“So, his offer is he keeps her in jail or he frees her and you never see her again?” Thruor laughed. “He’s terrified of her.”
“He wants me to love him.” I sighed. “So I’ll be super sad when he does something stupid and kills himself.”
“Lost it,” the valkyrie said. “Okay. I haven’t found a way to protect her yet. Still working on it.”
“I suppose it’s hard to make wards powerful enough.”
“It is. If we do, we’ll have to put them in an object.”
“An object particularly good at taking enchantments. Like, say, a dwarven sword.”
“…I hadn’t thought of that.” She grinned at me. “You’re learning.”
“And I know a couple of dwarves who quite like Kanesha and might be willing to help.”
“You’re building a strong alliance there.”
I rolled my eyes. “No, I like them. The twins. They’re fun to hang out with. Just watch their choice of alcohol.”
Thruor laughed. “Potent, eh? That’s dwarves for you. They’ll drink anyone under the table. Even Odin doesn’t try to keep up with them.”
Which did make me feel better about the drunken singing. “But Surtur’s not afraid of Kanesha. He’s afraid of love.”
“Of course he is. He forgot how to feel it a long time ago, I think. Fortunately, that’s just him, not all fire giants.”
“Fortunately.”
“Unfortunately, the politics are such that…”
“That he’ll be replaced by something worse. But still. I wonder if his people know what he’s doing?”
“Likely not beyond those he got to do it.” Thruor frowned. “Bride stealing is a fire giant thing, but it’s…ceremonial. A fire giant woman won’t marry a man who can’t best her.”
“Shame he can best me. I can’t use that to get out of it.”
The frown became a little bit more level. “No, you probably can’t. But this isn’t bride stealing, this is blackmail.”
“And the kind of thing to piss off everyone.”
“Right. She belongs to you. He has no right to do this.”
“Except might. And Odin can’t help without triggering Ragnarok, can he.” I kept my tone even.
“No.”
“Then I have some dwarves to talk to.”