Reina

My head was throbbing, and my body was shaking. Every inch of my body felt like it was dying, but I couldn’t remember why or what was happening.

Moving proved to be impossible; I was stuck in a kneeling pose with my arms held fast behind my back.

The pounding of my heart did more to clear my mind than anything. Each beat sounding like the drum solo from a rock song- which definitely wasn’t healthy. A heartbeat should only come near those speeds during two instances; in the midst of vigorous exercise, and right before it begins to fail.

Seeing as I was currently bound and unable to move, one of those were ruled out immediately and the other…

Through blurry eyes. I looked up- there was a pale skinned man standing in front of me with his hands extended in a placating gesture. He was wearing some kind of blue policeman’s uniform, but that wasn’t possible- no one in the silver city wore those uniforms… Actually, I hadn’t seen one of those since I left Earth over a decade ago.

My mind started to clear and more of the man’s features came into focus, short black hair, bright orange eyes, the thick arms of someone used to hard labor. The last thing to become clear was his face, a face I couldn’t forget if I tried.

The man standing before me was my husband, Torga; despite his current appearance, Torga was known throughout the universe as Torga: The Gluttonous God.

Torga’s brow was furrowed in concentration and his mouth set in a hard line. His bright orange irises were full of rage and a promise of destruction.

Though, his gaze wasn’t directed at me- it was directed at something behind me.

I struggled to see what he was staring at, and the movement drew his gaze to me. His eyes softened immediately, and the true extent of his worry became apparent as his visage of anger cracked.

“It’s going to be okay.” He muttered in a light tone, but I could tell it was forced.

“You’re right.” A silky-smooth voice agreed. The voice had come from behind my right shoulder. I tried to see who it was, but a steel grip wrapped around my throat and wrenched my head, so I was looking straight ahead, unable to tear my gaze from Torga’s broken expression.

“Everything will be just fine, so long as you get on your knees. Right now.” The voice continued without so much as a change in pitch.

They clearly didn’t know what Torga was capable of.

Then again, I don’t think anyone did; maybe not even Torga himself.

“Okay.” Torga’s knees buckled, and he slowly dropped into a kneeling position. “See, I’m down. You don’t have to hurt her.”

“Torga… Don’t- Ahh!” I screamed as the hand tightened around my throat, cutting off any hope I had a filling my lungs.

I could hear Torga speaking; pleading for someone to let me go. But I couldn’t hear the name over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. Finally, after ten excruciating seconds, the hand loosened and I could breathe again.

I sucked in a lungful of that precious oxygen- only to cough as the cold air stung my bruised throat. My eyes were watering horribly, but I couldn’t wipe them, not with my arm still bound.

“Why are you doing this? I pose no threat to your people-” Torga’s pleas were interrupted as someone began to laugh. The voice was different than the one who’d spoken earlier.

Were there two people or more?

“No threat?” Someone said, confirming that there was at least two people behind me. “No threat?” They repeated incredulously. “You, who were solely responsible for killing untold thousands, are no threat? You can’t help yourself, before all is said and done, you will drag all of Yggdrasil down with you, Torga. I can’t let that happen. Not now, not ever again.”

Torga’s eyes widened at the outburst, and he made to take a step forward. “I’m not the monster you think I am. Please, let her go. You can do whatever you want with me, just let her go.”

The hand around my neck tightened, and I felt all blood flow to my brain cease. I became lightheaded and my vision swam. “We can’t do that.” The first voice returned. This time, there was a layer of menace beneath the silk veneer. “She’s our only insurance policy.”

I threw my head forward, desperate to get away. Torga only needed a moment to handle both of these people, he just needed me out of the way.

Suddenly, a blow caught me across the back of the head, and I fell onto my face.

I swam in and out of unconsciousness, the voices of the three men in the room became nothing more than inconsequential white noise.

When I finally regained enough sense to make out what was being said, the only one speaking was the silky voice. “… this is how it always goes; you are born, you rise to godhood, and then you destroy everything you love. Tell me it’s not true. Look deep within and tell me that you aren’t capable of it.”

I waited for Torga to rebuke him- but even after several seconds he didn’t speak. I cracked open a single eye and saw that Torga’s eyes were dead. He was losing hope, whatever had been said and really shaken him.

“Don’t listen to him!” I choked out. My throat ached like I’d tried to drink a smoothie made of glass shards, but he needed to hear this. “You are what you choose to be, Torga. Nothing they say can never change that.”

I tried again to push myself to my feet, but someone shoved me back down. Three sharp objects pierced the skin of my neck, and I could feel beads of blood flow freely down my neck.

“Silence, if this continues, everyone you love will die too. And I’ve been there, saw my family erased before my very eyes. It’s worse than you can imagine….” His voice fell to a whisper that I couldn’t quite understand. “I’m trying to save Yggdrasill from this monster!”

“You’re a horrible liar.” I felt the sharp objects pierced deeper into my flesh, but that only spurned me on. “Torga is not the monster here.”

“Isn’t he? Don’t you remember what he did to the Angels, to Asgard? Do you honestly believe that he’s not a monster? This is the problem with you mortals, you get blinded by your own beliefs and refused to see the truth.”

“That’s the difference between me and the rest of you; I don’t care how many men, women, or children I have to kill to achieve my goals. I’ll slaughter billions if it means I can prevent the cycle from repeating. Wouldn’t you?”

“I would.”

My eyes shot open in surprise. Torga was the one who had spoken. He stared sadly into my eyes, even as he continued to speak. “I would kill anyone if it meant you were safe. I would bring this world to its knees just so you could live.”

“See,” the silky voice laughed. “I told you he was a monster; The father of monsters.”

