. The warm little kitchen wavered as tears bit at the corners of my eyes.
“You’re not leaving without me,” I said.
Fenris met my eyes. “I can’t protect you,” he said, very slowly and deliberately, as if he were explaining something painfully simple to a child.
My fingernails bit into my palms as I clenched my hands into fists. “I don’t need protection.”.
Fenris laughed again, a weak and rusty protest. He gestured to his own pale, emaciated body. “Look at me! I’m so stars-damned weak!” He thrust his chin at Sigyn. “She could probably overpower me.”
Vali laughed at that. “Well, Mom could probably overpower all of us.”
Fenris shook his head and took another step toward the door. “Without my magic, Sol, I—I don’t have anything to offer you.”
Vali’s back stiffened at that, and he suddenly became very interested in the bottom of his mug of tea.
“Stars damn it,” I snapped. “We didn’t rescue you for your magic, Fenris Lokisen!”
He raised his eyes to meet mine, and a flash of wild hope surged in their pale depths. I walked around the table until I stood in front of him and pulled his hands into mine. He turned away from me to stare at the floor.
“I—I’m not who you married,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Not like this.”
“Damn the Realms, yes, you are!” I cried. “I didn’t love the wolf. I love you!”
I leaned forward, but he spun toward the darkened windows, refusing to look at me.
“I take it someone’s ready to leave?” a voice echoed from the hallway.
Fenris flinched.
“Dad! Nice to see you upright.” Vali said, cheerfully.
My chest tightened as I turned away from Fenris to face the figure in the hallway. Clad in black with his flaming hair floating loose around his shoulders, Loki looked fully recovered from whatever damage his magic had wrought on the cold stone island in Lake Amsvartnir. For a moment, the image of Angrboða’s ordinary face and body flashed in my mind, the true self she hid so carefully behind her magic. I wondered for the first time what hid beneath Loki’s illusions.
Loki walked to Sigyn, kissed the top of his wife’s head, and then straightened to face us. “Welcome back to the world, Fenris,” he said.
Fenris inclined his head very slightly, as if his body were responding against his will to some long-forgotten rituals of etiquette.
“You’re ready to leave here?” Loki continued.
Fenris nodded again, more forcefully this time. Loki stretched his fingers and raised an eye
brow.
“And, you’re welcome,” Loki said. “For rescuing you.”
Fenris shook his head. “I lost the wolf.”
Loki snorted. “Of course you did. That was the deal. You agreed to it, as you may remember.”
Fenris took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and then let his head fall forward again. “I lost everything that made me powerful.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Loki spat. “You were just an animal in the fucking Ironwood forest before this. Now, you’re a lover. A husband. And, soon, a father.”
Fenris glanced at me. Something so hurt and broken shimmered in his eyes that my chest tightened in response. Loki grabbed my wrist before I could speak, and the room began to spin around me. I opened my mouth, tried to call out to Sigyn and Vali, to somehow find the words I needed to thank them, but Asgard was gone before I could draw a breath.
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER NINETEEN
“What the fuck?”
The words boomed in my skull as another room materialized around me, a small, dimly lit room cluttered with tables and chairs. A pale white face stared out of the corner with empty eye sockets. Beside me, Fenris flinched and pulled backward, crashing against something. Metal hit stone, and the sound reverberated through the Nine Realms.
“You stars-damned diva,” a man’s deep voice chuckled.
My vision cleared, and I saw Thrym standing before us, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Fenris sprawled out on the floor beside me, one arm slung over the low wooden table he’d upset, as dark purple grapes rolled across the delicate tile mosaic of the floor. Sun slanted low through the wooden shades across the windows. Evening, I thought. Almost dinner time.
“I do have a front door,” Thrym said.
“How boring,” Loki said.
With that, Loki leaned forward to kiss Thrym. On the lips. Intimately. I turned away and bent down to help Fenris to his feet. He clenched the thin blanket around his waist as if it were a shield.
“Where—” Fenris whispered.
“Home,” I answered.
“I can’t stay,” Loki said as he pulled away from Thrym’s embrace. “But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Thrym sighed. The air in his tablinum swirled, and Loki vanished. Thrym swept me into a crushing embrace.
“Sol, by the stars! I’m glad to see you!”
“I—You too,” I stammered, once he’d released me.
“And you must be the legendary Fenris?” Thrym said, facing my husband. “Fearsome son of Angrboða and Loki?”
Fenris’s shoulders slumped. He turned to stare at the floor. “I’m what’s left of him, I guess.”
Thrym frowned. He crossed the small room and circled Fenris, examining at his hunched shoulders, his pale, emaciated frame. In the thick evening light, the white bands of scar tissue Gleipnir had laid across his skin stood out across Fenris’s arms and back, along his neck and chest. Thrym grunted, then brought his hand to Fenris’s chin and raised his face to meet his pale eyes.
One of the twins kicked, and I sucked breath over my lips. My chest felt tight. What was Thrym doing? What was he looking for? Had he somehow expected Fenris to become a wolf here on Midgard? Would he be upset to find the magic gone, the wolf vanquished?
And what in the Nine Realms would we do if Thrym no longer wanted us?
“Fenris Lokisen. Do you know who I am?” Thrym growled.
Fenris shook his head. His eyes seemed very wide.
“You were raised at Thiassi’s heir, no?” Thrym pushed.
“I was,” Fenris answered.
Thrym took a step back. His hand returned to the pommel of his sword. “Tell me, once-son of Thiassi, what does it mean to swear fealty?”
I swallowed hard as Fenris frowned.
“Do you want my fealty?” Fenris asked, slowly.
“I want an answer to my damn question,” Thrym snapped.
