A few days later, Loki finally broke. The dungeon had become unbearable. There was no longer anything to occupy his mind except himself, and Loki had discovered that his own thoughts were far more merciless than any guard. Every silence gave him another memory to dissect, another possibility to imagine, another question about Eirlys that he could never answer. Had she meant what she said? Had she truly stopped caring for him? Had Thor become the person she loved instead?
The image from the Palantír returned again and again. Eirlys crying in Thor's arms. Loki eventually decided he could no longer remain behind those walls wondering. He waited until the palace had settled into the strange quiet following Frigga's death. Thor was still away. Odin was consumed by grief and affairs of the realm. The guards had grown accustomed to Loki's silence, it was enough. Using what remained of his magic, Loki slipped free. The effort left him breathing hard, but freedom itself seemed to restore something inside him. He disguised himself easily enough, changing his appearance until the reflection before him showed Thor instead of himself. Then he left, the journey to Vanaheim was strangely painful. Everywhere he went, people bowed. Some looked at him with sympathy.
They saw him as Thor, the prince who had lost his mother, not as Loki, the prisoner who had brought war to Midgard. Their kindness only made Loki feel more angry. He continued walking until he found her. Eirlys was sitting alone in the gardens, beside a quiet stream, looking peaceful. Not happy, exactly. There was still grief in her expression, and her gaze remained fixed upon the water as though she were somewhere far away in her thoughts. But she no longer looked as fragile as she had months ago. The hollowness in her cheeks had disappeared, colour had returned to her face, she looked healthier. Loki stopped at a distance and simply watched her. For a moment, he forgot every reason he had come. He had missed her, more than he wanted to admit.
Then Eirlys sensed someone approaching and looked over her shoulder. The moment she saw him, her face brightened, she smiled. "Why are you back again? Don't tell me you're needy again."
The words were light, almost teasing, Loki's heart stumbled. She had smiled at him. At Thor. That should not have bothered him. Instead, his mind twisted it into something else. What had happened between them that night? Why did she sound so comfortable? Had Thor been here often? Had they spoken about him? Had that embrace in her chamber meant more than he had allowed himself to believe?
Loki forced himself to smile like Thor. "I thought I would see how you were."
Eirlys shifted slightly, making room beside her. "You could have simply said you missed me."
His chest tightened, she said it so naturally, almost innocently. Loki sat beside her, trying to suppress the storm inside his mind, he needed certainty. Not assumptions or visions distorted by jealousy. He needed to know what was truly in her heart. His gaze lingered on her face.
Eirlys noticed that easily. "What?"
"Nothing."
She smiled again as Loki leaned closer. For one terrible moment, he wondered whether she would let him or pull away, she didn't. His disguise remained perfect but his heartbeat did not. He moved slowly, giving her every opportunity to stop him, and leaned toward her as though he were Thor. Eirlys's expression changed, the smile faded as her eyes widened slightly. And Loki realized, just before their lips could meet, that whatever answer he had come seeking might be far more painful than he had imagined.
Loki had wanted her to pull away, that was the truth he could not admit even to himself. Every part of him had been silently begging for Eirlys to recognize something was wrong, to step back and scold Thor for daring to come so close to another man's wife. He wanted her to look offended, confused, perhaps even furious that he had presumed she would allow such familiarity while married to his brother. He wanted his suspicions to be nothing more than the product of a wounded mind, he wanted to be wrong. Instead, Eirlys closed the distance herself, her arms slipped around his neck, and she kissed him, Loki went utterly still. For one suspended moment, his mind simply stopped.
Then she pulled back, still close enough that he could feel her breath, her expression carrying that same teasing warmth he had seen when she first greeted him. "You want it again? What about Jane, hmm?"
As her thumb brushed lightly across his lower lip, the world inside Loki shattered, he could not breathe. The words repeated themselves inside his head with merciless clarity. What about Jane? Again. The meaning his mind had been desperately refusing to accept suddenly seemed unavoidable. All those nights imagining Eirlys and Thor together. The embrace he had witnessed through the Palantír. Her tears in his brother's arms. Her warmth when she saw Thor. He had told himself it was grief and jealousy had twisted an innocent moment into something ugly. Now, standing before her, Loki could find no other explanation.
