Awakenings

“Where’s Phelan, anyway?”  I asked, scrubbing a hand across my eyes.  “I thought he was with you, Sif.”

“A young lady waylaid him,” she said.  “Blonde, lovely, steel like a sword’s blade beneath everything.  I could see it in her eyes.  From the sound of it, she’d be tucking him back into bed soon enough.  What happened to that bloody idiot, anyhow?”

“This last time?  The Hecate.”  I exhaled quietly and nodded my thanks to Thom as he pressed a fresh cup of tea into my hand.  “Before that, it was Vammatar’s sisters, and before that it was Menhit and then Vammatar before that and Cariocecus, too.  At least one’s dead and the other is our ally.”  My gaze slid toward Thordin for a moment.  “Hopefully, we’ll never have to deal with Vammatar ever again.”

I took a deep swallow from my mug, shuddering slightly as the heat from the liquid bled through my chest and throat.  Thom settled an arm around my shoulders and hugged me against his side.

“Too many enemies,” he murmured.  “Not enough allies.  We’ve been lucky that we’ve had the time to react, warning that they might be coming—Menhit was the only one that took us by surprise.  She subverted Cariocecus’s control over some supernatural minions he’d gathered and launched an attack during what he intended to be his moment of triumph over us.”

“She was working with the Hecate,” I said quietly.  “At least at the time.  She may have broken away by now, double-crossed her…or the Hecate might have taken exception to the camazotzi trying to murder Phelan.”

“Well, if she wants him for a partner…”  Neve shuddered, her voice trailing away.  “I don’t like it.  There’s too much we don’t know.”

I snorted humorlessly.  “Yeah.  Story of our lives, right?”

She choked on a laugh, nodding.  “Exactly.”

I stared at the fire for a long moment, holding my mug against my knee, turning the memories of the encounter over in my head.  “Neve…do you know if Brighid of the Imbolg ever stepped up against her?”

“Against who?  Menhit?”  Neve grimaced slightly, swirling her own tea around in its mug.  “I’m not sure.  Why?”

“Something tells me she did,” I said softly.  “And it didn’t end well at all for either side.”

“How would you know to suspect such a thing?”  Sif asked curiously.

Neve laughed, shaking her head.  “They didn’t tell you?”

Sif’s tone was bone-dry, like a desert in high summer.  “I just met them less than an hour ago.  There’s a great deal that no one’s told me, apparently.”

The last princess of Avalon just smiled weakly.  “Thordin’s soul isn’t the only one that was spun back out into the world.  You share a fire with Brighid of the Imbolg and Finn mac Camulos.”

“The man you shot this morning with that arrow was Ciar mac Dúbhshláin, a ghlac Cernunnos,” Thordin added, his voice quiet.

Sif’s eyes widened and her gaze snapped to Thordin.  “You’re telling me I shot the Ridden Druid this morning?”

“She shot Matt?”  Neve asked, looking at me and Thom.  “No one mentioned that.”

“She just knocked him off the wall,” Thom said quietly, carefully avoiding Neve’s gaze.  “It wasn’t a reason to get the whole world worried.  She did it to get his attention and to show that she was serious about talking to Marin and I this morning.”

“It was an idiotic stunt,” Thordin said in response to Sif.  “You should know better.”

“There was no sense of—”

All he did was smile.  “In this world, in this awakened world, nothing is at it seems, Sif.  Absolutely nothing.”

“Bastard,” Thordin breathed, staring at the blood on his hands—Sif’s blood.  I stood behind him, throat so tight that I couldn’t breathe.  She was limp in front of him, sprawled like a discarded doll on the marshy turf, face pale as death and clothes splashed with the same scarlet that soaked her lover’s hands.

            “You bastard.”

            I couldn’t look away.  I just stared at her chest, watching for the barest hint of a rise, a fall, that she was still alive.

            Our enemy’s laughter sent shivers dancing up and down my spine, set the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.  My jaw tightened, teeth grinding.

            “Fucking bastard,” Thordin said, his voice shaking as he said the word for a third time.  He surged to his feet and launched himself at the white-clad figure, fingers hooked into claws.

            I stood there, rooted to the spot.  I couldn’t help, but I couldn’t turn away no matter how much I wanted to.

            The man in white just laughed—right up until Thordin grappled him and carried him to the ground.

            He oofed and just started laughing again.

I sucked in a sharp breath with a shudder.  Thom looked down at me, blinking slightly.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured.

