My scream is stolen from me. I'm left in horrified silence, the body of my mother still and silent on the cobblestones of the courtyard, blood beginning to stain her dress. The hilt of the sword sticks out of her chest, shuddering slightly from the impact. And her eyes are closed, closed shut against light and life and me. And my apology. Her eyes are closed against my apology and the scream choking my throat.

Someone else screams in rage, and for a moment I'm not sure whether or not it is me. But it isn't me – it's Nebula. She charges out of the crowd, leaping and flying through the air straight at the son of Thanos who killed Frigga.

I start forward but Veers is still gripping my arm and yanks me back. Nebula knees the alien in the side of the head and he ducks backward, baring his teeth as she screams again, grabbing her swords off her belt and thrusting them out to the side.

The alien lifts his hands and hurls Nebula backwards as she charges again, sending her flying back into the closest building. She falls to the ground with a groan, eyes flickering shut as he touches a finger to his lips, his sneer nasty and domineering.

This time, I pull my arm out of Veers' grasp and race down to my mother. Dropping to my knees beside her, my heart stops as I see how pale, how still she is. She's gone, gone forever. My mother is dead.

Dead.

She can't forgive me if she's dead.

"Move, Asgardian," I hear someone hiss, and look up to see the alien staring down at me.

"No," I tell him, rising. Behind him, I now see the body of the Other, lying on the cobblestones with his helmeted head bent severely to one side. "You will pay for this."

"I think not," he sneers. "Now move. I have a torture session to get back to."

Gamora. I glance back at her to see her slumped, still suspended in midair, her limp body folded almost in half. She's unconscious, I believe – I hope. I can't stand her silence and stillness meaning anything else.

Curling my fingers in until they lightly touch my palms, I glare at the son of Thanos, my mind slipping into overdrive. Although all I want to do is kill him, tear him to shreds and watch him bleed out, laugh while he suffers, I can't. He is obviously skilled in some sort of sorcery. He'd cast me alongside Nebula before I could stab him, or even kill me like he did Frigga.

If he can hurl Nebula aside and torture Gamora, both daughters of Thanos and Gamora his favorite, if he can kill Asgard's queen, then my status as prince and champion will not protect me. Nothing will.

"Last chance, Asgardian."

I feel someone grasp my hand and start, glancing over to see Veers beside me, her glare fixed on the alien. "No," she states, her fingers curling around mine, her grip reassuring and strong. "You had no right."

"Thanos has every right," the alien returns. "I am Ebony Maw, the glorious Titan's son and enforcer. Anyone who steps in my way, steps in his. And I am tasked to eliminate all who do so."

"Then eliminate us," Veers says, her voice firm.

"Hey!" I hear someone shout, and everyone turns to see Valkyrie striding toward us. The drunken stagger I'm used to her exhibiting is gone, and her eyes flash fire. The bottle in her hand she tosses to the side, and it shatters on the cobblestones, the liquor darkening the brown stones. "Those are Asgard's champions, Maw. I don't think Thanos gave you authority to do anything to them."

"They stand in his way," Maw tells her, his voice cold as ice.

Valkyrie reaches us and turns, standing in front of us, as if as a shield. "No, they stand for the Balance. They're champions of it! And how will it look if Thanos' little minion goes about killing his champions? Not good. Besides, killing two champions of his and torturing his favorite daughter? I don't want to be in the room when that report gets delivered to him."

"Who are you to speak for Thanos, Asgardian?" Maw demands.

"I am Valkyrie, one of Thanos' champions," Valkyrie states, and she looks truly fearsome as she says that.

I can tell by the Maw's expression that he's torn between continuing on or waiting for further orders. "The both of them are interfering," he finally says.

"Because you just killed his mother," Valkyrie returns. "What would you do, in his place?"

"I gave up my parents for the glory of Thanos' mentorship long ago," the Maw declares. "And I never regretted it once." His contemptuous gaze shifts from Valkyrie to Veers and I, and then back to her. "But go. Thanos will decide your fates soon enough."

