“So I’m wondering,” I said softly, “how I was lucky enough to be invited to visit you, of all the Asgard boys, instead of Týr.”

Torden swallowed hard. The pink light blooming faintly on the horizon colored his face rosy and hopeful. “You once told me that you would listen if I told stories,” he said, arm circling my shoulders again. “Does that promise still stand?”

“Of course.”

“All of it?” he pressed. “You have to hear the ending, if I begin.”

“I will.” I squeezed his hand. “I promise.”

Torden leaned back into the fork and looked off over the Bilröst. “There once was a boy who feared for the fate of a girl who did not even know his name.” He paused. “The boy hadn’t intended to involve himself at all. In fact, his father intended her for his eldest son.”

I glanced up at him, and his beard grazed my forehead. “Then how did it happen?”

“How do these things ever happen?” Torden shrugged. Banners of orange unfurled over the horizon, the promise of warmth and daylight. “He was enchanted.”

My soft, red heart began to riot beneath my skin.

“I’d been brawling with Vidarr again, more of his—never mind.” Torden flexed his fingers, their nails bitten short. “But I had come bruised to Pappa’s study so many times it hardly mattered. He didn’t even pause his meeting with Týr when I came in.”

I tried to imagine Daddy summoning me to issue a scolding and couldn’t. Certainly, I’d disappointed him through the years. But he’d always come to me afterward—to talk, to discipline me if the situation required. And then, always, to forgive.

How my heart ached for him.

“My oldest brother has been focused solely on learning warfare for as long as I can remember,” said Torden. “When Týr has a spare thought, it is for food. Or drink. But he is twenty- six. My father has been insisting he choose a wife for years, but he could never be bothered. Until one day, when a portrait arrived from across the ocean.”

I gave a shiver, either from his words or the chill of the rock underneath us. Torden snuggled me against his side. “I stood in my father’s study, waiting for my turn—for my reprimand—as he pressed Týr. The girl was beautiful, Pappa said. Old enough to be married, young enough to have many children. It would be simple.

“I’m not a curious man by nature,” he mused. “But when neither of them was paying attention, I looked at the file on his desk. And there you were.”

Torden shook his head. “You had on that pink dress, pretty enough to sway my brother. I could hardly read your information, because I was trying to be—subtle. But what I could read concerned me.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “What?”