Loki instantly stepped closer to her, frowning intently down into the snow-covered leaves.
“What is?” he murmured.
Marina gingerly reached up and pulled the glove off her left hand. She didn’t know why—it just seemed correct to use that one, instead of her right hand…
Then, trying not to wince, she knelt down, stretched out her fingers and pushed them past the first layer of dusty ice.
Cold kissed her skin. Brittle leaves brushed the back of her hand and her palm. Thorns prodded her, running along her fingers as if tasting her—but they didn’t stab into her. Slowly, slowly, she kept going, pushing deeper and deeper, waiting for that bush to slash her open like it had before…
Then, she felt that pull again.
Deep inside her chest.
She had to scoot closer, so that her front touched the outer branches, and her arm delved in past her elbow. She sensed Loki standing uncomfortably beside her, still holding his breath, as if on the edge of flinching back…
Miraculously, the thorns didn’t bite her. Her fingers met the cold main stem of the vine, all knotted and bristled. She slid down, closing her eyes, searching…
There. A hollow spot in the heart of the rose. She pressed her fingers inside…
And met warmth.
Her eyes flew open.
She picked the unseen object up, and felt it. A small, sharply-diamond shaped piece as hard as steel, and warm as summertime.
She closed her fist around it, keeping it tight in the hollow of her hand, and gradually drew her arm back out, snow knocking loose and sparkling in the sunlight.
Then, she climbed to her feet, faced Loki…
And slowly opened her fingers.
There in the center of her palm lay a gorgeous emerald, more beautiful by far than any of the other stones. Deep within its facets gleamed blues, purples and turquoises that Marina had never imagined. It dazzled in the sunlight, sending splintered rainbows across her dark coat and Loki’s. She glanced up at him.
He stared down at that stone, a strange, quiet, almost frightened look on his face. His hair had caught silver, his eyes deep blue.
“I think it’s yours,” Marina murmured, and held it out to him.
Loki met her gaze. Stood motionless for a long while.
Then, hesitating, he held out his bare hand, palm up. Marina set the stone in it. Their fingers brushed.
Another deep, warm shiver raced through her.
“Well,” Loki said quietly, then cleared his throat. “Let’s have a look then, shall we?”
Together, but wordless, they ventured back inside the house. After knocking the snow off their boots and removing their coats, they entered the sitting room to find it empty, the blankets folded on the couch.
“He might be in the kitchen,” Marina ventured softly. “Should I call him?”
“Not yet,” Loki answered without looking at her—but moving to stand in front of the fire, his brow dark and pensive. He breathed onto the stone, then whispered,
“Syna,” and tossed it into the flames.
They blazed a terrible green, outlined with yellow, and leaped high up the chimney. In an eyeblink, figures appeared—two men on horseback, trotting through a wide open field.
Marina, helplessly drawn forward, knelt in front of the fireplace. She felt Loki do the same, not far from her.
The men—Thor, wearing loose-fitting clothes, a dagger at his belt and a bow and arrow slung over his back. Loki, clad similarly, with a sleeveless tunic; his hair wildly curly and red, his face beaming with smiles. He and Thor laughed together as their steeds kicked through the tall grass.
A whistle cut the day. The men pulled back and turned around to look.
“Ah, there he is,” Thor chuckled. “Took him long enough.”
Marina frowned, but the scene didn’t shift. She just watched, spellbound, as Loki and Thor observed someone else far away, with placid amusement on their faces—
That suddenly flared into terror.
“My God,” Loki cried, his voice breaking in two as his hair blanched to white and his eyes to grey.
“Bird!” Thor roared—
And together, Thor and Loki kicked their horses, who broke into a blinding gallop. The men bent over the necks of their steeds and raced back whence they had come, Loki pulling ahead almost instantly.
Then, in the background, the horrid, wrenching screams of an injured horse. Loki left Thor far behind, his steed sucking air like a jet engine—
And then Loki flung himself out of the saddle.
