by Loki Renard
“Give me my sister back.”
“I can’t. Or rather, I won’t.”
“Why? Because she’s just so pretty and amazing and you can’t live without her?”
“Because Helios owes me a debt, and has never made any attempt to pay me. Without me, there is a very real chance you, your mother, and your sister might never have survived the birthing process.”
“What, you delivered us?”
“No. I allowed your father to take the doctor who delivered you from my island.”
I stand and stare at his arrogance. “So you did something any decent person would have done, and you think you’re owed an entire human for it? You’re an asshole. Give me my sister back, you snake.”
“You speak like a human, but you are part god. Do you know anything of the majesty of your powers?” Tanuk changes the subject. He is trying to distract me from Lucy, and whatever nefarious things he is no doubt doing to her.
“Don’t worry about the majesty of my powers. Give me my sister back.”
He shrugs. “She is at my home. Come and get her.”
This feels like a trap. But it also feels like the first interesting thing which has happened to me in quite some time. It feels as though I am being taken seriously. It feels as though I matter — and that is an intoxicating feeling like no other.
“Fine, I will then,” I say, thinking I should have come up with something more impressive to say, but those words will do.
Tanuk turns and walks away from me, leaving me to follow. His island feels very different from the one I grew up on. The trees are different. They’re shorter than the ones on the island where the golden palace lives. Not a single one of them is more than a foot or so taller than my head. The grass is different. Lusher. Greener. Almost cartoonish. A bug sits on a stump, cleaning its wings. When we get close, it flies away with what I could swear is a little cackle of amusement.
“You’re very quiet, daughter of Ragnar.”
“I’m Helios’ daughter too.”
“I don’t think there is much of the sun in you,” he says softly, stopping and turning to me. He extends a hand and runs the back of his fingers over my cheek. “No. You are pure night. Daughter of the raven king.”
“I’ve never heard Ragnar called that,” I say, trying not to blush too much. This Tanuk, he sets me on edge, he leaves me not knowing what way is up and what way is down.
“I’m sure you’ve never heard Ragnar called many things. He’s not just a guardian of a tree, even a very special tree. You should talk to him sometime. If you see him again.”
Well, that is rather ominous, but I’m not afraid. I have the button in my pocket, a means of calling Helios to my side at any time. He can appear anywhere in an instant, and he will destroy Tanuk if there is so much as a scratch on either one of us.
A duck waddles by the pair of us. It is rather large, and it appears to be wearing a waistcoat.
“’Ello guvna. Nice night for it, ain’t it,” it says as we pass by.
“Is that a talking duck? Do you live with talking animals?”
“Humans are talking animals.”
I suppose I can’t argue with that. He’s right. I am only half human, but half human goes a very long way to ruining all things godly as it turns out.
I don’t have any powers. I can’t command the winds or the tides. I can’t make the ocean boil, something I have heard our parents make reference to with hushed smiles from time to time. I have been waiting for a long time to receive some kind of god-manifested greatness. But it has not come. My mother tells me to wait. Ragnar tells me the precise opposite, that if I was not born with it, I’ll probably never have it. Helios offers me shrimp whenever I mention it. I like Helios. He’s not the most engaged father, but my mother explained to me when I was old enough to understand that gods kind of suck from a human perspective and I’ve learned to accept him as he is, for what he is.
“Here we are,” Tanuk says, stopping outside what I suppose is a house. “Lucy is inside.”
“This is your home?”
“The world is my home. This little hovel is where I am currently keeping what you might call, my things. Your sister is among that number.”
I shoot him a dark look. I wish I had some powers. Even just a little power would be useful right now. I’d like to smite Tanuk. Smite him real good. Smite him all over this weird little island.
I don’t know where I expected him to live. A castle, perhaps. Some kind of palace of lies. Not this storybook cottage. It has several stories and criss-crossed wood beams running over the walls, half-timbered so the structure itself is exposed to the strange world.
I know the moment I see it that Lucy won't like it. She was always asking Helios to make the palace more grand. He was always saying that she’d have the entire island covered in turrets and the like if she had her way. And then he would give her her way anyway. Because she was his princess, and he would do anything for her.
“This place reminds me of the stories my mother used to tell me when we were small. If that house doesn’t contain a cage to fatten unfortunates…”
“I keep my cage elsewhere,” Tanuk smiles. “But you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
There’s something suggestive to his tone. Suggestive of what, precisely, I am not sure. I find myself blushing for unknown reasons. I would not like to be put in a cage, obviously. Why does it sound as though it has some kind of carnal connotation?
“I don’t think so."
“Oh, I’m nearly certain you would. Bad girls like to be treated like very bad girls.”
“I’m not a bad girl.”
“Of course you are. You’re the black sheep of your little family. Lucy, she takes all the attention you should rightfully share, and why?”
“Because she’s beautiful.”
“She is, isn’t she. In an obvious sort of way.”
“Beauty is always obvious. That’s kind of how you define it. You look at it with your eyes and you're like, is it beautiful? If you say yes, it is.”
“Some beauties are hidden," he says.
“Are you trying to seduce both of us in a single night? Because that is not going to happen. I am not attracted to you. You’re a liar, a cheater, probably a thief. You lured my sister away to get back at our father. I’m taking her back.”
“Who said I lured her? Or seduced her? You are making a lot of assumptions, Raine.”
“Let me see Lucy. Bring her out.”
“She’s occupied herself quite happily. I don't think she wants to come out. Perhaps you'd like to come in.”
“I’m not that stupid. I don’t know what that house is.”
“You’re worried for your safety?”
“Yes.”
“Your golden father does not seem to be worried about it,” Tanuk notes mildly. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be worried either.”
“He just doesn’t want my mother finding out what happened between you two. Or Ragnar. Do you know what Ragnar would do to you if he knew about this?”
Tanuk’s smile broadens. He seems to be genuinely enjoying himself. I am afraid that I might be enjoying myself too. My whole life, I have been denied this kind of battle of wits. Helios is above such things, Ragnar prefers to grunt and cleave something, Lucy is always trying to be pretty and thinks that arguing makes her less so. My mother is the closest to me. She left Earth in an impossibly brave escape, all on her own, hoping for redemption and a better life. She found it. She fought for it. And as a result, Lucy and I have life.
Tanuk thinks I take after my father, but it is my mother’s rebellious blood which runs through my veins. He discounts her because she is human, and he discounts me because he thinks I am the outcast of the family, vulnerable to a compliment. He thinks that I will swoon if he gives me any attention at all. He’s right. But, he’s also wrong. I can swoon on the inside and keep my hard exterior on the outside. I wouldn't be Ragnar’s daughter if I couldn’t.
“Bring Lucy o
ut to me. I am taking her home.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, no,” he says, lifting a brow with that irritating smirk he has. “You see, Raine, what you’re trying to do right now is bargain from a position of weakness. You think you don’t have anything I want, so you’re trying to threaten me. But I am not afraid of your Ragnar. And I am certainly not afraid of a derivative sun god who favors low cut tops.”
He is making a mockery of my family. That makes me angry.
“Helios is king of Okeanus.”
“Helios is barely king of his own toes,” Tanuk scoffs with utter disdain.
“Let’s see what happens when I call him then, shall we? I can do that, you know. I can make him appear here in an instant, and then we will see who is weak. I bet he brings Ragnar with him. By the time the two of them are done with you, there will be nothing left.”
I reach into my pocket for the little summoning stone, my fingers searching soft cloth for the hard stone which will wipe the smirk off Tanuk’s handsome face.
“What the…” I can’t find it. I pull the lining from my pocket, turning it inside out and still there is nothing there. It’s gone.
“Are you looking for this?” Tanuk’s eyes dance as he holds the button up. My means of reaching help is now in his hands.
“Give that back!”
“Again, you demonstrate a remarkable inability to grasp the core tenants of negotiations,” Tanuk smiles. “You can’t simply make demands, Raine. You have to have something to back up your threats.”
“I may not have anything now, but I promise you that when I do, you will regret this. You will spend the rest of eternity regretting what you did to my sister and our family.”
“Brave words for a lonely little princess with no backup,” he says, his tone patronizing and more than a little mocking. He makes me feel small and helpless without even laying a finger on me. It is a terrible talent to be in the presence of.
“I’m not as helpless as you think.”
“If bravado had any value, you’d be well ahead of this little game of ours. But it doesn’t, and you're not.” He inclines his head toward the house. “Shall we go inside?”
I know this is a mistake. This is the spider welcoming the fly. I am going to be devoured and there is nothing I can do. I think about fleeing back to the boat. It could be the smartest option now. If I return to Helios and let him know what is happening… no. I can’t do that. Tanuk will move Lucy if I leave, I am sure of it. There will be no way of finding either of them, perhaps forever. I have to stay here and somehow get my fingers on that button.
“Fine.”
He makes a gentlemanly gesture toward the front door, stepping aside so I can walk past him without touching him. I know that I am fortunate. I have heard many tales of the things the old gods used to do. They were rarely kind to each other, and almost never kind to humans. The last of the gods were considered protectors, but the old gods were jealous, powerful forces best to be appeased. I think Tanuk is that kind of god. He has held a grudge for eighteen years for the pettiest of reasons. Nothing could be more old-godlike than that.
The front door opens for me before I reach it, swinging open with the sound of unoiled hinges. Every door at the golden palace is more or less an immediate portal. You walk through walls and they get out of your way, most of the time. I’m not used to actual doors.
The interior of the house feels small and limited. It is made of raw materials, stone and wood and maybe even mud. The floor is made of flagstones. The walls are exposed wood daubed in between with mud and straw.
I sense that it does not grow to fit the inhabitants the way the palace does. It has no existence of its own. There is no mind here. None but the devilish intelligence of the god who just stepped in behind me.
“This is so…”
“Charming?”
“Primitive,” I finish my sentence.
He steps around me, and suddenly he is clad in the robes of a monk. They look rough, like hemp. I would not know what so many of these fabrics were if not for Lucy’s obsession with all things fashionable.
“I am a simple god,” Tanuk says.
It's a lie. Everything he says is a lie. Even this simple room with its rustic furniture, fireplace, kitchen with old knives hung upon the wall, and a loaf of bread cooling in the window, it’s all a lie.
