Fate Forgotten (25 page)

“We’ll see.”

Struggling as he had been against the god, when he was released suddenly he fell to the ground. He was going to have grass stains if he wasn’t careful. Or worse. Adam stood and brushed himself off, eye to eye with Michael. “And if I refuse to swear any vow?”

Thor snorted. “It would be the most honest thing you’ve ever done.”

Michael’s gaze ripped into him again. Demanding and impossible to avoid. “What are your intentions, Adam? Merely to call Us? To capture Our attention?”

“I intend to return to Eve.”

And do what with her? What more misery can you inflict? She is not a toy for you to play with, Son of God. She is a woman. God’s own Daughter. Most precious of His creations.

He swallowed and returned the angel’s gaze calmly.
I have loved her for the better part of a century.

Then it is as God has said.
Michael’s face twisted with disgust. “Make your vow, Adam.”

He shifted his eyes to Thor, over Michael’s shoulder, even as he felt the angel search his soul and listen for any lie to his words. “I do not seek a child of her womb, or the power of the godchild you all fear, and certainly I have no intention of standing against Elohim, Whatever his will. But I will not swear not to love her, and I will make no promises regarding my intentions toward any other gods upon this earth.”

“The vow is made.” Michael grimaced and turned away. “He speaks truly.”

“That’s it? You’ll let him walk free again?”

“It is not God’s wish to have him caged like an animal, Norseman. His pledge is all that We require.” But his eyes flashed and the white wings twitched at his back. “We will brook no further interference from you in the affairs of men. God’s plan will be made clear in time.”

“God’s plan?” Adam asked.

Do not think We will turn a blind eye. Even without the sword, We will have what is Ours when the time comes. Any child of Eve’s belongs to God, and by your oath, you have forsaken all claim.
Michael sneered again, his perfect face twisted with hate. “When you see us again in this life, Adam, you will not like what We have to say.”

“Why?” He didn’t like the sound of it already, and what he’d promised… he hadn’t realized what it meant. What the angel had meant by it—but surely they didn’t think Eve would ever risk the world, regardless. “When?”

But Michael ignored him, and left without another word. Athena watched him go thoughtfully, before turning the same gaze upon Adam. “What did you want with the sword?”

He shook his head, thinking of Eve and the tears she had shed so that he could fail to accomplish anything. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness this time. Not at all.

When Thor finally let him go, he didn’t return to the shop. He didn’t think that she’d want to see him, and he wasn’t sure he could stand to face her after what he’d done. He went home instead, back to Britain, though this time he avoided the bar. If he lived the rest of his life a monk, it would be better than he deserved for everything he had put her through. Without the sword, there was nothing he could do.

He sat in the dark of his house late that night, a bottle near at hand to drown himself in whenever he started to surface again, turning over the angel’s words in his mind. God lived. God lived and He had a plan for him. For Eve too? For both of them? And was Thor truly forbidden to interfere any further? He wasn’t sure what that meant, or how much authority was behind it. He had never seen an angel bestir itself to act against the gods, though there had seemed to be no love lost between Thor and Michael.

He smirked. It was almost refreshing to know the angel despised that god as much as he did. Reassuring to know he wasn’t alone in his desire to be rid of him. But if Thor spent as much time in Eve’s head as Adam suspected, what affect would his withdrawal have on her? If Thor gave her any kind of peace, Adam wouldn’t let it be denied her. Nor would Thor permit her to be hurt, regardless of the angel’s command. Elohim was not Thor’s god, and Adam doubted seriously that he would obey.

He guzzled another portion of the bottle and felt himself sink deeper into the fog of the drink on his mind. Did he even have the strength to reach her now, if he wanted to? He rested his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. Surely she would want to know that God lived. Under the influence of so much alcohol, he was almost certain that this piece of information was key. That God’s presence meant something more than he had yet discerned. Maybe it would be enough to make her rethink her decision.

Evey?

He got the distinct impression of a dreamscape. Something about lions. He sighed. Always lions. At least she wasn’t married to one anymore. Small favors.

Eve, love. I know you’re upset with me, but this is important, I promise you.

The dream faded and he felt her consciousness rise, though she seemed distinctly annoyed.
S’two in the morning. Go to bed, Adam.

He glanced out the window, only then noticing he wasn’t sitting in the dark anymore. It was morning, and he’d lost the entire night.
Evey, God lives.

There was a silence so absolute he wondered if she’d stopped breathing.
How do you know?

Michael.

Michael? But you said you didn’t know how to find him—
And then the pain lashed through him, from her heart, from her spirit.
You used me.

Evey, I’m sorry. I had to see him. There wasn’t any other way.

Is that all I am to you? A tool to get what you want?

No, Eve!

I can’t do this Adam. I can’t. I can’t.
Her presence disappeared.

He sighed and drank down the rest of the bottle, thanking God for not making him immune to the effects of alcohol. There was entirely too much heartbreak for him to survive without it.

Sometimes he wished Eve had never taught him how to love properly. He wished he’d never seen her with Garrit. Never realized what he had missed. Never understood how much more life could be when you had someone to share it with. He wished he had never known her to love her, to hurt her this way. That she had never had cause to love him back.

