Odin sat on the edge of the bed, still wearing his dusty cloak and observing his wife gently comb the honey-golden waves that tumbled over her proud shoulder. He was fond of watching Frigg's nightly ritual, but tonight the act brought him no joy. Frigg's distant gaze and set jaw betrayed her distress at learning that her son's nightmares portended his death and the end of all the worlds.

When his dreams began, Baldr nearly stopped sleeping and eating altogether. He screamed through the night and was anxious and short-tempered all day; he was not at all his winsome self. Odin and Frigg had gathered the Aesir, but since none knew what Baldr's dreams might mean, Odin mounted his horse and rode for many days and nights into the mists of Niflheim to seek a powerful seeress. Though his spells loosened death's grip on her, she had been reluctant to speak. When pressed, however, she readily recounted the past and the future, the birth of the Nine Worlds and the events that would bring about their ruin.

Odin knew many of these things already. He and his brothers had created the Nine Worlds, and he had hung lifeless against the great trunk of Yggdrasil to gain knowledge of the future and learn the magic of the runes. But he was stunned by the seeress' revelation that Baldr would die by a brother's hand, shot through by an arrow of mistletoe.

He raced back to Asgard with the seeress' words storming through his troubled mind. When he rushed into his marriage chambers, still in his dusty travel clothes, Frigg leapt up from her chair and into his arms. Grateful to see her husband return safely, she buried her hands in his hair and covered his dirty face with kisses, but as Odin faithfully relayed the seeress' words, her tall, graceful body grew limp and her pink lips pursed until they were a thin, white line. Soon, her brown eyes seemed vacant, and she sat back down to absentmindedly groom her hair.

Odin wished he could change this future for his kind-hearted wife, who cared for Thor and Vidar as though they were her own sons, and who had taken Loki into her arms when he was just a squalling babe. How would she carry on knowing that her elder son would kill her younger? Odin would try to turn the course of time, but for now all he could do was stay by Frigg's side. She seemed so far away that he was not entirely sure what she had heard.

"Frigg, my willow?" he prodded gently.

Jarred from her dark reverie, Frigg took a deep breath and lowered her hands to her lap. "I don't believe that Hödr will kill Baldr. He is a gentle boy and blind, he couldn't possibly shoot anyone, except by accident, though he would never pick up a bow. He would need help, and who would help him kill Baldr? The only one who hates him is Loki."

Frigg burst into tears, and Odin's broad shoulders slumped to see his beloved wife so despondent. He rested a large, gnarled hand on her shoulder and knelt down before her. When she did not respond to his touch, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she folded easily into his embrace. She cried for some time, her tears washing the dust from his collar, and when she sat up again, her silky hair hung across her long face. Odin tucked his wife's honey-gold locks behind her ears as she looked up at him with swollen eyes.

"I still don't understand why you brought that Jötun child here."

Odin sighed. How could he explain his choice now, years later?

"Because I knew what he would one day become. I thought we could redirect him, stop him from becoming a threat to ourselves and our children."

Frigg's eyes widened with shock and betrayal. "Why did you not tell me then?"

Odin cupped his wife's tear-stained cheek in one hand and looked at her earnestly. "Would you have loved the boy so if you had known?"

Frigg tried to turn her face away in shame, but Odin would not let her.

"If anyone's love could turn Loki from wickedness, it would be yours, Great Mother. I see the way your eyes smile, even when he is troublesome, and he would trample any of his brothers to reach your arms first."

This made Frigg smile a little, and Odin felt his heart grow lighter. There were few things that could brighten Frigg's eyes more than the thought of her children. Her joy was a panacea for his pains.

"I know this news breaks your heart, but be calm now, my willow. What the seeress has spoken will happen, but we can give our children more time," Odin whispered.

"I will be calm when Baldr is safe," Frigg replied, staring blankly into a dark corner. "I will make sure that nothing in all the worlds will harm my son."

Relieved, Odin exhaled. Perhaps it would not matter what she had heard.