Finland, 1385

The loss of Erik was too fresh in Sindri's mind. Her surrogate son, whom she'd adopted as an infant after his mother's death and father's abandonment, now rested in the earth. He'd led a wonderful life with his wife and children, ensuring they never wanted for anything. Before Sindri had been forced into hiding to conceal her true nature, she'd suspected Erik understood more than he'd let on.

She'd watched his family grow from afar, occasionally sneaking from her tiny house on the mountain to his small hamlet, but had never engaged. Once, they'd made eye contact where recognition crossed his features and he'd opened his mouth to speak, but Sindri had disappeared before he could utter a single word. Not so much for her sake but for his — if anyone suspected her of being a witch, the church would surely pursue his family and torture false confessions from them.

Now he was gone, killed in a blizzard as he'd traveled to deliver a commission. Sindri hadn't found him in time to restore him, leaving her no choice but to bury him beside the road with a rune-engraved stone to mark his existence.

She couldn't remember the journey home or whether she'd used magic to get there. No fire warmed the small hearth as death's icy grip chilled her heart while her body refused to succumb. An indeterminate amount of hours passed, marking each crushing second of grief. No food or water touched her lips as the weight of her loss engulfed her in never-ending torment.

"Emma?"

Sindri ignored Thayer's presence and questioning tone. If she kept quiet, he might leave.

Except he didn't. Instead, her mentor and friend draped a blanket over her shivering frame and sat next to her as he summoned a fire in the hearth. Flames crackled and popped — too merrily as far as Sindri was concerned — warming the room around them. Then, he drew her into his chest where she rested her head against him. "What happened?"

She shook her head. The pain was too raw. Erik had been her child, a man who had escaped the Black Plague and worked his entire life to support his family.

As always, Thayer remained persistent in his endeavors, refusing to be deterred. Resting a gentle hand on her back, he said, "You do not have to do everything alone. All any of us want is to help."

She shoved him away and buried her face into her knees, swallowing any emotion that wasn't anger. "I do not want your help! I want my son and my life returned to me!"

"I see." Thayer fell into silence, not attempting to touch her again as he stayed by her side.

Several minutes passed before Sindri curled into Thayer's embrace again. "Why must my life be filled with so much misery before I can find joy? What is the point of loving anyone if it means nothing in the end?"

According to Loki, she had to endure another seven centuries of immortality. How the fae weren't driven mad was a mystery. Sooner or later, they had to lose pieces of themselves as time and memories blurred together. With no new sense of purpose, anything worthwhile would become meaningless. And finding true love in a man willing to respect her as a person was like asking a bird to become a fish. No one would ever see her as anything but inferior or dangerous.

"Do you truly believe love has no value?" he asked softly. "Would your son have agreed, or would he have been disheartened to know you would rather throw away his memory?"

A slew of unladylike curse words streamed through her mind, each more vicious than the last. These were the words of the Viking raiders deep in their cups, regaling other men with their tales once they believed their women to be out of earshot.

She backed away again and glared, clenching her fists within her blanket to keep herself from hitting him. Unlike humans who reveled in violence and abuse, the fae eschewed any physical contact that would cause harm, preferring to battle with wit over brawn. "How dare you?"

"You are the one telling me love is worthless," he rebutted, tracing his fingers down Sindri's arms and stopping at her hands. Sliding a thumb in each fist, Thayer closed his fingers over her knuckles and squeezed.

She shrugged, allowing the blanket to slide off one shoulder and onto the floor. "It hurts," she rasped. "How am I meant to endure a millennium of this? I am no fool; marriage is political or pragmatic."

Not that Erik had disliked his bride — though Helena had hailed from poverty during the Black Plague after it ravaged her village, the former had been the one to make the offer to care for her. They weren't in love, but they had respected and honored each other while expanding their family and accepting commissions from Swedish patrons. Sadly, the spark of passion wasn't present in either party, and they'd kept each other at arms' length.

Thayer took the blanket from the floor and returned it to Sindri's shoulders so it hung like a cloak. With a snap of his fingers, the fire blazed with a woosh through the chimney column while a pair of pallets appeared before them. Instead of straw, a soft, down bedroll lay on the platform, and fat, goose feather pillows bursting at the seams beckoned from the head opposite the fire. Sheepskin blankets sat with the top corner folded over while a bear pelt spread across the space beneath the pallet.

Tilting her head slowly to one side, Sindri regarded her mentor through drooping eyes as the corner of her mouth tugged into a smirk. "Has anyone ever told you it is impolite to rearrange a home that is not your own?"

"Perhaps," he replied, folding his wings with nary a blink, muting his shining aura in the drab room. Then, he patted the pallet and motioned for her to slide into the blankets. "When I entered, the space was more lifeless than the winter with piles of snow in your fireplace. You are also sitting on the floor in the dark with nothing to ward the chill."

Exhaustion weighed on her heart and body. With a soft sigh, she leaned into Thayer's chest. "It is not fair. I only wanted the right to choose." Not that she'd tell him what she'd done to obtain her freedom.

"And you can," he insisted, guiding Sindri to the soft cushions. "One day, you will find yourself faced with the choice to return to your mortal shell or embrace this side of yourself. You have an opportunity to live in the present between both worlds, and you should grasp the good things that come your way, even when your heart aches. It is through tragedy we learn to appreciate our blessings. And it is through accepting yourself you will find true freedom."