"Not without Gamora," I say quietly, and Valkyrie quickly speaks, as if to cover up for me.

"What about the daughters of Thanos? Both of them were entrusted into the care of Odin and his family. Loki, as Odinson, has the responsibility to ensure they are all right."

Damn, Valkyrie is better with words than I would have thought. Also, I had never thought about Gamora's safety being my responsibility. I just...I just don't want to see her tortured like this, to hear her scream like that. I...I don't know. All I do know is that I am not leaving her here, whether this be her adopted brother or not.

"And what do you care?" Ebony Maw asks, his eyes glinting maliciously as he glares at Valkyrie.

"I swore an oath to the throne of Asgard," Valkyrie says, standing straight and tall. Despite her old, dark armored tunic, despite the raggedness of her obsidian braid, flyaway strands of hair curling away from it, she looks every bit the warrior I was told she once was. Gone is the drunken aura, gone the air of indifference or pained helplessness. In the place of the alcoholic champion I had always known stands a real Valkyrie, the last Valkyrie. "And although that throne may be shattered, my loyalty is not. And I am loyal to the family of Odin, as the last holder of the throne, and so I am loyal to the oath he swore Thanos, to care for his daughters, to watch out for them."

"You will pay for this, Valkyrie," Maw hisses, but I know that we've won for now, for his hands lower and so do the thousands of needles surrounding Gamora.

"I already have," Valkyrie mutters. Before Ebony Maw can change his mind, I crouch and gently lift my mother's body, cradling her in my arms like something fragile. Valkyrie scoops up Gamora, tossing her over her shoulder as Veers strides over to Nebula and helps her up onto her feet.

Nebula swats away the Kree's helping hand and shoots a glare at Maw. But Veers positions herself between the two, preventing the daughter of Thanos from attacking her older brother. We leave the courtyard, silence permeating the air as we do so.

Tears form in my eyes as we reach the palace, dripping down my cheeks. Frigga is dead. Irrevocably dead, like Peter Parker and Cassie Lang and Pietro Maximoff. Dead. Dead.

Gone.

My chest hurts, pain radiating out with every beat of my heart, when I reach the chamber my family typically gathers in. Odin is already there, deep in thought before the fire, but he looks up when we enter.

His face pales, draining of blood as he sees Frigga in my arms, her body limp. He's silent, his face ghastly and afraid. Then he lets out a cry, a hoarse cry of pain and sorrow and despair and fear.

Slowly, I lay my mother's body down on one of the sofas, adjusting her head so that she appears as if in sleep, peaceful. The blood staining her dress mars any such image, removes any such delusions of sleep, and I find myself lifting my fingers and casting an illusion over the blood, making it disappear.

"What happened?" Odin asks in a low, brittle voice, gazing down at Frigga. Gently, in shock, he reaches out and moves a strand of her wavy blonde hair out of her face.

I tell the story quietly, my voice robotic, as Valkyrie sets Gamora down on the other sofa. Veers stands by the door as Nebula advances into the room, her eyes fixed on Frigga. Like Odin, she seems in shock, in mourning.

Then there is silence, large, looming silence. I don't know how many minutes have passed before Thor bursts into the room, his brows drawn down in anger and fear. There is so much fear right now. His eyes alight on the body of our mother and he bellows in pure grief before I numbly recount what happened again.

"Take Gamora to the healers," Valkyrie advises me in a low voice, when I finish. "Take Nebula, too."

I head over to the other sofa and carefully lift Gamora in my arms. Her head falls against my shoulder and I almost freeze at the touch, but then move again, turning to Nebula. It takes me a moment to get her attention, and then she sullenly follows me. Veers, looking relieved, hurries after us.

We all stay silent as we walk to the healers. I place Gamora under the soul forge and step back as the head healer approaches, her lips pressed in a thin line. "Is it true?" she inquires.

I only nod.