He had struggled for so long to be a person she could love. For what? To be mocked by the gods? To be threatened by the angels?

But without the sword…

Without the sword, there was no control. No threat left, but weak anger. That he could endure without trouble or concern. Without the sword, there was nothing that Michael could do to stop him.

Perhaps not nothing. The Chorus still drove him into unconsciousness. But there was nothing permanent about the act.

But why would God destroy the sword? The one weapon the angels could use against them. The one thing that they could hold over their heads to keep them apart. To keep them afraid. With the sword gone, there was nothing to stop him but his own conscience. Especially with Thor forbidden to interfere. Was his conscience really something God had that much faith in? After everything he had done and been, it seemed a thin thing to protect the world. A very thin thing.

Ah, but God did not have to count on him alone. And Eve knew her duty, knew her role, knew suffering and sacrifice. What a weight to bury her in. He wondered, not for the first time, why God had forced so much responsibility on her unwilling shoulders. Poor Eve. Poor, lovely, sorrowful Eve.

But the saddest part was that he couldn’t even comfort her. Couldn’t hold her while she cried. Couldn’t care for her without increasing her burden. Without making it all so much worse. And now she didn’t even have Thor in the back of her mind, sitting like a balm.

The last thing he remembered thinking before the alcohol and exhaustion claimed him was that God was cruel.

God was cruel to Eve.

Chapter Twenty-five: 827 AD

With Athena’s help, Ra’s knowledge of engineering, and the assistance of the other Aesir, Thor built his hall. It was not the five hundred forty rooms he had dreamed of, but it boasted more than he would ever need. Athena named it Bilskirnir, from the old tongue, for the state of his temper if it ever fell, and they moved their things from Odin’s hall before it was finished. Within it, he did not worry that Sif would hear them, or that they would be spied upon by Loki. It was a place untainted by all that had come before, and for the first time in a long time, he felt at home in Asgard.

Ra left once he had seen the first mountainous stone set, to travel east and visit with the gods there. The Norsemen who looked to Odin and the Aesir grew in number and in strength. They spread out, explored, wandered, and raided. They were feared on land and at sea. It was a golden age, in spite of the Christians, and the Aesir grew arrogant.

Thor saw the look in Athena’s eyes when Freyr and Baldur laughed over the threat of the Christians. He knew she saw the fall of the Aesir in all their brash words, just as she had watched her own people fall. But Odin would not listen to the warning Thor gave him, or take lesson from the story of the Olympians.

There were not many of her people left. Most had gone on to the new world Zeus and his brothers had secured. Aside from Athena, those who stayed did not leave Mount Olympus. When she went home, she seemed to return to him more upset than when she had left, but he knew she was not happy in Asgard either. And even with Bilskirnir, Thor found himself missing his days wandering the earth. He missed goat-herding for the House of Lions. He missed being closer to Eve. He missed being able to avoid Sif and Loki for decades at a time.

While Athena was away in the east, he spent most of his time in Eve’s head, or else drinking with Baldur. It amounted to the same thing, truly. Distraction and avoidance of the troubles he knew would find the Aesir eventually. But he had tired long ago of arguing, and even Baldur, so well known for his discernment, did not listen.

Athena returned to him more subdued than usual this time. She was distracted through their dinner with the others, and seemed to be measuring each of the Aesir and finding them wanting somehow. When they returned to his hall, she did not sleep, but stood at the window, leaning on her elbows against the sill, the white material of her gown nearly transparent in the moonlight. He watched her for a long time, unable to find sleep himself with the tension that radiated from her body, and rose to stand behind her.

She didn’t acknowledge him, her eyes closed and her face tipped up to the sky. He slid the fabric of her gown aside and kissed her pale shoulder. She sighed and turned her face toward his touch, her cheek against her shoulder, though she still did not open her eyes.

“Is Ra unwell?” he asked, for he knew she had gone to see him, and his health was most frequently her concern. “Has the East finally been infiltrated by the Christians, or the Muslims?”

“Not yet.” She turned her face back to the night, and opened her eyes. “But they worry. Bhagavan and Buddha. And Ra wants to help them. To at least do for them what we could not do for ourselves. That some of us may be sustained.”

He kissed her throat, and ran the back of his finger along the column of her neck. He could feel the tension there, in her neck and shoulders. It didn’t help that she was so cold, standing at the window. He found the knots of stress in the muscles and smoothed them, pulling lightning into his hands to warm them, as well as her. His power never burned her, never marred her skin or caused her discomfort. She loved the kiss of the static, especially along her spine, and she relaxed under his hands, the tension draining from her body as he worked.

But not from her mind.

“Something else, Athena?” he asked. “What bothers you so much that you think of it even now?”

She turned, looking up at him, her eyes filled with sadness. When he leaned down to kiss her, she stopped him with a hand against his bare chest, pushing him back. “I have agreed to something that you will not like, Thor. But I do not see how else it is to be done, and I have thought long and hard of the consequences. There is no other way. No other right way. And I pray that you’ll forgive me. Forgive us.”