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Odin took the child from Hela and left her without a word in the palace’s main foyer, sore and slowly defrosting, dripping water on the pristine marble floor. She still felt the baby’s weight on her arm, his little head resting against her breast, not asleep but stunned into silence by the force of the Bifrost and the Asgardian magic all around him. He’d whined when Odin took him from her, and now, in the distance, she heard him crying full-force. Hela watched them go until Odin turned the corner, towards his chambers instead of the healing rooms.
What a fool he is, she thought. She could have destroyed the frost giants in an instant, but Odin wouldn’t let her. The invisible locks on her id remained, keeping her from her powers, her full potential. And what had it done for him? A thousand Einherjar dead, and his eye torn out by a frost giant’s claws. Hela stroked Fenris’s snout, damp with Jotunheim’s ice, and listened to the squall of a baby stolen from his home until she couldn’t hear it anymore in the depths of the palace.
“Come on, darling,” she said, “you need a bath.”
She changed out of her armor and into soft black robes while the water heated. There were some bruises, some slashes and scrapes from the battle, but nothing that warranted a trip to the healing rooms, so she ignored them. She had seen far worse and still come out victorious.
Fenris sat in Hela’s courtyard, her eyes half-closed and her nose pointed towards the moon as she waited patiently for her bath. Jotunheim ice was resilient, but it was slowly melting in the warmth of Asgard’s summer night, and a pitcher of warm water that Hela poured over her back defrosted her further.
Soon, Hela lost herself in the work, the mindless back-and-forth, to-and-fro of washing. There were stablehands that would take care of Fenris for her, of course, but Hela had never trusted them with her darling. Maybe she would have let a lady-in-waiting help her, if Odin had allowed her any. He hadn’t. He claimed that she was not a prisoner, but everything he did spoke volumes otherwise. The Jotunheim war was the first time she had been permitted to leave Asgard in almost a thousand years, and that was because she was Odin’s greatest weapon.
Or perhaps, she thought, he’s found a new one tonight, cast out onto a frozen rock.
When she saw the baby next, he was Asgardian. Odin had hidden the frost-giant-blue skin and red eyes with magic, coloring him milky-pale and his eyes bright blue. Hela frowned at the sight.
“The whole point was to raise him as a symbol of peace between us and the frost giants,” she said, “and now you want to conceal his identity?”
“They will know, when the time is right,” said Odin.
“There is no logic in waiting.”
“I will hear no more criticism from you,” Odin said sharply. Hela curled her lip. “His origins will be a secret until I tell him myself. It is for his own good.”
Hela opened her mouth to tell him how stupid he was, how his secrets would only make his children hateful and angry, like her... then she stopped. She looked at the baby, who was watching them quietly from his crib, and imagined what he would be like when he was grown—tall, strong, made bitter by how inexplicably out-of-place he always felt. She could see him commiserating with her then, and he could be greatly useful to her. Odin would do all the work for her by lying to the child for his whole life. All she needed was a little patience.
So for once, she conceded, and left Odin to fabricate a story for his subjects about where the baby had come from. He named him Loki and placed him in Thor’s nursery, and Hela stayed in her wing of the palace, waiting.
Thor took a shining to Fenris from an early age, although she never paid him any special attention. He seemed to think of her as an oversized version of one of the hounds that he played with out in the courtyards. She was among the greatest of Asgard’s beasts and one of its finest warriors, a terrifying vision to enemies and allies alike—granted, she had not seen a proper battle in years, but that was Odin’s fault and Hela would not have her be disgraced further by letting Thor pat her on the head and feed her table scraps.
That did not stop him from trying, though. More than once, he was scolded by Odin or Frigga for trying to save bits of his dinner for Fenris. Hela would have let him try, only because she knew that Fenris would ignore him or bite him and teach him a lesson, but Odin would probably kill her then. He was loath to let Hela keep her darling at all—any excuse to get rid of her was enough for him. As much as Hela would have liked to retaliate to Thor’s annoyances, it was not worth the risk.
So Hela only tolerated Thor’s presence because he was hardly ever without Loki—she would have called them attached at the hip if Loki was not always a step behind Thor, always standing partially in Thor’s shadow. Frigga was teaching him magic, and, unlike Thor, he excelled in the art, but when lessons were over, he was with his brother again, following him to whatever trouble he might get up to next. Sometimes, Hela thought, Loki made trouble where there wasn’t any, just because it amused him. It secretly pleased her.
They came to Hela’s courtyard one warm afternoon while she was brushing the winter coat from Fenris. Thor marched right up to them, like he was supposed to be there. He was not even tall enough to see the top of Fenris’s back, even as she was lying on her belly, but he approached her with all the confidence of an Einherjar captain. Loki, at least, stayed respectfully back, and asked,
“May we help?”
“No,” said Hela, not looking up from her work, “she’ll bite you.”
“I’m not scared,” said Thor. He picked up a brush and reached for Fenris.
She twisted her head around and bit him. Just a nip, really. She could have torn his arm off his body if she really meant it, but she only drew a little blood. Thor howled. Hela grabbed him by the collar and shoved him back towards the palace.
“She did warn you,” said Loki, as he and Thor left the courtyard. Thor sniffled.
“Stupid dog,” he muttered.
“You don’t mean that,” Loki said, laughing. Then he glanced over his shoulder, at Hela still staring after them, and added, “Thor… don't tell Father, okay?”
“Why?”
“He'll never let you near Fenris again. Just say one of the merchant’s dogs bit you.”
Thor rubbed his arm. “Okay,” he said, and then they were too far away for Hela to hear the rest of their conversation. She stroked Fenris’s face, waiting for her heart to stop pounding.
They kept coming back after that, somehow just in time—every time—for Hela to groom Fenris, and they sat on the steps to her courtyard and watched. Thor liked to talk, and he talked like every word he said was important, because Odin had raised him to believe that they were. Loki sat beside him and listened; he could hardly get a word in edgewise. Hela managed to ignore them both for months before she had a particularly bad day, and Thor's talking got on her last nerve. She turned on them, frowning.
“Make yourselves useful,” she said, “or leave.”
“You won’t let us help,” said Loki pointedly. “And she bit Thor.”
Thor, on the other hand, was already on his feet, apparently undeterred by his previous experiences with Fenris. He came forward eagerly, at least until Hela stopped him in his tracks with a hand on his collar.
“That’s close enough,” she said.
“You said—”
“You said,” Hela mocked him. “I said you have to make yourself useful if you want to stay. Now, stand right there.”
Thor frowned but didn’t move. Loki came to stand next to him, his hands clasped carefully behind his back.
“Ask her if you may approach,” said Hela.
“May we approach you, Fenris?” Loki asked politely, before Thor could open his big mouth. Fenris regarded them with half-closed eyes for a long, silent moment, then turned her nose away and ignored them. The boys looked at Hela for clarification.
“Well,” she said, “you haven't been mauled.” And that was all she would say, and Loki and Thor exchanged concerned glances.
Then Thor started towards Fenris, hand already raised to pet her, and Hela took great pleasure in stopping him again.
“Refill this,” she said, thrusting a pitcher into his hands. The sour little look on his face amused her. He didn’t like being told what to do, especially not by her, but the promise of getting to pet Fenris was too enticing and he did as she said. While he went over to the fountain in the opposite corner of the courtyard, Hela beckoned to Loki.
“Always approach her from the front,” she told him, “otherwise she may mistake you for an attacker, and respond in kind.” It was not entirely true; Fenris would never mistake a pair of ten-year-old boys for a threat, but the look of earnest concentration on Loki’s face was funny. He had not learned to see through her facetiousness yet—he trusted her too much still.
Loki walked slowly to Fenris, dwarfed by her, and she did not react when he stroked her neck. Her fur was so thick that she hardly felt his hand, and he was not interesting enough to pay any attention to for now. She rested her head on her paws and chuffed, impatient for her bath to continue. Hela saw Loki twitch, but he did not withdraw. Brave little thing.
Thor brought back the filled pitcher, and Hela gave him a washcloth.