“Where is Lucy?
“I’m sure she will join us when she is ready.”
“Bring me Lucy. Now.”
He reaches out and taps me on the nose, his dark eyes sparkling. “You are a slow study,” he says. “Remember, Raine, you need leverage.”
He is maddening.
I don't need leverage. What I need is a distraction. I look around the room for some way to create one — and then I see it. There is a bag of flour on the kitchen counter. I know some things about flour. It can be used to make bread, or cookies, or, if you hurl it directly into an open flame...
FWOMP!
A ball of fire flashes through the house. I dive for Tanuk, hoping to grab the stone from him in the chaos, but instead of grabbing something, I am the one who is grabbed. He holds me by my wrist as the fire clears and pulls me hard up against his body.
He is taller than he seems. Stronger than he seems. He looks down his nose at me with those curious dark eyes and I feel as though I am being assessed to the very core of me.
"Naughty," he murmurs. “Very naughty."
Fuck. I have lost the element of surprise, if I ever had it.
Tanuk
That was a bold move. A primitive, primal move, and one which took quick thinking, bravery, and intelligence to pull off. I am forced to hide my surprise and indeed, admiration. It did not work, of course, but I am impressed at Raine having made the attempt. This is no spoiled princess. This is a smart demigoddess who may one day prove to be a match for me.
Even thinking that thought seems ridiculous on some level. I have been alone a long time. Women like tricksters to begin with, but when the time comes to settle down — and the time always comes, no matter how wild they might be when I meet them, they always go for the solid gods, the ones with predictable reputations. I have loved many, and lost them all. The last thing I expected to do today was to fall into that unique madness called love once more.
This was supposed to be about revenge. From the beginning that was all I had in mind. Then I saw Raine. The quiet beauty who moved among the crowd like a shadow. They barely noticed her, and even when they looked directly at her, they could not see what I could see. The blonde shines brightly, but Raine is the real jewel.
She’s very pretty. Big dark eyes, pouting lips, a full figure which promises all sorts of virginal delights. She’s so much more enticing to me than her sister is.
But I took the blonde for a reason. One, I like to make trouble, and I knew taking Lucy would cause trouble for Helios, who has been trying to keep his debt to me a secret. He’s succeeded for eighteen years. I do not think he will succeed very much longer. I think it will all come out in a great familial explosion for which I very much wish to be present.
Raine is young. Very young. Maybe too young to hold my interest. The turning point of a young woman is her innocence. Raine doesn’t think she has any, but to my eyes she is absolutely wrapped in it. What could she know about the world? She has been kept in a palace of whims, on a protected island where nobody is allowed to set foot except on very rare invitation.
I see curiosity in her eyes. She wants to know what I have in mind for her. She’d blush to the roots of her luscious dark hair if she had a notion of even a fraction of the things I’d like to do to her.
But carnal distractions are just that: distractions. And I can’t afford to be distracted. I have bigger plans. Helios wants to hide on this planet Okeanus and lord his limited power over the small gods who hide with him. I have allowed him that luxury because the time was not right. But the time is coming. I can feel it a
pproaching. It is heralded with the flowering beauty of these princesses.
Raine has no idea she is worth more than her golden-child sister. She thinks she is disposable because that is how she’s been treated. She was sent here because Helios wanted his daughter back and was willing to sacrifice Ragnar’s flesh and blood.
I feel sorry for her. Pity does not come naturally to me, but Raine invites it without even knowing it. Maybe that is why I feel the emotion. She tries to be strong, because she thinks there is nobody else to be strong for her.
Raine
His gaze makes me uncomfortable. He seems to see everything I’m trying to hide, though I know that impression, like everything else about him, is probably some kind of trick.
“Quit staring at me like that.”
He releases me with a laugh. “You talk like a human. Must be your mother’s influence.”
“I am half-human. It’s probably the better half of me.”
“Oh?”
I don’t feel the need to elaborate. That’s already more than I wanted to reveal to him. I don’t need Tanuk knowing that I don’t feel comfortable around gods, can barely identify with them, have no powers whatsoever…
“Oh my gods, Raine. It’s you!” Lucy comes running down the stairs as if nothing is happening, a broad smile plastered all over her face. “Isn’t this just the best birthday ever?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. She’s okay. He hasn’t hurt her. I didn’t truly think he had, but Lucy has been with me since conception. We may be very different people, we may bicker and argue almost constantly, but we are sisters and there is a connection between us which matters.
“It’s an interesting birthday,” I say. “We should get going, Lucy. Helios is worried about you. And Mom is freaking out. You left without telling anybody.”
“Oh my gods, relax,” she laughs. “It’s our birthday. We’re adults now. We don’t have to tell them every time we go somewhere. Tanuk said he’d show me his island, and it’s amazing. Did you know you could get a talking pet here?”
That’s what he thinks of us, I am fairly certain. We are talking pets to Tanuk. Our humanity makes us an amusement, pawns in his little game. But I can’t tell Lucy that. Her ego won’t allow it. She thinks she is the most important, glorious, beautiful thing in the universe.