by Dena Christy
“I don’t hate you,” she said, and he didn’t fail to notice that she used no name at all. “I love you.”
Looking into her eyes he could almost believe that it was true. Then he remembered what she’d done, and it made a lie out of every moment they’d shared since she’d come back into his life. Had she made love with him to tighten the noose that much more?
“If this is your idea of love, I really don’t want to see how you treat an enemy,” he said as he circled around her and walked toward the window. Darkness had fallen and there wasn’t even a moon out tonight to shed any light on the landscape.
“Will you let me explain, please,” she said from behind him, and he turned around to look at her.
A vice tightened around his chest as his eyes roamed over her face. He didn’t want to believe that the past few weeks with her had been all part of an elaborate plan that she and Loki had hatched to crush him completely. He could believe it of Loki, but not of her, at least not the woman he’d once known and had grown to know again in the past couple of weeks. That woman stood before him with such a profound look of regret, that he couldn’t help but think that perhaps that this wasn’t part of some elaborate machinations, that maybe she wasn’t acting.
“Why did you want to ruin me, Nan,” he asked, and she shook her head.
“I didn’t want to ruin you. It wasn’t part of some big plan I had.”
“Then why? Why did you do it? I know I was wrong to leave all those years ago. That in your mind I chose my father over you and that I should have stayed with you. Was my crime so bad that I deserved to have what took me centuries to build destroyed?”
“I never wanted to destroy you,” she said, her voice barely audible. A tear trickled down her cheek and he clenched his hand at his side. It took all his will power to resist his ingrained need to comfort her.
“What did you think would happen?”
She gave a bitter laugh as she reached up to swipe at her cheeks.
“That’s the problem, I didn’t think. Story of my life. Acting without thinking,” Nan said as she walked over to the sofa and sagged down on it. Cadric walked closer and sat in the armchair. “Your father had grown tired of me moping around your hall and decided in his wisdom that I would enjoy knowing that not only was my husband alive and well, he’d never died at all.”
Cadric closed his eyes for a moment. He was sure that his father had been matter of fact when he’d told her that he was alive. His father was a man’s man and had little time or patience for a woman’s finer feelings.
“How could he do that?” he asked, quietly.
“I think in his own twisted way he thought he was helping me get over you. I didn’t want to believe him at first. I foolishly thought you loved me all those years ago, and I couldn’t believe that it had all been a lie.”
“Nan,” he said. He didn’t want her to think that his feelings for her had been false when they’d lived as man and wife in Asgard, because he’d loved her with an intensity that frightened him. In hindsight he was realizing that perhaps that was why he’d agreed to do what his father wanted. What he’d felt for her was too intense and he’d run from those feelings.
“You wanted to know why I did it, so let me talk,” she said as she held her hand up. “If I don’t get the words out now, I won’t get another chance.”
“Tell me,” he said quietly. If he was going to understand how he’d come to this point in his life, he needed to know the impact his actions of the past had on present events. He’d spent too many years concentrating on looking forward that he ignored what had come before.
“At first I didn’t want to believe it. I thought it was a cruel joke. But the more I thought about it, the less I believed it was a plan on your father’s part to torture me. If anyone else had told me, I don’t think I would have believed it. That it came from Odin carried much more weight, and soon my denial was replaced with an anger so deep and so strong that it drove me temporarily insane. When I went to see Loki, it wasn’t some part of an elaborate plan, it was a moment of madness. To be perfectly honest I wanted to hurt you as I’d been hurt.”
“So you went to see Loki, the one god you knew would go along with you,” Cadric said, bitterness rising up inside him. He’d always known that there was something between his wife and Loki, that before they’d been married Loki had been in love with her. While he knew his wife didn’t share those feelings, he didn’t like the thought that in her moment of anger with him she’d turned to Loki.
“Loki was as much a part of this as you and I. I knew how he felt about me all those years ago, as I’m sure you did. That’s part of why you courted me, to get one over on the trickster. Your own little prank,” she said and there was an edge of sadness in her voice.
“I courted you not because of Loki’s feelings for you, but because of how I felt. You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, and I couldn’t stay away from you. I never used you to put one over on Loki. I couldn’t resist you,” he said, not wanting her to believe that he’d courted and married her for any other reason than his feelings for her. It would have been the perfect way to hurt her, after all she’d done, to let her think that he’d used her, but he couldn’t do it. He’d loved her so much, so long ago, that he couldn’t make that a lie.
“Thank you for that,” she said in acknowledgement and he nodded for her to continue. “I went to Loki, and I told him everything. His wife had abandoned him and he was there, alone, forgotten. I felt sorry for him. Even though I didn’t return his feelings, I liked him. He was my friend, and it made me angrier to see what your father had done to him. So I freed him. It was easier than I thought. Asgard has weakened, and the bounds that held him weren’t as strong as they once were. He asked me what I wanted in return for setting him free and I said I wanted my husband back.”
