When you met my father.
“I haven’t met him,” she says.
Exactly. Trust me on this one, and stay here, please.
She doesn’t look happy, but she folds her arms and sits on the bed.
I mean it, Liz. Stay here, like you did when I went to see Thunar.
She frowns. “I think we’re stronger together, always, but it’s your family. I’ll stay as long as you’re safe. If they start to attack you.” She shrugs.
I wouldn’t be able to stop her then, anyway.
“Don’t forget. If you die, I die already.” She stands and crosses the room, and then she presses a hand against my side. “Be careful.”
I bob my head, and then I launch from our home, leaving my heart behind. I wish I had known before I started to care for someone so much that the more you care, the more scared you become.
As a hatchling, I would have said I was an expert on fear. Thanks to my secret, I always had to worry about being caught, but the only person at stake other than me was Euphrasia. I worried for her, but it’s nothing to how I worry about Liz. The more you love, the more you can hurt.
It’s worth it, though.
I head north, angling the same direction where I found Thunar last time—that’s where I heard Father portal in, too. Hyperion joins me a moment later, and sure enough, we find them waiting for us, Thunar also present, head bowed.
I shouldn’t be surprised that there are three massive portals set back from the area where Thunar landed, blessed pouring through them. Water, earth, strike, and even a flame blessed flying through as I watch.
Frigg’s other three children are already here, flanking Father.
Hyperion and I have to circle once, but we find a place to land not far from Father, right on the coastline of the island.
Earth has been good for you, Father says. He hasn’t changed at all. Where Thunar looks bulky, almost massive, Father simply is. He’s bigger than Thunar, bigger than all of us, but he looks proportionately long and lean. He’s not too dense for his space, like his older son. It’s the intelligence and ferocity in his eyes that terrifies me most.
I bow my head.
I hear you finally recovered the heart, and yet still you failed to return.
He’s not asking me questions, so I don’t answer. I’ve learned my lesson there. It was a painful one.
You were ordered to come to earth, retrieve the heart, and return. It was a simple task. Yet you came, with a large force of blessed, you had sufficient time, and you didn’t return. Father circles me, and then he eyes Hyperion. I sent you next, sure you’d encourage your brother to make it back to report his progress. You reached out once, letting me know he had been following leads and was close, and then, nothing.
Hyperion’s smart enough to keep quiet as well. I notice that our supporters have begun to appear, water blessed circling the area near the coast. The earth blessed are lining up all around, behind Hyperion and me. The strike blessed, as usual, prefer to stay in the sky, but the sparks and zaps in the clouds give them away.
Clearly earth was good for all of you, the earth blessed most of all. He pauses then, surveying the arriving blessed. It appears the water blessed have also reaped significant benefits from their time.
Blessed may still be pouring through the massive portal a few hundred yards away, but our people are showing that they’re with us.
Then I sent my most loyal, my most pragmatic son, and it’s been more than a week, and even Thunar has not returned.
You told me you were following after me. Thunar sounds. . . strange. I turn enough that I can see him, and sure enough, Thunar’s standing just like we are, head bowed, eyes downward. Why would he be in trouble?
WHERE’S THE HEART? Father’s sudden rage has all of us shaking. Why have none of you returned home to bring it to me? How could you all have failed so miserably? Your failure forced me to come back to this wretched place.
He launches into the air and roars, circling overhead, his tail whipping back and forth as he rages. But when he lands, it’s in front of me, and he brings his head back, ready to teach me another lesson, apparently.
“They couldn’t take the heart home to you,” a familiar voice says up above me. “Because it’s stuck inside of me.”
I lift my head upward and confirm that Liz is indeed floating above me, her wings beating furiously. So much for her staying away. I sort of knew I would only have a head start. She’s not the kind of person who stays away when I’m in danger, even if she is more of a liability than anything else.
“If you weren’t such a miserable bully, your sons might not all have stayed here. They might have returned home as you demanded.” Her face is angry—defiant. Classic Liz. “That’s why Azar didn’t return home. He didn’t have any faith that his father wouldn’t harm or punish him by hurting me.” She tosses her head. “So, let’s see whether he was right. Is that who you are, Odin, Freya’s husband? Are you the kind of person who harms others to vent your own rage, or are you in better control of your own emotions than that?”