My hand shook as I handed him my mug.  “Will you pour me another cup of tea?”

I tried to ignore the strange, concerned looks I was getting as I squeezed my eyes shut.  The after-image of the too-beautiful man in white was burned into the back of my eyelids and I shuddered again.

Thom’s fingers brushed my face and I shook my head hard.

“No,” I whispered.  “Don’t ask me.  Don’t ask me.”

“Is she all right?”  Sif asked.

I just looked at her.  “No. I’m not.  I will be, though.  I will be.”

These visions come for a reason—so I can stop them from coming to be.  That’s what I’ve got to believe.

            That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

“What?”

I winced, momentarily wishing that Thom and I hadn’t decided to stay put.  Sif’s flat tone could only mean one of two things—that she was in shock, or that she just didn’t care.

I was banking on the former but terrified it might actually be the latter.

Thordin closed his eyes, tilting his head back and taking a deep, slow breath.  “She wants Phelan. She wants him terribly.”

Sif glanced at us.  “For what?”

“To rut like dogs in heat,” Neve said, her expression twisting in disgust.  “I think she finds that preferable to just killing him outright.”

I flinched, glancing toward Thom.  He shook his head grimly.  “I just know what Cameron said…and that was it.”

“Hell,” I breathed.  The thought that she’d want to do more than just kill him was mind-boggling.

All things considered, though, I guess it makes sense—somehow.  The thought still made me sick to my stomach.

Poor Phelan.

“You’re serious,” Sif said, her voice quieter now.  I could pick up a trace of emotion now—maybe outrage, maybe something else.  “She said it?”

“Cameron and Jacqueline heard her and they’ve got no reason to lie,” Neve said, steel under the softness of her voice.  “If they said that’s what she was after, it’s the truth.”

“It’s the truth,” Thordin said quietly.  He crouched next to Sif, staring at her for a long, aching moment.  “He’s my friend, Sif.  Forgive him for what you think he might have done.”

“I know he didn’t tell you,” she said, staring at the fire.  “I know it was the prince of princes.  It doesn’t matter.  Why didn’t you find me?  Why didn’t you look?”

“How could I?” he whispered.  “I was dead.”

I leaned against Thom as I watched them and he put his arm around me, hugging me close.

“You have a second chance now,” I said softly.

“She’s right,” Thordin said.  “We do.”

Sif broke the silence, a tremor in her voice as she sat rigid by the fire, seeing nothing and no one but Thordin.  “What became of you?”

“I went to live with Grayson,” he said quietly, both hands wrapped around his mug.  The steam that still rose from it wreathed his face, his gaze faraway.  “His daughter was grown and moved away and his wife was dead.  Laura came a lot.  She was his deputy and she worried about the two of us.  She and her husband didn’t have any children of their own.  I’d stay with them sometimes.  John helped me remember who I’d been in the long ago, showed me the ways of his people.  They weren’t unlike ours in the days long gone.  I was happy there despite everything.  I was happy for a long time.”

“How did you end up this far east?”  Neve asked.  “You were even further east when you met up with Cameron and I.  If you were so happy in Wyoming…?”

“There was more family,” Thordin said.  “They lived in Minnesota.  When they finally found out about what had happened to Lili and Sven, they wanted me.  I was eighteen, then.  It was my decision.  I wasn’t sure what I wanted.  They wanted to know me and they said that they’d…acch, it doesn’t matter what they said they’d do.  I went and stayed there for a time, read too many books and became curious about too many things.”  His eyes slid closed.  “Did you know that there are legends about the Vikings landing in Canada and spreading down the St. Lawrence and up and down the coast?  They left stones carved with runes to mark their passage.  I decided I had to see for myself, so I quit my job as a ranger for the parks service and headed east.  The world ended while I was hiking back from Maine.”

“I’d heard those stories,” Marin said softly.  “Phelan talked about it, too, but he made it sound like it was people from Ireland, not Vikings.”

Neve glanced at her.  “He told you that tale?”

“He had to,” Marin said.  “He was telling me the whole story about Vammatar and that…explained part of it.”

“Damn those bitches,” Sif growled, shaking her head hard.  “They never did know when to quit.”

“They do bear some serious grudges,” Thordin agreed quietly.  “And now their grudge against him has been extended to everyone else, though it’s worse than that.”  His lips thinned.  “The Hecate walks, Sif.

“She walks and she wants the Taliesin for herself.”

