What if he did not wish to see her, if he rejected her again in front of all the gods and goddesses assembled?
What if she could not control her reaction when he changed, and she flinched upon seeing him? Before all the gaping eyes of the Æsir and Vanir?
Her determination crumbled before the thought. She could not humiliate him before all, not in the name of proving her love. And she could not shame herself by entering the gods’ council and calling for her husband who—if she were honest with herself—was not there.
And then she realized that they had stopped speaking, that they were breaking apart and some were coming toward the door. She rushed away, too hurried to be silent.
“Who’s there?” called a voice.
But it was not Vidar’s voice, and so she did not answer.
She flung herself about the corner and hunched close to the wall, holding her breath in the dark. They came out in pairs and small groups, bearing lamps to light their ways to their own halls. Euthalia would need to grope her way home to Sessrúmnir without light, and she hoped she could find the way. She hoped she would find nothing else and no one else along the way.
She listened intently, but she did not hear his dragon voice as they left the hall.
Oh, Vidar….
She had to find a way to convince Freyja to unwork the curse. But Freyja would never do it for love of them; she would need payment. And Euthalia had nothing to offer, and certainly nothing of the richness that would motivate Freyja, would incite her desire as had the Brisingr brooch—
The brooch.
Euthalia’s face stretched into a cold smile. If Freyja would play false with Euthalia, not properly seeking Vidar and setting her to impossible tasks, she would treat her mistress likewise. If Freyja did not keep her word, she would take the precious jewelry and offer its return only for the undoing of Vidar’s curse. It was the only way to ensure Freyja’s cooperation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Little Greek.”
Euthalia clenched her jaw. Some day, when Freyja called her by that disparagement, she would turn on her mistress and shout at her to use her proper name, else Euthalia would not answer.
Today would not be that day.
“Yes, mistress?”
But Freyja was not so mocking as usual. “They are collecting materials for the dwarfs’ smithing. A chain as could bind a creature like Fenrir must be made of very particular components.”
The goddess so skilled in magic might know what must be woven into such craftsmanship. “I am sure it is so.”
“I want you to go with Thor.”
“With Thor?”
“Do not argue with me,” snapped Freyja, though Euthalia had not meant to argue. “Just as Fenrir is too dangerous to be left unbound, Jörmungandr is far too dangerous to let swim beneath the waves.”
Loki fathered Hel and Jörmungandr and Fenrir, all with another Jötunn. Vidar had mentioned Jörmungandr, but he had not explained him as he had Fenrir and Sleipnir. “I know Jörmungandr is another of Loki’s sons.”
Freyja snorted. “He is, and he is a monster.”
The word rang cold in Euthalia’s ears.
“Jörmungandr is a serpent, the enormous serpent of Midgard. The entire ocean is his.”
Euthalia nodded. “And Thor will go to find him today?”
“Thor will go to kill him today.” Freyja looked at Euthalia seriously, for the first time lacking spite and malice in her voice. “Because if he does not, then at Ragnarok, Jörmungandr will kill Thor, and many others.”
Euthalia felt a chill pass over her skin. She had seen Fenrir, terrifying and fierce, and she could not imagine what a serpent which filled the sea must be beside him. “And—and I am to help?” Her voice broke.
Freyja laughed, cold and mirthless. “As if you could,” she said. “I am not certain Thor can do it. I am not certain his attempt will not open Ragnarok itself.” She shook her head. “But there is no dissuading the bull-headed fools once they have set their minds to a thing. Thor has a mighty hammer and Odin considers his brood indestructible even as two lie rotting in the ground. No, I do not send you to fight alongside Thor. I send you to collect a rare material which can be found nowhere else. Bring me some of Jörmungandr’s flesh. Scales will suffice.”
Euthalia hesitated. “You want me to follow Thor to a battle which may open the end of the world and to take scales from the Midgard serpent as it tries to kill him?”
Freyja’s mouth quirked, and the old malice was there again. “Yes.” She pointed. “He will travel by the great tree. Go.”
