Alive Again: The Road to Ragnarök, #3

By Rochelle Wilcox

As he threatened to do, Loki drags Lia to Helheim, hiding her with his daughter Hel — he thinks out of Freyr's reach. But Loki doesn't know that Lia carries the key to her escape. She's befriended by Baldr and Nanna, gods trapped in Helheim since the worlds were young, who join her in finding a way out for all of them. As they search for Freyr, Freyja and Will, traveling through worlds long believed to be figments of imagination, Lia finds a connection to the dragons, dwarfs and elves who make those worlds their home. She finally begins to see her place in the pantheon of the Norse gods. And she starts to believe that if they can find Freyr — and survive Ragnarök — she will be worthy of her place in his world and by his side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rochelle Wilcox
• Release date: Oct 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798223834656

Book preview

Dedication

True friends are rare jewels, whose friendship sometimes is revealed by fire. This book is for Cindy and Tom, who always have been there for us, for Karen and Rusty, who worked to hold onto our friendship even when it was tough, for May and Sam and Benita and Ray, who were there for us when this journey started, and for the friends we found along the way, Darlene and Tom, Shirley and Will, Kathy and Marcos, and Lisa. Last but definitely not least, this book is for Kelli and Tom, who started as bosses but became friends who will be part of our lives forever. We are excited about the sunny days and concert nights—and lots of love and laughter—in our future!

Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Gone

No Escape

A Journey Below

The Torture of a God

Welcome to Helheim

Home, with Hel

New Friends

A Different Path

Hope for the Hopeless

Níðhöggr

The River Gjöll

The Dark Fields

Danger in Distress

A Miracle, of Sorts

The Days of Dragons

On, to Asgard

Away from Asgard

The Elves of Old

Onto Iceland

Elven Majesty

The Ghosts Among Us

Lia, Revealed

Another Path to Helheim

Rejoined

A Jubilant Return

Success, at Last

The Vengeance of the Beast

A Welcome Warrior

The Fate of the Gods

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Prologue

Because she was the last to turn and leave—and so walked a few feet behind Baldr, Nanna and Sifa—the witch caught Lia first. Something grabbed the braid that draped down her back and yanked her to the ground. She felt herself being dragged by the hair up the mountain at a terrifying speed, her limbs flailing as she tried to find something to grasp and stop the advance.

She could see the others turning and throwing themselves in her direction, but whatever caught her moved even faster than they could run. They would not catch her, she knew. Lia screamed—a cry so desperate her own ears shrank away from it—and grasped for the necklace that had given her power in the past. She had a few seconds, maybe less, to find that strength and save herself.

She couldn’t. Her frantic mind skittered from one thought to another, unable to harness the focus she needed to wrest herself from the creature that would send her to her doom. As Lia felt herself being lifted from the ground and tossed into the air, saw the gaping mouth of the volcano in front of her, she resigned herself to the fate that now seemed inevitable. And then Freyr appeared before her—her mind seemingly desperate for the man who had promised to keep her safe—and she closed her eyes to hold onto the image as long as she could.

But he was not just an image. The apparition somehow came to life and Lia found herself in Freyr’s arms. He caught her just before she dropped into Hekla, launching both of them away from the bottomless hole into which Lia nearly had fallen.

Chapter 1

Gone

Lia could only watch the leaves and branches fly past her face as she traveled further and further away from the man she loved, on the back of a monster. The image of the branch hitting Freyr—of him dropping to the ground, lifeless—played over and over in her mind.

Loki held her arms so tightly that she had no choice but to wrap her legs around him. He would have happily dragged her along behind him, her feet bouncing off the ground and nearby bushes and trees, if Lia had given him the chance.

It won’t work, Lia hissed in his ear. Freyr lives. I can feel it. And even if we get away from here before he finds us it won’t matter. He will track us anywhere you can go. He will find us. He will save me from you again.

You know nothing, Loki responded with a harsh laugh. Although he ran so fast that the wind whipped against her ears, she heard every word and felt all of the hate that drove the evil being who carried her away from the safety Freyr had promised her. Even against the humans who live here the Vanir almost failed. Chance and luck saved you. Nothing more. But now we have you. All of the Æsir will stand together to keep you from them. If he tries, he will die. He has lived too many centuries already.

Lia’s forehead fell against Loki’s back, exhaustion finally taking over. After all the weeks Freyr, Freyja and Will had spent trying to keep her safe—the trip to Asgard that Lia still didn’t remember, except in fragments, this journey to the Congo in the hope of hiding her from Loki and the others—Lia’s own foolishness had led to her capture. Her stubbornness and naive belief that Jonathan would never betray her, her refusal to listen to Freyr’s warnings, caused this. Lia would never see Freyr again, never feel his kiss or hold his hand, and it was her own fault. She didn’t bother to try to stop the tears. It didn’t matter anymore.

