Fate Forgotten (17 page)

He spent decades in hiding. Decades during which he did not even let himself see her, for fear that she might glimpse him and remember that one day, in a meadow, in the middle of nowhere, when she had found him half naked in the grass and he had kissed her. And he worried what Odin would say, what Odin would do to punish him. How many more years must he spend wandering the earth, cast out of Asgard, scorned by his own father? His people? He did not miss Loki, nor Sif, but he missed his brothers, his sons, his daughter. He missed drinking with his family, laughing in Odin’s great hall. He missed having a home.

As far as Eve was concerned, he watched over her only by listening to the hum of her thoughts in the din of humanity. He became adept at sitting in the back of her mind, where she didn’t notice him, didn’t feel him, but he could feel her, follow her, know what she was doing, know that she was safe. He soothed her fears, gentled her dreams. And when she was upset or hurt or angry, he caused her to remember him, to remember his love for her as Thorgrim, and filled her heart with peace. He refused to consider this disobedience to Odin’s command. After all, she did not know he was there.

He fulfilled his duty to the Council by following Adam instead. It wasn’t exactly a surprise to him that Eve’s brother was among the barbarians causing so much trouble to the Romans. It made it easy for Thor to blend in. Easy for him to move among them. These tribes weren’t so different from the Northmen; some of them even looked to Asgard and Odin. They had the warrior’s spirit, the warrior’s strength.

“Can’t stand the cold even here,” Adam told him one night, around the fire. The language he spoke was rough compared with the Latin Thor had been using for the last several centuries. “I wouldn’t go further north.”

“It’s not so bad on the coasts. And the gods are good to us.” Thor stared at the flames, prodding the kindling with a stick.

Adam snorted. “Gods are good for nothing, no matter where you are. These Romans are always making their sacrifices, always talking about their gods, and what does it get them?”

Thor grinned. It was feral, and he hoped his eyes didn’t flash with lightning. “It’s gotten them plenty. From Africa to Asia to Britannia. They own more of the world than you’ll ever dream of.”

“What do you know of the Romans, Northman?” Adam threw a heavy branch onto the fire, causing a spray of sparks to erupt into the dark. “Go join their army if you love them so much. Pay their taxes. Let them tell you how to dress, how to act, how to live. Let them offer you up to die in one of their stupid wars while they sit comfortably in their homes, or out enjoying their circuses.”

Thor couldn’t quite keep the disgust from his expression. “Romans, Goths. You’re all the same. Lucky you have gods at all. Ungrateful no matter what they do for you.”

Adam spit in distaste. “I’ll keep my faith in my sword and my spear and the things I can touch and feel. I don’t need gods to help me win my battles, and any of the others will tell you that’s the truth.”

“Those are dangerous things to say, Athanareiks. You do not know when the gods are listening.” Nor could he recognize one sitting across from him in the firelight. Thor let the thunder come, and the rain. Lightning struck so near, Adam couldn’t fail to feel its power. And when the man flinched, throwing himself backward with real fear in his face, Thor did not move, did not blink, and let his eyes glow. “They might take offense.”

Adam cursed and stared at him, his expression moving closer to terror. His face was white. “What are you?”

Thor grinned at his shock. The lightning seemed to unnerve him especially, so he called it again, letting it wash the whole camp, leaching the land of color. “If you think yourself a god, Athanareiks, think again. Or at least keep your blasphemy to yourself.”

He left him at the fire and disappeared into the night. The next morning, he heard Adam searching for him from the trees, but he didn’t return to the camp. He’d had enough of him. Someone would no doubt chastise him for revealing himself even in that small way to Adam, but the man would forget between this life and the next, and he had earned the lesson in humility.

He sank into Eve’s mind to calm himself, listening to her sing from half a continent away, as she washed her clothes. She was so unlike her brother.

He didn’t go south, having been warned of the civil wars by Athena, though that’s where Eve was. But word reached him outside of Roman lands that Constantine had converted to Christianity, and won the war against Maxentius with the aid of the True God. He had even made a pact to protect the Christians from persecution.

The news made him grow cold, though the night was warm. Rome held too much of the world, and where the Emperor led, many of his people would follow. Too many people.

Is it true, Athena? Constantine joins the cult?

Her anger was incredible, crackling like lightning in his thoughts.
After everything I did for him. After all the battles I turned in his favor, he repays us with this betrayal. Yes, it’s true. Father is angry, but has forbidden me to strike him down for fear of making him another martyr.

An understandable concern.
But what else could be done to stem the tide?
The peace he won cannot last long, perhaps he will yet be destroyed by Licinius in the east.
The wars had torn the empire apart repeatedly, and to hope for more was not something he took pride in, but he did not see how else to dispose of Constantine.