“Get started,” she said.
Thor wet the washcloth, and went to Fenris’s hindquarters.
“No,” said Hela.
He went to her midsection.
“No,” said Hela again.
Thor hesitated, and Hela almost laughed out loud. She directed him to Fenris's left shoulder, and showed him how to scrub so that he could reach the skin beneath her thick fur.
If Hela had hoped that letting them help would make Thor be quiet at last, she had been wrong. He was a busy little helper, but his mouth was busier. He had many topics up his sleeve; his dogs, his horse, the young Lady Sif who he was so enamored with, who sometimes came to the palace with her parents, the Valkyries—“I want to be a Valkyrie, when I’m old enough,” he said, quite proudly.
Hela scoffed. “The Valkyries are female warriors.”
Thor stared at her.
“Boys aren’t allowed.”
“Oh,” he said. He was quiet for a few minutes after that, but soon enough he was talking again, this time about the dress shoes that Frigga had gotten him that he hated because they pinched his toes. Hela caught Loki smirking to himself. Something told her that it was not the shoes pinching Thor’s toes. She almost smirked, too.
Within an hour, Hela was ready to throw Thor out of her courtyard again, but Frigga appeared before she could. Thor waved to his mother, flicking soapy water from his hand onto Loki’s cheek.
“We’re helping Hela,” said Thor. Loki nodded, and Frigga smiled.
“That’s sweet of you,” she said. “I suppose you will miss the Valkyries training in the eastern arena, then.”
Thor’s face lit up. “They're letting people watch?”
“For today. If you hurry, Kára may let you help tack up her horse.”
Thor did not need to be told twice. He wiped his hands on his shirt and took off, with Loki not far behind, but Frigga stayed in Hela’s doorway.
“I didn’t do anything to them,” Hela said. Frigga looked at her and sighed.
“Hela, I never said that you did.”
“Yes, but you thought it. You do not trust me any more than Odin does.” Hela gave her a sardonic smile. “You need not worry. Odin made sure that I won't be a problem for you when he cast his spell.”
She didn’t know why she still expected Frigga to return her biting sarcasm, or to show her the same disdain that Odin usually did. But Frigga only shook her head, looking sadly at Hela.
“So perceptive,” she said softly, “of everyone but yourself, Hela.” Then she left, and Hela finished Fenris’s bath by herself. It bothered her, how she noticed the silence now.
She did not have the option to refuse to attend, but they could have at least let her wear her own black suit. The dress was too silky, too light and fluttery. The hem whipped around her ankles when she walked.
It was annoying, getting ready for Thor’s coronation when it should have been hers. The palace was bustling with activity, so Hela spent the morning in the privacy of her courtyard, washing Fenris, her fellow prisoner, the only one who understood her irritation and anger on the occasion. She took special care today, pampering Fenris with luxuriant oils to make them both feel better.
Thor came to bother her while she was picking Fenris’s teeth. Wearing his freshly-shined armor and carrying the great hammer that had once been hers, he stood on the steps to her courtyard for a moment, and she ignored him.
“Hello,” he said at last. Hela did not look up. “You’re not going to tell me not to be nervous, are you?”
“I wasn’t going to say anything to you,” said Hela, craning her neck to examine Fenris’s back teeth.
“Good,” said Thor. “Because that is all anyone seems to be able to say to me. No “congratulations” or “good luck.” I would even take comments about my appearance, at this point.”
He paused like he was waiting for Hela to make such a comment, but she just raised an eyebrow at him.
“Why shouldn’t you be nervous?” she asked. “You are ascending to the throne of Asgard, after all. Succeeding Odin, no less. Those are awfully big shoes to fill.”
“This is what I’ve been raised for,” said Thor proudly.
“Even experts make mistakes,” said Hela. “Many princes have tripped on their way to the throne. That’s why I hardly ever wear a cape anymore.”
She smirked as Thor’s confident smile faltered for a split-second and he touched his red cape. But his uncertainty was gone quickly, and he strode purposefully across the courtyard and back. The cape fanned out dramatically behind him as he went.
