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It is a rare enemy that dares attack the Glaðsheim palace, but good money will buy men bold enough to try. The latest are better than any that have gone before: they breach the walls in the dead night just before dawn, and creep as deep as the royal family’s chambers before an alarm is even raised. They are good, perhaps among the best in a trade that buys blood with coin, but they are unprepared for how deep war is written into the blood and bone of Asgard’s royal house.
Frigga dispatches the man who thinks he alone is enough to kill a queen, with a sleek knife through one glinting eye. When she was younger, she might have carved out the other for daring to look at her as he had, but she is long grown now, and the only want that burns in her blood is the safety of her children.
The dark corridor beyond her rooms, torches extinguished by the weight of magic in the air, rings with the clash of weapons. She runs, barefoot and armoured only in her bloodied nightgown, to the room her children sleep in. It is late: Loki will have crept in with Thor by now, as he does every night. When the palace was breached, the protections sealed both their doors shut. They are safe together. They are safe. She knows this, and still she runs like the hellhound Garmr snaps at her heels, baying Ragnarok down upon her.
Two men stand before the chamber as she approaches. She puts blades in their throats without breaking stride and watches them topple, pausing only to tear her knives free and be certain each strike was fatal.
Loki’s room appears untouched, but the door to Thor’s room is broken, the shattered halves sagging on their hinges. The protections hang in shreds, glittering in the periphery of her second sight as they unravel. Frigga’s heart stutters in her chest as she pushes through the wreckage and into Thor’s room.
Her children lie crumpled on the floor, silent and still. She cannot see Thor’s face where he has fallen standing over his brother, but Loki’s glassy eyes are on the door; on her.
Frigga bids herself not to shake as she drops to her knees, but she thinks she can hear Garmr’s hellish howling all over again, signalling the end of the world. There is blood soaked into the carpet, and her breathless youngest is still looking at his murderer, his hands tangled into his brother’s tunic as if Thor could still protect him.
The thunder of footsteps down the corridor brings more enemies to her, breathing hate and triumph as they advance through the shattered door. She obliterates them without even looking, burns them out of existence and relishes the smoke of their screams.
It is only then that she feels the magic in the room, hidden until then by the lingering traces of her broken protections. She knows the shape of it immediately, and chokes as she finally reaches for her children.
All it takes is a touch. Frigga finds the brief power that holds them together and the illusion falls apart, no more than motes of light twisting between her fingers and vanishing. She watches the frail images of Thor and Loki unravel under her hands and knows she is watching them die all over again. It is a cruel trick someone will pay dearly for.
She has a blade in her hand before she even realises she’s heard something, the scratch and scrabble of something trapped.
“Mama?”
Her heart cracks at that beloved sound.
Frigga scrambles forward on her hands and knees as Thor peers out from under the bed, shivering and blessedly alive. She pulls him to her, hugging him tight as he throws his arms around her neck and clings for dear life. The flutter of his heartbeat against hers is the dearest feeling she’s ever known.
“Where is your brother?” Frigga asks, loosening her grip just enough that she can look at Thor.
He sniffs and scrubs at his face, though it does little to hide the tearstains on his cheeks, and gestures back towards the bed. It is almost too dark to see, and the position is awkward and neither she nor Thor want to let go, but she manages to angle herself to look beneath the bed.
Loki is pressed up against the furthest wall, curled as tight as he can and shaking so violently she can hear his head knocking against the floorboards. Her raw relief at seeing him alive chokes her for a moment before fresh worry sets in.
“Loki,” Frigga calls, reaching out as far as she can, but he is just beyond her grasp. “Loki, I’m here. It’s safe to come out.”
She cannot say for sure that the palace is clear, but she knows there is fire enough in her that she will burn Asgard down before she lets anyone take her children from her. That is certainty enough.
Frigga keeps reaching for Loki, despite the cramped space and her hold on Thor, and murmurs words of comfort and safety into the heavy air until finally he looks at her. When she sees his face, the breaking fear in his wide eyes and the pallor of his skin, she knows the image of death wrought in light was his.
“Oh my beautiful little mage,” she whispers, her heart breaking for him. “You saved us all with that trick.”
Loki doesn’t seem to see her, but he looks at Thor, wet eyed and wild, as if he cannot quite believe Thor is there. He shapes his brother’s name without speaking aloud and his hands spasm and clench. Frigga wonders if he still feels the phantom he created, a splinter of himself to draw the eye and die twice over so he could live once. Imitation isn’t child’s play, but Loki has mastered it regardless.
“Please come out, Loki,” Thor says, falling far short but still reaching for his brother all the same. “It’s safe now.”
He finally blinks and the fear that has him drawn so tight loosens enough to let him free. Loki scrambles forward, and as soon as she can touch him Frigga pulls him into her arms, clutching both her boys tight to her. She feels Loki’s tears on her skin, the way they both squirm closer as Frigga holds so tight there isn’t space to breathe, the clumsy curl of Thor’s hand on Loki’s shoulder that shakes him so deep that he wails and buries his head in Frigga’s shoulder.
“It worked, mama,” Loki whispers to her, a confidence between the two of them. “I made them not see.”
She thinks of the illusion Loki made to keep himself and his brother safe, the perfect stillness as they lay together, the darkness of Loki’s vacant eyes, and feels the faint chill of prophecy.
“You did,” Frigga replies, and cannot put everything she needs to say into those two words.
It is a long time before she lets either of them go.