Sif leaned back to glance through the open doors of the balcony again. Deara, scribbling away at the desk, glanced up as the woman adjusted her grip on the sword. "Sif, is there a reason you're so jumpy?"

She turned to look at her. "What?"

"You look like you think there's a bilgesnipe on the balcony."

Sif shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She shook her head and stretched, heaving herself out of the chair, hand resting on her bulging stomach. "If you say so. I think I'll-"

She stopped when a bang sounded from the hallway. She turned and began to stride across the room and Sif moved to follow. She never even registered her guardian's hilt coming down on her head.

"Sorry, Deara," Sif said as she drug the limp body to the cupboard. "You'll be safer in here."

Deara awoke, groaning and rubbing her head in the dark. She grasped blindly around, trying to identify her location. Prison cell seemed most likely, although the drifting scent of roses didn't seem to suggest a cell. Also she couldn't imagine why they would keep her in total darkness if she was imprisoned.

She reached tentatively toward a seam of light, and felt smooth wood under her fingers. She pushed and the sight of her room greeted her.

She groaned as she unfolded herself onto the marble floor. "Loki's going to love this. 'I told you not to trust her.'" She rubbed the knot on her head. "At least I saw her coming. Wonder how long I was out," she murmured, opening the door a crack to peak out.

There was no one in the hall. She hurried to her sister's rooms, finding both empty.

Silently praying that they had followed the plan she hurried toward the east wing. She stopped to look out a window, searching for the hidden remains of the ships so useful for escaping Asgardians that preferred bridges in space to travel over slow vessels. It was how they had escaped for years.

She was please to see most of them had launched, no doubt already on their way to the ship hidden in a nearby asteroid belt.

She hurried on. Any Sheerdan warriors quickly turned to follow her as the Asgardians were dispatched the same way Sif had disposed of her, but they had no forewarning and certainly no ability to put an invisible force up to cushion the blow.

She got to the main hall and cleared a space for them to move through. Her soldiers fell in behind her as she hurried into the hall to find one of her most trusted advisors in his rooms surrounded by the most influential of the Sheerdans.

"My Queen!" He looked shocked. "We thought you were captured. We searched your rooms-"

"As she expected. That's why she put me in the cupboard. Where are my sisters?"

"Already on a plane," he assured her. "Well away."

"As you should be." She looked around the room.

They glanced at one another. "We could call them back We could fight," one offered.

She paused to consider, but shook her head. "Better to withdraw and regroup. We'll come back with our full power."

"My lady, your husband is missing. We presume he's been captured."

She sighed. "There's nothing to be done for it. Of course they'd go for him first him first. We'll return for him later. Is everyone accounted for?"

He nodded, then paused. "A group went to the main hall. Some children were being taught there."

"How many?"

"Thirty," a young soldier she suspected was a father chimed in.

She cursed softly. "All right. All of you on a plane. Our people need our advisors. I'm going to go get the children-"

Shouts of disagreement rose around her but she held up a hand. "Think of your child," an old woman who had held her as a baby suggested.

"What is the life of one child compared to thirty?" she asked. "Besides, Thor will wish us captured. If Loki and I are contained the child is no threat to them. They have no reason to hurt it."

"Our men are already out there."

"They do not have my power."

"Power that is ebbing by the moment as we leave you," she pointed out.

"I will be fine," she said. "Go, that is an order."

Her advisor turned, barking at the men who gathered quickly. When she opened her mouth to object he shook his head. "The children will be frightened. You'd best have someone to carry them at least."

"Very well," she sighed. "I will see you on the ship shortly."

She turned without another word and the men followed her. They fell in around her as she hurried to the hall, once again pushing the Asgardian soldiers aside where they were congregated in the atrium outside the east wing. She took a moment to wonder why they hadn't followed. Thor certainly wasn't clever enough to realize the best way to remove her powers was to let her people leave the planet. Sif's idea, most likely.

She strode purposely down the hall, but fear jangled inside of her by the time they reached the great hall. She retained some power being surrounded by thirty of her people but she could feel herself growing weaker. It was good, they were obeying her orders and leaving. But she was limited now.

They hurried into the hall, finding the children gathered on the far end, their teachers and nannies arrayed in front of them.