He twisted midair, landed on both feet and charged forward, then skidded and threw himself down beside…
A young man who lay face down in the grass. A young man in tanned leather, with a shock of golden hair. Loki took hold of his shoulders and turned him over so that the youth lay on his back, Loki’s whole appearance still white as a sheet,.
Bird.
Limp. Eyes closed. Blood trailing down his chin.
“Oh, God, oh, God,” Loki keened, his face twisting. Quickly, he pushed his forefinger hard against Bird’s breastbone, leaned down and pressed his lips to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Leita…leita…leita…” he gasped against Bird’s brow. “Finna… finna…finna…”
Just then, Thor thudded to his knees next to Loki, tears running down his cheeks and lighting his brilliant eyes.
“Is he dead?” he choked, pressing his fingers to Bird’s throat. “Loki, I cannot…There’s no—”
“Leita, leita, leita,” Loki whispered urgently. “Finna, finna, finna…”
“Loki—?” Thor begged. “Loki, he is not breathing…!”
Loki sat up, his hands shaking, and pressed them to either side of Bird’s head.
“Vanka,” he commanded. “Vanka. Vanka…vanka…”
He squeezed Bird’s head, then his neck, then pressed both hands hard down against his heart.
“Vanka!” he cried, and shoved down—
Bird jerked.
Gasped.
His eyes flew open, and he broke out in violent quivering.
“Ha!” Thor yelped, snatching Bird by the hair—
And Loki jerked Bird into a sitting position, pulled him into his chest and pressed the side of his face to his, tears trickling down. And as Loki fervently held him, his white hair rushed through with gold brighter than the sun. Thor flung his arms around both of them, and the three men sat, wordless, in the grassy field, gasping and weeping.
Marina drew a breath that tore through her—but she could scarcely recover before the scene dissolved, replaced by a vision of Bauldr standing alone on the road in the moonlight, facing Yggdrasil, on the very night Marina had seen him last.
Footsteps sounded on gravel, and Loki—dressed in his frivolous ribbons, his arms crossed, a smirk on his face—strode out to stand beside the slightly-shorter man.
“Thinking of breaking off your engagement?” Loki asked, facing the great tree as well and giving Bird a sideways look. Absently, Bird frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dunno,” Loki shrugged. “You’re just standing out here in the middle of the night, gazing wistfully at the place where your betrothed is slumbering tonight, just after giving gifts to and kissing a young Midgardian woman on the head.”
Bird didn’t answer—but a line appeared on his brow, and he glanced down.
“It’s a pity you didn’t try her mouth,” Loki remarked, lifting his chin. “You know, she tastes exactly like sweet cream, with a touch of honey and cinnamon.”
“I had hoped your intentions would be more honorable than that,” Bird said sharply, his voice low. “That’s why I didn’t knock you straight to the floor when I saw what you were doing.”
“Oh? And how do you know they weren’t?” Loki objected, facing him, his eyebrows going up. “How do you know I wasn’t trying to see what you saw, to get inside and find out what made her so broken and crooked to discover if I cou
ld fix it?”
Bird said nothing, folded his own arms, and didn’t look at him. The levity vanished from Loki’s face, and a hint of urgency entered his eyes.
“You cannot think that of me.”
Bird lowered his head slightly, his expression hardening.
“I do not doubt your devotion to me, my brother or my father, Loki,” he said. Finally, he turned his head, and met Loki’s eyes. “But after what I have seen tonight…Any woman would be a fool to trust your sincerity.”
Loki just stared at him. Bird held his gaze for just another moment, then stepped past him.
“Goodnight,” he said, and left Loki alone.
Loki stood just as he was, empty space before him. He did not sneer—his eyelashes flickered, and he stood off balance, as if absorbing a sting.
Marina’s whole head felt hot, her heartbeat staggering and potent. She wrapped her arms tight around herself and didn’t dare glance to her right to see Loki’s expression.
The image of Loki in the fire soon dissipated, and a very different sight emerged.
