Thor dreamed of a golden field.

  It stretched out in every direction, endless and quiet. The sky above was not the cold steel of Winterhaven, but a warm, endless canvas of amber light, with clouds the color of cream drifting lazily across it. He walked barefoot through tall grass that shimmered with gold dust, each blade humming faintly like harp strings. In the distance, the shadow of a tree stood solitary and proud. An oak tree he had seen in his early years—young and whole, as it had been in the time before the First War.

  He was not in armor. Not wielding Mj?lnir. Not even dressed for battle. Just a simple linen tunic and trousers, the kind he had worn as a boy when training in the lesser halls of Asgard.

  But someone was beside him.

  He turned his head, and there was Baldur.

  Younger than he remembered. The light of him softer. Less god, more brother. His golden hair curled with life and sunlight, and his eyes sparkled with mischief, unmarred by the centuries of war or burden. He smiled at Thor, that same smile he wore the day they first learned to ride horses.

  “Do you remember this place?” Baldur asked.

  Thor tried to speak but no sound came. He only nodded.

  Baldur chuckled, and the sound rang like bells in the deep.

  “We used to come here after lessons. Hide from Father’s lectures. Mother used to think we were off chasing girls in the lower realms.”

  A breeze passed through the grass. It whispered names Thor had tried to forget. Places burned in war. Faces lost in flame. He tried to focus on Baldur, but the dream shimmered around the edges, turning brittle.

  “You’ve grown tired,” Baldur said softly. “I see it in your eyes, brother. Even here.”

  Thor’s fists clenched, though there was no weapon in them. “I’ve fought too long,” he finally managed, his voice gravel and thunder. “I wanted peace. You were supposed to bring it. You were the bridge.”

  Baldur looked away. His face clouded, but his voice remained calm. “And you were the storm.”

  Thor turned from him, ashamed. The field dimmed slightly, the light paling into something dusk-like.

  “I didn’t mean for you to die,” Thor said. “If I had been faster—”

  “You weren’t meant to stop it,” Baldur said. “It had to happen.”

  “That’s a lie,” Thor growled.

  “It’s prophecy.”

  Thor spun on him, fury rising. “Then to Hel with prophecy! I’ll carve my own fate. I’ll drag you back from death if I must!”

  Baldur only watched him, serene. “That’s what worries me, brother.”

  The grass darkened. The tree in the distance began to wither, its branches curling, bark turning black. Thunder rolled across the sky, distant and slow.

  “You are a hammer,” Baldur said, stepping closer, “but not every problem is a nail. If you keep pounding, the world will crack.”

  “I do what must be done.” Thor muttered.

  “Do you?” Baldur’s eyes bored into him now, all divine radiance gone, leaving only the soul of a brother betrayed by fate. “Do you act because it’s right, or because it’s all you know?”

  Thor looked down at his hands. Blood appeared on them—old and new. Names returned to his mind. Jotnar. Dwarves. Elves. Men. Monsters. Even gods. All fallen. All withered beneath his strength.

  “I’m trying to protect them,” Thor whispered.

  “Then you’ll have to choose better.” Baldur reached out and touched Thor’s chest, over his heart. “Soon, there will come a time when you will need to decide if the peace you seek is worth the sacrifices it demands.”

  The thunder boomed louder. The tree cracked, falling into shadow.

  Baldur stepped away, fading with the wind.

  “You’ll see me again,” he said gently. “But not as you remember. And not as you hope.”

  The field tore open like a canvas ripped in half, and Thor fell—

  He awoke with a start, gasping, heart pounding like war drums.

  The couch groaned beneath him, but held firm. His hand reached instinctively for Mj?lnir. Still there. Still his.

  Across the room, Loki stood by the fire, sipping something warm from a mug. His gaze flicked toward Thor, amused.

  “Sweet dreams, I trust?” Loki asked lightly.

  Thor didn’t answer.

  He sat up slowly, rubbing his face, the last echo of Baldur’s voice still burning in his ears.

  “Something like that,” he murmured.

