“C’mon.” She patted the empty space beside her on the bed. “Relax a little. You might not get that chance again for a while.”
I sank onto the mattress. “Being cooped up like this is making me nuts. Running from one demon while trying to track down another. It’s going to make me crazy. Damn the storms and fog. I want to go to Amchitka now.”
She exhaled and fell against her pillow. “I know how you feel. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that mix of fear and battle lust running through my veins. It’s dread and anticipation. Eagerness and hesitancy. Sometimes you feel like you’re tearing in two.”
“It’s more than two for me. One piece for Val, one for the wolf, one for Thorin, one for Mani.”
“Will killing the wolf make you feel whole again?”
I shrugged and picked at a loose thread on the knee of my pajama pants. “It’ll be a start.”
“And Thorin? You feel as though he’s pulling you apart, too?”
“The whole immortal-versus-human thing still has me messed up. I don’t know how we’re going to make it work.”
“Seize the day, girlfriend. It doesn’t have to be forever.”
I pivoted, drawing my knees up under my chin, and met her deep brown gaze. “With him? I think it’s only about forever.”
“Look, I’m not saying you should go running down the aisle or anything, but I think Thorin needs your company as much as you’re trying to pretend you don’t need his. Hanging out with him would be a hell of a lot better way to keep your mind off things than listening to me snore, don’t you think?”
“You’re not going to stay up all night with me?”
Skyla rolled over, propped her chin in her hand, and grinned at me. “Nope.”
I groaned and shifted off the bed, rising to my feet. “You know where he is?”
“Front porch, last time I checked. He said he’d pull night watch.”
“Sunshine,” Thorin said when I stepped onto the porch, reinstalled in my heavy winter parka. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
A heavy wall of cold, misty clouds enveloped our cabin. Water lapped and babbled at the distant riverbank, a ghostly noise echoing in the fog. Thorin stood at the railing, his shadow as dark as a wraith.
“Don’t want to sleep,” I said. “Don’t tell me I should because I know. But knowing is easier than doing.”
“You’re afraid of your dreams,” he said, not asking a question.
I sighed, and my shoulders slumped. “I’m a wuss.”
He chuckled. The porch floorboards creaked beneath him as he shifted his weight. “I’ve said before you’re one of the bravest people I know. Real monsters are sometimes easier to face than the imaginary ones, right? Real monsters can be defeated. The ones in your dreams...”
“Not so much,” I finished. He reached out, his big hands enveloping one of mine, and he drew me closer to his side as I talked. “I’ve been trying to keep myself distracted. I’m running out of ideas, though, and I’m afraid of the quiet.”
“So you want me to keep you amused?”
“You’re the only one who doesn’t sleep.” I hoped he heard the teasing in my tone. “Skyla kicked me out. I was keeping her awake.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Talk to me.” I leaned against the porch rail. “Tell me a story. Something about you that isn’t in the legends. Tell me what it was like before the fire and the war. What was it like growing up in Asgard?”
Thorin stepped close again and wrapped his arms around me. He lowered his head until our foreheads touched. His warm breath misted over my cheek, and his voice’s deep timbre reverberated through me as he spoke. “I could tell you. Or I could show you—let you see for yourself.”
I pulled in a deep breath. Then I let it go in a rush. “Okay, show me. I’m ready.”
A stream glints golden sparks of light and burbles along a meadow’s edge. Tall green grass and melancholy willows line a crumbling bankside. A tawny-headed boy, no more than nine or ten years old, crouches in the shadows of those graceful branches. He holds a fishing net, small, unevenly constructed, but sufficient for his purposes. Ghostly bodies flicker beneath the stream’s surface, darting, scattering, eluding the net. Warmth floods Thorin’s chest as he watches his brother troll the waters. Grim is beloved, his brother and dearest friend.
Grim has woven a second net, and Thorin collects it from the bank. He takes a position opposite his brother. The boys work in concert like a pair of herd dogs wrangling a flock of wayward sheep. They broaden the reach of their nets and close in on the clever trout, trapping fish in a small pool enclosed by rock walls the boys had arranged earlier. Grim catches Thorin’s eye. He nods, and the brothers pounce. After a flurry of splashes, yells, and laughter, the pair come away from the creek, both sodden but each clutching a shimmering, squirming prize.
“We filled two baskets that day,” Thorin said, drawing me out of the memory. “Fed the whole family and then some.”
My heart had swollen until it strained against my sternum, threatening to burst. It thudded a slow, contented rhythm as if the joy Thorin felt that day had transferred into me. “You and Grim must have been nearly identical as children. You still look a lot alike, but he seems so much colder.”
“Ragnarok was as hard on him as it was on me. Harder, maybe. He had more to lose.”
I untangled myself from Thorin and edged toward the porch steps. His nearness still overwhelmed me sometimes. Would I ever get used to him, take his intimacy for granted? I couldn’t imagine that day.
“It’s still very fresh, isn’t it—the memory of those you lost?”
“Sometimes.” He shifted, and the floorboards squeaked again. He edged around me, descended the steps, and turned on a flashlight. Its beam failed to penetrate the gloom, but the light reflected off the fog and illuminated his pale hair. He held out a hand toward me and motioned for me to join him. I left the porch and twined my fingers in his. We turned and started on a path around the cabin—perimeter patrol.
“Sometimes, it feels like it happened yesterday,” he said. “Sometimes, it feels like a dream, one that fades after waking.”
“Immortality is as much of a curse as it is a blessing, I think.” I turned my face up to his, searching for his eyes, but deep shadows masked his face. “It’s why I’m reluctant to want it.”
He nodded. “I get that.”