“You see?” He held out his arms and even spun in place. “I have nothing to worry about.”
“Hm,” was the only reply that Hela gave. She set aside her pick, and let Fenris close her mouth, patting her nose. Thor was not deterred. He stayed, though at a respectable distance for once, sitting on the top step of the courtyard stairs.
“What did you do?” he asked.
Hela frowned. “What do you mean, ‘what did I do’?”
“You are the firstborn. By tradition, it should be your coronation being celebrated tonight, and yet…” He trailed off to let Hela fill in the rest.
“Odin took away my right to the throne, before you were even a twinkle in his eye,” she said. “You would have had a queen, and I would have seen us do great things, but he thought I was too ambitious.”
“Too ambitious?”
He talked so much, asked so many questions. Loki was sharp and he could read between the lines, but Thor seemed to need everything laid out for him, like a child trying to match shapes to their proper holes. Hela sighed.
“I helped him build this empire, and now he’s ashamed of me,” she said, running a comb through Fenris’s fur. “My throne gone, my murals painted over…” How she wished she could tell him more, but Odin’s spell held her tongue.
“Your murals? You mean the ones down in the east wing?” asked Thor. “I remember those.”
That surprised Hela. He had been so young when Odin destroyed the murals, and so self-absorbed. “Do you?”
“They gave me nightmares, once,” said Thor. Hela smiled. “Why did Father have them replaced?”
“I told you,” said Hela, “he’s ashamed of me. He would have banished me to Niflheim if it weren’t for your mother convincing him otherwise.”
“ Our mother.”
Hela went hmph and made no other response to that.
When it was time to go for the coronation, Thor had the audacity to gesture to Hela like he was going to hug her before he left, and she gave him a scathing glance, but he only laughed.
The ceremony was as boring as it was extravagant, and Hela was quite glad when it was interrupted by the frost giants. She was unconcerned with their trespassers—Loki had let them in, one of his crueler and more dangerous pranks, one that only he and Hela found at all amusing. It was unfortunate that it had a death toll, though. Good Einherjar, dying for no good reason, and all this fuss over a trinket like the Casket of Ancient Winters.
Hela waited in the hallway outside the Vault, as close as Odin’s magic would allow her to get, and listened to Thor argue. He echoed many of her ideas—destroy the frost giants, make them pay for this infraction, show them that Asgard is the still the formidable reigning power of the Nine Realms. They had been at peace for too long; people were beginning to forget that Asgard won its empire with steel and blood. Odin had become complacent. Perhaps Thor could actually rekindle Asgard’s old glory, if he wasn’t setting himself back ten years with every word he spoke now.
She followed Thor as he stormed out of the Vault and back to the upper levels of the palace, gathering her skirt a little higher to keep from tripping on it as she kept pace with him.
“Well?” she asked, like she had not been eavesdropping the whole time.
“Father will do nothing,” Thor bit out.
“He never does,” said Hela. They turned a corner, heading towards the dining hall where there should have been a great merry feast going on to celebrate their new king. Instead, it was silent, and their footsteps echoed. “He is a fool, overconfident, made lazy and fat by this peace. The frost giants could knock down the front door of the palace and he would still not take up arms.”
She was not sure that Thor was listening to her now. He went to a table where servants were clearing away all the uneaten food, and he shoved them aside so that he could overturn the whole thing, sending dishes and candles and succulent meats to the floor with a crash. Hela laughed.
“You've certainly shown that table you are not to be trifled with,” she said, as the servants scurried off to avoid becoming Thor’s next target. He kicked aside a silver serving platter. “Save some of your rage for the frost giants, now.”
“He would not even hear me out,” said Thor.
“Odin still sees you as a child,” Hela said. “I think he is relieved to delay your coronation.”
Thor scowled.
Loki joined them then. He touched Hela’s shoulder and murmured, “Let me take care of this,” before he went to Thor, and Hela stood back.
She stayed in the hall, and soon she heard them scheming, Thor and his little party of Loki and Sif and the Warriors Three.
