Fragments of your Soul (The Mirror Worlds Book 1)

by Erbsland, E. S.

  “No,” Loke said quietly. “I belong to Asgard. They trust me. They don’t know who you are.” He threw a quick glance at the approaching soldiers, and then looked back at Arvid. “They will ask, though. For today you are my wife Irpa.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead.

  Only on the way back did Arvid realize the extent of the destruction. The gap at the northern gate was at least thirty meters wide. Several houses right behind it were severely damaged, and everywhere were black corpses. Healers and helpers from the city quickly formed small groups around the many dead and injured people.

  Nod supported Arvid, whose legs were still too weak to climb over the ruins of the palisades on her own. The commander, a man named Gerik Leif, dragged himself along next to Loke and spoke constantly. Loke gave only brief answers. Arvid could tell that Gerik got on his nerves, but for some reason he held back.

  From their conversation Arvid learned that also at the southern end of the city demons had invaded, and a large part of the palisade was destroyed. There they had counted four Rocks. Loke had killed three of them, and the last one had fled. Since many of the Rokers could get into the city, many injured were to be expected. All healers living in the city had been mustered by the leading riders, but Gerik insisted that Arvid’s wounds were treated in his own house, a large and, for Erendal, unusual building of yellow stone and black wood.

  Arvid was received by two staff and led inside. The house had a bathing cellar with a number of pools, which were fed by a thermal spring. The two women helped Arvid to undress and assisted her as she slowly stepped into the water.

  At first the many injuries on Arvid’s skin burned like fire. After a while the pain subsided, however, and she felt how she slowly began to relax. After all this time it was a truly wonderful feeling to be able to take a bath in water that didn’t feel like freshly melted ice. After the excitement, the efforts of the past hours and the shock of the violent end of the battle, the peaceful tranquility of the bath was like balm for her soul.

  After some time Arvid heard footsteps. When she turned to the door, she saw Loke, closely followed by another staff who seemed very upset.

  “Forgive me, my lady,” she said. “Your husband wanted to speak with you. He didn’t want to wait.”

  “I couldn’t bear the bad company any longer,” Loke said dryly.

  Arvid sighed inwardly. Obviously, he was quite himself again: tactless and rude enough to unannouncedly walk into a bath.

  “Have you come to keep me company?” said Arvid and made a head movement toward the hot, steaming water.

  “No,” Loke replied with a disgusted expression. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

  “Then you will have to wait until I’m done here. Don’t you know that women want to be among themselves in the bath?”

  Loke shrugged. “If you insist.” His body changed in a flowing, barely visible movement and became female. The woman went to a wooden bench and sat down. She had the same dark hair and was just as nice to look at as Loke’s male figure before.

  “I’m waiting,” the woman said, leaning comfortably against the wall and crossing her legs.

  The two staff members were obviously insecure at her presence, and Arvid’s anger grew. She wasn’t sure if Loke simply didn’t care about privacy and a suitable place and time for a conversation, or if he took pleasure in embarrassing her. Maybe it was both, but whatever it was, it aroused Arvid’s spite.

  “All right.” She pushed herself up from the edge of the pool, rising from the warm water. “Please bring me a towel.”

  “Certainly, my lady.” One of the young staff rushed to help Arvid with drying.

  Loke chuckled softly. “You don’t need to say please to the servants,” he said, amused.

  “I’m doing it anyway!” snapped Arvid.

  The two women dried Arvid and helped her out of the water. Then they combed her hair and treated her wounds with a strange-smelling ointment before they bandaged them carefully.

  The whole time Loke was watching her attentively. Although Arvid had resolved not to allow it, her heart began to pound faster. The fact that Loke was a woman at the moment made him no less attractive.

  Arvid received fresh linen, a simple gown of soft, red fabric and shoes of lambskin. When she was dressed, dry and clean, a boundless fatigue overcame her. There was hardly a place on her body that didn’t hurt.

  “Leave us alone now,” demanded Loke. He rose from his seat and made a wagging gesture toward the two women.

  The two bowed almost synchronously and quickly left the bathing cellar.

  “So what do you want?” Arvid asked testily, when they were alone.

  “Why so angry?” Loke waved Arvid to the back of the room, where a small niche with a wooden bench was located. From a gaping hole in the floor, a loud, rushing noise could be heard. The steam rising from it revealed that this was the place where the underground river that fed the pools ran.

  “Couldn’t you just wait until I get back upstairs?” said Arvid. With a sigh she sank down on the bench. The few steps had shown her how exhausted she still was.

  “Here’s a good place to talk,” Loke said. “No one can overhear us. Besides,” he looked Arvid up and down, “I didn’t want to miss the sight.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “I know. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.” He sat down beside her. “Turn around,” he demanded. “It’s not appropriate for a goddess to show herself with unbraided hair.”

  Reluctantly Arvid did as requested. “I don’t suppose you wanted to talk about my hair either,” she said, while Loke began to divide it into thin strands with nimble fingers.

