Around them, the guards stood frozen. No one dared to speak. Not even Thor.
The thunder still echoed in Thor's ears, but it could no longer mask the sound of his own heartbeat, pounding, wild, desperate.
His mother's body was limp in his arms, her golden robes soaked with blood, the hilt of Malekith's dagger still embedded in her chest.
NO
"Father!" Thor gasped, struggling to his feet, clutching the lifeless form in his arms.
"The Queen, she can still be saved! We need Soren! Soren, now!"
Frigga's body, once warm and fierce with life, now lay limp in his grasp, cold and still.
Panic and grief warred in Thor's voice as he charged through the palace corridors.
Odin's expression shifted instantly, the weight of Thor's words striking him like a blow. Soren the Healer.
A man with gifts beyond Asgard.
"Guards!" Odin bellowed, his voice shaking the hall.
"What are you standing there for? Open the portal, immediately!"
The warriors jolted from their stupor, scrambling to obey. Their boots thundered down the marble floors as they followed Thor to the chamber housing the portal.
With a swirl of energy and a pulse of light, the portal roared to life.
Thor didn't wait.
Cradling his mother in his arms, eyes burning with desperation, he stepped into the portal and vanished, racing against time, toward the only man who might yet defy death.
Everlife Medical Center
In a quiet corner of the multiverse, where time flowed gently and pain slowed, the Everlife Medical Center stood.
Inside, Soren was tending to a minor injury, a cracked rib and some torn flesh.
His hands glowed with muted light, his eyes deep pools of experience and serenity.
And then~
a rift tore through the room… once again.
The portal erupted in radiant fire. Wind and static roared as Thor emerged, sweat and blood clinging to him, his arms burdened by the broken form of Frigga.
"Soren!" he cried out. "Please, help!"
Soren looked up, and time seemed to pause.
The Queen of Asgard, pierced, still, her divine aura flickering like a candle in a storm. Her once-proud form was now pale and limp.
Soren's face tightened.
"Treatment ends here." He said calmly to the startled patient on the table, snapping his fingers.
In an instant, the man was teleported outside the building. The heavy doors slammed shut behind him.
Soren flew across the room, his robe trailing behind like ink in water. He reached out and passed a hand over Frigga's body.
He pressed a hand against the dagger's hilt, and it melted into nothing, unraveled atom by atom by his will. A second hand hovered above the wound, which pulsed with darkness and cold.
Thor could hardly breathe.
"She fought to the end." He said, teeth clenched.
"Malekith came for the Aether. He took her from me… from us…" His voice broke.
"I need space. Now." Soren said sharply, already moving, hands glowing with threads of golden energy.
Thor knelt, gently laying Frigga on the sanctum's ceremonial table. For the first time in ages, his eyes shimmered, not with might, but with helpless fear.
"She's dying." Thor whispered, voice cracking. "Malekith… he stabbed her. I couldn't stop it."
Soren placed a firm hand on Thor's shoulder, gaze unwavering.
"Don't worry." He said with quiet confidence. "I will save her."
There was only certainty in his voice.
To others, it might have sounded like arrogance. But Thor had seen what Soren was capable of. He had bent space, tracked down Jane through dimensional folds.
If anyone could challenge death itself, it was Soren.
Still, the injury was grave. Deep. The kind that even Asgard's most advanced healers wouldn't dare to treat. A wound laced with cursed energy meant to kill not just the body, but the soul.
Soren hovered his hands above Frigga's wound, eyes glowing silver as his abilities surged. The golden strands of healing energy intensified, weaving together like living threads, seeking broken tissues and frayed lifelines.
But the damage was catastrophic.
Her vitality was leaking like water through cracked stone.
Thor clenched his fists, watching Soren work, his jaw tightening.
The sadness in his eyes dulled, only to be replaced by something hotter, darker.
Rage.
It brewed like a storm, burning behind his ribs.
"Malekith."
"He did this!"
His fingers wrapped around the hilt of Mjölnir, the knuckles white.
"I will tear his shadow from every corner of the Nine Realms. For every drop of her blood, I will return fire and thunder."
Soren didn't look up. His voice was steady, focused, layered with quiet command.
"Then hold your fury until she breathes again."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream