The boat hovered over the dark, barren lands of Svartalfheim. Loki sat at the stern, one hand resting on the tiller as he leaned casually forward. Thor was not looking back at him, but gazed affectionately at the human asleep on the floor, curled up beneath his cloak. If Loki focused hard enough, he could see a red sheen to her skin, where the Aether pulsed within her.
The Aether of the Svartalfar—one more source of strength within his grasp, and yet too far away. It was becoming a laughable pattern, his gaining great power only to lose it, and now the price of his temporary freedom was to suffer such loss again. There had been Odin's spear Gungnir, the Casket of Ancient Winters, the Other's scepter, the Tesseract…but the Aether, with the power of light and darkness and the energy to wipe out galaxies, was the most dangerous of them all. And here it was, swirling in the blood of a tiny, brown-haired mortal.
"What I could do with the power that flows through those veins," Loki mused, only half intending to say the words aloud.
"It would consume you," Thor said, annoyance in his tone. By now, Loki's attempts to seize dominance must have seemed a persistent inconvenience, like mosquitoes in summer.
As would you, if I did try to steal it, Loki thought wryly. Out loud, he said, "She's holding up all right." He jerked his chin in the direction of the sleeping girl. "For now."
"She is strong in ways you'll never know," Thor said.
Won't I? Loki wondered. He thought back over a century of Midgardian time—a fraction of his own, yet it might as well have been a million years for how distant it seemed to him now. I once knew a mortal of ten times the strength and spirit of your little plaything.
"Say goodbye," Loki said. He meant it as a cut to Thor, but the sharp words turned on him and sliced him open, releasing memories better left buried.
"Not this day," Thor said.
Anger flared up inside Loki. Thor's defiance, his delusion, sickened the dark prince. Who was he to say whether this human wench was safe from the horrors of her own inevitable mortality? How dare Thor try to make any claim now, when cruel Fate had already played the thief with the man he once called brother? Well, then, let the future king have his delusions. Fate would make a fool of him in time.
Yet Loki could not stay quiet. "This day, the next, a hundred years—it's nothing!" Loki stood up, daring Thor to turn and look him in the face. "It's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready."
Neither was he, the day he had lost her, the only real treasure Midgard could offer. If he closed his eyes, he might still see her—not the frail, aged queen on her deathbed after a lifetime of joys and sorrows—but the young woman newly crowned, with her large blue eyes and reluctant smile, a sprinkling of freckles between them. But he dared not close his eyes, lest he lose himself in fading memories. He needed all his powers of concentration for the quest at hand.
"The only woman whose love you prized will be snatched from you—"
"And will that satisfy you?" Thor interrupted.
Loki glanced once more at the girl asleep before them, and for a moment felt a desire to deliver a sound slap to her face, as she had done to him not an hour ago. Then Thor would really kill him! He looked back at the blond prince.
"Satisfaction is not in my nature," Loki said.
"Surrender's not in mine," Thor shot back.
No, it is not. But someday it would be—and Loki almost felt sorry for him. Someday, even Thor, the god of thunder and the Son of Odin, would bend the knee to a power greater than himself. Death would come for Jane Foster, and Thor would truly learn what it meant to love a mortal.