“Please, Odin,” Ailsa beseeched him. “If you let him die, this power will be lost along with the one who was fated to find it in the first place.”
He stepped closer, his eye twitched. “Why?”
She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers. Odin scowled and snatched her wrist before she could withdraw, holding the burning mark close to his face in assessment. He threw her arm back down like it had offended him. “Fraendi!”he murmured. Thor, one of Vali’s many half-brothers, choked on a bone he had accidentally swallowed at the news.
“That’s right,” she said, smiling. “If you leave Vali to die, then you willneverget your hands on this power.”
Odin interrupted her with a derisive laugh. “Then we had better make this transfer quickly before he does.”
Dread hung from her shoulders, heavy as a pelt of fur. Her footsteps retreated, a soft sound against the cold tile floor. “No!” she shouted. “I will not let you have it, not when Vali needs you… needs us!”
“Concerning your choices, Ailsa, you have none in my realms. You are a mortal. Weak, small,sick—”He was on her before she could retreat, his grip ensnared her forearms as the runes across them glowed gold—a warning to them both.
“Let me go,” she hissed. Odin yanked her aside, throwing her to the floor in front of a god with one arm—Tyr, the god of battle. Her gaze lifted to see him reach for her, pulling her against his solid frame until she was flush with his chest and trapped by the fortified cage of his arm.
“Bring her outside. I need her close to death for this to work, and things might get bloody,” Odin ordered him.
Ailsa struggled against his embrace despite her futile efforts. She looked back at Odin, her voice tired from being helpless. But a touch from the god of battle awakened the warrior dormant in her spirit. “Weworshipyou, Odin. My clan, my family, we honor you with our lives! Through our laws and our actions, we count you as revered, and this is how you treat me? And your son! How can you do this to the ones who did nothing but serve you until the end?”
Odin locked his jaw. His anger against her dissolving, a shade of tenderness struck his blue eye. “Everything I do, everything I strive to know is for the purpose to protect Midgard and all the Nine Realms, Ailsa. You think me cruel, but you don’t understand the big picture. But you will see soon enough. And I will make sure your people know what you’ve done for them.”
Tyr pushed her towards the exterior doors, and the Light Elves watched her with sorrow as she was dragged from the feast. Lady Rind was screaming her protests, but Odin silenced her with a flick of his fingers, her voice stolen by the will of his power.
The rest of the Aesir gods stood from the table, where they had enjoyed the display over the remnants of the feast and followed leisurely behind. Ailsa was about to give up her fight against Tyr’s grasp when the ground started to tremble beneath her flats. A silence fell, the Aesir’s taunting laughter died as the rest of the room felt the rumble gently shaking the hall.
Thor unsheathed his hammer at his hip, the runes enchanting the magical mallet glowed an iridescent blue.
“Giants!” Thor shouted. His gaze darted over the room, searching.
The rumbling ceased, though it made the quiet more sinister. The gods stood with their weapons in hand, a stance of defense, and waited for the giants to show themselves. A flicker of movement grabbed her attention from the top of the dome, and Ailsa had no time to warn them all before it happened.
The glass ceiling shattered.
Tyr shielded Ailsa with his body, and as the last shards fell in a delicate sprinkle, Ailsa crawled from beneath the god’s dead weight. He was alive, of course, but the weight of the dome had fallen upon them all, rendering the gods incapacitated.
She was the only thing that moved, her limbs carefully pushing against the glass shards that caught the delicate wrappings of her gown and snagged the threading. Her forehead was bleeding where she hit the tile, preceding Tyr’s tackle. She didn’t know why the god saved her, only that she was grateful he did.
The crunch of footsteps accompanied her own as she struggled to her feet.
“Ailsa?”
Drieger stood across the dome, a large mallet in his fist and a group of giants behind him. His empty fist glowing a green flame, the same color she noticed peaking the dome right before it detonated into countless pieces. His expression on her was one of pleasant surprise.
“Drieger, what are you doing here?” She dusted off the dust of rubble and crossed the sparkling ground, the debris catching the starlight in a beautifully chaotic picture of desolation.
“You didn’t hear?” he said dryly. “The Aesir tricked us, went to my brother’s hall with Thor disguised as Freya. He then killed them all when he touched the hammer. Every single giant at the wedding. Dead.”
Ailsa gasped. Her heart broke to think of Thrym murdered in his own hall by the same hammer he used to blackmail the gods. “Was your family there?”
Drieger shook his head. “No, Skiord was ill, and the weather in the valley was turning for the worst. I made us all stay home.”
She neared him where he stood with the rest of the Jotun. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say.
He nodded solemnly. “We heard the Aesir were leaving Asgard to come here, so we took the opportunity to strike back, for revenge. Tell Lady Rind we are sorry for damaging her home, but it was necessary. Where is Vali?”
Ailsa looked down at her mating rune, which was now numb but blistering a hideous sight. “He’s in trouble. Do you think you could help me once more, Drieger?”
“What do you need?” he asked.