Fate Forgotten (20 page)

Athena had found him at the House of Lions. Woken him from a mead induced sleep deeper than he’d had in months. He rubbed his face and sat up at the edge of the bed, blinking at her where she stood, somehow capturing moonlight even with the shutters shut and fastened. They had a chapel here, and a priest, but still they kept his bed and his mead and didn’t question the truths he told them. They put on the clothes of the Christian faith, as Eve had always worn the religion of the people around her, but they had their own beliefs. Their own God.

“Athena?” He was sure, somehow, that it was a dream. He hadn’t seen much of her since Theodosius had made the empire Christian and the Olympians had begun fighting amongst themselves in earnest.

She dropped to her knees and hid her face against his thigh.

And wept.

He sighed and stroked her hair. Not a dream. And she was crying. How many times had he listened to Eve cry this way, and been unable to comfort her? And here was Athena, weeping in his lap. Needing this from him. Needing him.

She lifted her face, looked up at him, leaned up to kiss him. He held her face in his hands, felt the softness of her skin. Was he dreaming? He’d had too much mead. Too much to drink. Because he was kissing her back. Hard and deep and full. She tasted like wine, and she smelled like trees in bloom, earthy and rich, and he wanted more.

She pressed him back, pushed him down against the feather filled mattress. She pulled his shirt up. Her hands were cold. Her skin was cold. It had been so long since he’d had a woman. Since a woman had touched him this way. With want. With need. But Athena, it couldn’t be Athena.

He groaned.

“Please, Thor,” she whispered against his lips, then against his ear. So close he could feel her breath. “I just need a friend.”

And he had promised to be one.

She was still so cold, lying naked next to him. He rubbed at her arms and her back and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder. He kissed the side of her head, above her temple. She slid her arm across his chest and then rolled away, curling up into a ball.

“My uncles are leaving,” she said.

He propped himself up on an elbow and leaned over her, his other hand on her waist. It fit just below her ribcage. Her skin, even there, was cool to the touch. He pulled her back against his body, wrapping his arm around her, to warm her. “Your father, too?”

She sighed and turned her face away. “He hasn’t decided. No one else has decided. They found another plane with a new world. My family has been broken by this, Thor. Ripped apart by the loss of Rome and our people.”

“They’ve given up.”

“You knew this would happen. That the Christians would overtake us. That we would lose everything.”

He stroked her hair, kissed her temple, her jaw. “I guessed. And I am sorry to be right.”

She rolled over and stared into his eyes. “When your people are caught by this web, will you stay?”

Yes. He would stay forever. As long as Eve was here. As long as Eve was here, this was his home, his place, where he was meant to be. Where he had to be. “I don’t know, Athena. I don’t know what Odin will do. What he’ll want us to do.”

She smiled. “Part of that is a lie, Odin-son.”

“The part of it that should be.” He kissed her forehead. And then her lips, red and still swollen. He studied her face, looking for any sign of discomfort, of pain, of distress. He had tried to be gentle. Tried not to hurt her, physically. But she was a warrior, and he wasn’t sure she would admit if he’d caused her any pain. “I won’t leave, Athena. Unless I have no other choice.”

“Her. You won’t leave her.”

He kissed her again. So that he didn’t have to answer. Because it wasn’t something that should be said while he was lying in bed next to her, her bare skin pressed against his. Athena was wise, a patroness of reason, but he wouldn’t press his luck. Wouldn’t say the things he knew would hurt her.

She sighed and hid her face against his chest. “I should never have come here, like this. Never have asked this of you.”

“Mm.” He lay back. She wasn’t nearly as cold anymore, and he liked the warmth of her body beside him. He tucked the blanket around her. He hadn’t lit a fire in the hearth when he went to bed, and hadn’t thought to light one after Athena had arrived, when he had been half asleep and half drunk. No wonder she had been chilled. “I don’t think there’s anything rational about regret.”

“I just couldn’t—” She stopped. He could feel her eyelashes brushing against his skin. “I didn’t want to leave without knowing this.”

The pressure against his chest was more than just the weight of her body. He swallowed and forced himself to breathe. To continue to breathe, but the room was suffocating. “You’re going to go?”

“Would you ask me to stay?”

He was having trouble keeping air in his lungs. It went out of him as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. He knew what she wanted him to say. But she must know it wasn’t something he could give.

“Not for me.” She had to know. “For yourself, if it was what you wanted. If this world was what you wanted.”

These weren’t things that should be said at a moment like this. He wished he could sit up, turn his back to her and dress. That they were having this conversation in the grove, and not here. Not now. Not after he’d taken her virginity.

“But not for me, Athena.”