She had kissed him and spoken as though this had happened before. She had asked about Jane as though Thor's relationship with her was something that should have prevented him from doing it. Loki's hands tightened around the fabric of her robes. His face remained remarkably still but inside, he was burning. His heart clenched so violently that for a moment he thought the pain might physically tear through him. He wanted to demand an explanation. He wanted to shout. He wanted to ask how long, how often, and whether she had ever once thought of him while doing this. But no words came.
His mind had become a storm. The irony was almost unbearable. He had betrayed her first, he knew that. He knew exactly what he had done to her trust. Yet standing there disguised as Thor, hearing those words from the woman he had never truly stopped loving, Loki felt betrayed with a cruelty he had never imagined possible. He wanted to burn everything around him, the gardens, the palace, the entire realm. Perhaps himself most of all. But his hands only remained clenched around her robes.
Eirlys's smile slowly faded, something in his expression must have changed. "Thor?"
Loki stared at her, he could barely recognize the sound of his own breathing. He had come to Vanaheim searching for certainty. He had wanted proof that his jealousy was nothing more than madness born from loneliness and imprisonment. Instead, he believed he had received exactly what he feared. And the cruelest part was that Eirlys still had no idea who was standing before her. He knew he had to leave. Whatever remained of his self-control was hanging by a thread, and if he stayed another minute, he feared he would do something he could never take back. His hands loosened from Eirlys's robes.
He stepped away, forcing his expression into something resembling Thor's calm. "I should go." He turned.
"Thor."
He stopped, Eirlys was still watching him, her expression softer now. There was no suspicion in her eyes, only a strange understanding that made his chest tighten. "I know you need someone," she said quietly. "Someone who understands you. Someone who can take away some of what you've been carrying."
Loki's back stiffened but she continued before he could answer. "You've lost so much." Her voice carried genuine sympathy. "And I would love it if you stayed here. Like that night."
The words struck him harder than anything Thor had ever done. "Jane doesn't have to know," she added softly. "And Loki doesn't have to know either."
Loki went completely still, he could not even turn around. There was something almost unbearable about hearing his own name spoken like that while he stood before her wearing another man's face. His heart seemed to sink somewhere beneath his ribs. He had come here desperate to discover the truth. Now he wished desperately that he had remained ignorant.
Eirlys stepped closer. "Thor?"
Loki finally turned, his expression was controlled, but his eyes were not. "I'll return later."
She looked at him with mild confusion.
"I have some unfinished business to attend to first."
He did not wait for her response and walked away, forcing himself not to run. Every step felt heavier than the last. He had to get out of Vanaheim before his anger swallowed whatever remained of his judgment. He could already feel the magic beneath his skin responding to his emotions, threatening to spill outward. He could not hurt her. Not her. Not even now.
The moment he disappeared from sight, for one brief second, the real expression beneath Thor's face surfaced, raw and devastated, then he vanished. Eirlys remained in the garden, watching the place where he had disappeared, her brow furrowing slightly. She slowly lowered herself beside the stream again. The evening air moved gently through the gardens, carrying the faint sound of water over the stones, she sighed. She hadn't expected him to leave so abruptly. Still, she supposed grief made people unpredictable.
She looked down at the water. "I hope you're all right," she murmured knowingly. "I guess I shouldn't have gone that far with it."
Far away, Loki was carrying a completely different understanding of what had just happened. He could barely breathe as he left Vanaheim. The moment he was far enough, the disguise collapsed, leaving him stumbling through the darkness with one hand pressed tightly against his chest. His heart seemed to ache with every beat, while an unbearable tightness had settled around his throat, making each breath shallow and painful. He had never imagined betrayal could feel physical. His mind kept replaying her words. Like that night. Jane doesn't have to know. And Loki doesn't have to know either.
Each one twisted deeper into him until grief became something hotter, anger. He wiped roughly at his face, refusing to acknowledge the wetness beneath his eyes. He needed Thor, not for an explanation but revenge. His brother had taken everything from him before, and now Loki believed Thor had taken Eirlys too. He would make him pay.
Meanwhile, Thor remained completely unaware of the storm gathering around him. On Midgard, he was still trying to reach Jane, desperately attempting to repair what had been broken between them while believing his brother was safely imprisoned in Asgard. He had no idea Loki was already coming for him. And this time, Loki wasn't thinking like a prince. He was thinking like a man who believed he had nothing left to lose.