I took a step back from Odin and glanced around the throne room. Three steps behind me stood my grandmother. There were guards on either side of my grandfather's throne, and Thor stood in the back of the room y the large golden doors. My father was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is he?" I asked, looking around curiously.
"Who, my child?" Odin asked.
"My father."
His eyes hardened slightly. There was a slight shuffle of footsteps behind me, my grandmother, as she came to place her hands on my shoulders. "He fell," Odin said.
I glanced up at grandmother, my eyes filling with tears. "How?" Neither of the adults spoke for a moment. "How?"
"As the Bifrost was destroyed it thew him over the edge," Odin spoke softly, his words concise with a steely edge. "He fell into oblivion."
I bit my lip, drawing blood. "Is he..."
I couldn't bring myself to say the words. Not when I had been so close. I nearly had everything I had ever wanted, answers to every question spiraling around in my head. I almost ha a family, a proper one, with a father and an uncle and grandparents. Now that dream was fractured, leaving a gaping black hole at the center of my universe.
"We can't say anything for sure, darling," Frigga said, lifting one hand from my shoulder to my cheek, wiping away my tears. "Though it is unlikely he survived the fall."
I tore myself away from her and spun around, sprinting out of the throne room. Hitching my dress up to my knees, I tore around corners, ran through golden crested corridors, and through the maze of the palace. Alone. I needed to be alone. I couldn't share my grief with those people who I had just met no matter how related we were or how much they claimed to care for me. I needed to think.
I slowed outside a door at the end of a long and secluded hallway. After glancing over my shoulder to assure that the coast was clear, I knocked softly on the door before pushing it open.
It was a bedroom, the walls coated in deep green, shelves and furniture littered with books. I stepped inside cautiously, making sure that the room was not already occupied before creeping into the middle of the open space and spinning around slowly, taking in every detail. There was a closet off to the left, the door slightly ajar, revealing a multitude of grays, blacks, and greens. The books sported titles ranging from Asgardian folklore to illusions and magic, and the bed looked rarely used compared to the broken-in leather armchair.
Wiping fresh tears tears away with my sleeve, I picked up the first book I laid eyes on and opened it up to the first page. Siting down on the armchair's footrest, I placed the book gently on my lap and began to read.
"This was his room, you know."
I looked up, slamming the book closed out of fright. Frigga was standing in the doorway, her eyes rimmed with red. "I'm not surprised you found your way here -- the two of you are so very similar."
My eyes scoured the bedroom once again. "All this was his?"
Frigga nodded, taking a few steps closer. "That was even his first spell book."
My eyebrows furrowed. While my eyes had been reading the page, I hadn't actually comprehended any of the information stored. "Spell book? But magic isn't real, is it?"
My grandmother let out a soft sigh, sitting down next to me on the armchair. She pulled the book gently from my lap and instead took my hands in hers. "Magic? Perhaps not. But every being holds a certain energy that if accessed..." She lifted one of her hands, a small ball of light forming in it. My eyes widened.
"Few have the power to harness the energy within them," she continued, letting the light float above her hand. "I taught your father at this age. And I believe you have the same gift."
Slowly, she lifted my hand to hers and without warning, passed the ball of light to my own hand. It floated above my skin for a moment, flickering gently, the warmth tickling my skin before it petered out. I dropped my hand, my eyes meeting with my grandmother's.
"Can you teach me?"
