The Family Lokison (Part 4)

Fortune (MODI)

Father didn't care about me. He wasn't thinking about me at all. He didn't even bother trying to find me when he came through the Bifrost to this place. He didn't search for me or call my name. He didn't look at me with tears in his eyes of gratitude that I survived.

No—he found the filthy Jotuns first.

Whatever happened when I touched Narvi still fueled me, strengthened me, made me see clearly. When Father finally did come toward me because that disgusting man pointed to me, I fled through the streets, flying on the wind, swooping under a massive metal beam that opened into empty space. A cavern, yet it wasn't natural. It reverberated with my every breath.

No way out. I'd cornered myself in it.

"Modi?" he called with an upturn of concern. "Please, I need to speak with you."

Sure, he did. Needed to make more excuses. Needed to tell me more lies. Who was he, really? My father—God and King—or a sympathizer of those beneath us?

"There you are," he said, quietly sighing at the sight of me. "Why did you run?"

I folded my arms as tightly across myself as possible and kicked at the ground. My irritation with him had nowhere to go but my feet.

"Are you alright?" he asked with the same tone, tipping his head to the side. Like a dog. Mindless beyond words.

I shrugged, yet so much was said in my mind that he couldn't detect. He didn't truly care if I was alright or not—if he did, he would've noticed how my minder was missing. Always telling me to respect her, but where was she now? Crushed in the fallout of the palace shelter. Rocks fell from the walls and smacked her forehead. She crumpled at my side in an instant. Death was a concept, something I'd never seen, until it fell at my feet. I watched it happen. Someone I knew. Her body deflated from her final breath and came to rest, ever still in the middle of madness.

Yet it wasn't her death that paralyzed me. It was the hundreds of eyes who witnessed it and said not a word. Didn't offer a hand. I, Prince of Asgard, wasn't worth saving. Hadn't even been placed in a position of honor amongst the foreigners invading my home. They thought my ears were exempt to their disdainful words about me, yet I absorbed every last one.

No, I wasn't alright. I was alone in a room filled with hundreds. And for a short time, I wanted to deprive my father of ever finding me again. Me, the prince with no friends, might've died a martyr who left guilt behind in the wake of my absence—after all, what greater revenge could I take than to force those who'd passed me to answer my father?

Narvi changed those plans.

"Please, son, talk to me. We have been through too much." Father pointed to a couple of larger stones and sat, beckoning me to do the same.

I settled beside him and went from kicking at the ground to launching small rocks across the empty space.

"This is a human building," he said, trying to appeal to my curiosity and prove how he already knew whatever there was to know. "These walls are made of glass. Quite thick if they survived the collapse." He rubbed his hands back and forth slowly. "Something not everyone in our family did."

There was no need to confirm what I already knew, though my heart still pounded with worry that I might be found out. I played along so he might not ask too many questions. "Father?"

"Modi, Narvi is dead." He stroked my back in a weak show of affection. "I'm so sorry you lost a friend today."

That's what you're concerned with? His status as my 'friend'? I gasped to feign surprise. "He's...dead?"

"Yes." Father peered over my face in a new way, trying to take in my features like he'd never really looked at me before. "Losing your grandfather, my father, and Narvi in all this...I can't imagine what would happen if I'd lost you."

I nibbled my lower lip to make it shiver and faked a sniffle. "I would've helped him if I could, but I tried to help my minder after she was struck." My head dropped with more false weeping.

"Wait, she was struck?" Father grasped my shoulder to force me toward him again. "Is she—"

"She's dead, too. She's gone. Narvi's gone. Grandfather's gone. Asgard's gone. Oh, Father, we're doomed!"

"Shh, no, Modi. No. We will rebuild this place. Midgard will become Asgard and you will live to be its king someday, my son." With that, Father pulled me into his chest, awkwardly attempting to make me feel like he could comfort me at all.

When I ran through the palace with no one to turn to, Father became more than a parent to me. He became a goal. A target. An enemy. He would have to step down in due time and I would be waiting to make demands and reshape his laws. I hated the old witch, but something about how quickly her death relieved me of her burden was all too appealing, and the nectar of victory was delicious. Especially after the warm courage pumping its way through my body convinced me of Narvi's inadequacy. Hit him just right, and no one would ever know.

Father wouldn't be King forever. I was heir apparent. And I'd already purged New Yggdrasil of one misplaced Jotun survivor; I could wait for more strength to be rid of the rest.