They ran longer than Lia could have imagined. Twice, she fell asleep, only to be snapped back to consciousness as her legs started to drop away from the post she’d given them, wrapped around Loki. Lia wondered how long they could run before Loki would have to stop. Freyr had never pushed his limits with her. She didn’t know if any of them had limits. They always had seemed so tireless, so long as they had the apples to sustain them.

And then it happened. The dam that Freyr had built in Lia’s mind, holding her memories just out of her reach—tantalizingly close but inaccessible except in bits and pieces—finally broke. Without even realizing what he’d done, Loki had unleashed everything he’d insisted Lia forget. He restored the memories of the gods and giants and serpents and dragons that Lia never should have had, which Freyr had tried to remove but had succeeded only in hiding.

Stunned as the memories erupted in her consciousness, Lia could only grasp Loki more tightly while her mind shifted through the torrent of sights and sounds and smells in its feeble attempt to make some sense of it all. The return of her memories happened nearly as Freyr had warned her. For minutes or hours or days—she couldn’t have known which—Lia relived the time with Freyr, Freyja and Will that she had forgotten in a disjointed flow.

After what felt like an eternity, Lia’s thoughts started to find some order from the chaos. Her memory of first seeing Freyr and Loki on a cold, wet Los Angeles morning rose to the top, giving her something to grasp onto. Lia focused on it, hoping that it might help her organize and understand all that had been unleashed.

Struggling to push everything else away—to table it all for examination and understanding in its place—Lia forced her mind to dwell on that first encounter. She recalled her shock as she saw two men flying in the air above her, defying gravity with every kick and punch in what seemed to be a brutal attack by a man with fire in his hair. She remembered them realizing she was there and dropping to the ground. The attacker—who now carried Lia through the jungle on his back—raced away while the other turned to face her.

Lia’s thoughts focused on that man’s face, drawing on her knowledge now that he was the Norse God of Love, and would become the most important man in her life. Lia felt again the fear and wonder she’d experienced at the time. Even then, she had known somewhere inside that Freyr—or Franco, as he called himself—would matter more to her than any man she’d ever met.

She relived the horror she’d felt when Freyr kidnapped her and carried her to his sister’s house in Texas, but now tempered that memory with the reality that he did that because of his resolve to protect her. He hoped to save Lia from the vengeance of the trickster god, who wanted no witness to his attack on Freyr. Her mind rested in that fact, letting her view that first encounter through the lens of Freyr’s goodness and her love for him.

Having found some way to organize her memories, Lia was able to experience them in succession—her drive with Freyr to Texas to seek help from Freyja and Will, their escape from Loki and Thor, and then Lia’s decision to join Freyr and the others in a trek to Asgard, their ancient home.

Lia felt her love for Freyr, as well as a different kind of love for Freyja and Will, blossom even before they left the U.S. She remembered her own refusal to admit to herself that she was falling in love, recalled how stubborn she’d been, unwilling to let her guard down with a man who had kidnapped her and forcibly taken her halfway across the country. At the time, Lia hadn’t been able to give in to the feelings she didn’t understand or know how to experience.

She lived through their descent into the caves, the meals Will cooked for them, the dragon that nearly ended Freyja’s life, the trip across Lake Brune, her first night in Freyr’s arms. Experiencing it again, Lia felt her love for Freyr grow. She gave up resisting it.

And then the giants carried Lia away in the middle of the night, drawing Freyr, Freyja and Will to Gastropnir in a desperate attempt to save her. As a gut-wrenching fear descended on Lia—far worse than when Freyr first took her from LA, more paralyzing even than the horror of watching a dragon carry Freyja away in the caves—Lia’s mind shook her out of her stupor, returning her to the jungle.

In a fog—her thoughts scrambled and disjointed as they once again struggled to make sense out of the sensory overload, her eyes not yet open to whatever surrounded them—Lia realized that Loki still ran, his grip like a steel vise around her arms. Every part of her ached but it did not compare to the emptiness inside. The image of Freyr falling to the ground, maybe dead, filled her mind.

Lia had never felt more alone. She had never been so certain that she could not prevail over the evil that had chosen her as the object of its scorn. Hoping to shake away the demons that seemed to occupy every crevice and nook in her wind-swept thoughts, Lia opened her eyes to look around. The trees still raced past them at an incomprehensible speed, the leaves moving as they passed as if in a light breeze.