“Should we be discussing this here?” asked Fandral, “in… your sister’s presence?”
They all turned to look at her where she leaned against one of the arched doorways to the hall. Sif and the Warriors had walked right past her when they arrived, mere minutes after Loki, yet they looked at her now like they had never seen her before. They didn’t like her, she knew—even if Odin had rinsed her stories out of Asgard’s history, his attitude towards her set the example for the rest of Asgard. She just stared coolly back at them.
“Why not?” asked Thor. “In fact, she should come with us. She is a formidable warrior.”
The Warriors exchanged hesitant glances, which made Hela laugh.
“As much as I would love to join you,” she said, “ I… wouldn’t love to, actually. And I couldn’t. But, please, have fun.” Her gaze fell on Loki. “I won’t tell.”
She left them then, and Thor went back to his planning. Stupid boy, she thought, as if Heimdall does not see exactly what you are up to. Those golden eyes watched them all, and yet, Hela grinned.
Their little mission went sideways, and she could not say that she was surprised. She followed Odin to the Observatory when he went to retrieve them, in case he would have need for her, but he returned in a manner of minutes. Lady Sif and the Warriors Three left as quickly as they could. Hela did not blame them; Odin was nearly spitting in his anger. She had not seen him like this since he cast the spells that kept her magic at bay.
While Odin and Thor yelled at each other and Loki stood silently to the side, Hela smiled. The scene reminded her so much of the shouting match that she and Odin had had, centuries ago when he decided that her ambition was dangerous.
“You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!”
...bloodthirsty child, a warmonger!
“You are an old man and a fool!”
...a coward, you lie to yourself and to all of us!
Then it abruptly stopped being amusing as Odin reopened the Bifrost. He tore the cape from Thor’s shoulders, armor from his body, the magic from his id. Hela straightened up, disbelieving of what she was seeing: Thor, the best loved of them all, cast out of Asgard in a burst of white light.
Loki ran.
Hela stared at Odin.
“Have you finally lost your mind?” she asked.
“I will hear nothing from you,” said Odin. “Get out of my sight.”
She did.
The days that followed were strange, and the palace felt a liminal space. Odin fell into the Odinsleep, and Loki took his throne, but there was no joy to the occasion. He knew of his heritage now, and yet he did not come to Hela. He hardly spoke to her at all, and every day, he seemed a little more fragile, a little closer to his breaking point. Hela could do nothing but watch as he brought the frost giants upon Asgard, and as he battled Thor on the Rainbow Bridge.
Her brothers left, and they each returned in time, but still Hela hated how she felt their absences in her heart.
The elves left as quickly as they had come, and there was no tracking their ships once they were cloaked. Asgard’s air forces tried, but hit nothing. Even Heimdall’s eyes could not see, and eventually, Odin ordered his forces back to the palace.
As formidable as the Svartalfar were, and Hela knew they were, they had hardly left a mark on Asgard. Only the palace had taken any damage, and even that was mostly confined to the throne room, the dungeons, and the outer defense system. The throne room was destroyed, Odin’s throne collapsed and half of it simply gone, sucked into nothingness by an elven grenade. Hela had always wanted to do that, herself. The city was untouched.
But , Hela thought as she listened to the crying and keening around her, Malekith has taken away something far greater than our buildings or our monuments.
She watched Odin carry Frigga’s body to the healing rooms, and she thought of Loki.
He was the only one left in his whole cell block, left behind by the prisoners that his father and his brother had put there. There were no guards to be seen, none to stop Hela as she deactivated the white-gold film that sealed Loki’s cell. He was sitting on the floor, reading a book, one of the dozen that Frigga had sent him, but he closed it when Hela came.
“Let me guess,” he said, “Odin is conscripting me into the fight against Malekith.”
“As if he would put any weapon in your hands now,” said Hela.
“He has done more foolish things.”
Hela smirked. Loki tilted his head at her.
“Then why are you here, sister?” he asked. “Finally staging a coup?”