  “Not exclusively. But you can’t wear your hair down anymore. In a few days we will have to be much more cautious—which leads us to the actual topic. Your reckless actions will have consequences. So far, the other gods don’t know that you’re with me and where we are, but that will change soon.”

  “They don’t know who I am.”

  “They think you’re Irpa,” Loke corrected her. “Asgard will find out what has happened. Not even I can prevent that; I have no time for such a detour. The people here are often not informed about everything, but Asgard knows that I didn’t marry again, and Irpa’s currently staying in the Temple City.”

  “There really is a goddess with that name?” Arvid asked. “I thought you had picked a random name.”

  “That would have been too obvious. Still… as soon as the news reaches Asgard, Odin will draw the right conclusions.”

  “But you’re one of them. Why should they believe you would help me, a wanted criminal?”

  “Because I’m me. Do you really think I saw you and became a traitor overnight? I’ve always been, at least occasionally. Everyone in Asgard knows that.”

  “Traitor,” muttered Arvid. “Is that why they call you god of lies?”

  “I gave myself that name.”

  “You yourself? Why would you do that?”

  “No one takes my words at face value,” Loke said. “I could tell the truth, but then, maybe not. It might be a riddle or a metaphor. Maybe it’s irony. It’s possible that what I say contains a grain of truth, but perhaps the opposite is the case.”

  “So you don’t lie?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But that’s what you meant.”

  “Who knows?”

  For a while they were silent while Loke braided Arvid’s hair into long plaits and began to gather them at the back of her head. Arvid enjoyed the feeling of his hands in her hair, probably the most intimate kind of physical contact that would ever exist between them. The thought sparked an oppressive heaviness inside her.

  “If you’re really a traitor,” she said after a while, “I don’t understand
why Asgard still tolerates you and accepts you as one of their own.”

  “Traitor is probably the wrong word,” Loke said. “I’m just doing things the way it suits me, not the way the Council would like. I am convinced of your innocence, so I’ll help you. Odin’s friendship protects me. And he’s no king with an incontrovertible command. I bend the rules, I don’t break them. All my life I have explored the limits of what Asgard is willing to tolerate. I am not prepared to exceed this limit.”

  “And what do you think they’ll do now?” said Arvid.

  “That’s up to Odin,” Loke replied, then his hands put gentle pressure on Arvid’s shoulders. “Turn around.”

  Arvid did. Loke pulled back slightly and looked at her from all sides. “Anyway, he will try to find us,” he said. “If we’re lucky, he will hesitate for a few days, but we shouldn’t count on that. Maybe he will send out gods after us as soon as the message reaches him.” He tugged a few strands of hair on Arvid’s head into place. “If they’re quick, there’s a risk that they’ll reach Karst about the same time as us.” He looked at Arvid’s hair. This time he seemed satisfied. “Either way, we must be very careful. You have to learn to keep your impulses and your power under control. When we have left Erendal behind us, no one must notice you’re a goddess.”

  “Why should anyone think I’m a goddess?” said Arvid. “I’m not.”

  “Of course you are. Do you think I would be sitting here if you were not? Do you think you would still be sitting here?”

  Arvid’s confusion grew. “I… don’t understand,” she said haltingly. At the same time her thoughts started to race. Asgard thought her to be a woman, who had been described as a person with the powers of a god. Gerik Leif had called her a goddess. Gerdur had once told her that Loke had no respect for ordinary people.

  “Are you serious?” she whispered in disbelief. “Am I… a goddess?”

  “Yes, and obviously one that’s not only reckless, but also slow on the uptake,” Loke said, shaking his head. “Just the fact that you have three above-average, distinctive magical gifts should have made it clear to you long ago.”

  “But… how can that be?” said Arvid, distraught. “I am not from this world!”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Loke said impatiently. “When you came into this world, you were given the predisposition to grow up to be a goddess. Act like one—at least as long as we are here. And by that, I don’t mean recklessly attacking a horde of demons like a fury. I’ve rarely seen anything more stupid and empty-headed.”

  For a moment, Arvid was frozen. “Maybe you should simply have waited for us,” she then said sharply.

  Loke’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you should learn to follow my instructions.”

  “I’m not taking orders from you!” Arvid said angrily.

  “No, you make a sport out of always doing the exact opposite!”

  “I don’t! You just disappeared without telling us where. The City Guard couldn’t defend themselves against the demons. How was I to know that you’d help them?”

  Loke laughed out loud. “You honestly think I’d just let the demons destroy one of my favorite cities, right under my nose? Not even you can be that stupid!”

  For a moment, Arvid was speechless, but then she felt hot anger flaring up inside her, as so often in Loke’s presence. “Stop calling me stupid all the time!” she screamed. “Do you even realize how complicated and abstruse everything you’re doing is? It wouldn’t have surprised me if you went out there to open the gates!”

  “That would hardly have made a difference,” Loke said in a dangerously quiet tone, but then his face darkened at once. “In sharp contrast to your fucking plan of heedlessly jumping into a losing battle!” He was shouting so loud that Arvid threw a glance at the door.

  “Stop yelling,” she said. “If someone hears us, the reputation of our marriage is ruined.”

  Loke took several violent breaths, then he started to grin. Arvid had no idea why she had said this, and she suddenly had to laugh. The tension between them was gone as quickly as it had come.

  “Come,” Loke said, getting up from the bench. “You should eat something.”

  It was late at night when Arvid was awakened by the sound of the door. At first she thought that one of the maids had come in, but then she realized that it was Nod. He had changed into one of the garments like the staff wore; otherwise he looked just like the night before.

  “We have to go,” he said in a hushed voice. “I’ve got your clothes.”

  Arvid sat up, dazed, and looked over at the clock. It showed the fifteenth hour.

  “In the middle of the night?” she asked sleepily, but still shoved the blankets aside. “Has anything happened?”

  Nod shook his head. “Quiet,” he whispered. “It’s just a safety measure.”

  Arvid’s clothes were washed and mended, and after she had finished dressing, they quietly slipped out and left the commander’s house.

  The city lay still and quiet. Nod led her down stairs and streets, until they eventually reached the palisades at the bottom of the city—or at least what had remained of them. Although Arvid had seen what had happened here the day before, she was still shocked. The wall was cut down along the whole length. The thick piles were cracked and splintered and many of the bordering houses damaged or partially collapsed. It was clear that people had already been trying to repair the worst damage. Here and there larger pieces had been piled into ordered stacks, and when they climbed through the residue of the palisades, they passed a big, stinking pile with black carcasses.

  “There are guards everywhere,” Nod said. “We should try not to get seen, but I doubt we can avoid it completely.”

  As they rounded the remains of a watchtower, Arvid saw the dark outlines of the guards that moved around outside of the city. However, none of them seemed to be near them.

  They left the wreckage behind them and went along the outside of the still-intact palisades, until they could see a matte glimmering light somewhere in front of them. It came from the lantern of a man in thick furs, who was talking to a blonde woman in light clothes. Directly behind the two stood three large horned animals that resembled giant deer. Those were probably the mounts of which Loke had spoken the day before, because they were equipped with saddles and bridles.

  The man looked up and nodded at them briefly. The woman ignored them, but Arvid knew it was Loke anyway. No one who was in their right mind would walk around in a thin fabric garment in this cold.

  “The animals are called Hjorter,” said Nod after they had left Erendal behind. “On rocky terrain and ice they are better than horses, but they get nervous rather easily and are a bit willful.”

  “Aren’t such animals very expensive?” said Arvid.

  “They are only borrowed,” said Loke, who rode ahead of them. “We will deliver them to the owner’s brother in Karst, together with some letters.”

  Their journey was remarkably uneventful, but after all that had happened, Arvid enjoyed the tranquility of the surrounding nature. They followed a path that was easy to walk for their mounts, but ran away from the paved road and repeatedly took tight turns. At times it was buried under rubble, sometimes punctuated by thin streams, then again covered by broken branches and trunks. However, their Hjorters overcame every obstacle almost effortlessly and perseveringly and with precise safety sat one hoof before the other.

  At night, they found shelter in the ruined remains of a stable, a bit off the path and in the shade of some rocks. It was cold, and Arvid found it difficult to sleep on the hard ground. Again and again she changed her position in order to relieve a hurting spot on her body. Sometimes she glanced over at Loke, who was sitting in the grass a few steps outside the ruined walls and looked out into the night, seemingly motionless. He didn’t leave this place until Arvid finally fel
l asleep at some point. When she awoke, Loke was still sitting there—or again. Arvid could not help wondering whether he needed sleep at all.

  The next day was just as quiet. Loke was even more silent and kept a clear distance from them. Arvid suspected that he tried to hide his imbalance. Although he had maintained the same female shape the day before, Arvid did not escape that he was constantly changing today.

  Even when they stopped to rest and eat at noon, Loke stayed away from them. Nevertheless, it could be seen that he looked extremely miraculous: tall, skinny, almost female, but not really human. His hair was brownish black and shaggy. What Arvid could see from a distance was that the rest of his body resembled tree bark more than skin. Sometimes Loke sat on a stone and stared up into the treetops, then he crouched back in the grass or bushes and seemed to watch something.

  “What is he doing?” Arvid finally asked Nod thoughtfully.

  “I have no idea,” replied Nod. “But I’ve seen him behave like this several times before, when I was out collecting firewood. Disquieting, isn’t it?”

  “When we’re still living in Loke’s cave, you mean?”

  “Yes. It’s probably best to just leave him alone.”

  “Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”

  “In what way?”

  “I… I don’t know,” Arvid said hesitantly. “Maybe he’s sick or maybe… he’s worried that the gods could track us down. I am.”

  “I don’t believe that. I don’t think that worry, anxiety, or even something like grief is even among Loke’s repertoire of emotions.”

  Arvid looked at Nod in amazement. “Didn’t you tell me that Loke once got hurt by a woman so badly?”

  “That was different,” he said, “an extraordinary situation. And then I don’t think Loke’s reaction was actually grief. He felt attacked, offended… maybe angry. Like he is in such situations. Loke isn’t someone who’s crying in the corner. Loke is someone who razes everything to the ground.”