Thorin paced a circle around me, a stalking tiger. “You want me to slow down, Sunshine? Make myself a better match for you?”

“This isn’t about fighting me.” I sought my fire again. Subtle flames filled my palm, but I held them low, at my side. Thorin continued his orbit, seemingly unaware I had armed myself. “This is about you fighting another immortal—someone a lot more like you than I am.”

“How do you know he’s immortal?” Thorin asked.

“Call it an educated guess.”

“You said you fought him before. How did you overcome him?”

“Smoke and mirrors.”

Thorin came to a stop in front of me. “What does that mean?”

I lunged and threw a regular punch at Thorin’s jaw. When he leaned away from it, I brought up my fireball and swung for his chin, but my handful of flames burned only the empty space where Thorin had stood an instant before. Good thing that’s not my only magic trick. When Thorin reappeared behind me, I was already turning for him.

He struck out, an open-handed blow at my ribs. He pulled his punches for me, in consideration of my fragile, human body—I had learned that while fighting him at the Aerie. Instead of dodging or blocking the hit, I stepped into it. Softened or not, his strike drove the breath from my lungs and weakened my knees. But the maneuver had served its purpose, and the shock on Thorin’s face temporarily dulled my discomfort.

Taking advantage of his stunned state, I rammed a fiery uppercut into his jaw. His head snapped back. I kicked his knee, and he crumpled into a kneeling position. I am a generous god. I require only that you kneel. Mwa ha ha!

Thorin recovered and stumbled back, rubbing his jaw and staring at me as if I had sprouted a second head.

“And that, good sir, is the fine art of misdirection,” I said, still breathless from the effects of his punch. “That’s how I fought Rolf.”

“You took a punch?” he asked, incredulous.

“No. I surprise-attacked him with pepper spray. The point is, improvisation is key. If you can’t win by skill or might, do the unexpected.”

“Who taught you that?”

“A police officer in San Diego.” When Thorin opened his mouth to ask about Tre, I cut him off and said, “Not relevant. Point is…” I stopped and grinned. “I got past your defenses.”

“In more ways than one,” Thorin grumbled. “But I get your point. You’ve seen that sword in action when Grim used it against you. I’ll prepare for this fight as best I can. I won’t let him take me by surprise again.”

After I threw on some clothes and another layer of insulation—a parka and snow boots—Thorin, Baldur, and I moved outside. Thorin set aside his bracelets and torc before he jogged the porch steps leading down to the front yard, and the snow came to his knees. It didn’t deter him. Without saying a thing, Baldur joined him, and the two men sparred.

Baldur and Thorin moved in a fluid style, like ocean waves battling wind. And the snow, kicking up in puffs and clouds as they skipped, lunged, kicked, and punched, created a mystical haze, insinuating magic and heightening their otherworldliness. Mostly, they moved too quickly to comprehend, but in the still moments, they epitomized the archetypes of balance, poise, and lethality. I had never seen anything quite so beautiful or so deadly.

No wonder mankind worshipped them, once upon a time.

Chapter Thirty-two

The afternoon wore on, and Baldur and Thorin tired of their fighting. After promising to come back before dawn, Baldur returned to New Breidablik to tend to Nina, leaving Thorin and me alone together for another night.

“Is it my fault?” I sat next to Thorin on the sofa and nibbled on a grilled-cheese sandwich and a pile of apple slices—late lunch or early supper, depending on interpretation.

The sunlight had dimmed in the living-room window, and in another hour or two, night would fall upon us again. Only a few hours left before this cataclysmic event. Only a few more hours until Thorin fights for his life, not that we haven’t all been fighting for our lives, one way or another, ever since Mani died.

“Is what your fault?” Thorin asked and swiped an apple slice from my plate and popped it into his mouth.

Look, he does eat. Will wonders never cease? “This confrontation with Rolf. If I had listened to you in Corvallis and not confronted Grim on my own, chased him down at his house… Maybe none of this would be happening.”

Thorin shrugged. “Maybe, if you had waited for me, Grim wouldn’t have been able to abduct you. Maybe we could have taken the sword from him together. But speculation is pointless. It is what it is, and we’ll deal with it. Besides, I get the feeling this was all rather inevitable. If you hadn’t noticed, our kind are enthralled to fate. We might be gods, but even we must bow before the command of providence. There’s no getting around it.”

“So, you’re saying this fight with Rolf is a consequence of fate?”

Thorin rose from the sofa and paced before the fireplace. “I’ve been thinking about it, over and over. Going back to the start, to when you first encountered Rolf in San Diego, you said you felt like he let you go on purpose, and you wondered why.”

“Yes.” Where’s he going with this?

“It’s like he wanted to scare you into coming out of hiding. Like he wanted you to come back to me.”

“Why? It’s not like he knew I would find the sword.”

“Maybe he did know.”

“How?”

Thorin gestured to me. “‘How’ asks the woman who dreams about the future.”

I gaped at him. “You think he had a premonition?”

“Whatever the reason, I propose that this was the result he wanted all along.”

“How could anyone orchestrate all that we’ve been through?”

Thorin shook his head. “Not orchestrate, Sunshine. Just push and nudge when necessary, wait and watch when it’s not.”

“All to get the sword and challenge you to a duel? Why wait all this time? Why not just stab you in the back?”

“There’s no honor in that.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Honor in revenge?”

“What is revenge but courage to call in our honor’s debts?”

“Your words?”

“No, but only because I couldn’t say it any better myself. Perhaps Rolf’s been seeking an opportunity for a long time.” Thorin turned and crouched before the fireplace. He picked up the poker and stirred the embers. The logs popped and crackled, and the fire revived. “Maybe Helen’s plan provided an opportunity that never existed before. I have a feeling Rolf’s secrets aren’t the only ones that will be coming to light in the days ahead. Before all is said and done, many more skeletons will be coming out of many more closets.”

“I don’t have any skeletons in my closet.”

Thorin bit his lip and turned away.

“Ah, but you do.” I set my empty plate on the lamp table and tucked my sock feet up beneath me. “Of course you do. You’re thousands of years old. You don’t live that long without having some regrets, right?”

“More than you could imagine. And if it’s my time to pay for them, maybe I’ll have to.”

The desire to ask about his skeletons swelled in my tongue until I thought I’d choke on it. I bit my lip instead and swallowed my questions. I know him well enough. He’ll tell me if I need to know. Trust in that and respect his privacy in the meantime.