It would be the perfect opportunity to, Hela thought. Asgard was in shock, Odin was numb, Thor was angry. Loki would be a volatile mix of emotions, his magic at its strongest and most unpredictable. If Hela played her cards right, she could have Asgard in the palm of her hand, Odin dead, and her powers fully restored.
Not yet, she told herself, not yet. The elves were an unforeseen obstacle. There would be a better time.
She thought Loki would cry when she told him of Frigga’s death, but he didn’t. His hands shook, though, and the back of Hela’s neck prickled, and there was a split second where the world seemed muffled before the meager furniture in his cell flew, unassisted, in opposite directions. A pouf narrowly missed Hela’s shoulder.
“Come and help me prepare Fenris for the funeral,” she said, quiet and smooth. At first, Loki seemed not to hear her, but in a moment, his shoulders softened and he closed his eyes and nodded.
They walked, unhindered and unnoticed, through the now-silent palace. Anyone who passed by was too absorbed in their own grief and fear to pay any attention to them, the unwanted children. Loki let his glamour fade, a little more with every step it seemed, until they reached Hela’s room and he appeared as he really was: dressed in a prisoner’s plain tunic and pants, his hair unslicked, and purple-black shadows under his eyes.
Fenris was uninjured, but still she wore the marks of a battle. The fur around her mouth was wet and glistening with the black blood of half a dozen elves, and it was splattered on her legs, too. She stood motionless in Hela’s courtyard, staring out at the city, her ears perked and tilted forward like she was hoping to hear the Harrows that no one could see. While Hela filled a pitcher with water to heat, Loki went to Fenris’s side, and they watched the skies together in silence.
It was long but simple work. Hela cleaned Fenris’s bloody mouth while Loki wiped off her massive paws, and the sun touched the horizon before they were done. Fenris stood still all the while, but instead of relaxing into the touches and half-falling asleep as she usually did, she was tensely alert. The day’s battle had been so anticlimactic—she was still looking, still waiting for the fight. She would not even lower her head to let Hela scratch her behind the ears.
“The last time I ever saw her,” Loki said, after hours of silence, “I made her cry.” He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, eyes squeezed shut. “I told her… I told her that she was not my mother.”
“She wasn’t,” said Hela.
“And still she took me in,” Loki said softly.
Like the meadow pipit and the cuckoo, thought Hela. Frigga had not asked for her raven-haired children—not Hela, the daughter of Odin’s first wife; not Loki, the son of monsters, stolen from another realm. And still she had loved them. Hela wished she hadn’t. It made everything so much harder.
It was a while before Loki finally cried, hiding his face against Fenris’s neck. Hela pretended not to notice.
They were rinsing the silky conditioner from Fenris’s fur when Odin arrived, a small unit of Einherjar with him and Gungnir in his hand.
Loki stood slowly, drying his hands on his tunic. The guards behind Odin gripped their weapons a little tighter as he moved, but Loki made no tricks. He stood there, looking young and small under Odin’s gaze, and said nothing.
“No,” said Odin, simply. “I told you that you would never see her again.”
Hela frowned. “Shackle him if you must, but let him go to the funeral,” she said. “You’ve already taken so much from him.”
“Be quiet,” Odin snapped at her. “He made his choices. His own actions put him in that cell. He will return there, and he will stay there until the end of days.”
“Oh, you must find a new way to deal with your failures,” Hela said. “You cannot keep throwing your children away. Someday, you will run out, and where will you find more? Maybe you can steal one from Muspelheim this time, although I doubt it will be as pretty as us—”
“Enough!” Odin shouted. He pounded Gungnir’s end against the floor, the sudden gong making Loki flinch. “Enough of your petty, tired insults, you hateful child! I will hear no more of this!”
Hela stared at him with ice in her eyes.
Odin breathed deeply through his nose, forcing calm into his voice when he spoke next. “You are not welcome in the procession tonight,” he said, “and I will not have your ugliness at the sjaund, either.”
“I never liked the funeral mead, anyway,” Hela sneered. Odin stared back at her, his eye shining, then motioned to the guards behind him. They came forward for Loki, who put up no resistance, and they left in silence, leaving Hela and Odin alone.
