I was only vaguely aware of the cheers erupting across the battlefield. Adrenaline still thrummed in my veins, but I couldn’t take in any of the euphoria spreading among the einherjar and Valkyries as Surtr’s army fled, the rift between Asgard and the human world healing in a ripple of golden light.
With every pulse of my heart, the ache of loss penetrated deeper now that I had no purpose left. I had done my duty. I had fulfilled my destiny.
And I had lost part of my soul in the process.
“We should go back. To Valhalla,” Modi said softly. His warm hand closed around my shoulder. “Grim gave his life for every other living being. We owe him a vigil.”
“We owe him a lot more than that,” Bjarni rumbled, the grief in his voice echoing through my own anguished heart.
Saga drew in a deep breath through his nose, visibly steeling himself before he sheathed his sword and turned to me. Gently, he pulled me up into his arms and hugged me tight to his body still caked in Jotunn blood. “Come, Annabel. We need to give him this final honor.”
We left the battlefield amidst cheers, but it felt like they came from somewhere far away—like they weren’t part of the dark, numb world we walked through.
Grim, Grim. Come back to me, baby. Please come back.
The walk up the path leading to Valhalla was a blur, and I don’t think I could have made it on my own. Saga carried me in his arms, like a lost child, and Bjarni, Modi and Magni surrounded us in a tight circle. They were the reason I had to find a way to continue on. Them and the life I carried. His daughter. He had given his life for us; I could not let that be for nothing. I wouldn’t.
I pressed my hand firmly against my abdomen as we crossed through Valhalla’s ports and began the long journey through the quiet hall.
“Trud?” Magni mumbled, his quiet voice cutting through the silence and jerking my gaze up. Ahead, in the middle of the destruction left behind from our first fight with Odin, Modi and Magni’s blonde sister sat hunched over a crumpled figure on the floor.
I opened my mouth, but nothing but a hollow sob came out. Grim. Seeing his body hit me with grief all over again, and something fragile inside of me broke.
I ran. I tripped over the scattered debris and slipped on the floor, but it barely slowed me down. The second I was by his side, I fell to my knees—and dissolved into tears.
“Grim. Grim, my love. My soul. Please come back to me. Please!”
I bent over him and let the weight of everything that had happened press me into his chest. He was so, so cold. My beautiful, haunted soulmate. My fifth. I had only known the true him so briefly. It wasn’t fair. He had lived in darkness and pain for a millennium, and I was supposed to be the one to finally show him what true happiness was like.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. “So, so sorry.”
“Don’t… cry.”
I stilled at the hoarse whisper, my insides flicking from a painful, agonizing mess to numb stillness. My shuddering breath sounded like a thunderstorm in my ears as I slowly, so slowly turned my head.
My eyes slid over his wide chest, up the column of his throat, and finally to his face.
He was as pale as ever, but his eyes… His eyes were open—barely more than cracks, but enough that the pale blue and glowing amber of his irises were visible. He… He was alive?
“Grim!” I cried, relief combusting in my chest so hard I burst into another bout of tears.
He only groaned weakly in response.
A warm hand touched my cheek. “He will live, my sister. But he is very weak. Be gentle.”
I didn’t look at Trud—I couldn’t take my eyes off Grim’s face, not even when Bjarni and Saga fell to their knees on his other side and gripped his hand and arm.
“Brother,” Saga choked. “We thought we’d lost you.”
“How did he survive?” Modi asked. He and Magni knelt on each side of me. I was grateful for the pressure of their bodies, because my head felt too light and my muscles were quickly losing the battle against the flood of emotion.
“I don’t know,” Trud said quietly. “His matebond was broken. He was dead.”
“You are… my soul,” Grim rasped. His hand twitched as if he was trying to raise it, but he couldn’t manage. “He… He did not… break… that bond. I… felt you. Found… Found my way back. To you.”
“The soulmate connection,” I whispered. “It called you back?”
He groaned a confirmation.
“Thank you,” I whispered, though I didn’t know who I was thanking—Grim himself, perhaps. With a deep breath, I pulled myself together and focused inward.
My magic came slowly, like mud being pulled through too-narrow tubes. Magni grabbed me from my left, and I felt his power flow into me, supporting mine. A moment later, Modi joined him. Their magic was almost as depleted as mine, but their support was enough for my golden light to enter Grim’s body.
Two more hands clasped onto me, and Saga’s magic joined mine while Bjarni offered his fortitude.
There was little damage to Grim’s body, but I still filled him with our essence, willing our combined magic to give him strength.
After a few long moments, Grim wrapped his chilly fingers around my wrist with little more strength than a newborn kitten. “Stop, Annabel. That’s… That’s enough.”
My vision swam when I opened my eyes again, but Grim looked… not well, but better.
“He needs time,” Trud said. “Time and care. But he will heal.”
“He will have all the time and care in the world,” Magni rumbled. He kissed my shoulder and clapped a hand on Grim’s thigh. “Thank you, brother.”
“Thank you,” Saga echoed. Then Bjarni. Then Modi. Then me.
“We did it,” I said softly. The relief of Grim’s survival numbed any joy that should have filled those words. “We killed Odin. We stopped Ragnarök.”
