Forged by Fate

‘She will be your sister.’ The voice belonged to the old, gray man. The body Adam had abandoned to the storm. But in Adam’s mind, Elohim’s forehead was creased with troubled lines, his expression grave. ‘Your twin in every way. Made to complement you perfectly. And she will live on as long as you will. Reborn in every life as you are. But you cannot take her as your wife. Not now. She cannot love you, yet, and you are forbidden to force her. Teach her everything you’ve learned from me, but let her live her own life.’

She felt Adam’s frustration, his anger, and then his determination, and his knowledge that God could no longer stop him. It was involuntarily thought and he shoved the memory away just as quickly as it had come. But it was too late. She had seen it. The truth of it. She was not his.

She pulled away from him and stumbled back into the stone wall of the cave, wrenching herself free of the memory and the thoughts and feelings that had followed. Adam’s possession. She would not be his.

Adam frowned, “Eve?”

She braced herself against the wall. “I’m not supposed to be your wife.”

“You don’t even begin to understand what you’re talking about.” He was angry again and he grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look into his eyes. “You are what I say you are, Eve. All of you are bound by my words, now. You’ll do as you’re told.”

You’ll love me. She felt that same heat again, as it burned her cheeks and her body where his hands touched her, leaching into her through his fingers and his palm. Her heart began to race and she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even look away. He pulled her closer and she felt him hard and hot against her. It burned inside her, body and mind. His will, his command, searing itself in her thoughts, forcing its way through, trying to take root. You’ll love me, and you’ll want me as much as I want you. There’s no one here to stop me. God can’t save you. Just like He didn’t save Lilith.

She shoved at his shoulders with a gasp, clawing at them, digging her nails into his skin.

He jerked away. Blood beaded from a crescent moon on his arm and for a moment, he stared at it, his expression so strange, so different from anything she’d seen before. As if he could not understand, could not comprehend. Then he looked up, his eyes flashing with anger, his jaw set with rage.

He grabbed her again, twisting her by the wrist until she cried out. “You’ll learn your place soon enough, Eve. It’s only a matter of time.”

Adam threw her from him, and turned away.

She landed on her knees, skinning her palms in the dirt. Tears pricked her eyes at the sting, but she climbed to her feet and ran from him. Ran from the heat and the desire he had flooded her with, but had never been her own, would never be her own. When Reu called her name, she didn’t stop. She didn’t care if he followed her. She didn’t care if she ever saw any of them again. She didn’t want to do this anymore.

She didn’t even want to live.

Chapter Fifteen: 903 BC

Thor held the hand of his wife as the last breath left her, pressing it to his face. Even knowing she would be reborn, watching her die was the most difficult thing he had ever done. Without his power, he could not follow the journey of her spirit as it left her to find its new home. He could not close his eyes and search for the bright light of her immortality among men. He was even too old and too decrepit in this body to carry her to her burial.

Soon, he promised himself, gently removing the ivory bracelet from her wrist. It was the only thing he would allow himself to keep, a token of their marriage, of their love.

He closed her eyes for her and let in the women to prepare the body. Tora, his Eve, had not wished to be buried as a Chieftain’s wife had the right, in a hollowed oak beneath a mound of earth. She had begged him to send her empty body out to the water on one of the fishing boats he had built with his own hands, and let it burn. He had agreed. Her body didn’t hold her spirit; there was no point in treating it as though it might.

He walked to the boat prepared for the funeral. It was nearing dusk, now, and when it fell, the night would cloak his features to the others. He waited on the rocks where they had spoken of their marriage for the first time. Long ago, he had passed the leadership of this village to the son Eve had born him, a fine man, with very little of his father in him. His hair was Eve’s, his eyes were Eve’s, even his build was slighter and less powerful than his father’s. Some trick of Odin’s, he was sure, to keep him from betraying himself with a godchild and exposing this village to Sif’s wrath and Loki’s treachery.

It mattered little. Owen had been a strong man and a good leader, and Eve’s blood was as potent as any god’s—certainly more suited to life among men. Owen had never thrown lightning bolts in his rage, or spoken into the minds of others. He had never traveled through lightning to far-off lands or exhibited uncommon strength. All for the best. Owen’s people had never had cause to distrust him. Nor did they distrust his son, when he had taken the leadership of the village at Owen’s urging, or his grandson, who stood as priest and chieftain now.

Owen lived a long life, like his mother, but each generation after aged less gracefully with the dilution of Eve’s blood. Even so, they were a healthier people, stronger in all the ways that mattered. Her granddaughters bore children more easily than any of the other women, and her grandchildren’s children and grandchildren rarely suffered from the illnesses which plagued the rest of the village during winter and spring. Even if they did not live a century at a time, they still lived longer; to sixty or eighty winters, instead of forty.

One more task, and then Thor could leave them all in good conscience. The women carried the body of his wife to the boat, and laid her down gently. He stroked her silvered hair as it fanned out behind her head. They had wrapped her in old woolen blankets, the better to burn, and put sweet smelling oils on her skin. There was nothing of his Eve left here. Nothing more to tie him to this place, to this humanity he had taken and worn as a mask.

Others had gathered behind him, called by Owen. They were silent now; the only noise the shuffling of their feet on the pebbles that littered the beach, and the hushed movement of the wind from the sea through the trees.

Thor pushed the boat out into the water, wading with it almost to his waist before giving it a final shove. Then he turned his thoughts to home. To Asgard. To Odin, his father. He waited for the changes to begin.

Thunder rolled from far off, and all at once, he felt the power he had lived so long without flood through him, lightning in his veins. His eternal and immortal youth returned with his strength, and he bade the wind blow the boat out deeper into the water. He watched it until it was almost lost to him in the dark, and then he looked to the heavens. Great storm clouds blotted out the moon and the stars, making the sea black. He called the skies down upon it.

Lightning cracked through the darkness, bathing them all in white light and igniting the little fishing boat in the distance. Those behind him on the beach murmured in surprise, some even speaking brief prayers for his ears. Thor, god of thunder, god of the skies, bless us and protect us.

These people had no need of his blessing, and they had been given the grace of his protection for some eighty years while he lived at Eve’s side. More, they had Eve’s blood. Was that not enough of a gift?

He turned from the boat, now a mass of licking flames, and looked toward the shore and the people there. Owen stood before them all, staring now at his father with dawning comprehension. He was a wise man, a respected elder. Perhaps there was too much of his mother in him, for his perception often bordered on mind- reading. Eve had never whispered a word of heresy to her son, not wishing to make him an outcast to his people, and he had grown up loving his grandfather’s gods. Odin the Allfather and his wife Frigg, Thor the lord of thunder, Loki the mischief bringer, Heimdall the guardian, Freyr of the fields and fertility, Freyja, and Sif, the patronesses of fertility and women, beauty and prosperity. Never once had Owen had reason to believe his father was more than a man, until this moment.

Thor wanted him to know, to cement his faith in a way that Eve had never been able. Truth was the last gift he could give the boy who had been his son. The gods were present. The gods were watching. The gods walked among men. The gods loved.

Owen bowed his head.

Lightning struck again dancing across the sea and dazzling the eyes of any who looked in Thor’s direction. He let it take him.