Constantine still sacrifices to Apollo, and my brother will not hear of abandoning him. Artemis has sworn to starve any army we incite against him. These wars do not just divide the Empire, Thor, but my family as well.

He wondered if it was Michael’s doing. He imagined the Archangel’s face, twisted with amusement at the trouble he had caused.
Be the voice of reason, Athena. If Rome falls to the Christians, there will be little hope for the rest of us. The Olympians must stand together, act together.

She sighed in despair.
We have never worked unanimously toward any goal, Thor. Always we had our favorites, a city, a warrior, a king or a queen. Always we played them against one another, to relieve our boredom. But this—this is the beginning of our end, if it continues.

Would my presence help?
It was an offer he did not make lightly, and he doubted it would be enough. Fragmented as things sounded, an interloper may not be appreciated.

If only you were my husband, Thor, then your arrival would not be seen as interference. No. It is better that you stay where you are. We shall settle this among ourselves, one way or another.

Come to me if you need a friend, Athena. It is the least I can do.

She plucked the knowledge of where he was, what he had been doing, from his mind and he heard her laugh in his thoughts.
Your father cannot say you did not work for his benefit during your exile. The power of Adam within his fold, even for one generation will bring him new vigor.

I did not do it for my father. The man’s arrogance offends me.

He felt her smile.
The arrogance of immortality, known or not. You can hardly venerate his sister as a goddess, and object to his thinking himself a god.

Surely you don’t defend him.

I am a goddess of war, Thor. Part of me cannot help but appreciate his purpose, even if I do not approve of his actions. But he is the least of my concerns now. I must return to my father.

Good luck, Athena.

I fear we shall need it.

That night, he returned to the House of Lions. There was a bed with clean linens and a small oaken barrel of mead waiting for him. He stared at the bed for a long moment, but all he could think of was the night he had spent with Athena in this same room. He took the mead and went to the stables.

A sleepy shepherd didn’t notice him as he passed, creeping into the loft and making a bed in the hay. He nudged the boy awake with a roll of thunder once he was comfortably settled, for if he missed the hulking silhouette of a god, there would be no hope for the sheep and goats if a wolf came looking for a meal, and winter was coming. They would need their livestock.

He pulled the bung on the mead, and poured it into the hollowed horn he carried as a makeshift mug. It served him better than pottery, so easily shattered. When had the Lions begun fermenting mead? He didn’t remember it being offered on his last visit. It was a good mead, too. Not too strong and not too sweet. Perhaps Athena had delivered it, thinking of him.

He drank half of the small barrel before corking it and lay back in the hay. He reached for Eve, and felt her sleeping, though even in her dreams she was worried about the wars. What it would do to the people around her. And she worried that one of the Emperors was her brother. Having never met them personally, she did not know for certain, but she was terrified that he was near to her, that he was the reason for all the death and destruction.

He heard himself humming the song she had once sung to their son, Owen, and gently pulled the memory of their life together toward the surface of her dreams, leaving the choice of which to her subconscious. He saw himself sitting in their hut, in front of the hearth, and he heard her singing softly to the baby in her arms, as she danced him to sleep. He saw the smile on his face as he watched her, and their eyes met. He rose and took the baby from her, laying him in the basket she had woven and tucking the blankets around him for warmth. And then he took her in his arms, and sang softly in her ear while they danced together in the little hut to the crackling of the fire and chirp of the insects outside.

It was before he had been made chieftain. Before her father’s death. And she had been so soft in his arms, so warm. He had built the hut for her as a wedding gift, more practical than her ivory bangle, and when they had become the leaders of their village, she had refused to move from it into the chieftain’s house, saying it was warmer than her father’s had ever been.

While she dreamed he reassured her. Adam was in the north, with the Goths. He had no use for the civilized warfare of these frail emperors. Emperors who died, and grew sick, and struggled to control the loyalty of their people. If it were Adam, he reminded her, there would not be a civil war, for his co-emperors would never have crossed him. Never have been allowed to question him. And he did not remember himself. Did not remember her. She was safe, he promised.

He left her mind before his dream-self kissed her, so he would not be tempted to find her come morning.

Chapter Seventeen: Present

They spent the week with Mia and Adam, and Eve engaged in the obligatory doting over her nephew and her sister. Garrit however, had become distracted. He smiled and laughed with everyone else, but more often than not he was staring out the window, or slipping off somewhere out of the way.

Safe in the house, she left Alex with his grandfather and went looking for her husband. It was the night before their departure, and he still hadn’t packed. It wasn’t like him to wait until the last moment. And if she sent him off to get ready, perhaps she could have a moment alone with Adam and get some of the answers denied her for the last two years.