"I've come for the Sheerdan children," she informed the mixed bag. "The Asgardian can stay."

The Sheerdan children ran forward the soldiers picked them up. She took the time to face them. "We're going to the ships, to your parents. Be good and quiet and we'll get there soon."

They nodded obediently, particularly the girls, and the men surrounded her again as she turned and led them back through the hall.

As they approached the east wing she was surprised to find it empty of Asgardians. The guards looked at her questioningly but she shrugged. Her power was ebbing and she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

But the moment she stepped into the room she felt a tremor beneath them. "Run," she ordered the soldiers, stopping to press her magic into the floor. Pride bloomed when they didn't hesitate but immediately broke across the hall as the ceiling began to come down.

When they reached the other end she moved to follow, but with the last of her people a hall away, the majority of the population out of the atmosphere, and the stress of ground moving beneath her and the ceiling coming down over head she was no match for it. She wasn't even halfway across the hall when the floor came out from beneath her. She curled into a ball, trying to protect her body as much as she could before the pressure of the rock pushed her into blackness.

Sif led the way to the room she'd left the former Queen in. Thor paused on the threshold, eyes scanning the room.

"Loki's in the dungeon," his friend reminded him. "He isn't going to jump out at you."

"She might though if she's awake," another muttered.

"She isn't awake," Sif said. "I didn't go soft on her."

"It just feels like I'm intruding," Thor said.

"We are," Sif replied.

"Let's do it quickly then."

Sif strode across the room to the cupboard, threw open the door, and froze.

"Where is she?" one of them asked.

She pressed the clothing aside, digging through the collection on the bottom, cursing. "She's gone?" Thor asked.

"I thought you said you hit her."

"I did!" Sif said.

"Maybe she saw you coming," Thor suggested.

"It felt like it made contact."

"Maybe you did, just not as hard," Thor suggested. He went to the window and looked to the west where the ships had been taking off, watching a last small craft move into the clouds. "Perhaps if I hadn't been so distracted by Loki I could have been here in time." The clouds darkened as the craft disappeared and his hands closed on the window sill. The gathered Asgardians winced when the loud crack of thunder split the sky, then ran to the window when an entirely different rumble met their ears.

They watched a plume of smoke rise from the east wing. "Thor, what did you do?" Sif asked.

"It wasn't his fault," one of their companions offered. "Not entirely." They turned to look at him. "The footings have been rotting for years, but no one wanted to go down in the sewers to repair it. That's why no one was in the east wing before the Sheerdan took up residence there." He leaned further out. "The ships taking off weakened the ground as well. Thor's temper tantrum just finally brought it all to head."

"It makes no matter," Thor said turning on his heel and striding toward the door.

The others followed. None of them saw the last tiny ship struggle off of the earth.

"Sif, tell me again about their…connection."

Sif shrugged. "They seemed to be able to feel what the other could. Only when the wanted, I thought."

"And could they tell where the other was?"

Sif nodded. "She could anyway. She would warn me when he was coming, send me off sometimes if he was in a temper. He's newer to these things. Didn't seem as practiced."

The rest of them exchanged looks as they climbed back down the long stairs.

They stopped before Loki's cell. He was lying at his ease on one of the lounges and glanced up at them. "Back so soon?"

"Where is she, Loki?"

"I've been responsible for a lot of 'she's of late. You'll have to be more specific."

"The woman who wished to call me brother. Who dreamed of you referring to me as such. Your wife, Loki. Where has she gone?"

He grinned. "Lost her have you?"

"Loki, she is in a delicate condition. I do not wish her harmed, nor your child. If you tell me where she is she will be safe."

"For now," Loki said. "Until Odin wakes or your hand is forced and you sentence her. Or stuff her in a hole down here like me. I'll not speed her to that." Thor opened his mouth and Loki sighed. "Let me make this faster and easier. I do not know where she is."

"You can sense her," Thor argued.

"Your lovely little toy that restricts my magic to this cell has cut that off too. If you wish to let me wander around the palace I may be able to help you."

"She's most likely gone off with the others. Where?"

He shrugged. "Haven't the foggiest."

"You expect me to believe you knew nothing of the escape plans?"

"I really didn't," he says. "She's taken care of her people for four hundred years. She doesn't need me to help."