Thordin took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, taking a deep swallow from his mug before he continued on.  “They owned a ranch and that’s where I grew up, playing in the pastures and never being afraid of anything I saw out there—not snakes, not coyotes, nothing.  In fact, there was one coyote I’d managed to mostly tame.  The mother who birthed me and loved me as a child, Lili, she hated that, was terrified of it.  Sven just told me to be careful, that it was still a wild thing.  I think he understood better than she did.

“I was out in the field with that coyote with the too-bright eyes that afternoon.  I’d come home from school and gone out to play.  It was what I did; I was ten years old.  He drew me out further into the tall grass on the hill pasture, grass so tall that you could just barely see my head—and only if you knew where to look.  Mamma knew where to look for me.  She knew better than anyone else.

“I heard her scream while I was up there on the hill and I ran back down.  Coyote tried to stop me, tried to keep me from going down there.  It was as if he knew what was happening down there and didn’t want me to see it.  There was no stopping me, though, not when I heard that.  I knew that it was bad.”

“Thordin, you don’t—”

He shook his head slightly at Neve’s whispered words.  “You all deserve to know.  I’ll tell Phelan eventually, when the time’s right.  I’ve held this story too close for too long.  The only people who know are Laura and Grayson, who raised me after Lili and Sven were gone.”  He closed his eyes for a moment.  “I remember when Grayson came into the house.  He was wearing cowboy boots, old jeans, and a herder’s jacket.  He reminded me a little bit of my father.  Laura was this blonde vision behind him in a deputy’s uniform.  She reminded me of you a bit, Sif, but…warmer, comforting.  Motherly.”

Sif flinched and Neve felt a pang of sympathy for her.  It couldn’t have been easy to hear that.

Thordin sighed and shook his head.  “But that came later.  After I heard Mamma scream, I ran to the back door, but something made me slow down, kept me from bursting into the house like some terrorized creature.  I crept inside through that back door and hid in the kitchen.

“There were three men in the family room, two of them stabbing my father over and over as they held him on the ground and the other was holding Mamma and making her watch.”  His voice shook a little as the words kept coming, his eyes focused on something long ago and far away.  “Then he slit her throat and one of them spotted me.  They were coming toward me and then they just…stopped.  They stared at me for a moment, then they just left, as if I wasn’t worth their time.”  He sucked in a breath and exhaled it slowly.  “I don’t know how Grayson and Laura knew to come,” he whispered.  “No one told them to come.  We lived outside of town, all alone.  No one would have known unless we called and no one called.  Somehow, though, they knew to come.

“I remember that Laura asked me what my name was and I told her it was Thordin.  Mamma’s blood was all over my hands but I couldn’t cry, not then.  My blood was boiling.  Those men had killed my family.

“It rained for five days, the worst thunderstorms folks had seen there in ten years—since the day I was born.  I did that.”  He gulped down some more coffee.  “Heaven help me, I did that.  My pain did that.  I thought somehow I would be able to drown the men if it rained enough, that somehow they’d be trapped and Grayson and Laura would be able to catch them and then they’d face justice for what they’d done to my parents.

“But we never found them.  They vanished like smoke in the wind.”

Neve swallowed, catching her lower lip between her teeth.  “Did Phelan tell you that, Marin?”

She snorted softly.  “When was there time?  He didn’t tell me.  It never came up.  I don’t think Thordin even knew he’d had a child until Sif told him out on the field.”

Even Thom looked confused by his wife’s statement and his words came slowly, measured.

“Then how do you know that Ireland was safe?”

She looked at him squarely.  “A certain ghost that likes to hang around told me.”

Ériu.  Of course.  Neve shook her head slightly, a faint smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.  “I should have known.”

“Maybe,” Marin whispered, her gaze flicking back toward Sif.  “You should sit.  Thordin will cool off enough that he’ll want to talk eventually and you did want to hear about what we’re facing.”

“Actually, you were more interested in my story than I was in yours.”  Still, the muscular woman eased into a sitting position, facing Marin, Thom, and Neve next to the fire.  “Given your apparent friendship with…Thordin…I can’t say that I blame you.”  She glanced at Neve, her eyes narrowing slightly.  “How long have you known?”

“He found me on the road,” Neve said softly.  “I didn’t believe it when my brother told me he was still alive.  I thought what everyone else thought—that he was dead, gone.”

“I told you that I got better.”