  Outside, Winterhaven stirred beneath a pale dawn. And war was coming. Thor could feel it.

  He could feel Loki watching him. He must not show himself rattled. Thor thought for a moment and broke the silence.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Thor was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he said, “I saw Baldur.”

  Loki, halfway through a sip, paused. “Oh really?”

  Thor nodded, voice quiet. “He was young. Whole. We were in the golden field, by the old oak tree before it was scarred.”

  Loki’s brow furrowed, then softened. He walked a little closer. “And?”

  “He said I’ve grown tired. That I swing before I think. That if I keep pounding, the world will crack.”

  Loki gave a faint, dry chuckle. “Well you see. That’s always been the problem with hammers, dear brother. You get a sudden desire to smash everything.”

  Thor didn’t laugh. “He said I’d see him again. But not as I remember him. And not as I hope.”

  Now Loki was quiet.

  A long silence passed between them before the knock came. Three quick raps. Sharp, professional.

  Thor stood, already moving toward the door.

  “Don’t bother,” Loki said, strolling past him. “I know who it is.”

  He opened the door to reveal two figures—a sharp-eyed woman with a hunter’s poise and a man in a long coat with a faded mercenary’s swagger. Between them, bound with chains of rune-etched steel and a length of iron cable, was a bruised and shivering Frost Giant, his azure skin mottled with cuts.

  Maevis FireBrand nodded once. “He gave us some trouble.”

  Tannis Merryweather smirked. “But not enough trouble.”

  Loki stepped aside, gesturing grandly. “Thor, allow me to introduce Maevis and Tannis. Competent, professional, and—for my sins—quite helpful over the past few months. They’ve been instrumental in tracking down Mavikundi’s operations and cutting a few of his puppet strings.”

  Thor approached them slowly, eyes never leaving the bound giant.

  “Your reputations precede you,” he said, extending his hand. First to Maevis, then to Tannis. They shook in turn—her grip firm, his casual but respectful.

  “And who,” Thor said, turning to the prisoner, “is this?”

  “Found him in the warehouse by the lower wharf,” Tannis said, prodding the giant forward. “Caught him trying to sneak through a tunnel. He nearly iced Maevis’s leg off before I clipped his kneecap.”

  Maevis stepped forward and slapped the giant. “Talk.”

  The Frost Giant snarled something in Jotun tongue.

  Maevis backhanded him. “Again. In ours.”

  The Frost Giant spat blood and growled, “Mavikundi… sending weapons...through the sewers. For the Ironflame Rebellion. Meeting point is east… ruins beneath the copper district. That’s all I know. I swear by Ymir’s bones.”

  Thor’s jaw clenched. His eyes burned.

  Then, with no warning—crack—he swung Mj?lnir up from his belt and brought it down on the giant’s skull.

  The sound was sickening. The body dropped like a felled tree, spraying a mist of crimson across the floor and wall.

  Loki recoiled in disgust. “By the fucking gods, Thor! The floor! I just bribed Tansy to stop overcharging me!”

  Maevis froze, one hand half-drawn to her dagger. Tannis stepped back instinctively. Their faces went pale—but only for a breath. Both steadied themselves, masks of calm professionalism sliding back into place.

  Thor exhaled through his nose, slowly. “He was scum. And a liar. I’ve heard that vow a hundred times. All of them false.”

  “Well,” Loki said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I suppose that’s that. Our only lead now decorating my floor in shades of brain and bone.”

  He turned to Maevis. “Find Tansy. Tell her I’ll pay for the cleaning. And if she gives you grief, remind her I know about the black-market potions she runs out the back.”

  Maevis nodded and left briskly, cloak trailing behind her.

  Tannis lit a cigarette with a flick of his thumb and shrugged. “Actually… the idiot wasn’t our only lead.”

  Loki raised an eyebrow.

  “For a few coins more,” Tannis said, puffing once, “Maevis and I can take you and your thunder-happy friend to where we picked him up. He wasn’t alone when we found him. Might be something there still. Or someone.”