The hand holding my neck spontaneously let go, and I grew even more lightheaded, as blood flowed freely from the three holes in my neck.

“Let’s get this over with.” Silky voice muttered.

I was shoved aside in my face was pushed into the hard concrete. A different hand landed on my neck, this one much smaller than the last. Though the strength it used to hold me down was not weaker than the first.

“Despite eons of research, I still don’t know how to stop this. Imprisoning you doesn’t work, there’s no way to remove your power from you, and permanently killing you is impossible. But you can die, and like a cockroach, you will return. Hopefully, by the time you’re reborn all of found a way to stop you for good.”

I heard the heavy footfalls of silky voice moving across the room, each one resonating in my ears like gongs.

I began to struggle; I couldn’t let it happen this way. Torga would let them kill him in some ridiculous plan to save me. But I knew better, I knew that as soon as he was out of the way, I was dead.

And if I was dead either way, I would rather die knowing that he would live to avenge me. I stared back into Torga’s eyes- he’d already accepted his death as necessary…

“Torga, No!!” I screamed. I shoved my body to the side; the bones in my neck warred with the impossibly strong fingers of the hand holding me.

And as I believed would happen, I felt something in my neck give way and everything went dark.

“No… NO… REINA!!”

I came awake with my heart hammering in my chest and thick beads of sweat leaving cold trails down my back. Quickly looking around, I found myself not restrained in a dark room, but laying in a sleeping bag inside my tent. The blanket I’d been using to stave off the biting cold had somehow managed to wrap itself around my arms in such a way that it took several seconds of wiggling to get them free.

“Well, suppose that explains why I couldn’t move.” I let out a relieved sigh as I realized it was only a dream and fell back against my pillow.

This was the tenth time in the last two weeks I’d had a dream ending in my death, though this was the first to involve my husband.

Two months ago, Torga, my husband, was imprisoned for crimes he didn’t commit, and I hadn’t been allowed to see him since. I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, though knowing him- no, he was definitely alive. I just needed to have faith in him.

He’d never purposely let me down before; I didn’t see that changing now.

I peeled my sleeping shirt off and tossed it aside. The sweat had caused it to cling to me like a second layer of skin, even though, by all rights I should’ve been freezing.

I grabbed a towel to wipe myself down, once my body was mostly free of sweat, I pulled on a thick gray sweater and a green cloak on top of that. I didn’t bother taking my socks off before bed, so slipping on my boots took only a moment. Once I’d pulled the last lace tight, I was ready for the day.

I picked up my lucky dagger from its home beside my sleeping bag and fastened it’s sheath to the inside of my left forearm. I’d had this dagger for close to eleven years now, and it saved my life on more than a dozen occasions over the years.

Truth be told, I felt naked without it. In this world, there was no telling what manner of creature was just waiting to kill you; I only wished that that was restricted to just the monsters. Humans are just as likely to stick a dagger in your ribs as a wolf was to rip out your throat, and that was something I was still coming to terms with.

I sucked in a lungful of mostly warm air before stepping out into the oppressive Arctic winter raging around me. The moment I exhaled, my breath froze instantly, and ice crystals drifted slowly to the snow packed ground.

I pulled my hood up, taking extra care to keep my long hair out of my face, and raised the collar of my cloak to better insulate myself from the cold. I was an elf- a high elf for that matter. We could survive in any number of places, but the Arctic wasn’t one of them.

For the most part, high elves tended to shy away from the cold. As a whole, we preferred to live our lives in tropical jungles and forests.

Even though I hadn’t been raised as an elf, it was undeniable that I shared their preferences for the warmer climates. It was my hope that we would find our way off this floating ice block masquerading as planet within the next few days, by way of the Bifrost.

See, without exception, every planet possesses two branches of Yggdrasil: so-called the ‘World Tree due to the fact that every planet in the known galaxy is connected to it. Each branch has a force known as the Bifrost running through it, and by accessing this force interplanetary travel is not only possible, but commonplace.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t always as simple as that.

The branches could exist in nearly any location imaginable. Most are inaccessible to squishy elves like yours truly, and the ones that are accessible aren’t always convenient.

My companions and I had been traveling towards the second branch on this ice block for nearly two weeks; though we could now see it on the horizon, the weather was making it nearly impossible to make headway.

We were often forced to make camp after traveling for only a few hours or risk freezing the death in the subzero temperatures. While this proved to be a hindrance for me, my companions- Donna: the former Seraphim turned seductress mage, and Leon: the walking tank who could have moonlighted as an underwear model- had found the journey to be quite invigorating.

After several years of dancing around each other, they’d finally admitted their feelings for one another. And now they spent every night loudly confirming their feelings. Sometimes they would ‘confirm’ half a dozen times in a single night, but who was counting?

I shook my head and laughed to myself as I finished feeding our modest campfire.

As much as I complained about them, I was genuinely happy they’d finally gotten over themselves and saw what everyone else did.

If only Torga were here, this would be perfect. Just the four of us exploring the universe for the rest of our days… If only.

I heard the sound of snow crunching behind me as someone approached. I hadn’t realized anyone else was awake.

I glanced over to Donna’s tent; she’d been sharing it with Leon for the last few weeks. Recently, he’d given up even the illusion that he wasn’t staying with her and never bothered even putting his up.

The tent flap was still sealed and the snow around the entrance was undisturbed.

The sound of crunching snow continued to draw closer with every passing heartbeat. The sound growing louder until it was all I could focus on.

I unfastened my dagger’s sheath and slowly pulled it free.

I waited until they were directly behind me, then I yelled as loud as I could- hoping to draw out my companions- while I came up with a wild slash.

Whatever it was, I would make it regret thinking I was easy prey.