VAIN | Inside the Universe

Chapter Nineteen • Worship in the Bedroom

A S G A R D

It had been an hour before we finally reached the palace. I spent twenty minutes pinned against a tree, choked until I reached my last few breaths. He spent another ten minutes pinned to the ground with my fists gliding across his face. I had hoped to replace the feeling of my soft caress from earlier, but he didn't fail to make mention of it between punches.

I came to appreciate the illusion he had around us as we walked through the palace halls. We were both panting like we had just got back from war and I swung over his shoulder like an unfortunate casualty of it. Towards the end, I didn't necessarily mind being carried, but it kept my eyes from the deep, bloody scratch just below his cheekbone. That little wound was enough of a win for me.

His route was predetermined. Straight to my room. It was the same one I stayed in before which was oddly...comforting for some reason.

He pulled me from his shoulder so I stood at his side before he cast me out from under the illusion. In a blink, I was being escorted by the Allfather wearing an Asgardian style dress that would have never been my first choice in dressing, but I digress.

Two guards stood outside of my room, one on either side of the double doors. They looked much more put together. Well trained. Better than they looked under the actual Odin.

That frightened me, I'll admit.

"Keep her in here." Odin starts, pushing aggression while he catches his breath. "If she tries to leave, chain her. If she resists further..."

The guards nod at his orders as if the last part had been a mutual understanding. They grab my arms as Odin starts down the hall, pushing me deep into the room and closing the doors before I could turn around to protest.

A sigh escapes me as if it had been held in for an eternity. This room was once lathered in the kindness of Frigga, but it seems she took those rose gold lenses with her. This was the den of iniquity in its true most initial form. It had to be. There was only one other place I've ever seen as this red. An elegant, silky red.

The walls are still lined with the dark, oak bookcases that made the space so comforting to me in the first place. I gravitate to them as if they could be some kind of anchor before I start to trail a finger along the spines of each old novel.

It was a strange feeling to familiarize myself with this place again. I started to remember some memories quite vividly. The conversation with Frigga at the fireplace, her death days later. The nights Jane and I spent studying the Aether in the library, only to retreat to this room when it closed to look over her own quantum research. The nights spent with Thor looking for impossible answers at the bottom of a bottle, only finding some sweet, ignorant bliss that let us dance without any care in the world.

The slightest smile rose to my lips as I watch the moments a second time. It seemed pointless—the excruciating effort put into burying those memories so deep—for how could something so radiantly good possibly bring so much destruction?

Do you still have to ask yourself that?

It was what followed. The memories that mocked me for playing in the light too long. Standing in the midst of flames, watching Asgard burn around me. Because of me. The artful illusion that projected my every fear. The way I had almost accepted my fatal defeat—twice.

There is a root to this all. The memory hit me like its need for revenge has been pent-up for years. That kiss stole what I had thought to be my last moments of life, yet it promised a fateful death for my future. His velvet lips pressed against mine with indescribable force—frustrated with himself, infuriated at me. He was hungry. I was wild. It was uncontrolled and entirely uncontrollable.