Thor Odinson wanted to be king, but he could not lift a hammer from the dirt. It sat in a New Mexico crater, and men in trucks watched him fail. He was Odin's son, a prince of Asgard, exiled to Earth and stripped of his power. Mjolnir would answer only the worthy. Every time his fingers closed on the handle, it stayed. So he knelt in the rain and told the sky he was sorry. The hammer moved. It hummed, then tore free and slammed into his palm. Lightning ran up his arm. His armor knitted back over his chest, and his strength returned like a held breath let go. Somewhere far above, a wound in the sky opened for him. Thor gripped Mjolnir and let it pull him home. Asgard was burning. Frost giants poured across the golden bridge, and Asgardian warriors met them steel to steel. Thor had left brothers here, and now they died in the smoke. He knew the war had a face. He found it on the palace steps. Loki stood over the throne with Amora beside him. His brother wore green and gold and a small, tired smile. "You came back," Loki said. "They exiled you, and still you crawl home to save them." "You started this war," Thor said. "You blamed me for it. Father sent me down to burn." "They already decided who I am," Loki said quietly. "I only gave them the villain they wanted." Amora raised one hand. Gold light spread from her fingers. "Kneel," she told Thor. Her voice curled into his skull, warm and certain. His knees bent. "Kneel, and it stops hurting." Thor drove Mjolnir into the marble. Thunder cracked the spell apart. He rose. "I bend for no witch." Amora's eyes went wide. She was used to being obeyed. She stepped back, still smiling, and pointed at Thor. "Take him," she said to Loki. They fought across the throne room. Loki's knives flashed; Thor's hammer answered. He hurled Mjolnir, and it pinned Loki to the wall. He wrapped his brother in Asgardian chains himself. He turned for Amora, but green fire folded around her and she was gone. Vanished. Free. Thor dragged Loki to the war and ended it. He stood on the bridge and called the storm down on the frost giants until they broke and fled north. Warriors he had grieved for cheered his name. The war was over. He had chosen his people over his own exile. Guards locked Loki in the deepest cell. Thor watched the door seal. Then the figure behind the glass rippled and thinned. It was smoke. An illusion. Loki had never been in the chains at all. Thor's hand tightened on Mjolnir. His brother walked free somewhere in Asgard, and the enchantress with him. The throne was empty, and the true traitor was still loose inside the walls he had just saved.