Euthalia wondered briefly if she should take additional items for the task, but she couldn’t think of a thing which might be useful. Even if she armed herself with a small knife, what good could it do against a serpent the size of the sea? If she brought a net, even the largest, what could she accomplish with it which the mighty Thor could not?
Freyja’s pointing finger had indicated the great shape of Yggdrasill in the misty distance. The tree grew through the center of the cosmos and each of the many worlds was nestled in its branches, and this branch—a mountain of wood—thrust here through the fabric of Asgard.
Thor was there already, clapping other warriors on the upper arms and running his thumb along the edge of his rune-worked belt. A woman with hair of gold—real gold, Euthalia realized with awe, draping from her scalp in a beautiful and hideous mockery of hair—stretched upward to kiss Thor, and he pulled her roughly close, drinking deep of her lips.
Another warrior stood beside Thor—a Jötunn, she recognized, pleased that she was beginning to know them apart. She did not know the name of this one.
Thor supplied it. “Come, Hymir!” he announced, finally releasing the golden woman when they had both run out of air. “Let us go to slay Jörmungandr!”
Hymir appeared to share neither Thor’s confidence nor enthusiasm. He hefted a large axe and an enormous bag which dripped blood, and they started toward the tree.
Euthalia thought, watching, that neither of them would be likely to welcome a female thrall on their quest. She edged around the watchers and walked toward the enormous tree branch, her eyes on a place just beyond where Thor and Hymir would arrive.
Yggdrasill was an ash tree, its ancient bark rugged and thickly split with vertical crags. Now that she was near it, she saw the massive branch extended far to either side, faintly curving, with no end in sight through the light mist. It was like trying to look around a hill.
She watched Thor and Hymir approach the tree without looking at her. They tied their weapons and burdens securely about their torsos and then stepped into one of the bark’s vertical splits, bracing hands and feet on either side, and began to creep downward.
Her stomach twisted. Could she? Dare she?
She looked at the thick bark. What if she took another fissure—would she go to the same place? Yggdrasill ran between entire worlds; it was possible she would follow the branch to another location entirely in Midgard. She walked to the place Thor and Hymir had started and looked down, seeing the two muscular men climbing down the fissure into the ground.
Euthalia licked her lips and stepped into the rugged fissure, facing the tree itself. She braced her toes against one side and quickly shoved her other foot against the opposite side, mimicking their descent and steadying herself with her hands as she pressed outward to keep from falling. She took a breath, trying unsuccessfully to slow her pounding heart, and began to inch downward like a spider.
It was slow going. It was only a moment before her limbs began to tremble and she thought she would fall. She did not dare to look down.
She did not know exactly when she descended below the thick grass of Asgard’s ground and into the passage of Yggdrasill itself. She could not look around, did not dare to twist within the crevice of the tree. She could hear the men talking below her, but she did not know how near she was to them.
Something chattered, very near her head, and she froze. Beside her
hung a red squirrel, head down and tail extending up the tree, clinging to the rough bark with inverted grasping toes. It tilted its head, twitching its long ear tufts, and gazed at her with dark eyes.
Euthalia stared at the squirrel, her arms and legs shaking with the effort of holding herself against the tree, and the squirrel stared back at her. She took a deep breath against the fatigue in her limbs and started downward again.
The squirrel scurried downward and ran over her hand and forearm, sharp nails pricking at her skin.
Euthalia cried out and jerked back, more in surprise than pain or fear, and she fell. She hardly had time to cry out before she landed on Hymir, knocking him with a grunt loose from his spider climb so that they both fell onto Thor below. Euthalia grabbed at any flesh or clothing she could reach, her scream caught silent in her throat.
“What is this?” grumbled Thor, braced in the fissure with Hymir half-resting on his shoulder and Euthalia clinging to his hair and Hymir’s tunic. “What are you doing?”
Euthalia forced her fingers to release the handful of hair. “I—I—I was sent after you. By Freyja.”