But then Lia’s memories took over again. Even the giants seemed to offer less to fear than the god on whose back she rode. She had survived them. She did not know if she would survive him. And so her mind took her back to Gastropnir, bound to a chair and waiting for her saviors. They had arrived and for a moment she believed they all would escape. But then the giants came to bind them next to her.

Freyr’s first betrayal descended on Lia like a knife to the gut, the pain nearly taking her breath away. She watched him laugh at the thought of loving her, saw the disdain in his look. And she believed him. His words confirmed what she had feared since she let herself love him. He could not love a mere human. She would never be anything more than a dalliance for him. He had promised to protect her and he would keep that promise, before leaving her in LA and going on with his life. Without her.

Lia remembered the anger that threatened to destroy her growing love for Freyr. It didn’t matter what he or his sister said to her. Freyr’s apologies, Freyja’s explanations, all rang hollow. He was a god. Lia had been silly to believe he could truly love her, a mere human. At least he had been honest with her.

The next attack took them all by surprise. The Æsir found them days before they would reach Asgard and one of their members—someone they called Ull—carried Lia to the gods’ home. Fear again engulfed Lia, paralyzing her in a way she’d never experienced before. Óðinn’s promises of safety registered briefly in her thoughts but found no root. It didn’t matter what they did with her, Lia realized. Her love for Freyr, her knowledge that no man would ever measure up, that she could not have the one thing she would want for the rest of her life, eclipsed everything.

She wished she had never known him. She wished she could erase all of their time together and go back to the simple life in LA that she loved. When Óðinn gave her the chance to do just that, she took it. Freyr’s family demanded that he take Lia’s memories of the gods and their world and she realized that she wanted nothing more.

Freyr took her back to LA, put her to sleep and erased the prior six weeks. But this was his second betrayal. Much as Lia wanted to forget Freyr, she hadn’t believed—she didn’t want to believe—that he would erase himself from her life. A part of her had held onto the hope that he wouldn’t be able to do it.

Lia gasped, breathing in the stench and taste of the evil god who carried her as his bright orange hair wafted into her mouth for a moment. Freyr hadn’t done it, she knew now. He hadn’t been able to remove himself from her life. The memories he had sworn he would take from her as the price of saving her life had only been buried deep inside Lia’s mind.

Freyr loved Lia as much as she loved him. He, Freyja and Will had upended their lives to save hers. They had watched her for weeks until Thor arrived at the hospital demanding to see Dr. Ailia Leng.

Finally, Lia could see her memories as she normally would, as if they had been there all along. Lia’s newly-discovered memories flowed into the time she hadn’t forgotten. She awoke lost and confused in the hotel she and Freyr had chosen for him to remove her memories and then went back to the work she loved in the Emergency Department.

When Lia felt like she was getting her life back on track, Thor showed up in her hospital and everything turned upside down again. Lia evaded him and raced to the hospital lobby but she waited at its edge, wondering if she could safely walk across it to escape from Thor. And then she saw the beautiful woman that she did not remember but somehow knew would save her, standing at the entrance and searching for her. Freyja and her husband Will helped Lia escape and she realized that she needed to leave with them to be safe from the Æsir.

They traveled to the Congo and Freyr joined them, again saving Lia’s life. Lia remembered the creatures that had accosted them but also the beauty—the people and places—they had encountered along the way. She felt Freyr’s love as he gave her the necklace he and Freyja had created to hold the hair of the gods who were her closest and most beloved allies.

At last, Lia experienced again her own remorse as she rejected Freyr’s warnings about Jonathan, who had appeared unexpectedly in the Congo, and trusted him when she should not have. Her recklessness brought her here. And it may have been the cause of Freyr’s downfall after so many years of walking the Earth.

Lia knew now why Freyr hadn’t joined Lia, Freyja and Will at first, and why he’d been hesitant to restore her memories at all. She understood the conflict that had raged within him, torn between wanting to be with Lia and determined to save her from his enemies. At long last, she forgave him. But it probably was too late.

Loki’s gait shifted unexpectedly, pulling Lia from her reverie and replacing Freyr’s face with a fast-approaching tree as her eyes snapped open. As Lia sucked in her breath, certain they wouldn’t be able to avoid the barrier in their path, Loki danced around it, barely slowing down as he spun and shifted his direction to the right. She felt his gait speed up and could sense an urgency she hadn’t felt for most of the run.

They’ve found me, haven’t they?

It matters not. They will not catch us.

