Page 73 of Tyr

Tyr shook his head. “No.”

Silence fell between them.

“Why did you ask me to take the money to Heimdall?”

Herm shrugged. “He asked me to.”

Interesting. Heimdall would have seen the future; he wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t gone to deliver the money. If he hadn’t taken Celeste with him. What had Heimdall seen?

“So, you and Celeste?”

Tyr whipped toward him, and Herm held up his hands.

“I’m happy for you. Sad for me. I like her.”

Tyr growled, and Herm took a step back.

“I’m happy for you. You heard that, right?”

Tyr let the anger inside wane.

“Is there anything I can do to help either of you?”

Tyr shook his head, and Herm headed toward the stairs.

“Wait,” said Tyr.

Herm stopped.

“Can you find a spot on the estate for us to bury Sy?”

“Of course.”

“And dig the hole?”

Herm chuckled. “I’ll have Vid do that.”

Tyr was in no mood to argue.

He turned back to Sy and rewrapped him in the blankets. He set his hand on his friend. After all his years alive, burying friends never got easier.

Tyr watchedover Celeste as she sat with her hand on the mound of dirt in the early evening light. She’d woken up about four in the afternoon, and he’d told her they’d prepared a spot for Sy. Tyr had carried his body out to where Vid had dug the hole, under an ancient, beautiful tree, and where Hephaestus had created a pristine white marble headstone with the words“Beloved Father. Beloved Friend”. He laid the body in the grave with Vid, Herm, Hephaestus, and Heimdall looking on.

Celeste told story after story of Sy, and as she did, all five gods remained by her side. Eventually, she’d sunk to her knees and sat with her hand on the dirt. Tyr told the others to go, but he had stayed, eventually joined by Yegret, who sat in the tree watching both of them without moving.

An hour passed, and then Celeste let out a deep sigh. “Where do you think he is?”

“If I had it my way, he would be in Valhalla. Being tended to by virgins and Valkyrie alike. Drinking his fill and never having to worry about anything ever again.”

She gave him a sad smile. “I’d like that for him.”

She ran her fingers through the freshly churned dirt.

“It’s so weird to think he was a demon. Born a demon. Died a demon. And yet… he isn’t in the Underworld. But I’m alive, and I am here.”

Tyr had no answers for her. He himself didn’t fully understand why things were the way they were.

She dug her fingers deep into the soil and crumpled it in her hand before throwing it down again.

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