Sif flinched at the rumble of Thordin’s voice from behind her, the warrior woman going rigid as his shadow fell over her.  Neve looked up at him, trying to suppress a grimace.  He just looked at her, resignation in his eyes as he stepped away from Sif and circled the fire to pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot that sat steaming on the stones near the flames.

“I did die,” Thordin said quietly, “but as some of us have come to realize, death is actually a transient state of being.  The dead can come back if that’s what their souls desire.”  Pain filled his gaze as he looked at Sif.  “Or if someone deems their return necessary.”

“What are you saying?” she whispered.

“I’m saying that I was reborn onto this earth as a little boy named Torvald Amundsen thirty years ago in Wyoming and it wasn’t until Lili and Sven Amunden were murdered in front of me when I ten years old that I realized who and what I really was.”

At least it’s not as sore as it used to be.  Neve rubbed at her leg with a slight wince, leaning heavily against her crutches for a long moment before resuming her trek toward the fire.  She’d promised Tala she’d help keep the twins entertained so the other woman might actually be able to accomplish something before noon.  J.T. and Jacqueline kept telling her that it looked like the break was healing up fine, but Neve couldn’t help but wonder if they’d have told her if it were otherwise.

It’s not like any of us would be able to do anything about it if it wasn’t.

“Hellfire and frostspawn, don’t you have some decent brew around here?”

Neve froze, her heart slamming into her throat.

What in blazes is she doing here?

“Just sit down,” Thom’s voice growled.  “We don’t have any fresh mead or anything like that and even if we did, we wouldn’t be drinking it this close to dawn.  Have some coffee like the rest of us.”

Neve had to swallow twice before she was able to breathe enough to resume her limping journey toward the fire.  Marin and Thom were sitting there, the latter glaring up at the cloaked figure that Neve would have known in a meadhall or on a battlefield.

“Sif Freyrsdottir,” she said quietly.  “What’s brought you to our fire?”

The blonde warrior woman turned, eyes widening slightly.  “Lady Neve.  This is unexpected.”

“Many things are.”  Neve swallowed her heart back down and into place, moving carefully around the taller woman and toward her usual spot near the fire.  Marin stood up to help her sit, for which Neve was silently grateful.

The last thing I want is to unceremoniously fall on my ass in front of this woman.  She’d take it as some bloody sign of weakness and that would be that.

“Do you still bear it?”

She meant the sword.  One corner of Neve’s mouth twitched into a smile.  “I’ve found its master.  It hangs next our bed at night.”

The sense of smug satisfaction that came with the flare of jealousy and pain in Sif’s eyes was unbecoming, but for a brief moment Neve decided she didn’t care.  There had been too many years of tension and jealousy between she and Sif for her not to take at least momentary satisfaction in having something the warrior woman didn’t.

She had her lover all those years.  Now I’ve found the one I’ve always been searching for.  It’s not my fault that she forsook Thor Odinson and slept with his brother.

“Where is your brother?”  Sif asked, her tone stiff.  “I would have words with him.”

“Teague is a thousand miles from here,” Neve said, her stomach giving an uncomfortable lurch.  Someone spilled.  Probably Phelan.  Gods and monsters, why can’t he keep his big mouth shut?  “It’ll be quite a hike if you want to go skewer him for what he told Thordin.  If I were you, I’d be making up for lost time right now.”

Sif’s jaw tightened.  “He’s rather cross with me right now, actually,” she said, her voice as tart as an under-ripe melon.  “He doesn’t seem to understand the seriousness of the situation I was in when he was…suddenly gone.”

“So explain it to him,” Neve said, chin lifting.  “Don’t be blaming Teague for your current predicament.  You could have run.”

The other woman’s laugh was bitter.  “To where?  There was no place safe.”

Neve held her tongue, counting to ten.  She jumped at the sound of Marin’s voice.

“Ireland,” she said, as confident as Neve had ever heard her.  “Ireland was safe.  You could have gone there and found her people and they would have sheltered you both.

“After all, they sheltered his blood after you abandoned him, too.”

“Complicated seems like a good word for a lot of things.”

Phelan shivered as Jacqueline’s lips brushed his jaw.  Complicated indeed.  Every time she was near, every time she kissed him good-night or good-morning, he had to remind himself that he didn’t have to run this time, didn’t have to push her away.  She knew what he was and the way he was and didn’t care—or maybe she loved him in spite of it, or because of it.

“You should’ve stayed in bed,” she murmured.  “If you don’t stop pushing so hard, you’ll just get caught in the same vicious cycle that Thom finally shook free of.”

