“I intend to see him fail. I’m just not sure how, yet.”
Thorin stepped closer and took my hand in his. He brushed his thumb over my knuckles before bringing my fingers to his lips. “You won’t have to fight him alone. I’m coming for you.”
“How will you find me?”
Thorin reached out and fingered the gold chain around my neck. “I told you I could track you.”
“Well, bring some warm clothes when you come. I think my toes are getting frostbite.”
Thorin’s grin fell away. He grimaced and asked, “Anything else I should bring?”
“Holy retribution for your brother. That should do it.”
“Happy to oblige.” Thorin dropped my hand. He turned and started toward the trees.
I called to him before he faded into the shadows. “Is any of this real? Or did I just make up this place in my imagination?”
“You don’t know?” Thorin, nothing more than a flickering shadow, looked back at me. Disbelief wrinkled his brow, and he quirked his lips into a peculiar smile. “How did you come to the house of Idun if you did not come on purpose?”
“Idun? What is that supposed to mean?” I yelled to his fading figure. I knew of Idun’s apples of immortality from my research, and I had seen an old and mature orchard in my visions. I was not in that place, though. “Where am I really?”
Before he disappeared, Thorin uttered a final word.
Maybe I didn’t believe him, but I was certain he said, “Asgard.”
Chapter Twenty-five
“Sunshine, wake up.” Hands gripped my shoulders and shook me until my teeth clacked. “Wake the hell up, Solina. Please.”
I peeled my eyelids apart, possibly ripping out a few eyelashes that had frozen together. Warm light from a lantern pushed back the darkness and revealed Thorin’s face hovering over mine. Gabriel, Raphael, Michael… none of the archangels surpassed his beauty at that moment. I tried to smile, but my chapped lips protested.
“Hey, gorgeous.” Thorin pressed his lips to my forehead. He had put nothing romantic into his greeting, just relief—not that I was in a state to appreciate his affections, anyway. “So glad you decided to join the land of the living.”
Thorin helped me slip into insulated pants and a long-sleeved fleece shirt. He bundled me into wool socks and snow boots and tugged me to my feet. He wrapped me in his own parka, which retained his body heat and smelled of rain and storms. I would have wept at the relief of it, the sublime pleasure, but I was too dried out.
For the first time, I got a good look at my prison. Blue-white walls, dim in the lantern light, stretched several feet over my head, curving into an arched ceiling. If I fully extended both arms, my middle fingers might have brushed the walls on either side of me, but the length of the cave extended into a long, dark throat the lantern light failed to reach. The cave groaned and popped, and ice flakes sparkled in the air, whispering threats of my doom. I shivered.
“Let’s get you out of here.” Thorin wrapped an arm around my shoulder, supporting me.
“What about Grim?”
“Let me worry about him, okay?”
“The sword?”
“Solina”—Thorin tightened his hold on me—“all you need to worry about is keeping yourself together and in the present until we get out of here.”
One more concern, and then I would let Thorin take over for me. “Helen?”
Thorin chuckled. “Frozen to death, and you’re still stubborn as hell. Grim didn’t set this up for Helen.”
“That’s right. I set it for you, dear brother.” Grim appeared in the gloom, illuminated by the flame of the sword held casually at his side.
I gasped and reached for my own fire—a measly supply but not completely bankrupt. I held the heat beneath my skin, not giving away my status to Grim, but prepared to defend myself if necessary.
“As if I would risk letting Helen and her filthy mutt get anywhere near the daughter of Sol.”
“Why?” I croaked, meaning, Why this complicated kidnapping? Why Thorin? Why not Helen?
Grim understood my question. “Once I’m finished with you, who gives a damn about Helen’s plans? The only reason you’re still alive is because I needed you to wear that necklace.”
“He wants Mjölnir,” Thorin said.
“He knows?” I asked.
“I’m guessing it was the storm in the desert that gave it away.”
Grim nodded. “That storm lit up my senses. I hadn’t felt that energy in centuries, but there was no mistaking what caused it. You had to know I would sense it.”
“How did you know I had it?” I asked. The words stung my raw throat.
“I didn’t,” Grim said. “I intended to kill you, but I saw you had Mjölnir’s lanyard. It’s the thing that kept you alive. I would have finished you the night you came for the sword, otherwise.”
“You could have just killed me and taken it. Tracked the hammer yourself.”
“No,” Thorin said. “The moment he took possession of it, I would have known it was him who had it. I would never have come to him.”
“Blood calls to blood.” Grim’s rancor showed how much he loathed their familial ties. “It worked more in my favor if lover called to lover.”