Cadric raked his fingers through his hair as everything clicked into place. He could see in his own twisted way that Loki was doing what she’d bid him to do. Stripping away his place in the Order was the one thing that would send him back to the halls of Asgard and to his wife. They’d almost succeeded. If she hadn’t confessed that she knew it was Loki and her part in this whole thing, he would have been with her for eternity.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for what I put you through,” he said as he acknowledged that all this was happening because of actions he took years ago. If he was to blame anyone for the disaster his life had become, the ultimate responsibility lay with himself.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she sat trembling on the couch. He longed to reach for her, but couldn’t. While he acknowledged his part in all this, there was a hurt buried deep inside him that he couldn’t get past. Instead of coming to Earth and confronting him directly, she’d gone to Loki.
“Would you be willing to speak at the tribunal, to reveal that Loki is behind this?”
Her face paled, and she bit her lip and he knew in that moment that he was on his own. He was in exactly the same spot he’d been in before she’d made her confession. The Order was lost to him because he had no proof. He stood, and she looked up at him.
“Is there no other way?” she said. “If your father learns that I set Loki free I’ll be punished. You saw what he did to Loki whose only crime was that he fathered Fenrir, who Odin believes will consume him. What do you think he’d do to me if he learned that I freed Loki?”
Cadric’s shoulders sagged when he realized the impossibility of their position. She couldn’t tell all to the tribunal. Once his father learned of what he would see as her treachery he would make what he’d done to Loki for centuries look like a child’s game.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I will think of something. I think it best if you go back to Asgard before my father learns of your involvement in all this.”
“Baldr,” she said, and he clenched his jaw at the sound of tears in her voice. He walked back toward the window, not wanting to look at her any longer. He wouldn’t be able to
let her go otherwise, and she needed to go. “Please tell me that you forgive me? Please don’t send me away.”
His heart squeezed in his chest and he put his hand on the window frame to brace himself as the pain of letting her go nearly sent him to his knees. He remained turned away from her, and after several moments heard her quiet steps as she left the room. He leaned his head forward and rested his forehead against the window, letting the coldness of it seep into his entire body.
* * *
Nan walked outside after her confrontation with Baldr, and gooseflesh raised up on her arms. She didn’t know if it was because of the temperature outside, or if it was from the ice slowly encasing her heart. What she’d feared most had come to pass. She’d told Baldr everything, and it was now clear that he would never forgive her. Their marriage was dead, and she wasn’t sure if it had ever lived at all. That she regretted freeing Loki was an understatement. She would give anything to take back what she’d done, but it was much too late for that.
She walked off the back porch and over the lawn, retreating far from the house. The breeze stirring the leaves surrounding her chilled the skin on her cheeks where they were wet with tears. She reached up to swipe her palms over her skin, scrubbing away the signs of her grief over the destruction of her relationship. There would be plenty of time to mourn what’s she could have had with Baldr later. She took a deep breath, knowing what she should do now, but there was a small kernel of fear at taking that step.
She could go back to Asgard and pretend this brief interlude with her husband had never happened and let what she’d set in motion by freeing Loki run its course. But that was the coward’s way, and she’d been afraid for too long to take the easy way out. The only way she could get past the guilt and regret over what she’d done to the man she loved was to make things right. Perhaps then she could eventually learn to live with herself again.
Baldr may have wronged her all those years ago, but in her heart she had forgiven him. If she hadn't she would not have wanted to make their marriage work. She reached up and grasped the pendant around her neck, the one her son had given her to use to call him to her. She swallowed hard. Once she took this step there would be no going back. She would be committed to her course of action, no matter what. Her hand tightened around the pendant, and it pulsed warm in her hand. She needed to make amends and right the wrong she’d so impulsively committed.
“Forseti, please come to me,” she said quietly as she closed her eyes. In her mind she formed a picture of her son, and willed him to come to her.
“I’m here, mother,” he said, and she opened her eyes to see her son standing before her. He reached out to her, tilting her face so he could see her. Despite her efforts she knew by his expression that he could see the lingering tracks of her tears.
“That son of a bitch,” he growled as he stepped away from him. “Hasn’t he hurt you enough? What has he done now? Tell me and I swear I will make him answer for it.”
“Forseti please,” she said as she put a calming hand on his arm. “Your father has done nothing, I’m the one who has wronged him. There are more important things that need to be dealt with.”
“What can be more important than the fact that he keeps hurting you over and over again. How could you have wronged him after what he’s done?”
Nan could see her son bore no forgiveness towards his father. Perhaps it was easier for her in that regard. She’d been married to Baldr, had known him for years before he’d left. Forseti was a child when his father had left the halls of the gods, and he would have little memory of him. His bitterness over his father’s actions of the past and for what he believed was the ill treatment of her was clouding his judgment. There were more pressing issues than her sons anger toward his father, and she needed his complete attention. She decided the only way to gain it was to be very blunt with him.
“I’m the one who freed Loki from Asgard,” she said and her son directed all his focus on her as soon as the words left her mouth.
