He may have had every intention of coming back right away, but Erna found herself antsy after half an hour of listless waiting. Nothing at hand seemed to keep her interest for longer than a few minutes, not that there was much to avail herself of while confined to the bed. Loki had tried his best to ensure she had distractions like books and crafts at hand, but her mind wanted none of it.
She yearned for her kitten, but Loki had pawned the little beast off on young Olave as soon as she'd left for Midgard. She supposed it was for the best that Syn stay safe elsewhere in the palace while they struggled to resolve matters. But she couldn't help but wish for the entertainment the little ball of fur would offer.
Pushing thoughts of the cat aside, she decided that nobody could fault her for taking a bath. Peril or no, she could at least bathe herself without a production. And Eir could hardly object to her making the handful of steps on her own. Well, knowing Eir she could and would object to just about anything Erna chose to do. But contrary to what everyone thought, she wasn't totally helpless. She wasn't entirely sure Loki would agree with her assessment of the situation, but she figured that any anger over leaving the bed might be overlooked when confronted with a naked wife. Erna decided the chance was worth it.
While liberating herself from the bed, a thought struck her. Drawing herself up to her full, albeit petite, height, she spoke to the empty room with as much authority as she could muster. "Heimdall, I know you've been watching me closely today, but I beg you turn your sight elsewhere for the foreseeable future. I'm about to bathe." She waited, realizing she had no idea what an affirmative signal would even look or sound like. After a moment of waiting, she nodded and assumed he'd handled her request with his usual dedication.
Normally she would have puttered about the room while waiting for the enormous tub to fill, but despite her tiny deviation from the bed rest prescription, she didn't want to push it. However, a quick trip to the nearby wardrobe was in order before she shambled into the bathroom.
As she rooted around for a clean nightgown, she felt a change in the air. Something, be it intuition or another gift from the baby, told her danger was near. When she slowly turned around, the alarm bell turned into a klaxon at the sight. Her father stood across the room, leaning against the lintel of the fireplace with a sickening grin on his face, as if he had every right in the world to be there.
Rendered temporarily speechless with rage, he took her silence as a sign of fear and chuckled darkly. "Thank you for having that watchdog of yours to turn a blind eye to you, daughter. It makes this so much easier."
Erna's mind was already formulating plans of attack, only to dismiss them as quickly as they could form. She was in no fit state to pounce on him and tear him apart with her bare hands. Although she had no doubt that she could, if she wasn't in her current state. The only immediate recourse she could see was to keep him talking. Loki had promised to return shortly and as much as she hated to need someone else to defend her, she couldn't change the facts of the situation.
Finding her voice finally, she tried to keep her tone even and cold. "You still call me daughter after everything you've tried to bring down upon me? Not very fatherly of you, I must say." As she spoke, she took a few steps closer to him, subtly looking for the telltale sign of a weapon. But he could be concealing any number of nasty implements beneath the worn travel cloak he was sporting. No, an attack wouldn't be wise. She had nothing to defend her aside from the flimsy fabric of her shift.
Her almost scolding tone had the desired effect, Reynard's face going pink with frustration. He didn't like to be questioned on a good day, but now seemed even more susceptible to such manipulations. Unhinged was a word that came to her mind as she watched the disaffected air drop away from him, replaced with a familiar desire to impress those around him with his astounding wit. But much had changed since they last met. Not only had she grown into her position as queen, but the distance from him had given her a deeper insight into his pathetic need for power and position.
"Everything I've done is for the good of my daughter. I now see that nobody will ever thank me for it or appreciate the sacrifices I've made, but you'll at least understand before I put you in your grave."
"I'm confused, Reynard." She was done addressing her as father. "How exactly is killing me for my own good?"
"I have more than one daughter, girl."
"If you even think about hurting Sigun, I will reign such vengeance upon you that you'd wish for the mercy of death."
"I would never wish to hurt our future queen." The insolent attitude was back. He so enjoyed having information that Erna didn't. "As I said, everything I've done has been for her." He emphasized the last word, as if to further remind her that Reynard held no love for his eldest child.
As he took a swaggering step closer to her, she saw a small black stone hanging from a leather thong around his great big neck. It looked to be a match to the one found on Tora. At her request Heimdall had averted his gaze from her and he couldn't see Reynard. Her pulse quickened at the implication. Loki was her only hope now.
"Future queen? You plan to murder Loki along with me and plant little Sigun on the throne? She's not even of Asgard."
"Oh no. I need that lout of a king alive. He'll mourn your death for a time, I'm sure, but eventually he'll see that Sigun was the superior mate all along. It make take a few more years, but you've already brought her to the palace, which is one less thing I have to worry about."
Incredulity clouded her face as she took in his words. "You want Sigun to replace me as queen. She's just a child."
"She'll be of a marriageable age in a few years and even as young as she is, already more beautiful than you. I'm sure after the initial shock, that idiot magician will warm to her nicely."
"Why even bring me to Asgard if your plan was to marry Sigun to the king all along?"
"You were never mean to be the carrot, my dear, only the stick."
"I don't understand."
"You always prided yourself on being so very clever. Just like your mother. It's too bad she didn't take you with her when she ran. But then again, you can't blame such a pitiful creature for selfishly only considering her own safety." As much as it pained her, she stayed quiet, waiting for him to elaborate. The mention of her mother disturbed her, but she had to understand more recent events before she could allow that line of inquiry to distract her further.
"You were meant to be the undesirable option. The thing that would chase him towards Sigun." She ignored the fact that he referred to her as a thing. After all these years it shouldn't have surprised her. "You're too opinionated, you talk too much, you never accepted your place. He shouldn't have wanted you."
"That's why you were upset when he wanted to negotiate for my hand."
