Chapter 732

Being granted the entirety of Midgard as his personal fief would make Evenson something like Earth’s planetary governor. Hela’s offer was hardly modest.

He wasn’t tempted.

First, if he’d wanted to conquer Earth, he wouldn’t need Hela’s permission. He could open a portal and invite the Burning Legion to the party himself.

Second, power wasn’t something another person gave you. It was something you seized and held. A title bestowed by someone else was just a pretty label. No matter how grand it sounded, without power of his own, he’d still be little more than a servant.

Third, Asgard’s official histories already recognized a King of Midgard: the Ancient One, who had once fought Odin in a duel to secure Earth’s independence. And from what Evenson knew, she might well pass that mantle to her true successor, Clea.

Put it another way, Clea was the crown princess, and he was already halfway to becoming a prince consort. Why complicate matters? A comfortable life of eating, drinking, and being an indulged royal in-law sounded perfectly respectable.

Besides, Earth was full of dangerous people. Evenson doubted Hela could bring all Nine Realms to heel, much less guarantee that her promises would survive her rise to power.

"Leaving already?"

Evenson had recovered enough mana to attempt an escape. He was calculating how much force the Scepter of Sargeras would need to punch through the prison’s dimensional barrier, and how large an opening he could safely create, when Hela’s voice interrupted him.

There was an unexpected note of reluctance in it.

"Time is short," he replied, still studying the barrier. "The sooner I get out, the sooner I can help you build your glorious future, my goddess."

Hela nodded solemnly.

"You have an exceptional mind. If I let you slip away today, I would regret it for the rest of my life. So let me make one thing clear. Should I ever ascend the throne, the office of chancellor will be waiting for you."

"I am deeply honored by Your Majesty’s confidence."

Evenson dipped his head with the appropriate reverence. Internally, however, he was remembering an old lesson about powerful rulers and their most useful allies.

When a ruler was down on their luck, they could be remarkably generous with promises. Once they regained their power, those same promises tended to become inconvenient reminders of debts they would rather forget.

History was full of rulers who had rewarded their supporters lavishly in desperate times, only to turn against them when the crisis passed. The larger the promise, the more dangerous it could become when someone eventually came to collect.

Evenson had every intention of avoiding that particular trap.

As it happened, he was overthinking things.

Hela plopped down on a nearby rock and slapped its surface with an irritated hand.

"You’re telling me you’re leaving, and I’ve personally come to see you off. I’ve offered you an entire world and a high office. And you’re just going to walk away?"

Evenson blinked.

Then the pieces fell into place.

"Oh!"

He raised one finger in sudden realization, hurried to Hela’s side, and began unloading box after box from his inventory.

Instant noodles. Beef flavor, spicy pickled cabbage, shrimp and fish cake. Bottled water. A portable gas stove, a cooking pot, and several canisters of fuel.

"Just a small token of my appreciation," he said with a respectful bow. "I hope Your Majesty will accept it."

He should have realized what she wanted.

Hela wasn’t reluctant to see him go because she feared losing a valuable political ally. She was reluctant to see him go because his departure meant the end of her access to decent instant noodles.

She was trying to drain his entire emergency food supply before he left.

She could have simply said so. Instead, she’d left him imagining a dozen elaborate political disasters. What a waste of perfectly good paranoia.

"My first chosen was the right one after all."

Hela settled herself atop the rock and assumed an air of regal authority.

"Go with my blessing, Chancellor. Remain true to yourself, and do not betray my trust."

Had Evenson not seen her floating swords ferrying away his provisions, he might almost have believed the performance.

"Then, with your permission, my goddess, I’ll take my leave."

"Go, go."

Hela turned her head away, licked her lips, and waved him off impatiently.

So this was what it meant to feed someone and then get kicked out of the kitchen.

Since Hela had apparently lost all interest in him, Evenson beckoned Sigrun over. He raised the Scepter of Sargeras and jabbed it into the air.

A square opening, roughly a yard across, appeared before them.

Evenson stared at it with relief.