Fenris’s back stiffened. “It’s a pledge of loyalty. It means you’ll serve a lord, or a king. You’ll pay them a tithe in exchange for their protection.”
“And when it’s time to fight for them?” Thrym asked.
“Then, you fight,” Fenris replied.
Thrym nodded, his expression as dark as a thunderclap. “I had men who swore fealty to me. Almost a hundred of them. They were farmers and fishermen. Leatherworkers. Blacksmiths. Once a year, they came to my castle to feast and to pledge their service.”
Fenris nodded. He must have seen similar feasts, I realized, in Angrboða’s castle.
“And I, in turn, swore fealty to another,” Thrym continued. “I bowed before Thiassi, and I promised him the allegiance of my men.”
Fenris’s eyes widened, but he said nothing. Thrym exhaled and turned to pace the room. His fingers brushed a stack of papers atop his desk.
“When your sister Skadi called my forces to avenge Thiassi’s death, I ignored the summons,” Thrym said.
Fenris hissed in a surprised gasp. Thrym chuckled, soft and low in the fading light.
“I did,” Thrym said. “It was only when she threatened to burn my lands that I called my men and forced them to ride north.”
Thrym paused before the pale marble bust and gave it a soft, sad smile.
“The men who rode with me were not warriors,” Thrym said. “They were fathers, and grandfathers. Some of them had beards as white as the snow we rode over. Some were barely old enough to have had their first kiss beneath the Harvest Festival lights. And Skadi wanted to break them all against the ranks of the Æsir and the Vanir. She wanted to heap their bodies onto a funeral pyre, to turn their deaths into a sacrifice for the name of her father.”
He fell silent. Somewhere beyond the thick curtains, I heard the soft click of sandals against tile.
“You’re Thrym,” Fenris finally said.
“Yes. I am Thrym the Traitor. I sold your sister’s army to Óðinn, and he negotiated a truce before a single warrior fell on the battlefield. I betrayed the family I’d sworn to serve, and I didn’t even have the stars-damned dignity to die for it.”
Fenris turned his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”
Thrym sighed. “Because I was the model Jötunn warlord. I was born in the castle, and I thought that gave me the right to control the lives of those born elsewhere. To order them to die in the mud to appease Skadi’s sense of betrayal. But I was wrong.”
He paused, and Fenris stared at him.
“I am no longer that man,” Thrym finished. “Lord Thrym of Jötunheimr is dead. But I’m still here.”
Fenris pressed his lips together and drew a deep breath. “Do you regret it?”
“Sometimes,” Thrym said.
I struggled not to let my shock show on my face.
“But, most of the time, no,” Thrym finished. He ran his fingers across the cool lips of the marble bust, then turned back to Fenris. “I can teach you, Fenris, son of Loki. We were once Jötunn lords, you and I. We’re stronger and faster than these mortals of Midgard. I can teach you how to fight better than any other man in the Realm. I can teach you how to make so much money you’ll be richer than the Emperor.”
Fenris turned to me. His gaze seemed to hold a question, one I couldn’t quite decipher.
“You already left one life behind,” Thrym continued. “You ran from your mother’s kingdom and started over in the Ironwood, on your own terms. So, do it again. Here, on Midgard. All you have to do is ask me.”
Fenris sighed and turned to the floor. He ran a hand through his the tangle of his auburn hair, then pulled himself up and faced Thrym. The two men were almost equal in height, I realized, with a jolt of surprise.
“Teach me,” Fenris said.
Thrym nodded. “Come with me.”
He flung the curtain aside and left the room. Fenris followed. I stood, and a woman rushed into the room, flinging her arms around me.
“Oh, by the gods, Sol!” Liburnia cried. “I prayed for your return!”
&nb
sp; As I offered her reassurances that I was well, the babies were well, and I’d had enough to eat, I watched Fenris and Thrym vanish down the corridors of the domus and tried to swallow the complicated knot of fear and worry that had tightened around my heart.
“That’s your husband?” Liburnia added, following my gaze.
“Yes. That’s Fenris.”
“Oh, so handsome,” she giggled. “But, so serious!”
I nodded, my mouth suddenly too dry to form words. I wanted to tell her Fenris wasn’t always serious, that he had a beautiful smile and could make me laugh so hard I cried.
But I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him smile again.
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER TWENTY
Fenris and Thrym did not join me at dinner that night. I ate alone, attended by servants whose kind smiles and gentle questions only served to make me feel even more irritated and lonely. I couldn’t share anything about where we’d been or what we’d done, and the only person I truly wanted to talk to had vanished with Thrym hours ago.
Liburnia seemed to sense my black mood as she undid the laces on my dress and brushed out my hair, in the privacy of the chamber I’d be sharing with Fenris. She was unusually silent as she smoothed my hair down my back, packed up the brush, and trimmed the wick of the oil lamp in its little alcove. Then she paused in the doorway, her body rocking forward, as though she couldn’t quite make up her mind whether it was best to leave or to speak.
“Your husband,” Liburnia finally said. “He’s still fighting? In the prison?”
“What?”
I had no idea what Thrym had told the servants about my disappearance or potential return. I’d once told Liburnia my husband was trapped in a barbarian dungeon just to be done with her incessant questioning, but I’d never said he was fighting.
Liburnia frowned and tapped her temple with the broad side of the hairbrush. “In his head. He’s still trapped, no?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” Perhaps it was a problem with the language. Did fighting have another meaning?
“In my last domus—” A shadow passed over Liburnia’s face, and her voice faltered. She’d never spoken about her past before. “The paterfamilias had been a soldier. He’d been held prisoner once, by the Gauls. He screamed in the night. Sometimes he attacked the slaves. They used to say he was still a prisoner, in his head.”
The Complete Fenris Series Page 64