The healer's face falls into one of immense sadness, sorrow for a queen that was fair and just, someone that loved those that didn't belong just because she could. It's in her death that I know, in my heart, that whatever Odin's plans were concerning me, Frigga shared no part in them. She raised me as her son because that was what I was, to her, not because I was Odin's pawn. She cared for Nebula and Gamora because both girls had been robbed of a mother, not because Odin had given his oath to Thanos. And she treated Veers with kindness not because she was my supposed girlfriend, but because she had been uprooted from her home and felt lost and alone.

Frigga cared because that was just who my mother was.

And the last thing I did was yell at her, disown her.

Veers and I stand out of the way as several of the healers begin examining Gamora, one of the others tending to Nebula, who is resistant at best to their attentions. The Kree doesn't say anything to me, which I am grateful for. But she does stay with me, which I am also grateful for. I don't want to be alone right now. I don't know what I would do, if I was alone, and I'm partly fascinated but partly terrified of finding out.

When the healer has finished with Nebula, she walks over to Veers and I. "You don't have to stay," the daughter of Thanos tells me. "You should be with your family."

I give an almost imperceptible shake of my head. "I am fine right here." After a moment, I ask the question that has been prodding at my mind since I saw Ebony Maw torturing Gamora. "Why would a member of the Black Order torture your sister?"

"Because Father was displeased," Nebula answers in a low voice. "Gamora brought the two of you back here, without his orders. He saw my memory file, when I gave him the mission report. He knows. He combed through other memories, saw other things. So he sent Ebony Maw to correct Asgard, to rebalance it. That is why the Other is dead. That is why the queen is dead. The Balance...it requires correction."

It requires blood.

But it was supposed to be my blood.

The next several hours pass in a blur. At one point, Veers makes me take a walk in the corridor, not touching me but still a reassuring presence. The girl who stood up won't back down, I sense, and I'm grateful for that. Frigga is laid out in state, in the throne room, and Thor, Odin, and I take up a silent watch over her body. Valkyrie, uncharacteristically sober, stands in the background, silent but supportive. Veers stays with us a while, then fades away, ostracized by our silence. Nebula, however, doesn't move the entire night, standing near my mother's body like a bodyguard, her body stiff but her eyes quietly mourning.

All night, my thoughts attack me, driving home their points like nails through my brain. The guilt eats at me, knowing that the last thing I told my mother was that she wasn't my mother, knowing that it is all because of me that Ebony Maw was sent here, was allowed to kill Frigga. If I hadn't messed up on the mission...if I hadn't failed on the Champion Tour...if I hadn't saved Veers in the arena...if Veers hadn't prevented me from rushing to Gamora's and my mother's defense in the courtyard.

My gratitude turns sour as I pass the hours staring at my mother's kind face, her eyes closed against me, shutting me out, never forgiving me. If Veers hadn't grabbed me, it would have been me, could have been me. I don't want to die, but it beats my mother dying. She, out of all people, didn't deserve this. And I never deserved her, as my mother.

I really am a monster, aren't I?

As the first rays of sunlight begin to touch the horizon, I leave the throne room, driven away by my guilt and anger. I find my steps take me to the healers' chamber, where Gamora still lies under the soul forge, which has been powered down. None of the healers are around, so it's just me and her.

I approach the soul forge, sinking into a crouch beside it as I gaze at Gamora. She lies flat on her back, her arms loose, her head turned to one side, dark hair haloing around her head. Her chest rises and falls slowly, easily, her breathing calm for the moment.

I swallow as I look at her. I really don't want to lose her, especially not after losing my mother. And it hits me then, that I can't spend the rest of my life, short as it may be, pretending to love someone I don't. Hela wanted me to lie, wanted me to lie well, but I can't lie about that, not like that. I wanted the illusion of Gamora, the alternate reality where I could love her and be loved by her.

"I've already lost my mother," I whisper. "I can't lose the only person left I care about, too."

Slowly, I lean down and brush my lips against hers, giving her a light kiss. Before, our first kiss was to dispel any notions of romance, so it is only fitting that I restructure the illusion through a kiss. It is brief and slight, but the thought of mastering this illusion makes me swear to fight for it, for a moment, for an illusion, for Gamora.

"Whatever it takes."