VALI

The townspeople of Dagheim responded to me the way I expected and Father dreaded: with fear, anger, outrage, and several demands. What he couldn't predict was how my sincerity would calm their hearts and ease their ire. With every family I visited, every tear I shed for the lives lost—precious men to them and to me alike—I convinced them that they hadn't misplaced their trust in our family or my leadership. In fact, such a tragedy solidified my future position even more.

That didn't mean I wasn't still in pain, though, nor was it in any way a balm to the nightmares that visited me in broad daylight. They intensified as days passed, as did the tickling static on my tongue any time I sat at Hela's bedside, praying to see the miracle of movement that made us relocate her to Dagheim in the first place. If it happened once, it could happen again.

It had to. It had to.

"Vali?" Mum asked, quietly tapping on the door frame to keep the noise low. "Have you eaten today, love?"

I shook my head and kept rocking in the unofficial watch chair, never taking my eyes off Hela's sleeping face.

She sighed and sat on the mattress by Hela's legs, lightly trailing her fingertips over Tiwaz, who slept at the foot of the bed. "Grid spoke with her all afternoon, you know. Still nothing."

"Not surprising. Why would anything work at this point?" I rubbed my temples.

"Now, now. We can't lose hope yet."

"Why?" I shot my face back to Mum. "The only thing remotely comforting about this right now is her pulse."

She furrowed her brow. "You're more agitated than normal. No sleep either, I take it?"

"Oh, Mum." I leaned back in the chair and sighed while rubbing my eyes.

As merciful as she was, Mum never had the patience to let things pass naturally. Her annoying knack for sensing words unspoken was too perfect. "Vali, what is it? Tell me."

I deflated my lungs as far as they could go and wished I had better news to give her. Either way, not worth risking the chance Hela was still aware enough to hear me. I stood and waved for Mum to follow me beyond the doorway.

Mum folded her arms and leaned against the wall. "Alright?"

"You know I've been considering proposals with the families of the dead here on Dagheim. But I haven't told you that they already had a line out to the other realms regarding their lost soldiers."

"And...you're being asked to leave?"

"No. They're aware the position is fragile as it stands. Most are empathetic to our plight, the worsening floods on Asgard, the need to find Modi before he finds us." I peeked around the corner as if the mere fact I was keeping our words secret would beckon Hela's attention, though we weren't so lucky. I returned with a softer voice still. "Mum, they've recommended a bargain that, as of now, is the only widely accepted sentence the people wish to offer Hela in return for her crimes against the people of Yggdrasil."

Mum swallowed hard. She nodded quickly and tried to pull back the upset in her eyes, wanting to be practical about the matter, regardless of how much it stung. "Okay. Yes. What is it?"

I pressed my lips in a line first, already hearing Hela's protests against it before the words left my mouth. "They agreed she was manipulated, and she has their pity. For that, she'll avoid the bonds of a prison. But when she awakes, if she does, she is not permitted to leave Narvlheim. Ever again."

Mum's face fell, echoing the bittersweet relief to know my sister wouldn't be killed or imprisoned, yet we both knew Hela would still see such a sentence as akin to death anyway.

"I know. I know." I hugged Mum to my chest and welcomed how she clutched me tightly, soaking up contact with me as if Hela could embrace her, too.

"She'll hate that," Mum muttered, losing composure in a predictable way that felt appropriate for all the tears I'd dried of late on others. "All of this is because she thought I was trying to keep her locked up in one place anyway."

"You didn't do anything wrong, Mum. She rebelled. She's responsible for her own rebellion; that's what this is about." I squeezed her a final time and pulled back to lift Mum's chin. "I haven't agreed to their terms yet. But that's what's on the table. And...and part of me isn't sure if it's better or worse if she wakes. We won't know unless it happens. All we can do is pray that she'll be mature enough to understand the consequences."

Mum nodded and closed her eyes. She took a few long breaths, clearly counting to five—in, then out—encouraging me to do the same. Such a simple act to calm the spirit, but it hadn't failed her yet. It was worth trying now.

Her breath skipped a little when she inhaled again. "There...there, do you feel it, Vali?"

I squinted. "What?"

"Your brother." Mum's face crumpled with new tears and the usual pained expression only Narvi's name could invoke. "He's with us. He'll help us all through this, I know it."

Part of me was almost offended that we were interrupted. Another part was disappointed—as usual—that I felt nothing at all. No warm swell in my gut, no pounding of my heart, no sense of hair standing up on the back of my neck, or any of the other canned descriptions Mum gave over the years to explain her certainty that he was present.

Nothing. I felt nothing. I was empty. And I had no more patience or heart left to lie.

"He's not here," I said. The instant the words escaped, I was washed over with cold relief I couldn't feel naturally.

Mum blinked her eyes open and tipped her face. "What did you say?"

"You heard me, Mum." I stood as straight as I could. "Narvi's not here. He's not in this house. He's not sitting with Hela. He's not holding your hand. He's not hunting with Father. He's not training with me. He's—"

"You mind your tongue," Mum said, practically growling it. She gave me a look that ate through my mind and heart like when I was a child. She was rage personified.

My instant regret was still too late. "I'm sorry. I...I didn't mean it. I—"

"Yes, you did." She nodded while she spoke, affirming the pain I'd just caused and her understanding, yet there was a new layer she'd hidden before. Something more honest and less about hope and religion.

