A throbbing, blinding pain in my head was my first sensation of returning consciousness. Then I became aware that I lay upon a hard bed of some kind, and that the air was cold and damp. I tried to open my eyes and could not. Summoning strength by a great mental effort, I raised my hand weakly to my head. Instantly I heard a joyful, sweet voice.
"He awakens, Frey!"
That voice, vibrating through the fibers of memory in my dazed brain, compelled me to open my eyes. Freya was bending over me. Her pale, beautiful face was framed by her unbound yellow hair, and it was eager with gladness. Her warm, blue eyes looked fondly down into mine.
She still wore the white linen gown that she had worn at the feast in Valhalla, before her abduction. And I saw, too, that Frey, pale, and bandaged around his neck and shoulder, had stumbled over to look down at me.
"Freya!" My voice was only a weak whisper.
Tears were in her lovely eyes as she put her face against mine, her cool cheek against my lips.
"Jarl Keith!" she whispered. "I feared you were dying. It has been hours that you have slept like the dead."
Weakly I put my arms around her slim shoulders and held her close to me. The bright gold of her hair on my face seemed at that moment to hold all of the sweetness in the world.
Then I looked beyond her: Frey's pale, haunted face and terrible remembrance rushed through my stunned mind. Loki and Fenris wolf and the great serpent emerging from their prison!
"Loki!" I gasped. "I saw him come forth—"