you may rely.”
She met him in the olive grove, taking his hands and smiling warmly, her gray eyes bright. “If you risk your wife’s displeasure, it must be for good reason,” Athena said. “Though, I have heard she has taken to wandering herself. I am sorry for what came to pass—your love for her was so clear to all of us, I fear I do not understand how she could have doubted it.”
He squeezed her hands and released them. He was not certain his own guilt did not pain him more, now. Just because he had not meant to love Eve did not make him innocent of the same betrayal. “What is done is done,” he said.
But Athena was studying him, her pale forehead creased. “I had not thought to credit that story with any kind of truth.”
A trickle of fear slid down his spine, but he forced himself to smile. “Has Ossa travelled so far North to hear our boasts?”
“Not a boast, exactly. But you would be surprised what the Celts hear, and certainly Rome does not miss any opportunity to curry our favor by passing along the choicest news. And my cousin often chooses not to sort the truth from the lies, no matter how bold. Is it true, then? You married a mortal woman?”
He froze. If the story had spread to Olympus, how widely was it known in his own lands? Heimdall, of course, and Odin. But had the others any proof beyond Loki’s accusations? At least if Sif believed it—if she thought Tora had been mortal, Eve would be that much safer.
Athena gripped his arm, her nails biting his skin, and something more—a nudge against his thoughts. He growled, tearing his arm from her grasp. “If you thirst so desperately for wisdom, you search the wrong mind to find it.”
She flushed, dropping her eyes. “Forgive me, please. It is only that I am unused to confusion, and in truth, I have never been so baffled by a god as I am by you.”
He forced himself to calm. A goddess of wisdom would not admit to confusion lightly, and all the more difficult for a goddess of both wisdom and war. Athena should never have admitted weakness, and yet…
“I will tell you what you wish to know, Athena, if you will grant me your counsel on the matter.”
“You need not speak as though I would not share my wisdom gladly, Thor. We are friends, you and I.”
“Yes,” he said, meeting her clear gray eyes. “And as a friend, I must ask your help, though I fear you will think poorly of me, once you know the truth.”
“Whatever you have done, it cannot be worse than the behavior of my own family.” Athena sat upon the altar, a flick of her slim fingers indicating he might do the same.
Instead, he sat upon the ground, dusted with olive leaves and dry grasses. The touch of the soil on his hands brought him some comfort. It had been too long since he had walked the earth, but he had not realized until now how much he had missed it. He gathered a handful of the rocky soil and let it fall again through his fingers.
“I did not marry a mortal,” he told her, slowly. “I married a goddess. Elohim’s daughter.”
Athena did not gasp, but he felt some shift in her emotions which he could not name. As if his admission had stung her. “All those years you walked the earth, invited into the bed of every goddess between Brittania and the Far East, and none could tempt you from your wife.”
“I was angry, after I found Sif in bed with Loki.”
She made a sound of derision in the back of her throat. “And in anger, you turned to the one female who did not know you at all? Elohim’s daughter of all women, Thor! Better if it had been a mortal, a human who might die and be forgotten, than her!”
She rose, her sandaled feet pacing toward the spring, white ankles gleaming with each stir of her hem. Athena had a way of holding the light, drawing it in and glowing like moonlight. Even more so now, in her anger. It reminded him of his brother Baldur, the shining god of Asgard, but Baldur was more silver and starlight than milk and cream. Athena was all fair skin and soft curves.
“And I suppose that it is true, also, that you gave her a godchild,” Athena said, her back to him.
“No,” he said, tearing his gaze away from her body. Perhaps the next time he came, he would bring Baldur. “The son I gave Eve was just a man, for my part. What she gave him of her own divinity, I do not know. Odin had stripped me of my godhead.”
Her hands were fists at her sides, the snakes curling tight around her arms, hissing in response to her agitation. “Did you love her?”
“If she had been truly mortal, I am not certain I would have returned to Asgard,” he said softly, digging his fingers into the dirt. “But what purpose would it serve to sacrifice my life while she lived on?”
Athena shook her head. “Sif could not forgive this, if she knew. Her dalliance with Loki was nothing more than a cry for your attention, but to love another—I could not have believed it, had you not told me yourself. Not after seeing how you cherished her, your steadfastness in refusing all others.”
“Can you forgive me?”
She spun, her gray eyes dark with something—pain. He rose at once, conscious of the weight of her grief. He had thought it only his own guilt until he saw her face.
“Athena, I did not realize.”
“How could you?” She laughed, but it was bitter. “I am a virgin goddess, after all. And you are married. Twice-over, now. No, Thor. Blaming you would be unreasonable.”
He reached for her, then stopped himself, letting his arm fall back to his side. How much crueler would it be, if after confessing so much, he offered her comfort and false hope? He closed his hand into a fist.
“Reason does not often hold sway over the heart.” He could not ask her, now. He dared not ask her for help in guarding Eve.
“So I am learning, to my dismay.” But she smiled. “You need not worry. I have known from the start I had no claim to you, no right to expect you might treat me as anything more than a friend.”
“If I had known—if I had been free—of all the goddesses who invited me to their beds, Athena, you would have been the hardest to refuse.”
She touched his cheek, stroked his face. “You are kind to say so, Thor. Truly. But I will not hold you to your word this time.” Her hand fell away, and he made no move to stop her when she turned back to the water. “Let us forget this unpleasantness. You came for some purpose, and I would not distract you from it further. How might Olympus serve you?”
He hesitated. Even for a goddess of reason and wisdom, it could not be so simple to put aside the affairs of the heart, and he had no wish to pain her further. But Loki would come, he was certain. And he could not turn his back upon Eve. Not after they had shared so much, and he had promised himself, when she spoke of faith and gods…
He had promised himself, she would not be alone.
“I come to beg a favor of Aphrodite, if she would indulge me.”
Athena lifted her eyebrows, a mocking smile curving her lips. “Aphrodite drives a hard bargain for her favor.”
He was not fooled. “I mean only to ask her if she will offer her distractions to our Trickster, when he passes through. To keep him from continuing further for a time, that is all.”
Her eyes narrowed, but if she suspected his reasons, she kept it to herself. “One day, you must come to a feast simply for the pleasure of it. Zeus is likely to take exception before long if you continue on this way.”
“I am, of course, at your father’s service.”
Athena snorted, linking her arm through his. “You make a very fine ambassador for your people, Thor. But do not think, even for a moment, those pretty phrases of yours will fool me. We are friends, you and I.”
He smiled. “We are that.”
Chapter Twenty-two: Present