“Frigga saw good in you,” Odin said. "You would break her heart if she were here to see you now."
“Then that makes two of us,” Hela replied, and turned her back on him.
She could see the funeral pyres from her courtyard that night. She didn’t let her gaze linger on them.
The Svartalfar had the Asgardians hopelessly outgunned and outmatched, and still Odin thought that Asgard could stand another attack. He thought that they could be ready, as if any amount of preparation would help them against the elves’ technology. They were sitting ducks against the most ancient and advanced of the Nine Realm’s races, and still Odin refused to hear reason, not even from Thor.
"If and when he comes,” Hela heard him say, “his men will fall on ten thousand Asgardian blades."
"And how many of our men will fall on theirs?" Thor demanded.
"As many as are needed!” Odin said. “We will fight! To the last Asgardian breath, to the last drop of Asgardian blood."
Good soldiers dying for nothing, Hela thought, and they called him the god of wisdom and healing.
It frustrated her that she could do nothing from where she stood—unable to access her powers, forbidden to leave the realm. When the news of Thor’s and Loki’s escape reached her, she smiled.
Loki returned alone. She saw through his disguise in an instant, and he knew it, but she played along with his charade. He gave her Gungnir to open the Bifrost, and as she turned the lock, Odin’s eye met hers. It was empty, void of recognition or conviction. Loki’s enchantments were strong.
“You should kill him,” Hela had said to Loki before, as they walked across the Rainbow Bridge to the Observatory.
“And send him to Valhalla? I would rather see him living in obscurity on Midgard than dead and remembered in glory.”
Hela was surprised that she agreed.
When Loki returned, alone and wearing Odin’s guise, they stood in the Observatory and looked at each other for a long, silent moment.
“You’re going to build a statue of yourself,” Hela said at last, “aren’t you?”
“A big one,” said Loki in Odin’s voice, a very strange sound. “Want one?”
Hela considered it. Then she said, “Just don’t forget about me. That was Odin’s mistake.” She pulled Gungnir out of the lock, and tossed it to Loki. He caught it deftly.
“Mistake?” he asked.
“I would suggest digging into the things that Odin has hidden,” said Hela. “You’re hardly the first secret he’s kept, brother.”
“Thanos is targeting the Nine Realms next,” Thor said, from where he seemed to sag in the entrance to Hela’s courtyard. She was giving Fenris a bath, as she always seemed to be when something important was happening. Loki was there, too. He stiffened at the name, but Hela was unfazed. She didn’t look up from massaging conditioner into Fenris’s fur.
“He’ll attack Midgard first. There are two Infinity Stones there,” Thor continued. He came down the courtyard steps, rolling back the sleeves of his tunic as he went. “One of them resides in the skull of a friend. We need to protect them.”
“Not ‘we’,” said Hela, “you. I’m not really interested in helping your little humans.”
“We are supposed to protect the realms.”
“That was Odin’s job.”
“And now it’s my job,” said Thor, “and I want your help. Both of you.”
Loki only nodded, and Hela scowled. She scooped another dollop of conditioner out of the jar at her feet and slathered it on Fenris’s shoulder. Thor looked at Loki, who only shrugged and motioned for him to help. So he did, reaching up to pet Fenris under her chin first.
It was the first time, Hela realized, that all three of them had come together around her in a thousand years.
“I’ll help,” said Hela finally, when the last bit of conditioner had been rinsed from Fenris’s fur and left her shiny and softly pine-scented, “on one condition.” Loki and Thor exchanged looks, then turned back to her, eyebrows raised, mirroring each other perfectly.
“And what’s that, sister?” asked Loki.
“Let me destroy Asgard.”
“Not a chance,” said Thor instantly, at the same time that Loki said, “Is that it?”
Thor looked at Loki, aghast. “Loki!”
“Now, wait just a moment,” said Loki, “let’s think about this.” He held up a hand as Thor opened his mouth again. “If Thanos wins there will be nothing left. Asgard will be gone, either way.”
