His Queen | Book 1

Forty One: Jötunheimr

"We really shouldn't be here." said Hogun, his breath visible. Eyes gazing cautiously around him.

"Now you have second thoughts." replied Sigyn, to her once most trusted warrior in her father Kings Guard. "I warned you all."

Thor motioned his hand. "Let's move."

The party of Asgardian's began their treacherous hike through hard snow, slippery ice, and pelting piecing of falling snow and terrible winds. The path they forged was jagged rocks and sharp ice. There seemed to be the illusion of a pavement from the crumble city of ice that erects around them.

On their walk, there is no sign of the Jotnar. No indication that they are still here, alive. Had they died off after all these years?

They are hiding.

Watching.

Waiting.

Sigyn looks around at the structures above them. She also watches her step for one wrong foothold and she could very well fall between the cracks. Loki extends his hand to her and helps her down a short jump. "Stay close." he tells her.

"I will." she said, teeth chattering.

They are cautious as they move through Jotunheim. Hands harkening close to their weapons, eyes wide and alert and ears snapping to any sort of sound; even if it was just ice cracking. The realm was just as it was when Sigyn left it thousands of years ago. It saddened her heart to see that a realm under Asgard's protection and jurisdiction was reduced to this.

They reach the outskirts of a palace; what is left of it. Ancient structures of jade blue and ice, melting and crumbling away. They make their way into a plaza.

"Where are they?" Lady Sif asked.

"Hiding." answered Thor, his voice thunderous. "As cowards always do." he is not trying to hide their presence or his dislike for the Jotnar. Sigyn thought it funny for this hate when neither Aesir god or Jotun have come face to face in a few thousand years.

A icy voice then spoke up from the darkness. "You have come a long way to die, Asgardian's." the voice spoke with vigour. They searched for the voice, but his form cannot be seen from the shadows which he hides.

"I am Thor Odinson!" Thor announced himself to the giant.

"We know who you are." the King of Jotunheim, drools back.

"How did your people get into Asgard?"

"The house of Odin is full of traitors."

Sigyn casts her eyes downward. Then she lifted them to find Loki already looking at her. Then her gaze shifted to her son, then to the Lady Sif. Her eyes set on Sigyn, and Loki, with intensity. They all know the terrible history between them and the All-Father. What the Jotun King says makes sense.

"Do not dishonour my fathers name with your lies!" Thor growled back.

A giant shadow stands from the darkness, looming over them as tall at the structure around them. "Your father is a murderer and a thief!" he roared back. His voice echoed off the ice, and thundered inside their ears. "Why have you come here? To make peace?" he laughed at them. "You long for battle. Your crave it. Your nothing but a boy trying to prove himself a man."

From every dark corner and crevice a Jotun appeared. They appeared from the darkness as if they were the shadows themselves. Dark and cold and unforgiving. They surrounded them by the dozens. Giants so tall, skin shades of jade blue and marked with patterns of ice and giants. Their beady bloodshot red eyes; a reflection of their hate for the Aesir. Hungry for spilled blood. And only then would they be satisfied with the long owing debt.