"Then we will follow them. Half the Asgardian army if I need them-"

"I wouldn't do that," he offered. "You'd have tens of thousands of deaths on your hands."

"I wouldn't harm them."

"You wouldn't have to." He sat up. "Consider what happened the last time Asgardian armies came after them." Thor blinked blankly at him. "The women would fear you came for them. They would murder themselves in droves. Slit their daughter's throats."

"Deara wouldn't let them."

"What on earth would make you think she could stop them? She can't hold back 50,000 hands at the same time."

"She knows-"

"She can tell them whatever she likes. They'll believe her. But that cannot overrule their fears. It's a strong thing, born of memories buried in their heads. They would rather die than chance it happening to them." He lay back again. "It's a puzzle. How are you with those?"

Thor growled as he turned to stock away, Loki's laughter following him through the halls.

Thor paced before the window. "Let me go," Sif said again. "They know me. I'm female, they won't panic. Deara will talk to me."

"I doubt she's very happy with you."

"She'll still see me," Sif said.

"You don't have anything to bargain with."

"We have Loki. She'll want her King back." She paused, considering. "I think she'll be actually in pain without him."

"At the very least you'd know where she is," Thor's companion offered. "That she isn't about to come down on us with the full might of her army."

"I would?" Thor asked.
"I think I could find out her plan," Sif offered. "At least we'd know more than we do now. I could find out what she wants. What she's willing to bargain for. She trusts me."

"Trusted you," Thor corrected. "You don't imagine that will have changed?"

"I don't think it will," Sif said thoughtfully. "She's fast to trust, and it doesn't let go."

"You bashed her in the head and shoved her in a cupboard."

She shrugged. "She was safe there."

Sif couldn't help staring at the metal work around her. Everything about being on a ship in space made her nervous. Which she supposed was why the Sheerdan did it.

She recognized the old man who limped toward her as one of Deara's advisors. "My Lady Sif, this is a pleasant surprise. Have you come to trumpet about your great victory?"

"I've come to talk to Deara." He stopped to look at her, searching her eyes. As the moments stretched she added, "I want to speak to your Queen."

"She is not here."

Sif sighed. She'd been afraid of this. "Where have you hidden her?"

He stepped back, eyes glued to her. "I was going to ask you the same."

She missed a beat. "What do you mean?"

"She never left your planet. She is your prisoner is she not?"

"No," Sif said, crossing her arms. "We don't have her. What game are you playing?"

"I would say the same."

"What do you benefit by pretending she isn't here? I'm not going to kidnap her. You could just refuse to let me see her." When he didn't respond she threw up her hands. "I tell you truly, Deara is not in our palace."

"That is grave news indeed."

She paused to consider. "I want to talk to the girls." He gave her a questioning look. "The Princesses. Her sisters. I want to speak with Dirriean and Bierra."

"I have your vow you will do them no harm."

"Wouldn't be much point would there? Your Queen run off, your King IS our prisoner, what difference would a Princess make?"

"That is not an answer."

She rolled her eyes. "You have my word."

"Stay here," he ordered, turning to shuffle away.

Sif turned to look out the window at the endless darkness. Minutes passed before she heard the sound of silk slippers on metal floors. She couldn't help but laugh as the Princesses entered and she was caught up in a whirl of blue fabric and golden hair.

"Lady Sif!"

"Where is Deara?"

"How is she?"

"The baby must be nearly come."

"Is it here?"

"Is it a boy or girl?"

"Don't tell! It's bad luck. We need to see for ourselves."

"Is she comfortable?"

"Is she with Loki?"

"It would be cruel to separate them."

"Lady Sif isn't cruel."

"Thor may be."

"Girls!" Sif had to cry. She took them each by a shoulder. "Deara truly isn't here? You don't know where she is?"

They were struck silent, blinking at her.

"She's not with you?"

"You don't know where she is?"

"She could be hurt!"

"The baby."

"We thought she was here," Sif broke in. "You don't think they've taken her somewhere to keep her safe?"

The girls exchanged a look. "They wouldn't do that to us," the eldest said.

One of them grabbed at her. "You have to find her, Sif. She could be hurt. And the baby!"

Tears suddenly appeared in their eyes Sif had no choice but to reach for them. "I'll find her," she promised. "Don't worry, all will be well."