“Of course you did,” Grim whispered. When I clutched his hand, he tightened his fingers around mine ever so slightly. “You are Annabel Turner. Nothing will stop you.”
I choked out a sob and lifted his knuckles to my lips. Four pairs of arms closed around us both, encapsulating us in warmth and light.
We made it. We’d survived.
“There you are!” a loud, male voice boomed from somewhere outside my safe cocoon. “You are the heroes of Asgard! You can’t just run off after such a glorious battle!”
“They are the heroes of all nine realms, Dad,” Trud said. When I peeked out from my shelter of bulky arms and shoulders, I saw the thunder god standing a few yards from Grim’s sprawled body, Mimir’s head tugged under one arm. Behind him, more filed in. I caught a glimpse of Loki before he was lost in a sea of Valkyrie wings.
“Heroes of the nine realms they are, indeed,” a tall, darkhaired woman said. She stepped forward past Thor and looked down at us with an inscrutable expression. “You saved us all. Where we failed, you succeeded. I thought no one would have the strength to kill my husband. I am glad I was wrong.”
Husband?
“Thank you, Frigg,” Modi said, and despite the absolute formality in his voice, I felt a flicker of wariness in our bond.
Frigg. Odin’s wife. I recalled Mimir’s stories about the now-dead god-king. He had occasionally mentioned his wife.
“And you, Frigg? Did you know of Odin’s deceit?” A stern-looking man missing one arm took up stance by Thor’s side.
She turned to them. “We have not shared chambers for centuries, let alone secrets. I fought the Jotunn hordes by your side, Tyr.”
“The god-king acted alone.” Mimir’s voice broke through the throng, pulling everyone’s attention from the queen.
“Odin included no one in his plans—at least no one he didn’t curse to silence. Please, my old friends; we do not have time to bicker. We find ourselves without a king, our walls broken, and Midgard suffering from the ravaging of Ragnarök’s harbingers. The Goddess of Love is dead.
“What we need is to come together and rebuild. We cannot abandon the humans now that their belief in the old ways has been forced alive. We cannot allow Freya’s death to tear every realm apart with war and strife.”
“Freya is dead?” someone gasped from the crowd. Murmurs of sorrow rose and broke like waves through the gathering. “What will we do without her?”
“The loss of Freya cuts deeply, but we have another Goddess of Love.” Trud stood, the gentle billowing of her powers masking her stumble as she found her feet. She looked down at me and gave me a soft smile. “This woman stopped Ragnarök in its tracks—and killed the god-king himself—all through the power of her love for five sons of Asgard. Look at her—sense her power for yourselves. She is one of us.”
“A mortal?” Frigg asked, brow furrowing as she stared at me. I was too exhausted to flinch under her unnerving gaze. “You wish to make a mortal a goddess of Asgard?”
“Mortal-ish,” Mimir said. “Thor’s daughter is right. The essence of Freya lives within this child of Midgard. She may have been born among humans, but she is a mortal no more.”
Frigg stepped toward me, and with a graceful swoop, bent to hold out her hand.
“May I?” she asked.
Reluctantly, I released Grim’s hand to take hers.
Power washed through me. It wasn’t rough or dominating, but it wasn’t gentle. It filled me up and searched out every part of my inner self. Then, just as swiftly, it eased back out of me.
“Truly a wonder,” Frigg murmured. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she rose again and turned to crowd. “They speak true. The Savior of Asgard carries a kernel of Freya herself. With her aid, we will get through this.”
“About that…” I grimaced as I straightened between my mates. “There is a small matter that needs to be dealt with before I can help you.”
“Oh?” Frigg turned back around to me.
“Speak, child,” the one-armed man said. “We are in your debt. Whatever you need, we will provide.”
I really hoped he was right.
“To escape Hel, I had to make a bargain with the Queen of Death,” I said, steeling myself against the murmurs that erupted anew. “If I do not find a way of letting her walk freely among the realms, she will claim my soul. And without my soul… Freya’s kernel will die too.”
“What? Let Hel go free?” Thor blustered. “Do you know how dangerous she is?”
“Is she more dangerous than a world without a Goddess of Love?” Trud asked.
“We stopped Ragnarök, Father,” Magni reminded him. “We did what no other god could. If you do not let Hel go free, we will all die with our mate. Is that the legacy you wish for your bloodline?”
Thor huffed and clenched his hands by his sides. “Of course not! But… this is Hel we’re talking about.”
“It would appear we have little choice,” Frigg said. She cast me a long look, then nodded once. “We will fulfill your bargain, little one. On the condition that you serve in Freya’s place.”
“I—I will.” It came out as a stutter, because as I looked around the shattered hall of Valhalla, at the gods of myth who all as one nodded their acceptance of me and the five men who had given everything to get me through this, it finally sank in.
“I told you I would make you a goddess,” Grim rasped.
“Holy fuck, I’ll be… a goddess?” I whispered, low enough that only my mates heard me.
“You always were,” Bjarni murmured. He skimmed a hand through my hair, and I leaned against him. “Our golden goddess, born from steel and blood and love.”
Low in my abdomen, where she was curled safely around my yet-unborn daughter, Freya’s soul hummed in agreement.