Page 6 of Last Thrall of Asgard

But my eyes focused beyond my abductor because I could see the other end of the bridge in the distance, arching downward toward what I could only assume was Midgard below us. I could make out its mountains, valleys, terrain I was unfamiliar with as well, but any people were too tiny from this distance to make out, and the bridge itself eventually faded as if to nothing, reaching a point where mortal eyes could no longer perceive it.

Nearer to me, suspended on clouds above where I stoodwithoutthe assistance of branches, was a building like a watchtower, poised here at the top of the universe to look down on everything, on every realm beneath it, connected by Yggdrasil.

I was at the gates to Asgard.

Was I dead?

“You get used to it.” My abductor gestured behind me toward the gate. “It’s just a city.” He gestured beneath us.“Just a bridge.” Gestured behind him. “Just the mortal realm.” And finally, he raised thin, willowy arms to encompass what connected it all. “Just a tree.”

“Loki?” I gasped, for there was no doubt now as my scattered thoughts reconfigured and my racing heart could no longer deny that I was in the home of the gods I had been certain a moment ago didn’t exist.

But this had to be Loki, for even without his glibness giving him away, he was exactly how the stories described him.

No taller than me, but long and lanky, fair in face like a woman—and who it was said oft transformed into a woman, among other things—with long red hair like it was made of fire. One side had multiple braids tight to his scalp, almost like the effect of it being shaved. The rest hung wavy and loose, casting that side of his face in shadow. The roots were black like burnt-out embers on a bonfire, his long locks almost blood-red in their depth, and continuing to transition to fire-red, then sunset orange, all the way to their tips that were as blond as Thorsten’s fringe.

Loki’s blue eyes were so pale, they transfixed me, reflecting everything in their bright color, like flickering flames. His garments were green, with accents in the same fire-like colors as his hair. He wore elegant, laced shoes that looked as though he could beat anyone in a footrace. The stitching of his garments was also green but shimmered as if somehow golden too. It wasn’t simple stitching either but formed runes and figures of snakes, wolves, and grinning faces.

“Does my prominence precede me?” Loki bowed dramatically. “How marvelous. And I certainly hope so, considering how splendidly you cursed my name.”

Fuck.

Fuck. I’d cursed Loki. I’d cursed all the gods.

“I—”

“You might be just what the healer ordered.”

“The… what?”

Loki leapt over me as if he weighed no more than a bird or could fly with an eruption of wings. At this point, I’d believe it.

He landed behind me atop one of the pillars of the gate. It had two pillars with an arch connecting them, but no real door.

“Go on.” Loki crouched low and waved a hand toward the home of the gods. “Peer within. Tell me what you see.”

As if drawn by an invisible tether, I neared the gate but didn’t dare cross its arch. I had never been off Thorsten’s family land. The land itself was beautiful, expansive with hills and farmland and the wood, but nothing like this ethereal city, something only ever imagined in my mind from stories. What any city would look like was a mystery to me, but this was like some fever dream in alabaster and gold.

There were people, distant from me but definitely people, down the long stretch of the rainbow bridge continuing into the city like a main street. Minor gods? Aesir. Maybe Vanir. Maybe others too. The abodes and buildings they walked between were massive and majestic.

Then I realized, the greatest of the old gods, those with the most stories and supposed power, had monuments to themselves at the entrances to their halls, which made it easy to guess who lived where.

One statue held a great hammer. The Hall of Bilskírnir, home of Thor. It spanned large enough to be its own village.

Another statue, near the center of the city, had an eye covered as if missing and was the most richly adorned and kingly looking. The Hall of Gladsheim, Odin’s private sanctuary.

Next to that was the statue of a winged warrior woman. A Valkyrie, clearly symbolizing the entrance to Valhalla.

While not all the halls were marked with statues, and not all statues had immediately discernible identities to me, there was no rejecting the truth of where I was. Or who I was with.

Loki leapt down beside me, making me flinch. He leaned in close to my face, so close that I trembled, wondering what he might do to me. “Well?”

“A-Asgard?” I shrugged in answer.

“Obviously. What else?”

“Um… minor gods? Homes and halls for the greater ones, but only minor gods in the streets. Not thatyou’reminor, of course—”

“No need to flatter me now.” Loki waved a hand. “You know,me, fucker of horses and father of monsters.” He grinned.

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