She said nothing. The air felt thicker, heavier. She didn’t move, but he almost wished she would. To prove she wasn’t hurt. He was a beast to have let this happen. To have taken her this way, even if she had thought it was what she wanted. He drew breath as if to speak, but didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want her to leave. But it would be cruel to ask her to stay. Cruel to admit it, when he couldn’t give her more. There was only one thing left, and it felt empty. Trite.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

She rolled away from him, onto her side, curling back into a ball. “I know.”

He moved with her, wrapping her in his arms, and kissed her shoulder blade, where it began to curve toward her spine.

There was nothing more to say. So he held her and hid his face in her hair and hoped that his body said everything he couldn’t.

When she asked him to come with her to Egypt, he didn’t feel as though he could refuse. Ra looked old and tired, but when he saw Athena he rose from his seat, his eyes lighting. “My dear, what an unexpected pleasure.”

His eyes shifted over her shoulder to Thor, and he shook his head just slightly. No, it wasn’t what it appeared. This was not a trip of glad tidings. Athena kissed Ra’s cheek and walked him back to his throne. She poured wine for all three of them.

“You’ve heard the news of my uncles?”

Thor accepted his cup and crossed to the window, leaning against the stone and staring out at the Nile. He wasn’t sure why she wanted him here, so he simply listened as she spoke.

“I think my father will go. Perhaps not immediately, but eventually. They’ve offered you a place, Ra, if you wish it.”

Ra grunted, and Thor felt his eyes on him again. “That is very kind of them. Have I you to thank for this thoughtfulness, Athena?”

“There’s nothing left for you here, my friend. You have been forgotten, and it only grows worse. The auguries point to another prophet for the True God.” That was news Athena had not shared with him, and Thor turned, his attention caught completely. “As if we had not been beaten enough. There will be nothing left of your people when he is done. There are so few left even now.”

Ra raised his hand to her shoulder. Athena had knelt beside his chair, her eyes wide, beseeching. “As long as there is one, Athena, I will not abandon him. And when there are none, I will still care for the children and grandchildren of those who looked to me. It is what they have asked for and what I have promised. Being forgotten does not absolve me of responsibility toward my flock.”

She raised her eyes to Thor, and he realized why she had wanted him there. But she could not have believed he would help her in this? Maybe it wasn’t to convince Ra, but to witness her effort.

“My uncles have great need of your wisdom and your counsel. You would be invigorated by their attention. By their power.”

“What would they need my counsel for when they have such a niece as you?” Ra asked. Athena bit her lip, and dropped her eyes. “Have you not decided to go? What would your father do without you?”

“Perhaps Athena welcomes the freedom of no longer having to hold her father’s hand,” Thor suggested.

Ra raised an eyebrow, looking up at him. “And what would you do without her loyal friendship, Thor? Without her help and kindness?”

He pressed his lips into a thin line. Perhaps the reason she had required his presence had nothing to do with Ra at all, and everything to do with forcing words from his mouth that she otherwise would not hear.

“Thankfully it looks as though I will still have you, my friend, even if Athena leaves our company.”

Athena looked as though she had sipped something bitter from her wine glass, and Ra laughed. “Fairly spoken, Thor.”

“Yes, he has quite the knack for escaping direct answers, doesn’t he?” Athena stood and turned her back to him.

“Athena, you cannot think we would not miss you?” Ra sounded almost contrite. “But this choice is one you must make for yourself. Just as Thor and I must do the same.”

“It seems so much easier for you,” she said.

Thor shrugged. “Our people still worship us. The Christians have not reached them yet, and until they do my responsibilities are clear.”

“And for my part,” Ra said, “I am too old to go on to a new world, too attached to this world and the feckless people in it. And I confess to a great curiosity for what the angels will serve us next. I believe I would enjoy having a conversation with the True God if he ever chose to walk among us.”

Athena studied Ra’s face. She said nothing aloud, but Thor thought something passed between them. Ra appeared to incline his head just slightly, and Athena looked away again. “Perhaps I should stay, if only to be sure you are kept in wine.”

Ra smiled, and Thor felt a relief more intense than anything but the love he had for Eve. If he had not thought it would hurt her, he would have taken her back to his bed and showed her how happy he was that she would stay. And she would now, he was sure of it. She would not abandon Ra. She would not abandon either of them.

“When my father allows me to return to Asgard, and I have built my hall, you will both be welcome there.”

“I would be very interested in seeing your Asgard, Thor, and this tree of your mother’s. But in the meantime, you and Athena are both welcome in my home for as long as it remains standing.”

Athena’s forehead creased into troubled lines. “As long as it remains standing may not be as long as we wish.”

“Then perhaps we will impose on the House of Lions,” Ra said. “Isis tells me their lands are beautiful.”

Thor grimaced. “As long as they remember.”

“You will remember for them, Thor. As you have done, and will continue to do.” Ra raised his glass. “To better days and long memories.”

Thor raised his glass, his eyes on Athena. And then he drank deep.

Chapter Twenty: Present