Speechless with shame, I avoided her gaze and tried to look at her forehead instead, but she commanded my attention by her changing presence.

"You think I don't know your brother's dead, Vali?" she sneered, losing the comfortable mother who came to ask if I'd eaten mere minutes ago. "Hela's trapped in...some deep recess of her mind, or her body, or something, and no one and nothing has any answer for what she'll even be able to do when she opens her eyes again. If she opens her eyes again. We're waiting for inevitable war. Mere weeks ago, we weren't even certain you would survive that wound. What harm does it do to let your mother hold onto the last bit of faith that even if her children die, they're never truly gone?"

She had a way of pulling tears from me—don't all mothers?

"I thought—" Mum choked on her words and cleared her throat only to push through a bit more. "I thought he was a comfort for all of us."

"I'm sorry, Mum. Really." I blubbered, embarrassingly, enough that I was grateful Riggs wasn't in the house.

She took my hands and kissed my knuckles gently, not peeling her eyes from mine while she finished her piece. "So much of our home has been shattered. It doesn't need any more help. Do you understand?"

I nodded quickly. "Yes. I'll be better. I'll—"

"You're already the best, Vali. Don't destroy yourself over things you can't control. Don't quash your life with unearned guilt." She wiped the tears off my cheeks, first the left, than the right. "Please try to get some rest. Take care of you. Not everyone else. You."

I sniffed and hugged her again. The poison that infected my internal monologue of late was sticky and too persuasive; without thinking, I let that evil influence win and lashed out when all Mum did was say something that made herself feel better. What right did I have to take that away?

Her words about unearned guilt repeated in my mind while the usual faces that haunted me flashed before me in their predictable order again. Gunnar. Erik. Arvid. Tyrell. Finn. Sven. Joral. Shane. Crispin. Carr. Bolin. Alarick. Annar. Stellan. Oscar. Ryan. Liam. Noah. Luke. Nathan. Wallace.

I wanted to get rest like she suggested. But how could I make her understand that I'd earned every last pulverizing ounce of guilt?

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LOKI

"What's all this?" I asked, coming upon my tear-stained wife and son in the dark. "Did something change?"

Vali pulled away from Sigyn and rubbed his eyes. "No. Nothing at all to report."

"That's not entirely true," Sigyn said. She pet his shoulder. "I'll tell him, Vali. You try to get some sleep, alright?"

"Thanks, Mum." Vali pecked her cheek and barely met my eyes for a fleeting second as he passed. The same air of melancholy that followed him everywhere of late was thick as ever.

I stood by Sigyn with my arms folded and watched Vali until he slunk into his guest room at the end of the hall and closed the door. We both held our breath the whole time without thinking.

"He's disappointed with negotiations," she said.

"Regarding who? Modi? Himself?"

"Hela, of course." She looked in on our daughter, who simply appeared to sleep peacefully. "Evidently, the people want to banish her to Narvlheim. Forever." As soon as she said it, Sigyn shook her head and wept. "She'll blame me forever; I know it."

"Now, Gin," I said, turning her shoulders and wiping her eyes in a familiar comfort. "We can't upset ourselves over such things just yet. Forever is a very long time."

She scoffed. "I think you underestimate the fury of those mourning families."

"Perhaps. But I also recall being banished for forever more than once myself." I raised a brow. "Even if it's for a few years or more, I do not underestimate how much the people need us."

"I'm grateful you have some hope left, Loki. Mine's almost gone. Vali's changed, too. He's hardened. He blames us for not preparing him better."

"Correction—blames me." I sighed and folded my arms again. "I wish I could go back and help him understand better, but I'm not sure anything I could've said or done would've made any difference for his circumstance. He has to learn to face his fears, his actions, his conquests—"

"Why do you think he's taking it so hard? His reaction makes you seem rather..." She grimaced, as if saying what she was thinking would offend me.

"What, evil?"

She smiled in her discomfort; the kind of expression only a married couple might share and understand.

"Would evil describe you?" I lowered my eyes to give her the same scrutinizing glare.

"Of course not. Why would it?"

"You've taken lives yourself, Gin." I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and trailed down the hidden plait at the back of her neck. "Don't you remember your first kill?"

"Gods, you're right. The Chitauri." She squinted. "How could I have forgotten that?"

"You're not a real soldier. It means I kept you safe. And possibly most of all, you didn't view that alien as anything other than an enemy. You had a job to do, and you did it. It wouldn't serve you to think of them any other way. My first was the same. Even when I was mad with rage at Odin, I didn't attack Thor lightly. When I met you, it would've been all too easy to end Odin's life and maintain my position."

"So, even you had limits."

"Yes. It says less about Vali that he's so distressed than it does about Modi and his true nature. I'm proud that our son has a healthy conscience. It's certainly more than I've ever had." I kissed Sigyn's cheek. "He'll come out of this."

"I hope you're not wrong, Lo." She turned around to lean her back against me while watching Hela anew. "I truly do."

I had enough faith in my children to be sure about what I said, yet as we watched the eerie stillness of Hela's trance, I wished hope was a more powerful magic. All hope could do was tell us not to despair; it couldn't give us guidance, or a timeline, or real confidence about where life would take us next.

"Do you remember feeling safe?" she whispered. "Or did I dream it?"

I exhaled over her neck and squeezed her tight. "It wasn't a dream. It'll come." Whether I said it to comfort myself or my wife, it didn't matter.

We needed a sign.