“Get off me.” Thor shrugged Hymir toward the wall of the shaft, and the Jötunn looked down and laughed. Thor looked at Euthalia. “By Freyja?”
Euthalia started to nod, but she realized she was lying across the bloody bag across Hymir’s back. She wriggled backward and slipped as she grasped at the bark.
Thor reached for her and heaved her over his shoulder, rump upward, as if she were another bag of meat. He started down the fissure again. “I thought you were Vidar’s.”
Euthalia was surprised. Despite her storytelling, she did not think many of the Æsir knew her, especially since her thralldom, and certainly she would not have supposed Thor would. “I was,” she said. “That is, I was—”
“Did he sell you to Freyja?”
Euthalia stiffened. “He did not. I—”
Thor spoke over her easily. “I did not think so. You are his wife.”
Euthalia’s heart caught in her chest and she twisted on Thor’s shoulder, trying unsuccessfully to see his face. “You said are. I still am his wife.”
Thor shrugged her back into place. “Vidar did not want to be rid of you.”
The words, simple and gruff, seemed to open the sky above Euthalia even in the twilight of the great tree. Thor, simple, self-centered Thor, knew her because of Vidar’s love for her. Vidar must have spoken of her fondly, must have done so often and eloquently enough that Thor was surprised to find her serving Freyja.
It could not be that Thor was so dull as to miss entirely that Vidar had thrown over his bride. She would not allow herself to believe it. The truth had to be that even Thor knew of Vidar’s love. Had to be.
The squirrel ran past them, flicking its fluffy tail in derision at their relatively slow pace. Thor snorted. “Silly thing.”
“Do the animals travel between the worlds as well?”
“Only that one, Ratatoskr.”
“Why?” Euthalia asked, partly from curiosity and partly to keep her mind from considering that she dangled between worlds from the shoulder of a spider-climbing man.
“He carries insults,” Thor answered briefly. “Always looking for new tales to carry.” He did not continue.
Euthalia could see little, draped over Thor’s shoulder with her head dangling between back and bark, so she gave up trying to look about her and let herself swing with his movements. Thor wore a wide leather belt worked with both runes and curling figures chasing about the length of the belt. She had never seen such detail on a belt or on any leather item. Hadn’t Loki said something about a magical belt which granted Thor greater strength? This must be it. For a moment Euthalia was tempted crazily to tear it away, but even if she somehow dared to thieve off the mighty Thor, it would be beyond foolish to do so as his augmented strength held the two of them in a crack of bark at some unimaginable height.
“I was sent for some of Jörmungandr’s flesh,” she said, feeling awkward.
Thor laughed. “You shall have as much as you want, once I have killed him. But I will take the head as a trophy.”
The squirrel ran past them again, heading upward this time. He paused, looked at Euthalia, flicked his tail. Then he turned and followed their descent a few paces, moving quickly and then stopping, quickly and then stopping, as if bored with their glacial progress. If he sought stories and controversy to tell, Euthalia considered, he might be delighted by the appearance of Vidar’s offending and abandoned bride who was now enthralled to the goddess seeking to steal her husband.
Euthalia looked back at the belt. Would it work only for Thor, or for anyone? Would it work only for one who wore it, or was mere physical contact the key? She knew so little of magic….
She stretched a hand to the belt and spread her palm and fingers against the tooled leather. Was that a tingle against her skin? Was she stronger?
She laughed at herself, swaying upside down over Thor’s shoulder. It was all in her head. She had felt nothing. She looked up, half-expecting to see the squirrel Ratatoskr chitter-laughing at her, but he had gone.
She realized there was more light coming around Thor’s broad torso and illuminating the bark around her, and she twisted again to try to see.
“Steady, girl,” Thor said. “Don’t make me miss my footing.”
He braced himself against the tree, put a foot against the bark where Euthalia could see, and kicked backward. He landed a few seconds later and Euthalia grunted with the impact of his shoulder into her abdomen. He reached up and rolled her off him and to her feet.