There it was. A way out of this prison at last.

Hela, meanwhile, was busy getting the gas stove ready. She glanced at the opening with undisguised disdain.

She wanted freedom, certainly, but she had standards.

A person of her stature would never crawl through a hole that looked like a dog door.

As the noodles began to cook, she nearly stood up to investigate the opening herself. After all, she was Hela. If her first chosen was going to risk his dignity by squeezing through such a humiliatingly small passage, perhaps she should go first and demonstrate how it was done.

Then the smell of cooking noodles drifted her way.

Hela sat back down.

Evenson had no such reservations. With Sigrun’s help, he squeezed through the opening, and Sigrun followed close behind.

She would rather crawl through a hole than spend another minute alone with Hela.

Evenson expected a short, awkward passage.

Instead, the moment he entered the opening, a tremendous force seized his arm and dragged him into the darkness.

Then he began to fall.

And fall.

And fall.

The blackness seemed endless. Evenson had no idea how long he tumbled through it before a tiny glimmer appeared ahead.

It grew larger and larger until, with a sudden rush, he shot through it and slammed into a hard alloy floor.

He bounced.

When he’d finally stopped moving, Evenson coughed and lifted his head.

Two familiar figures stood before him, one red and one blue.

The Eredar twins.

He flung his hair out of his face, pounded the floor, and shouted at them from where he lay sprawled across the metal.

"I was in free fall for thirty minutes!"

"Perhaps now you’ll learn to behave yourself," Sacrolash replied, turning her head away with an icy expression.

A few days earlier, she’d suddenly sensed that Evenson was no longer on Earth. It had immediately set off alarm bells. Soon afterward, their connection to him had vanished entirely, leaving her and Alythess frantic.

They had finally managed to sense him again and haul him back, and now he had the nerve to complain about the landing?

Evenson planted a hand on the floor and began pushing himself upright.

"Learn to behave? Are you seri..."

A rushing sound cut him off.

Before he could react, something heavy dropped from above and flattened him against the floor.

Sigrun lifted her head in a daze.

She’d followed Evenson through the opening just as he’d gone in. She could tell that the prison was behind her now and that they’d traveled through space, or something very much like it.

The journey had been strange, but the landing was surprisingly painless.

The floor was soft, too.

"Mmgh..."

A pained groan rose from beneath her.

"Lady, could you please get off me? I think my spine is about to snap."

Sigrun froze.

She looked down, realized she was sprawled directly across the man who had rescued her, and scrambled to her feet. Then she hurried to help him up.

Evenson trembled, one hand clamped over his lower back. His expression hovered somewhere between misery and disbelief.

"What in the world is happening to me?"

"I’d like to know that myself."

Alythess was suddenly beside him, moving so quickly she might as well have teleported. She seized him by the shoulder.

"Explain yourself. Who is this woman?"

They had gone to all that trouble to retrieve him, and he came back with another woman in tow?

And not just any woman. That face, that figure... she looked far too much like that little wildcat for Alythess’s peace of mind.

Evenson had better have a very good explanation, or he might soon find himself short of a few essential parts.

Then Alythess took a closer look.

"Wait. This woman..."

She studied Sigrun’s pallor and the unnatural stillness of her body.

"She’s dead. An undead?"

Recognizing what Sigrun was did little to reassure either twin. They knew Azeroth well enough to understand that undeath could come with its own peculiar charms. A certain undead queen’s allure was legendary, after all.

Sigrun, for her part, had finally noticed the twins’ true nature.

"Demons!"

Her posture stiffened.

Everything she’d ever been taught said demons were evil. Although she couldn’t yet judge the strength of these two, she could sense an aura around them that reminded her all too much of Hela.

"Everyone calm down. We’re all on the same side."

Evenson gritted his teeth, braced himself, and forced his back into place.

A sharp crack sounded.

He straightened with a hiss, finally able to speak without feeling as though his spine were trying to escape his body.