Bird lay on his back on an unkempt bed, bathed in a bright moonbeam that spilled in from a skylight. White sheets had been thrown back, and halfway dragged on the floor. One of his legs was bent, one arm lay sprawled, as if he had been hurriedly flung down by someone who had carried him there. Blank eyes stared at the ceiling. Skin white as alabaster, covered in a sheen of sweat. His golden hair spread across the crooked pillow. And the shaft of a black arrow protruded from the center of his chest. Blood as red as the dawn soaked the whole of the front of his white shirt.
He was not breathing.
Marina pressed both hands over her mouth. But she couldn’t look away.
Movement in the corner of the dark room where Bird lay. The opening of a door. Someone slipped inside.
And then, Loki stepped into the moonlight.
He wore black. His hair, a deep chestnut. And she saw a shimmer of sapphire in his eyes for a moment as he entered, and caught sight of the graceful body.
His left hand came up in reflex. He lost his balance, and swayed.
“Oh!” he moaned shakily, his brow knotting. Then, he slowly sank toward Bird…
Fell to his knees, and began to sob.
He grabbed fistfuls of the bedsheets, his knuckles turning white. He lifted his face, tears streaming down, and his hands reached out and floundered toward the arrow.
“No, no, no…” he whimpered, pressing down hard against the bloody wound, uselessly grasping the shaft in different places—as if longing to pull it loose. His palms stained scarlet. His breathing came in quick gasps as he searched Bird’s face—he let go of the arrow and pressed his fingers to Bird’s throat, smearing his white skin with red.
“Not you,” Loki sobbed in a whisper. His face suddenly twisted with violent anger as tears rolled down his cheeks. He wrapped his hand around behind Bird’s neck and shook him, as if fighting to draw that blank gaze to his own. “You little idiot, what were you…What were you doing?” Loki gasped, and his features broke with pleading. “What were you doing?” he wept. “Not you…Not…” He shook his head, more tears welling up and streaming down as he let go and stroked Bird’s hair away from his face.
Then, as if a tidal wave built inside him, Loki curled his fingers desperately through the front of Bird’s shirt, bent and let out a wretched howl into Bird’s chest. His whole body shuddered, his muscles binding tight as iron. And Bird lay dead, staring sightlessly at the moon, while Loki screamed into his silent heart.
More movement at the back of the room.
Guards, gleaming in armor, burst in.
“So you’ve come back to lay a curse on his soul now, have you?” one of them bellowed—
And grabbed Loki by the hair, flung him around, and struck him in the face with his gloved hand.
Loki’s head whiplashed back. He collapsed against the side of the bed. He choked, letting out a stunned, watery cry. He fell to the floor, trying to brace himself up on his elbows…
The guard kicked him in the side.
He yelped and curled up…
And then the other two guards commenced lashing him in the head, shoulders and back with their fists, cursing him and spitting on him. Then, they hauled him to his feet.
Blood ran down his mouth, nose, chin and cheekbone. He sagged against them as they bound his hands behind his back. Then, they grabbed him by the arms and the hair and roughly threw him out of the room.
Bird lay in the ensuing quiet, Loki’s bloody fingerprints marring his neck and face, the moonlight gleaming against the feathers of the arrow.
And then he faded away.
The green light vanished. The golden flames died down. The emerald stone rolled out of the embers and onto the rug.
Teardrops burned Marina’s skin, and dripped from her chin. Her whole chest heavy as lead, she turned just slightly, terrified of what she would see…
Loki sat on the floor with his back against the heavy armchair, one foot tucked under the opposite knee. His hands lay limp in his lap.
And he looked at her. Hair like midnight, eyes like a winter sky.
Eyebrows drawn together.
Tears running freely down his face.
She didn’t say anything.
Deathly quiet reigned.
Then, Loki’s lips parted, and he pulled in a low, shallow breath.
“It was an accident.”
Marina didn’t move. Just waited.
He blinked and more tears ran down.
