Skyla’s expression hardened. “He died. Little over a year ago. Lung cancer.”
“I traced him to Camp Pendleton when he retired. It was one of the reasons I went to San Diego in the first place.”
Skyla’s eyebrows arched, and she blinked at me. “Really?”
“Yeah. But there was never another word about him.”
Skyla shook her head. “There wouldn’t be, not in San Diego. I moved him into hospice care in Siqiniq. He only lived a few months after that. I spread his ashes in Resurrection Bay.”
I took Skyla’s hand and forced her to unfold her arms. Then I slid out of my chair and squatted next to her, one arm around her ribs, holding her close. “I’ll be your family, Skyla. As long as you need me.”
“But you think I should embrace Grandma Nina and Grandpa Baldur, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do. They need you at least as much as you need them. But it doesn’t have to be today. Just... just try to keep an open mind.”
“I won’t make promises.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
She shifted, pulling away, and peered at me. “What about your family? Your mom and dad are crazy worried about you.”
“Tell me something I didn’t know.” I rolled my eyes, stood, and collected our dirty dishes. “Thorin’s taking me to see them as soon as I feel well enough to travel.”
“You’re going to North Carolina?”
I piled dishes in the sink and filled it with soapy hot water. “Only long enough to say goodbye.”
“Then what?”
I glanced at Skyla over my shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“What do you do after that? What are your plans for the rest of your life, now that you’ve saved the world from annihilation?”
I scrubbed a dishrag against my sticky plate, removing a stubborn honey smear. “Then one day at a time. I’ve never had many choices before. Now that I do, I don’t intend to rush into anything. I have the most valuable commodity of all, and I’m in no hurry to spend it.”
“What commodity?”
“Time.” My ears popped, announcing Thorin’s arrival. I grinned as he appeared beside me and drew me into a sudsy hug. “I have lots and lots of time.”
Epilogue
Thorin and I paused while I caught my breath and rehydrated, gulping from my water bottle. I might have lived and dreamed in fire, but Alaska’s cold climate gobbled my energy and snuck between the gaps in my clothes, tickling me with chilly fingers. The views though... those were what left me truly breathless. Thorin had stopped us on a pebbly beach beside a frozen ice field called the Knik Glacier. Electric-blue striations banded the jagged ice formations, giving the scene a touch of the imaginary and fantastic—as if we stood in some fairytale land.
Not so long ago, Thorin had promised to take me on one of my brother’s favorite hikes, and now he was fulfilling his vow. “I can see why Mani liked this place so much. There’s magic here. His kind of magic.”
“His kind?” he asked.
I motioned to the glacier. “Cold, ice…”
“And I take it you prefer white sand beaches, sunshine, and tropical weather?”
I snorted. “I haven’t been anywhere close to a beach—a tropical beach—since I was a kid. Mani and I went to the beaches in North Carolina as kids, some, with an aunt or uncle.” I closed my eyes and sketched a memory of briny sea air and sand between my toes. Hot sun and seashells. “But the only place I prefer to be is wherever you are.”
His breath caught, and he pulled me close, cupping my face in his hands. My eyes popped open as I sank into the warm brown depths of his stare. Would his touch ever stop affecting me, ever stop feeling like lightning and storms? “It still amazes me to hear you say it,” he said. “A part of me still can’t believe it’s real.”
I swallowed and licked my lips. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t say a part of me hadn’t given up, Solina. The hope of having something, someone, meaningful in my life again had started to die.”
I inhaled a deep breath and savored his scent of wind and rain. “And now?”
“Now anything is possible.”
I pressed a quick kiss to his jaw. “Now you believe in me a little bit, too, don’t you?”
Thorin smiled, stunning me again with the beauty of his joy. “I believe in you very much.”
“Say it again,” I whispered.
He chuckled and held me tighter. “I, Magni Alexander, Son of Thor, God of Thunder, believe in you, Solina Mundy, Daughter of Sol, Goddess of the Sun. I believe in you, and I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it.”
My fire responded to his faith—increasing, swirling like a rising tide, overflowing its well and spilling out, spreading through my veins and bones and muscles, reviving and renewing.
It was power.
It was faith.
It was hope.