Lia laughed, certain somehow that Loki did not believe his own words. His body had tensed before he changed their path. Even his breathing was different, each inhale shorter and shallower. He was worried. Lia pushed the memories fully away and concentrated on their surroundings. She thought perhaps they would come right away. But no. Loki continued to run for longer than Lia would have expected.

And then Lia began to see signs of life. It started with a few houses, separated by hundreds of yards, most with small gardens and a few animals penned nearby. As they got closer to the small town that seemed to be Loki’s target, Lia saw more homes, closer together and more compact. It looked much like every other town in the Congo.

Just before they saw the first signs of human life, Loki came to an abrupt stop, throwing Lia forward to stand next to him. She wobbled and her knees nearly gave out as they were asked to work again after having been useless and immobile appendages for so many hours. The pain of unexpected pressure shot up into her hips, drawing a gasp. Loki pulled a small cap from a pocket for his head—hiding the orange hair that would make him easy to remember—then grabbed Lia’s wrist to drag her down the street. With her concentration disrupted, Lia struggled to stay focused on the dirt road beneath her feet.

They turned a corner and heard the voices that must have prompted Loki to drop her to her feet, from a couple walking in the opposite direction. She looked away, afraid that any eye contact she made might threaten their lives. Loki seemed content to let them pass but if Lia had done something to catch their attention, that could have changed quickly. They passed several more people before Loki turned down a narrow alley, dragging Lia behind him. A few seconds later he pulled her into a small home, yanking her to the rear and into a small closet.

Lia’s mind dropped even more deeply into the memories that she again couldn’t keep organized, bouncing between the time they spent at Freyja and Will’s house, the trip overseas, the caves and everything they encountered there, the majesty of Asgard, her return to her hospital, and then her escape and their trip to the Congo. Her emotions swung wildly between horror, fear, joy, love and happiness, with no way to know what memory would erupt next, and so which emotion stood in line to take over. Above it all, her heart pounded out a steady beat—a dire tune to which every image and feeling marched. Once again, she felt like she was drowning in the onslaught, unable to fight her way to the surface of clear, organized thought.

Lia knew that they were in a hut in the Congo, that she huddled next to Loki, that his unkempt, dirty hand covered her mouth to stop any noise she might have made. But she couldn’t find any way to focus on him or any of the things that surrounded her.

When she heard Freyr’s voice the relief that flowed in—filling every part of her being—lasted for a moment. She tried to wrap herself around it, to grasp onto it and stop anything else from intruding and carrying it away. She tried to let her love of Freyr, her joy at knowing he was alive, consume her. It did for a second, but then a different memory of Freyr displaced it, carrying her back to the caves and a smile that she couldn’t forget, only to be replaced by a memory of Freyr watching her in the Congo, love in his clear blue eyes. Again, her emotions swung back and forth wildly as each new thought took over and she relived that moment.

When Lia’s mind returned to the present and settled for a few seconds on her surroundings, Freyr’s voice was gone and Loki’s eyes danced with his triumph. She felt the satisfaction that he exuded and gasped in unexpected pain at the realization that Freyr should have sensed her but for some reason had walked away. But that thought bounced away almost before it arrived and Lia found herself lost again in another memory.

Lia felt Loki lift her up and swing her onto his back, the pain again radiating up her wrists as he resumed his steel grip. She vaguely felt herself wrap her legs around him to relieve the pressure. She looked up at the night sky as they left the small home, the heavens a kaleidoscope of candles resting above them, dancing as they’ve done for eternity.

Somewhere in Lia’s muddled mind, the realization that Loki had waited until the middle of the night to leave floated up to her consciousness, quickly replaced by the feel of the wind against her face as he started running through the jungle. But that too stayed with her only a few seconds. Freyr’s face rose in her thoughts and Lia abandoned herself again to the memories that wouldn’t be stilled, the relief of knowing that her beloved would never give up in his resolve to protect her from the vengeance of the Æsir.

Chapter 2

No Escape

Lia didn’t open her eyes right away. She lay there, still and quiet, hoping Loki wouldn’t realize she was awake.

She could smell him, the embodiment of evil. It vaguely resembled the stench of the corpses she had experienced too often as an ER doctor, a nebulous odor that emerged in the hours after death. Combined with the stink of sweat layered on after days of running through a hot jungle and the funk of feet that needed to be covered again by the socks he normally wore, Lia felt like she could smell the rotten soul that seemed to be all that remained of Loki after millennia of tormenting Earth’s inhabitants.