  Thor looked at him with renewed respect. “Then you have my thanks.”

  Tannis gave a mock bow. “His thanks,” he said, glancing to Loki, “but your coin.”

  Loki sighed. “Story of my life.”

  Mavikundi descended the ice-rimed stone steps slowly, each bootstep echoing in the hollow dark beneath the city.

  Torchlight flickered along the vaulted ceilings of the ancient catacombs—though no fire fed the flames. These were soul-torches, conjured from fragments of bound wraiths, and they burned blue with malice. He passed between rows of open sarcophagi, the air thick with the scent of time, dust, and forgotten oaths.

  Frost traced every surface. Some of it natural—Winterhaven had always been a cold city—but the rest came from deeper magic, the kind that had begun leaking from the cracks his men had made when they opened the lower vaults.

  “The work proceeds,” said a rasping voice beside him.

  The speaker was Hulgrun, his Jotun overseer, a towering brute of a frost giant draped in chainmail sewn from glacier worms. He was old for his kind, one eye white and scarred, but still stronger than any ten men.

  Mavikundi said nothing at first. He merely surveyed the passage before him, where workers—both enslaved men and hired mercenaries—chipped away at a wall of rune-stone. Above it, the crest of the Old Compact was just visible: a broken crown wrapped in ice thorns, the mark of the ancients who had once ruled here before even the dwarves came north.

  “How many layers deep?” Mavikundi asked at last.

  “Three,” said Hulgrun. “But the fourth holds the seal.”

  “And the seal itself? Does it still hold”

  “Aye. Still intact. For now.”

  Mavikundi allowed himself a thin smile.

  It had taken months to find the original records—half-burned scrolls hidden in the ruined sanctum of a dead high priest—and longer still to match them with what the frostborn spirits whispered in their cold dreams. But it had been true: beneath Winterhaven, buried deep ungerground, lay one of the last vaults of the the primitives who had settled here long ago. And sealed inside, waiting like a venomous memory—

  The Blade of Endless Winter.

  Not just a weapon. A relic. A symbol of pride for all frost giants.

  A sword that was in legend said not just to cut, but froze the world in time—biting not just flesh, but memory, hope, and flame.

  And Skymir, his lord and master had long desired it. Despite all the hardships he had endured, he had to see this through.

  Skymir had made that clear when he’d offered Mavikundi the mission in front of the entire court of Utgard Castle: a river of coin, legions of frostkin at his command, and a name whispered in giant courts. All for one thing.

  The Blade of Endless Winter.

  “He grows impatient,” Hulgrun muttered, as if reading his thoughts. “Skymir watches through the ice. He wants results.”

  “He’ll get them,” Mavikundi said coldly. “But my word he will have it.”

  The frost giant growled something low and unintelligible in Jotun.

  “What was that?”

  “A curse,” Hulgrun replied. “Not on you. On these trap infested crypts.”

  Mavikundi arched an eyebrow. “Do not begrudge the small necessities. The traps are old and rotten. Once we have the weapon we can leave this place.”

  He moved past the overseer and stepped toward the glowing runes now half-exposed beneath the shattered wall. He traced one with a gloved hand. The stone was unnaturally cold, even for this place. It bit through the fur lining.

  “We’ll break this seal by nightfall,” Hulgrun said.

  “Good. Then see to it that you and the men do so. You've proven a capable helper, Hulgrun. I will see that you are well rewarded by Skymir once all this is done.” Mavikundi ordered. “There are rites that must be performed. This seal was bound with soul-forge magic. If you crack it the wrong way, you won’t open the chamber—you’ll collapse it. We’d lose the blade—along with half this damned crypt.”

  Hulgrun stood and assured him. “I’ll send for the a necessary people. They knows the words.”

  Mavikundi grunted and turned back to bark orders in his native tongue.

  As the workers resumed their toil, Mavikundi turned away and walked down a side corridor lined with statues—guardians of the crypt, their faces long since eroded. His hand lingered on the hilt of his curved blade, but his thoughts were far from here.