Sindri was too spent to comprehend the meaning behind the words. To agree was so much easier when all she wanted was to sleep and never leave her bed again.

So she nodded and allowed Thayer to slip behind her and wrap her in his arms beneath the blankets. His heartbeat thumped steadily against her back, and his body smelled of a pine forest in late summer.

The tug of fatigue muted her thoughts and numbed her grief while swaddling her in its comforting void of unconscious slumber. She was asleep before she could thank Thayer for his presence.

~*~

As Sindri and Elvinia set foot in the human world, she squinted in the darkness. Nearby was an entrance to a cave, where snow flurried in howling wind. Within, a chill swept through the air, ruffling Sindri's hair and making her shiver.

Odd... The cold didn't usually affect her. Whatever this was couldn't be natural.

She was about to voice her suspicions when two floating orbs of light blinked into existence near an ancient tunnel. The engravings were difficult to discern in the flickering purple light above two brass light fixtures on the wall, creaking with a reverberating echo as they lightly swayed.

Elvinia planted her hands on her hips and released a disgusted scoff. "Stealing my pixie dust was not enough for this rascal? He had to imitate fae light with his inferior skill too?"

Not what Sindri had expected, but then, nothing was ever as it appeared when Loki was involved. As she approached the illuminated path, she braced herself for more surprises and breathed slowly to calm her frayed nerves.

An old memory of a time shortly following Erik's death crossed her mind. Thayer had sought her out and comforted her, predicting she would someday face this moment. But more importantly, he'd spoken of something about true freedom, but the recollection proved elusive, stuck at the edge of her mind. Whatever it was felt important, but like that night in Iceland with Storm, she was baffled by its significance.

The only thing she knew with any certainty was that Loki was somewhere ahead, and she would not leave this cavern unchanged.

Runes pulsed with glowing and dimming magic, traveling the length of the wall in time with Sindri's steps. The colors and the way they moved reminded her of movies and cartoons from the eighties when neon luminescence was all the rage.

Summoning a ball of silver fae light, Sindri sent it hovering near the rock for a better look. Nonsensical rhymes covered the surface, each ending with a word to represent a name. Søndre, Alaric, Roscoe... Beside them was a rune to convey numbers, and Sindri gasped when she realized they weren't just numbers, but calendar dates.

Sindri raced along the corridor, pausing every few feet to read another rhyme attached to its victim. The latest year read 1007.

"Getting closer," she muttered before moving further into the tunnels.

A second ball of orange weight joined the silver, illuminated the entire space and causing Sindri to blink. Elvinia hovered above the ground, slowly approaching from the entrance of the cave. When she reached Sindri, she faced the wall and grasped her chin between her thumb and forefinger. "What are you searching for?"

Sindri shivered, afraid to give a voice to her racing thoughts. This entire place held her past, present, and future. The runes were ancient, somehow preserved through time and kept out of human sight.

Ahead, the year 1023 caught her eye along with the spell's inscription and her name. Not her fae designation, but her actual given birth name. She cleared her throat and swallowed. "Can you read these runes?"

"Not well," the queen admitted. "Loki had taught me a little when he was still attempting to win my favor. My talents lie more with Gaelic."

Sindri strode to the wall and touched the runic words Loki had used to change her life forever:

"The desire of thine heart, I grant thee
the power to set thou free.
True love, I guarantee
but beware the fee!
This life thou shall not flee;
doomed to walk in immortality.
The only relief thou shalt see
will come in twenty-twenty-three!"

Her breath hitched as she let her hand slide from the wall and drop to her side. "This is what he said to me at my homestead's altar. I'd been about to pray to Meili for safe travels when Loki startled me. He was dressed as an old woman in rags, asking why I mocked the goddess Frigga."

Elvinia stepped beside Sindri and placed a hand on her shoulder. Her nose wrinkled as she stared ahead with narrowed eyes. "Besides the year, have you examined the context behind his words? Intent matters."

"What do you mean?" Sindri asked, ready to kick herself if the answer turned out to be something simple.

"Poetry is about meaning," she explained patiently. "Loki mentioned your heart's desire before insinuating you can't flee from this life. I do believe the last line speaks of our current year, but I am unsure what he means by relief." Angling her head to look at Sindri, she asked, "Do you recall seeing the old woman before your meeting at the altar?"

Sindri shook her head. She'd been stuck at her father's dinner table, pouring wine for increasingly affectionate men with wandering hands. There had been few opportunities to mingle with anyone that might as she remained focused on spiking Ødger's drink. "Definitely not. Everyone present at the feast were family or neighbors. My betrothed's ship had been delayed by the weather, and my father hosted the celebrations anyway."

"But Loki is a shapeshifter," Elvinia pointed out. "If you'd spoken to anyone or even voiced your discontent aloud to yourself, it is possible he had a chance to eavesdrop."

The idea wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Loki never needed a reason to incite chaos.

"I'm positive I didn't," Sindri reiterated, though suddenly unsure. She knew she hadn't spoken of her plans to anyone, though her sister, a year younger, had been aware of Sindri's dissatisfaction.

And that was it, Sindri realized with a long sigh. "My sister knew I didn't want to marry Ivor."

Before either woman could say anything else, a gust of wind flew through the tunnel, eradicating the light from all runes except for Sindri's. The symbols glowed in a gradient of purples, yellows, and reds before expanding across the tunnel in a single burst. A stone archway appeared, and above the threshold was a single rune: Sindri's name.

WC: 2207
Overall WC: 28528