Lia’s mind played through the events of the last day, or two, or three. She had no idea how long they’d run through the jungle, how far they’d gone. Her memories had returned fully. It seemed as if they’d been there all along, although she also remembered the pain and frustration of the weeks she’d lived without them. With her memories came the realization of all she had lost, how ridiculous she had been. At least she knew that Freyr lived. But hearing his voice while she was too disoriented to reach out to him brought its own distress.

She wondered why he hadn’t sensed their presence. In all of their time together, Freyr, Freyja and Will had been absolutely clear that they knew when their family was near. It was their secret weapon, something that helped keep them safe for the decades the Vanir ran and hid from the Æsir. It helped them evade Loki, Thor and the others at every step along their path. Yet, Freyr didn’t sense Loki and Lia—he missed the stench that Lia couldn’t escape sitting next to him—although he had been close enough for Lia to hear his voice.

Why didn’t Freyr sense us, or smell you? Lia opened her eyes and sat up, a stab of pain coursing down her back. She looked at her enemy as she asked her next question. How could he have passed by without realizing we were there?

Lia remembered Loki’s greasy smile. She had seen it too many times and worried that she never would be able to forget it. He sat a few feet away from her, his legs stretched out and his bare feet crossed at the ankles. Her eyes focused on his feet in surprise. As old as Lia knew those feet were, having walked the Earth for centuries upon centuries, they looked young, the feet of a man in his 20’s. Like the others, Loki had stopped aging longer ago than Lia could comprehend. His head held not a single gray hair. No line marred his face; the pointed nose and harsh chin looked as if they never would soften, no matter how long he lived.

Have you learned so little about us, all these months? Loki’s accent reminded Lia of an age long-gone, when warriors screamed out to Valhalla as they eagerly rode into battle. But he was not a brave warrior. He was the sorcerer who stayed back and cast spells over the battle, the shaman who demanded sacrifice to satisfy the gods.

What am I missing?

Loki watched her for a moment, perhaps wondering whether he should answer her question, how much he should share with her. He smiled again, triumphant in his victory, it seemed. Everything, he said. Humans are stupid, he added, spitting derisively on the ground just shy of her foot. How can you still not realize that it is motion that draws us? When we move, others of our kind feel the movement. But when we are still, when we stop and make no movement at all, we disappear to all Æsir and Vanir. If we can hide the smell, we are invisible.

Lia considered the implications of what Loki had told her. That explained their ability to hide with the lions in Santa Barbara. Once they rested and hid their smell among the cats, the others had no way to find them.

But Freyr should have sensed me. He knows when I’m close, always.

Loki smiled again, this time the smile of the trickster. The Norns smiled on us. And so we know we walk the path they have set for us. He laughed lightly before continuing, his voice still exuding the satisfaction of his victory. We knew that Freyr did not remove your memories, and that they would return. We did not know when—only the Norns could have known that—but we could not have asked for a better time. Freyr searched for the mind he knows, the thoughts he expects, the order of your thinking. When his thoughts touched yours, they found only the chaos of your restored memories. He did not recognize you.

How did you know about that? How did you know that my memories came back?

Again, you show me how little you know us. All of us can sense all of you. The human mind is so simple. So predictable. It is better when we know you well, but it is enough to be near you. I sensed your distress as we ran. This time his smile was sinister. I made sure our path crossed Freyr’s while your mind was lost in its chaos. As I said, the Norns were kind to us.

And how did he miss you?

Loki watched Lia for a minute or more, as if he again pondered how much to share. And then with another smile, barely perceptible this time, he answered her question. We have learned to mask our thoughts. It is no effort to hide from our own kind.

Lia stared at him, her mind clear for the first time in days. How long has it been since you took me from Freyr? she asked.

This smile dripped with disdain. Two days have you been senseless, he said.

Loki stood abruptly and grabbed Lia’s wrist to yank her up behind him. Why doesn’t my wrist hurt? she asked, almost to herself.

You will be awake while I run. I could not let your injury slow us down.

Can all of you do that? I thought only Freyr and Freyja had that ability.

We all can heal your kind. Only the Vanir do it so often. I rarely find reason to waste my time or energy on a human. But as I said, I need you whole for this trip.

Lia could sense his hatred for humanity in his words. She hadn’t realized it before, but he viewed humans as lesser beings. Lia knew without question that her life mattered only so long as it held value to him in some way. Otherwise, he wanted her dead and would kill her if it would make his life easier, even a little.

We go. Still holding her wrist, he tossed her over his back, grabbing her other wrist and flinging her around him, a ragdoll spinning in the wind. Before she could fully wrap her legs around his torso, Loki had reached the exterior door