“Loki—”
“Thor, who do we have to fight Thanos? Your friends on Earth? They could barely defeat me —”
“You need me,” Hela cut in. “I can fight with you now, and stop Thanos on Earth, or I can destroy him here when he comes for the Tesseract, after he’s laid waste to Earth. It makes no difference to me. The humans could use a fresh start.”
She reached out to grip Thor’s arm, her nails digging slightly into his skin. “Give me Asgard,” she said, “and I will help you.”
“You speak like you could single-handedly defeat Thanos,” said Thor. He looked at her, his eyebrows drawn together. “If he comes here, you will be ruined. Father took away your powers ages ago. You’re no stronger than Loki.”
Hela shook her head. “He only buried them, and his lifeforce was the lock on those bindings. They fall away now, and my power will return. Look.” And she made a little silver blade in the palm of her hand, with an ornately carved handle and an atom-thin edge. In time, she would make godkillers again.
Hela tossed the knife away.
“Give me Asgard,” she repeated, “let me put an end to this age. Odin is dead. His Asgard ought to die with him. Open the Vault to me. It’s so simple, brother, just let me destroy this place—you call it home, but it has been my prison for your whole life.”
She was speaking through nearly clenched teeth now in her passion, and she looked like the old murals again, the goddess and the executioner, a harbinger of death, and of victory. Thor had once told her that those murals scared him. It was easy to imagine—a little boy, frightened and confused by the savage version of his sister that was shown in the paintings.
Thor stood before her now, a man, neither afraid nor confused. He met her gaze steadily.
“Odin has kept secrets, brother,” Loki said quietly. “More than you know. We have all suffered because of his lies.”
“They were to protect us,” said Thor.
“We would have been protected better by the truth. So much could have been avoided if he had simply not kept my breeding a secret.” Loki went to stand by Hela. “Thor, our father has rewritten history more than once—there is so much that you don’t know. Hela does. ”
Thor looked at him, then at Hela again.
Then, he nodded.
“Heimdall,” he said, and across the Rainbow Bridge, a pair of golden eyes looked to the palace. “It is time. Prepare the Bifrost.” Hela closed her eyes, breathing deep, and Loki stared out at the city through the courtyard’s arches. “Ragnarök comes again.”
Fenris’s tail began to wag.
Asgard had been prepared for its fall for centuries. Odin had put it off for so long by letting Surtur keep his crown in Muspelheim, but Thor had brought it back as though it were a prize to be won, not a harbinger of Asgard’s death. It sat in the Vault now, and Hela would lay it in the Eternal Flame. The enchantments locking her out of the Vault were gone with Odin. Loki thought it was right that she should light the spark of Ragnarök, and begin the process of Asgard’s rebirth.
There was no panic when Thor announced the evacuation, but preparations were quiet and melancholy. Many of them would go to Vanaheim, some to Alfheim or Nidavellir, and the rest would go to Midgard, to Norway, where their last king had found peace. Heimdall would call them home when it was time and Asgard was ready.
Within seven days, Asgard was empty, save for a few. Thor and Loki stood at the mouth of the Observatory, watching as the sky turned gray and Surtur clawed his way to the surface.
“I never imagined that I would see Ragnarök in my lifetime,” said Loki.
“I always hoped that I wouldn’t,” Thor replied. Loki glanced at him, raised a hand as though to touch his shoulder, then decided against it and crossed his arms.
“It’s for the best,” he said. Thor did not reply.
The palace was gone when Hela joined them and dismounted Fenris to stand between her brothers. They all watched, a strange sense of calm in their hearts, as Surtur crushed the Hall of Asgard beneath his monstrous hand. Behind them, Heimdall waited, Hofund poised to open the Bifrost’s last portal. They had only minutes before Surtur reached his full strength and drew his sword.
“When we return,” said Hela, her voice low and almost, almost reverent, “Asgard will be rebuilt, in my image.”
“In our image, you mean,” said Thor. Hela’s mouth twitched as she nearly smiled.
“You can have twelve percent of the image,” she said.
Then Heimdall opened the Bifrost, and Hela took one last look at Asgard before she turned and left it, her brothers by her side.