"I underestimated you, girl. Something I won't be foolish enough to do again." His gloating was sickening, but even now his ego could be counted on to buy her time. He couldn't seem to resist explaining everything to her. "And it was your precious king that gave me the most valuable information I needed."
"How so?" Taking every opportunity to scan the area as they spoke, she found several possible weapons to use, but they were all out of easy reach. She wasn't as fast as she once was.
"He outright told me he has ears everywhere. I realized that whatever had to be done couldn't be planned while still in the palace."
"But you had help, it seems. Tora seems to be under the impression that we're soon to be one big, happy family once you divorce Rania."
"I told her what she wanted to hear. I needed her help to get close to you after you sent me away."
"Where did the charms come from? There's no way you're talented enough to make them yourself."
So quick to emotion, the deepening color of his face betrayed his anger. "Not talented with magic, no. But coin is its own kind of magic, don't you think? It can buy all manner of exotic charms and poisons."
She was beginning to lose patience with his gloating, round face getting uglier and uglier with every venomous word that dripped from his mouth. "Did you honestly think we wouldn't figure out who the culprit was eventually? That we wouldn't bring the might of the nine realms down upon you?"
"I see no might, daughter. I see a trumped up queen ready to be sacrificed so that a greater one may take her place." With that he removed a long dagger from his robes. As she'd suspected, he was armed. She swallowed back a wave of panic and fear at the sight of the sharp blade in the firelight.
"My husband won't be fooled so easily. He'll hunt you until his last breath."
"Grief does strange things to people." She wanted nothing more than to carve the knowing smile off of his round face, but she kept her expression neutral, ever the ignorant woman in need to an explanation. Keep him talking, she reminded herself. Talking meant he wasn't attacking. "Take your mother, for example. When I told her of your death, she flew into an uncontrollable rage and tried to kill me. Foolish woman. I subdued her easily, but it was only a matter of hours before she fled the estate. Grief, my dear, can turn a meek woman into a warrior and I'll wager a king into a hollow shell of himself."
"You told my mother that I had died?"
His smile went from knowing to horrifying in mere seconds. "Smothered by my own hand, as far as she knew. I was trying to teach her the importance of obedience, I'll admit she surprised me. Tried to gouge out my eyes with her bare hands."
"She left thinking I was dead?"
"I'm done explaining all this to you," he spat the words at her as he advanced toward her. A little frantically, she searched his face for a glimmer of something, anything that might show her he wasn't truly capable of murdering his own daughter. Sadly, she saw only fury in his flat golden eyes.
Realizing she was past the point of delaying him, she began backing away, keenly aware of the position of the knife he now openly wielded.
"I won't make this easy for you."
"Girl, you've never made anything easy in your whole life."
She knew she'd never overpower him in a fair fight, much less without a proper weapon to defend herself with. Never more grateful for Loki's harsh training lessons, she saw that fair would have no place in what was about to occur. His temper, as she'd always known, was his greatest weakness.
"You always claim I'm so unlike you, Reynard. Mother clearly held little love for you or she wouldn't have fled you house. Have you considered that I'm not really yours?"
"She wouldn't have dared," he growled. But the exchange did slow his steps.
Erna continued, backing toward a table containing a half full tankard of cider. The drink didn't concern her, but she saw the heavy flagon as a potential weapon. One couldn't be terribly choosy at times like this.
She decided to twist the verbal knife further. "Magnus always took a special interest in me as I was growing up. Perhaps he's my father."
"Magnus! He's a low-born soldier!" He was shouting again as she forced an air of concentration for this new puzzle.
"No, but this would explain a lot. Magnus trained me despite the dozens of times you told him not to. He never let me shirk my tutor assignments and he always had a present for me on my birthday." Now she was just making things up, but Reynard didn't need to know that.
With satisfaction she heard Reynard roar with frustration and rage before he brandished the knife and lunged at her.
Everything seemed to slow as he made his final assault. Nothing would stop him, she thought, calmer than she ought to be. Because despite the very tangible danger, a strange sense of tranquility suffused her, down to the very core of her being. The certainty of violent death shouldn't have that effect, she mused. Yet here she was.
Even the light gleaming off of the wicked blade took on a new beauty. The same couldn't be said for her father. Maniacal glee did Reynard's countenance no favors.
He seemed to be fighting his way through molasses, he was moving so slowly. But then again she was too. The hand she meant to grab the flagon with was still inching up from her side at a horribly languid pace.
As she contemplated that hand, and why she couldn't make it go faster, a heat started gathering in her stomach. No, not her stomach precisely, lower than that, and getting hotter by the second.
It felt like a supernova was growing inside her, the fire was so intense. But there wasn't any pain. It was the oddest sensation she'd ever experienced.
And while it didn't hurt her, it was just too much. Too big, too strong, just too damn much to stay locked in the confines of her body. Just as the feeling threatened to overcome her, a blinding light burst forth around her. The heat flowed from her, her body sagging with relief to be rid of it.
It was as if the bifrost had been opened directly behind her eyes, tainting her vision with its golden illumination. Mercifully, there was still no pain, but the peaceful feeling from moments ago was gone. Panic and confusion settled in instead.
She heard her father scream, but could no longer see his form. It could have been a scream of bloodlust or one of agony, she had no way of knowing. And it kept going and going, drowning out the blood pounding in her own ears.
As the light peaked in intensity, she felt her own energy waver and begin to leech away from her. Sluggish before, her arms were now leaden and useless at her sides. A fatigue the likes of which she'd never felt washed over her as the light dissipated as quickly as it had come.
One word crossed her mouth before she gave into the encroaching blackness. "Loki," she plead in barely a whisper.