I lay awake long into the night, holding my breath, listening, picturing Thorin with his hands tucked behind his head as he stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember. When I had roomed with Val, he acted sleepy in the mornings, but he had also wanted to hide his godhood. Maybe, like eating, sleep was optional.
Before that day, I had never caught Thorin sleeping, or even tired for that matter, but the recent trauma must have tested even his stamina.
I had never allowed myself to think too long or too hard about my feelings for Thorin. Recent revelations proved my emotions had grown beyond superficial attraction. But even before my exposure to the dangerous world of immortal gods, I had trouble with relationships, particularly the romantically inclined ones.
Once, when Mani and I had gotten into some petty fight, he told me everyone called me an ice princess—ironic, considering my heritage. The reputation was justified when I looked back on it. I never felt superior to anyone as gossip suggested. Mostly, I was afraid—afraid of rejection, afraid of being hurt, afraid of losing. Until Mani died, my feelings had been unfounded. I never really knew loss or heartbreak, nothing to make me dread forming attachments.
Perhaps I’d been composed with the memories of a life-before. Maybe they were ingrained in my DNA, and maybe those memories struggled to dictate my life. Over the centuries, Sol must have suffered a great number of hurts and lost many loves. Did her fears whisper in my atoms?
I knew one thing for certain: losing Mani was the single most horrible experience of my life. If I cared for Thorin a fraction of how much I had cared for my brother—and I suspected the amount was much more than a fraction—then letting Thorin get past my defenses was a huge risk. Failure was too great a threat, and success posed its own separate hazard.
Any relationship I built with Thorin had a limited shelf life from the start. One way or another I would die—by sickness, old age, or wolf. Thorin was immortal, I was not, and that created a formula for certain disaster.
I would do well to remember that.
I slid into sleep at some point and dreamed of Asgard for the first time since having left Thorin in Idun’s garden. All subsequent attempts to initiate interdimensional travel or arouse precognitive visions had resulted in nothing more than a headache. My insight asserted its own will and ignored my demands for obedience.
I strolled through my orchard, grabbing at apples but never plucking them free. Like a ghost’s, my fingers passed through the fruit, encountering nothing solid. I strolled up and down the rows, not quite lost but unable to find my way out.
I maintained my calm at first, but time passes in a peculiar way in dreams, and I realized I had wandered the orchard for hours without reaching Idun’s house or the wrecked city of Asgard. A cold drop of panic trickled down my spine.
Up and down the rows, ducking through trees and looking for something familiar, I ran faster and faster until I tripped and sprawled face-first on the lush green grass. I rolled over and examined the scene, expecting to find a root to blame for my fall. Instead, I had stumbled over a scroll. To discover such a thing in the middle of an apple orchard seemed perfectly rational, as strange things often do in dreams. I picked up the scroll and unrolled the parchment.
On its aged and deteriorated surface, I recognized the outline of a genealogical chart, one similar to those I had studied at the Aerie’s library when I helped Skyla search for the grimoire. The chart tracked Baldur’s lineage and Nina’s reincarnations and the births of their offspring. If the Valkyries possessed a match to that record in the physical world, then they had stored it somewhere other than the library because I had looked through every scroll in the Aerie’s collection without ever finding one like that.
I traced my finger along notations until I arrived at one marking the birth of the most current children and grandchildren of Baldur and Nanna, aka Nina. Three daughters had been born over two decades. The first, Thea, died as an infant. The second, Embla, was still living. And a third, Kara, died after giving birth to two children: one boy, named Paul, and one girl, named…
Skyla Frigga Rodriguez.
Thorin’s voice ripped me from my dream. Frantic and hoarse, he roared in the language Baldur had used with him—Asgardian, perhaps. A cold sweat broke over me, and my heart climbed into my throat, fluttering like a bird trapped in a chimney. Someone had found us.
I eased out of bed, tiptoed through the darkness, and pressed my ear against my door. Something heavy crashed to the floor as Thorin railed against his attacker. But why go for Thorin instead of me? I eased my door open and peered into the dim living room, where the dying fire provided the only light. After finding nothing alarming there, I ventured out, stepping like a cat, listening hard enough to make my ears hurt.
Thorin went silent. I hurried forward, balancing on the balls of my feet, hoping to sneak to his room in silence. Thorin roared again, and something else crashed. So much for stealth. I dashed the last few feet and pounced into his doorway with my fire crackling, ready to burn, devastate, and consume whichever of my enemies dared breach the sanctity of my little cabin.
Instead, I found Thorin, feral, raging, and naked except for his iron bracelets and torc. I would have felt embarrassed for him if I thought it bothered him… or if he hadn’t looked so completely magnificent. He appeared to have fixated his attention on fighting a ghost or maybe a whole legion of them, the way he swung his weapon. He had reduced his nightstand to kindling, and an old upholstered chair lay on its side, beaten to within an inch of its life.
“Thorin.” I stepped farther into his room.
Thorin spun on me, Mjölnir raised high. He said something in his ancient tongue. I didn’t understand it, but the way he forced his words through gritted teeth made me step back and reconsider.
“Thorin?” I said, speaking in a low and soothing tone. “You’re dreaming, having a nightmare. I need you to wake up, okay?”
I reached behind me, feeling for the light switch. I kept talking, hoping to soothe him and ease his agitation. “You’re with me now, and you’re safe. You’ve fought bravely, but it’s time to give it a rest.”
Thorin stepped closer, baring his teeth. The light from my fire reflected in his eyes, and shadows daubed his face so he looked like a hellish fiend. I slid one foot back, preparing to retreat if he decided to attack, but it came up against the wall. I had run out of room.
“It’s time to let that demon go,” I said. “We’ve got plenty more to chase after, and I need you to be cool about it, okay?”
Thorin stepped closer yet, still clutching Mjölnir and panting, ribs heaving like bellows. His breath coursed over me, hot and humid.
“Thorin, please, you don’t want to hurt me.”
Apparently, he disagreed. His hand flashed to my throat and circled it, squeezing.
“Thorin!” I gasped and choked. With a ball of fire gathered around my fingers, I swung and slapped him across his cheek. “Wake up!”
Thorin fell away, blinking and shaking his head as if aggravated by a bothersome gnat. I found the switch and flipped on the overhead lights. He blinked again and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Still pressed against the wall, I waited for an indication that he had gathered his wits—what little of them remained, anyway.
Thorin looked around the room, taking in the damage, and turned his gaze back on me. “Solina?”
My lungs froze, and my muscles tensed. I couldn’t have blinked if my life depended on it.
“What happened?” he asked, looking around the devastated room. “What…?”
Something inside me thawed, and my systems came back online. “Thorin?”
He looked back up at me, his eyebrows raised. His gaze focused on me in a way it hadn’t before, sharp and full of familiarity. “Sunshine?”
Relief coursed through me, as swift and powerful as a tidal wave. “You remember?”
Thorin blinked again. “Why wouldn’t I?” He glanced down and noted his nudity. His head shot up, and his eyes locked on mine. “What’s going on, Solina?”
I breathed a huge and gusty sigh and wiped away my pending tears before Thorin noticed. He’d hate to think I was crying over him. I cleared my throat and put on a neutral face. “Bad dream, I guess.”
Thorin noticed Mjölnir still clutched in his fist. He flipped his wrist and turned it back into the golden pendant. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