Shock descended onto her son’s face, and he grew pale. For a moment he looked dazed as if she’d punched him. After a few moments of silence, she could see the dawning implications of exactly what she said, and he shook his head in denial.
“If this is some joke, I don’t find it very funny,” he rasped out as the muscle jumped under his skin along the side of his jaw.
“I wish I was joking,” she said sadly. She could see that not only had she destroyed her relationship with Baldr, there was a very real possibility that she’d done so with her relationship with her son. He was looking at her like she was a stranger, and an unpleasant one at that. She had to explain the unjustifiable. “When I learned that your father was alive, I did the unthinkable. I was stupid and furious. I wanted to hurt him, and I free Loki because of it. You can’t know how much I regret that one impulsive act. I can’t take it back, but I can help stop the damage. Loki is determined to destroy your father and we have to stop him.”
“Why would I care if Loki destroys him,” he said, his lip curling.
She straightened her spine and stood before him. She’d let him think ill of his father, and while he had reason to, stopping Loki was too important to let him sulk over his father’s abandonment.
“Whatever you may feel toward him, he is still your father and my husband. If you want to hate him that’s your prerogative, but you cannot let it interfere with your duty. You are the God of Justice, and you must take the steps to bring both Loki and myself to justice.”
He growled and raked his hand through his hair, and she wondered how he would feel if she told him that his father had the same habit when he was exasperated too. She thought better than to mention it. The last person her son would want to be like was his father.
“Don’t you think I haven’t tried searching for Loki,” he said, the frustration in his voice barely contained. “He has hidden himself from me. He is stronger than he should be.”
“Loki has cultivated a small group of followers. Perhaps their belief in him has given him strength,” Nan offered.
“That wouldn’t be enough to cloak him from me. I wish I knew what it was. I need to be prepared for anything and knowing how he’s gained his power would tell me what I’m up against.”
Nan thought for a moment, her mind racing over everything that Loki had done since he’d come to Earth. She thought of all the acts that Baldr had been investigating, and her mouth went dry when she thought of the one thing that would have given Loki a boost in power.
“I think he may have made a human sacrifice,” she said, and her son swore under his breath. If Loki had gotten Dany Cavanaugh to pledge himself to him before he’d killed him, it would have boosted Loki’s strength considerably. There was powerful magic in sacrifice, and Loki had harnessed it.
“If that’s true, then I won’t be able to take him down on my own,” Forseti said. “And that still doesn’t help us find him. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” Nan said and a look of disappointment crossed her son’s face. “But I know where he will be. I want you to meet me at the Order of Odin headquarters tomorrow. I want you to bring Odin and Thor with you. If he has made a human sacrifice then he will be too strong for the two of us to take him down alone, and I don’t imagine that he will go quietly.”
Forseti looked at her, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He closed his eyes for a moment, and she knew the full weight of what she was doing had sunk in.
“If I bring Odin, he will know your part in all this. I won’t be able to shield you from any punishment he wants to deal out,” Forseti said, and she reached out to clasp his hand. He clung to her, and she was heartened because despite what she’d done, she still had the love and loyalty of her son. She knew that he would do everything in his power to save her from herself. This was not what she wanted him to do. It was time for her to face the consequences of what she’d done.
“I appreciate what you are trying to do for me, but it
’s unnecessary. We need Odin and Thor to stop Loki. We both know that he cannot continue on Earth unchecked. He’s already made a human sacrifice, that power is irresistible and he will do it again. I freed him and I need to set things right.”
Her son nodded sadly and pulled her to him, hugging her close. He would back her and do as she asked. As she rested her cheek against his solid strength she focused on stopping Loki. She was prepared to pay the price for her part in all this, and she only hoped that what Odin would do to her would in some small way make amends.
She pulled away, and together she and her son turned away from Baldr’s house. She turned her head and looked at it one last time. Goodbye Baldr, she thought as she turned back to face a future without him in it.
Chapter 19
Cadric rolled over onto his back in his bed early the next morning, his hand creeping over to Nan’s side of the bed. His touch was met with cold sheets and it all came flooding back. Her revelations that she was the one who freed Loki, his anger at her and his telling her to go back to Asgard. As soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to call them back, but he’d stilled his tongue. He needed to cool down first and had let her leave the room. It was only late in the night, when he lay in his bed alone, that he realized she’d gone for good.
He shoved his thoughts aside as he sat up and turned so his feet rested on the floor beside the bed. The crushing weight of what was going to happen today almost drove him back into the bed, but he stayed where he was. Loki may have won, and everything that he held dear was going to be stripped away from him, but he would be damned if he would give the other god the satisfaction of seeing him crushed.
His stood up and walked into his bathroom, ignoring the chill on his nude flesh. This was just a day like any other, and he would face it like he’d done on every other day since he’d left Asgard. He gave the knob in the shower a twist and turned it on. Hot stinging needles of water hit his skin, and he focused on preparing himself for the day ahead. The temptation was there, to rest his head against the wall, to allow the emotion churning in his gut to take hold, but he pushed it down and kept his head up as he shampooed his short hair.