Chapter XIX: Cobwebs and Lies

A/N: Ah another chapter and only one away from total completion. A lot has happened since I started this story. I'd like to thank Laura for her help and theicemenace for her beta work. Enjoy the chapter, SSD

"I made myself at home in the cobwebs and the lies, learning all your tricks…" The Devil Within by The Digital Daggers

Hanna was slowly coming back to her senses. The last thing she remembered was seeing Volstaag and him telling her that they'd gotten to Thor in time. Anything beyond that was gone from her mind.

As she came more possessed of her senses, Hanna noticed that her arms and legs were shackled to the bed. What made it even worse was that she could not sense her magic at all.

Panicking, she began to twist and pull at the shackles, squirming the whole time to see if there was any chance of them giving way. Hanna broke out in a sweat. Where was her armor, where was her sword?

"Hanna stop moving," the very familiar voice said as an order.

She whipped her head in its direction and saw Frigga. Hanna stopped moving, and said, "I'd bow, but as you can see, I'm a little bit tied up."

The Queen of Asgard gave her a tight smile at that. It was a good thing that Hanna still had her humor. She would be needing it in the days ahead. With a wave of her hand, the chains vanished, and Hanna got up a short time later rubbing her wrists as her magic came back to her, slowly.

"Put your armor back on. I'm taking you to your room."

Hanna could tell that something was up, but did not argue with the queen. She got her armor on in record time. When she came back out from behind the screen, the queen handed her a cloak with a deep hood.

"And keep that cowl up."

Wondering what was bringing this behavior about but having sensed that now was not the time, Hanna obeyed again. She better get answers and soon.

###

Once they got to her room, Hanna asked, "What's going on? Is Odin awake?"

Taking a deep breath, Frigga decided that now would be as good a time as any to bring Hanna up to date. The girl had been unconscious for three days and many things had happened.

"Odin is awake, but there are some problems. They involve Loki."

Hanna was far from surprised. Especially with that little detail involving the fact that Loki was a frost giant.

"There was also a fight between Thor and Loki, on the Bifrost. Loki was using the power of the bridge to try and destroy Jotunheim. During the fight, Thor was forced to damage the bridge in order to prevent that realm's destruction. In the aftermath, Loki… fell from the bridge, and into the Void."

Hanna tuned out what the queen was saying. She could feel the blood rush from her face.

###

Frigga watched Hanna's face as she was told. The young sorceress's face briefly had a look of grief, before turning into a face that betrayed nothing.

Hanna then asked, "What's going to happen to me?"

Now came the hard part. Taking a deep breath, "There are a significant number of people who think that you only turned on Loki when it became easy to do so. That you were working with him all along. They want you to be punished for his crimes."

"Do they even care about the truth," Hanna snarled.

"They will believe what they choose to believe Hanna, truth or not. But it's not for them to decide." Frigga had to do her best to soothe the younger woman before she did something foolish.

Hanna's expression still divulged nothing as she moved to stare out the window. "Odin will make the final decision?"

"He will, and he'll be impartial, you know that."

"I do, but that doesn't make me feel better. They have no idea what I went through, how hard the decision was that I made." She turned back to face Frigga. "Thank you for coming and telling me, but I'd really like to be alone if you don't mind."

"Of course. " Frigga made her way across the room to the doors. "Thor and the others might be coming to see you."

"Thank you," Hanna replied sullenly.

Frigga silently left the room, the doors clanging shut behind her like the doors of a tomb. Hanna slowly walked across the room and stopped at her bedside table. She deftly picked up the vase that sat at the back corner and whirled around hurtling it across the room. It shattered against the far wall as Hanna stood clenching her fists. She knew Odin would be fair and impartial, but it didn't make her feel any better as others would always see her as guilty.

###

Hanna paced around her room, feeling for all the realms like a caged animal. Odin had confined her to her quarters for her own protection, as if he didn't think she could protect herself. She was more than capable, she'd proven that time and time again.

She just wanted out, to be around the other residents of Asgard (even if they weren't in the most charitable of minds towards her), where she wouldn't be left alone with her thoughts, which going a long way to poison her mind.

At the moment her fate was being decided by Odin. The Allfather was going to decide if she'd been an accomplice in Loki's duplicity, and if found guilty what her punishment would be.

She knew Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three had given testimony on her behalf, for she had been the one who had given them the heads up. But that wouldn't guarantee her innocence. The more she thought about everything that had happened, the angrier she grew.

She had trusted Loki and he'd betrayed her. How she hadn't seen through his lies just compounded her anger.

And then there was her father. He'd kept the biggest secret of all from her, his own daughter. She was clenching and unclenching her fists as everything reeled through her mind. The next time Hanna saw him, there would be words, few of them suited to polite conversation.

She was about ready to ram her fist through a wall when there was a knock on her door and the sound of a key turning in the lock.

"Hanna, may I come in?

It was Frigga, one of the only people she felt she could trust implicitly. "Yes please Frigga."

She entered the room, closing the door behind her. "How are you doing?"

"I've definitely been better," Hanna bit out. The look on Frigga's face made her realize how that had come out. "I'm sorry, it's just so frustrating being locked in here with nothing but my own thoughts."

Frigga looked at the young woman before her, anger clearly evident on her usually happy features. What bothered her most about that was the reason behind it. Loki, her son, had done this. He'd betrayed all of them. But for Hanna this was much harder.

And now with Loki gone, she'd never get to see if Hanna would admit her feelings to Loki and vice versa. All she'd have were the thoughts of what if. What if they had finally given in and told one another? What if they'd gotten married? What if they'd had children? She would have enjoyed having Hanna as a daughter in law.

Hanna would have kept Loki on his toes.

###

A short time later Hanna found out that she would have other things to do besides brood over the recent turn of events. She would be going through Loki's journals to try and find the side passageways between the realms that he had apparently mentioned to Heimdall.

One morning about a week after she was found innocent, a guard woke her up at the crack of dawn and said, "The queen is expecting you at the tiltyards."

Hanna got dressed, grabbed Oväder, and made her way down there. As soon as she left her room, she made herself invisible so she could avoid any kind of unpleasant encounters.

When Hanna arrived, Frigga ordered, "Make as many duplicates of yourself as you can reliably sustain. We're still going to work on your magic."

Hanna smiled for the first time since she woke up. There would be another day.

A/N 2: So... what do you all think? There's one more chapter afte this one! Those events will take place roughly a year after the events here and a year before the sequel Go For Broke.