He leaned against her for a moment, one arm snaking around her waist and drawing her tight against the side that was still tender, even weeks later.  “I had to trust Matt’s instincts on this one.  There was trouble brewing and the last thing any of us want or need is to see Thordin torn limb from limb.”

Jacqueline peered up at him, brushing a few loose wisps of hair back from her face.  “You don’t actually think that’s what would have happened without your intervention, do you?”

“I wish I didn’t.”  He smiled wryly and shook his head.  “Tensions were thick enough to smear on your toast by the time I got there.  She still loves him, but she’s angry enough right about now that she’d kill him if he pushed her too far.”

“Well, I hope he’s not up by the fire right now.”

“You and me both.”  Phelan followed his lover’s anxious gaze toward the fire, where Sif had seated herself with her back to them, facing the flames.

“What made her so angry?”

“He died,” Phelan said simply.  Jacqueline shivered.

“You’re not allowed to do that,” she said.

He grinned.  “That’s what you guys keep telling me, anyway.”  The expression faded a moment later and he exhaled a sigh.  “They’ll have to talk, though, before she leaves here.  They’ve got to.  She has to tell him—and he’s got to tell her.”

“Tell each other what?”

Phelan leaned against her a little more heavily, weariness suddenly crashing over him like waves over breakers.  “Everything, Jac.  They’ve got to tell each other everything.”

Limping, he brought Sif into the fold, into the heart of their encampment.  She glanced around warily, though mostly, her gaze settled on the back of his neck.  He could feel that gaze, calculating, measuring, cold against his flesh as if it was a physical thing.

Phelan took a slow, silent breath to steady himself as they drew closer to the fire.  You’re in control of this one, Taliesin, just remember that.  You hold more cards than she does—and she knows it.

Déithe agus arrachtaigh, I hope that Thordin’s not sitting there.  His stomach roiled.  He could taste the tension between the pair of lovers, worse than it had ever been between Thom and Marin, even when he’d first come at the beginning, worse than it had ever been with Finn and Brighíd so long ago, at the heights of their arguments, at the very worst times.

Then again, no one ever slept with someone’s brother in those scenarios, either.

“You swear that you weren’t the one who told him?”

“I didn’t tell him,” Phelan repeated, twisting to look at her.  “Why can’t you believe that?”

“Because you won’t tell me who did, Wanderer.  In absence of alternatives, what else am I to do but believe that it must have been you who told him?”

“It was Teague,” Phelan snapped, hating himself for the admission.  “They ran into each other in Colorado a few years ago.  I don’t know how it came up, I just know that it did.  Thordin told me.”  Teague didn’t even tell me they’d run into each other.  That still stung a little.  Teague didn’t keep many secrets from him.

But it’s hell to get slapped in the face with the ones he does decide to keep.

“The Prince of Princes?  He’s still breathing, too?”

“We’re hardier folk than most people like to think,” Phelan said, wincing as he stepped funny and stumbling.  Sif caught him by the arm before he went crashing to the ground.  He swore heartily as ribbons of pain shot through his chest and abdomen as he righted himself,  allowing himself the luxury of leaning against her for a moment.  “My current state of affairs nonwithstanding.”

“Phelan, what the hell are you doing up?”

He flinched at the sound of Jacqueline’s voice, straightening quickly as he spotted her out of the corner of his eye.  Her stride slowed as she studied Sif, who let go of Phelan hesitantly, canting her head to one side and studying the newcomer.

“Matt came and got me,” he explained, turning toward her and reaching a hand out for the healer.  “Said there was trouble brewing and he needed a hand.”

“Well, I guess I’ll just have to deal with him later,” Jacqueline said as she took Phelan’s hand, squeezing it tightly as her eyes raked over him quickly, as if she was checking to make sure he hadn’t suddenly sprouted any new wounds.

She’s probably doing just that.  He suppressed the urge to sigh.  I’m turning into some kind of violence-magnet and my body’s starting to pay the price for it.  This is worse than it ever was back in the old days, and I swear I had more enemies in a smaller area then than I do now.

Maybe I’m just getting old.

“Who’s our guest?” Jacqueline asked, still looking at Sif.

“Sif,” the blonde said with a smile as cold as the frozen north.

Jacqueline’s brows knit.  “Like Odin and all that?”

“Yes.  Like that.”  Sif’s gaze returned to Phelan.  “I believe I’ll find that fire now.”

Phelan gestured vaguely.  “It’s over there.”

