I wished he would even have the chance for the years to render him soft and comfortable. I wished even more that he possessed a tenth of the strength this man wore like armor.

I wished most of all that I were in his hall, instead of Alfödr’s.

Broad-shouldered and stone-faced, with a thick head of graying blond hair and a full beard, he was immediately identifiable. I knew the king of Norge at once, as surely as I’d known the redheaded boy now sitting a few places to his left was his fifth son, Torden Asgard.

The king rose and beckoned us, and silence fell as we trooped up the middle of the room. “Strangers,” he said in a gravelly voice, accent lilting like the guard’s. “Long have we awaited your arrival. Well met, and welcome to Asgard Fortress.”

He gestured to the woman beside him, perhaps ten years younger than he. “This is Dronning Rihttá, my wife.” His queen, the dronning, was dark-haired, with a round face, fawn-colored skin like Skop’s, and a beautiful figure. Her narrow, angular eyes were a deep, smoky shade, and strikingly sad.

“Hail, Seneschal-elect,” she said, “and welcome to Asgard.”

I curtsied low. “Thank you for your hospitality, Your Majesties.”

The queen cast a canny look to Alfödr’s left and right. “And this,” she added, “is our family.” I sucked in a long breath, clasping my hands behind my back.

The king nodded. “First: I present Kronprins Týr, and Vidarr and Váli.” Three blond, burly men rose from their seats, two of them twins. Their features were weak, their eyes watery blue and disinterested.

At a wave from the king, another pair stood—two of the boys we’d passed in the hallway. They had their older brothers’ coloring but lacked their enormous physiques, though they were still sturdier than the boys at home. “My sons Bragi and Hermódr,” said Alfödr. Bragi had curly blond hair and a face almost too symmetrical to be real. Hermódr—the one who’d jostled Perrault and beckoned Torden in the corridor—pushed up his glasses and smiled reassuringly at me, apparently not missing my locked knees and trembling limbs.

“It’s a pleasure.” I cringed at the creak in my voice, and a few of the men who’d been close enough to hear gave low laughs.

“Baron Aleksei, not of the house of Asgard, but of Yotunkheym.” The konge nodded, and another boy stood, pale and as dark-haired as the others were light—the sharp-boned, sharp-eyed one who’d studied me so carefully in the corridor.

One of the Yotne, at Asgard?

The boy’s mouth curved slowly at my evident surprise.

“Prinssi Fredrik, and his sister Prinsessa Anya, of Varsinais-Suomi.” Alfödr nodded again, and the last blond boy and the only girl at the head table stood together.