Beside them Hymir landed, nearly as broad as Thor and still carrying the bloody bag. “This way, then?” he said, not really asking, and started forward.
Euthalia looked about them. The great ash tree was already well behind them. There were few other trees in sight, even of more normal size. The land was all windblown grass and jumbled grey stone. She could see some sheep scattered across a distant hill, but no people or other animals. “Where are we?”
“Midgard,” answered Thor without looking around.
The human world. And the world where Loki was imprisoned and where Sigyn sat endlessly with him to catch dripping venom. “Where in Midgard?”
Thor kept walking. “The Wyrmhole.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
They came to a rocky shore—more of a cliff than a shore, to Euthalia’s mind, for the grassland ended abruptly and a careless step could carry one straight to the pitted stone slabs extending below. Euthalia looked over the edge, resisting the urge to reach for Thor’s arm. More than a dozen men could stand atop one another and not reach from sea to cliff’s edge.
At the base of the cliff, worn stone extended out into the sea, and the waves crashed upon this plateau in a ceaseless cycle of foam and spray. As the white water receded, Euthalia saw the frothy waves pour not wholly back into the ocean, but also into a great rectangular hole in the stone.
“The Wyrmhole,” Thor noted with satisfaction.
Hymir did not look so pleased. “He may not be here,” he said, and there was a thread of hope in his voice.
Thor shook his head. “That is why we have brought the bull.” He pulled the sack from Hymir’s shoulder and tore it open, exposing great chunks of quartered bull. Thor next took out an enormous iron hook and began knotting a rope to a ring set at one end.
Euthalia tried not to think of what would need a quarter of a bull as bait. “I am—that is, my mistress sent me to bring flesh from Jörmungandr,” she said.
Thor laughed. “You may have as much as you please once I have slain the beast,” he said. “Only until then, you must stay well out of the way.”
Euthalia looked down at the hole. Nine men might lie along its side, head to heels, without crowding. It was a strange door to the sea, set in the sea.
She wanted no part of what might come out of it.
Thor hooked the meat and lifted the haunch as lightly as if it were a
small child. Then he flung it out over the cliff, the extending rope winging behind it, and into the dark water of the hole. He wrapped the remaining rope about his wrist, setting it on a thick leather bracer to spare his skin.
He turned and pointed across the rocky grassland. “Go over there,” he said to Euthalia. “You should be safe enough—”
The rope snapped taut and Thor stumbled toward the edge. Hymir reached for him with a cry and Euthalia leapt too, catching him about the rocky bicep and pulling hard away from the cliff. She knew she should run, wanted to run, but she was afraid to release her grip lest Thor fly over the edge.
But Thor was already regaining his balance and crouching hard against the pull of the rope. “So fast!” he shouted with undisguised glee. “He was here already!”
The water below them frothed and heaved, and Euthalia stared down as a dark head broke the surface, nearly the width of the pool. It rose and swung at the far arc of the rope, a long, sleek body shedding water like a cataract as it swayed, and its mouth opened.
It was a snake, a serpent, a monstrous sea serpent like nothing Euthalia had imagined even when she looked at the hole and the haunches of beef. It was hooked through the mouth like a fish, and it was furious.
Jörmungandr reared back, threatening to pull Thor forward off the cliff, and the three of them braced hard to pull against him—though Euthalia knew she was lending no strength, that it was only Thor and his magical belt and Hymir the Jötunn who held the great serpent. Still she dared not let go, could not pry her fingers loose from Thor’s arm, for fear he would fall or the serpent would come free.
And then, at the far end of his tether, Jörmungandr reversed and struck. His head dove at them with blinding speed, and they could not collect the rope fast enough, could not move quickly enough. All that saved Euthalia as she spun away was the serpent’s indifference. It struck at Thor.
Euthalia hit the ground and rolled onto a rock which painfully stopped her. She looked back and saw the enormous head strike where they had stood, mouth open to take a bite of the cliffside. The eye which rolled to look at her was the height of a man.
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