Sif nodded, brushing past him, long strides eating the distance.

“Aren’t Sif and Thor—”

“It’s complicated,” Phelan said.  “Let’s just leave it at that.”

Sif stared at his retreating back for a long moment, her lips barely moving as she finally voiced a question, one directed almost accusatorially at Phelan.

“You told him I slept with his brother?”

“It wasn’t me,” Phelan said quietly.  “Though I won’t deny that I knew about it.  The first I’d seen of him was when he showed up with Neve.”

Thom wasn’t quite sure if it was a lie or not.  He slid his arm around Marin’s shoulders and pulled her tight against his side.  “Come on,” he murmured.  “Let’s get ourselves someplace warmer than out here in the wind.”

She leaned into his embrace, glancing back toward Phelan and Sif as Thom turned her away, back toward the gates.  “She looks like he just ripped her guts out,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear what she’d said.  “I can’t imagine what making that choice would have been like.”

He shuddered and held her a little tighter.  “You and I will never know,” he said, kissing her temple.  Loss, though…we may know that.  I just hope that we never will.

Thom squeezed his eyes shut briefly.  Dreams had been stirring again, coming in the very darkest, deepest depths of the night, the same dreams that had made him push her away in the past, the dreams that made him fearful of a future where the two of them were together.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he lied, suppressing a shiver.  “I’m fine.”

“Thom.”

“Mar, don’t ask me,” he said, shaking his head slightly, staring at their feet.  “Don’t ask me when you know I’m not okay but I haven’t said anything and then expect me not to lie about it.  I love you, but sometimes there are things that I just…that I can’t bring myself to say.”

“This is about something you’re seeing.”

He squeezed his eyes shut.  “Yeah.  Something I don’t want to talk about.”

“We made a promise, Thom.”

“One you and I have both broken already.”  He opened his eyes and stared at her.  “Don’t tell me that there aren’t things that you’ve held back, that you’ve kept from me.”

She looked away and that told him all he needed to know.  He just nodded slightly and squeezed her a little tighter against his ribcage.  Those ribs still ached sometimes when the wind blew at its coldest, when the pressure shifted with the coming of a storm.  Sometimes, he wondered if they always would.

The rest of the time, he knew it didn’t matter.

“Are they as bad as what I’ve been keeping from you?” he asked in a bare whisper.

Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.  “I don’t know.  What have you been keeping from me?”

“I keep seeing you dying.”  The words came out choked, pain blooming in his chest even as he voiced them.  “I thought that we had done enough to change that future, but I still keep seeing it.  I can’t…Mar, I can’t lose you.”

She stiffened and looked up at him.  “When?”

“What do you mean when?”

“When do you see it happening?”  She stopped and turned toward him, took his face between her gloved palms.  “When do you see it happening?”

“I—when our son is maybe twelve, thirteen.  I don’t know.”

“I’m not going to die then, Thom.”  She stood on tip-toe and kissed him soundly, holding him tightly for a moment in the weak light of dawn.  “I’m not going to die then.”

Her breath was warm against his ear and for a moment, he dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, she was right.

“But I keep seeing it,” he said in a broken voice.  “Why do I keep seeing it?”

“I don’t know,” she said as her fingers laced through his hair.  “But we’ll figure that out together.”

Thom wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist and held her tightly, squeezing his eyes shut against the bitter, stinging tears that threatened.  “We can’t unravel this riddle fast enough  Trust me on that.”

She shivered and his arms tightened.  Something in his gut told him that despite her reassurances, she was as shaken as he was by the revelation.

What the hell does she know that she’s not telling me?

“You two all right?”  Phelan asked as he limped past them, Sif drifting in his wake.

“Yeah,” Thom said.  “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

Phelan studied him a moment before nodding.  “Right.  Well, Matt was getting some breakfast set and I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m starving and I’d rather get to the oatmeal before Thordin eats it all.”

Thom managed to laugh, hoping it didn’t sound strangled as he did.  “Right.”

“Everything will be fine,” Marin murmured into his chest even as Thom watched Phelan and Sif continue back toward the gate.

“Right,” Thom said again, his heart giving a painful squeeze.  “You’re right.”

If you’re not, what’s the point in fighting for anything anymore?

I don’t want to live in this world if you’re not in it.

Her arms loosened from around him and she stepped back, eyes shining in the dim.  Marin smiled and Thom smiled back.

“I love you.”

She took him by the hand and led him back toward home.