“I had learned from a fairy in the woods that my sister…my sister was planning to kill Thor. That she had made…amorous advances and Thor had rejected her,” Loki said softly. He drew another careful breath. “As fairies can be fickle, and sometimes wrong, I went to Hel and warned her that if such a plot had entered her head, she would not only have to contend with Odin himself, but with me.” Loki swallowed, and his gaze drifted off. “She denied everything. But she accused me of favoring the Aesir over my own kindred, and told me to leave with her and Fenris, rather than stay in Asgard even one day more. I refused.” Loki’s fingers closed. “She assured me that, in the end, I would choose to return to my…rightful family.”
His attention lingered on the emerald, though his sparkling gaze grew distant.
“I couldn’t substantiate the threat, so I said nothing to anyone. Instead, I placed trigger spells around Thor’s chambers that would alert me if anyone but an Aesir tried to pass through. One night, one of the spells woke me. Like a fly at the edge of a spider web. I got up, and I brought my bow and arrows with me. My arrows have mistletoe hearts—mistletoe breaks all spells. I knew that, if it was my sister, the protective spell she always cast around herself would shatter when the arrow hit it—and so would the arrow. So I…I made my way through the halls and I stopped in one corridor. And there at the far end of it, just outside Thor’s doorway, holding a long knife, was a myrkalfr. A dark elf.”
Marina blinked, listening so hard she couldn’t breathe.
Loki bit the inside of his cheek, and said nothing for a long time. Finally, though, he went on, studying his own hands.
“I surmised that my sister had bought an assassin from Svartalfheim. And that an elf would be powerful in both strength and magic. Thor, if he were surprised, might not be able to contend with him. And so, I sighted down my arrow and…”
His throat closed. His eyebrows twitched together, more tears tumbled…
And he wrapped his arms around himself.
“It was him,” he gasped, looking up at Marina helplessly. “As soon as my arrow came loose of my string, some kind of spell broke and it wasn’t an elf. It was him.” He shook his head, and teardrops fell from his jaw and tumbled onto his jacket collar. “Hel must have lured Bird out of his rooms and triggered my guarding spell herself, since she’s not an Aesir, and then when Bird passed her she put an illusion around him to…” Loki stopped, covered his face with his hand and bent forward, pulling his arms in ti
ght.
Marina’s whole heart ached. She couldn’t move, and she couldn’t look away.
“It was Bird she hated, not Thor,” Loki whispered, lowering his hand to cover his mouth, staring at the floor—at nothing. “And she wanted me to hit him. To prove her point.” He dropped his hand and closed his eyes. “To show how stupid I was to try to make my home in Asgard. To hope…for once…to find some…little bit of happiness.”
Marina blinked, feeling more tears slide down well-worn tracks. She couldn’t say anything.
Then, Loki twitched, sucked in a panicked breath and looked up to the back of the room—
Thor stood there in the doorway, arms over his chest. Expression filled with dull pain, eyes bright with tears.
“Did you…” Loki rasped. “Did you see—?”
Thor’s face twisted, and he nodded hard.
Loki’s frame broke. He turned, and crawled toward Thor, his head hanging low, then knelt in the center of the rug—weeping uncontrollably.
Thor took three strides toward him, bent and grabbed him roughly by the upper arms, and hauled him to his feet. Before Loki could catch his balance, Thor had flung his arms around him and folded him into his chest, burying his face in Loki’s collar.
Loki immediately encircled Thor’s waist with his arms, taking hold of his shirt, incoherent with sobs.
“I’m…I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Loki stammered between harsh gasps. “I’m so sorry—”
“No, I am sorry,” Thor protested, backing up and taking Loki’s head in his hands. “Forgive me for my lack of faith in you, and for leaving you to such a fate.” Thor leveled a fierce, tearful gaze at him. “I beg that you might someday call me a friend again.”
Loki reached up and grasped Thor’s hair and pulled him close, and the two men stood, foreheads pressed together, tears staining their clothes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Purple light faded in the western sky. Marina buttoned the top button of her coat and let her breath out slowly—it puffed around her head. She stood calf-deep in snow once more, in front of her house, facing the darkening woods.
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