"This is Sigrun, an Asgardian Valkyrie. She’s undead now, and I brought her back to life. I got trapped in a sealed prison dimension and planned to revive her as a guide."

"Is that so?" Sacrolash arched a brow. "Your little excursion certainly sounds eventful."

"Eventful doesn’t begin to cover it."

Evenson limped over to the bar and poured himself a drink. He swallowed it in one gulp, hoping the alcohol might settle his nerves.

"I went to Asgard for a quick visit. I never expected all this to happen along the way."

He reached out and closed the portal through which the twins had pulled him back to Earth.

"And there’s one more thing. I’ve acquired a goddess."

The twins stiffened in unison.

Warlocks were notorious for changing their loyalties whenever a better source of power came along. But there they stood, two demons who had already given him plenty of reasons to remain loyal, and now he was announcing that he’d found himself a new goddess?

Had he forgotten who he was supposed to be devoted to?

"It was a matter of survival," Evenson explained quickly, drawing out the last word in an attempt to soothe them. "I wandered into a prison dimension. The woman locked inside was stronger than I was. What exactly was I supposed to do?"

The twins’ expressions eased a fraction.

"Besides," he continued, "she may call herself a goddess, and I may be her first chosen, but what we have is closer to a business arrangement than a bond of faith."

That made sense to the twins.

Warlocks didn’t worship gods out of devotion. They worshiped power. Even when a warlock became a god’s chosen, the relationship was generally built on mutual use, not genuine belief.

Evenson raised his glass and looked from one sister to the other.

"What we have is different. We aren’t together because of some bargain or shared interest."

"Hmph!" Sacrolash lifted her chin. "Who said that? If you ever stop looking after our interests, we won’t hesitate to abandon you without a second thought..."

She never finished the sentence.

Alythess had already hurried over and taken Evenson’s hand in both of hers.

"That was beautifully said. I’ll forgive you for this little incident."

Sacrolash stared at her sister in disbelief.

The woman was usually so blunt, hot-tempered, and seemingly incapable of subtlety. Yet the moment it mattered, she’d somehow moved faster than Sacrolash could think.

And now Sacrolash had been left standing there, looking like a fool.

Was Alythess hiding a cunning mind behind all that temperamental simplicity?

"Mutual understanding," Evenson said, giving Alythess’s hand a grateful squeeze.

His phone rang.

He checked the caller ID.

Nick Fury.

The moment Evenson answered, a furious voice blasted through the speaker so loudly that he had to pull the phone away from his ear.

"Where the hell have you been, you little punk?!"

Under ordinary circumstances, Fury was far too disciplined to open a conversation by yelling.

These were not ordinary circumstances.

A few days earlier, Evenson had called him with a warning. Space around Britain was becoming unstable, and the disturbance could lead to dimensional ripples or even an extraterrestrial invasion.

Fury had immediately contacted the committee, notified the British government, and arranged for SHIELD operatives to work alongside the British military.

Then nothing happened.

Worse, Evenson had vanished. Calls went unanswered, and no one could find him. After all that preparation, Fury had begun to wonder whether the warlock had simply been winding him up.

Fury yelled for a while, venting days of frustration. When the volume finally dipped, Evenson brought the phone back to his ear.

"Relax. The phenomenon I warned you about is about to happen. I’ll be there shortly, and I’ll take charge on-site."

He ended the call and turned back to the twins.

"Something urgent has come up. I’ll explain the rest later. Don’t worry. When all this is over, we’ll be the ones who come out ahead."

Then he beckoned Sigrun over.

"For now, you’ll be staying here. There are a few things you need to remember."

He glanced at the twins, whose expressions had turned distinctly unfriendly.

"First, know your place and follow these two ladies’ instructions. Second, don’t go wandering off on your own."

He paused to make sure he had her attention.

"And third, this last one is important. If you ever meet a tall, slender woman named Moira, do not drink anything she offers you. And whatever you do, don’t let her sweet-talk you onto an operating table."

He held Sigrun’s gaze until he was certain she understood.

"Remember that. No matter what she says."