by Leah Cutter
A hefty woman with a huge key ring hanging from her waist battled a giantess who was bare-chested and breathed frost on her. Maybe that was Frigg.
An older man with a flowing gray beard fought a fucking huge wolf. He had an eye patch similar to Loki’s. Was that Odin?
I didn’t see Loki anywhere. He should be fighting, right? Or was he planning something else?
I tried to step around the battle. It wasn’t really here, it couldn’t hurt me, right?
Except that somehow, by seeing so much of the battle, I’d stepped between the two worlds and into the thick of it. When Thor shook the serpent’s head, venom splattered. A drop caught my arm and I howled in pain as it burned through my shirt and onto my skin.
Fuck that hurt.
And it meant that unless I was very careful, I could be killed here as well.
I kept as far back as I could while I circled the back of the boxes, seeking Loki. He had to be here.
I was going to spoil everything for him. Fucker.
But I didn’t see him.
“Cassie!”
Sam was here.
“Careful!” I said as she walked past the giantess thrusting with her spear.
Sam didn’t see it. She hadn’t stepped through the portal as I had. She wouldn’t be affected the same way I was.
“Cassie!” Sam called again, looking straight at me, then beyond.
Shit. She didn’t see me either.
Where the hell was I? I’d really stepped into a different world, hadn’t I?
I walked carefully over to Sam, not sure what to do. Should I touch her?
I ran my hand down her back. It was an odd sensation, as if I was but wasn’t touching her.
I didn’t like it. It was too much like being a ghost. As if I were already dead.
And I did not want to be dead. Not before I’d tasted Sam fully.
Sam stopped and shivered, then called my name again.
I closed my eyes and sought that blue dot. Holy fuck was it huge. I found the lines easily, much more easily than ever before, and pushed one at Sam.
She gasped. “Cassie?” she asked.
“Right here, babe,” I told her.
She still couldn’t see me, but she knew I was close by. “This isn’t happening,” she said.
I shrugged. There wasn’t anything I could do to convince her right now.
Then Sam gave another gasp and marched straight over to the side. “You are under arrest,” she told the air. “For attempted murder. You just better hope the EMTs pull Hunter through and that charge isn’t changed to murder.”
Fuck. That’s where Loki was hiding? In plain sight? Somewhere in between worlds where I couldn’t see him?
I had thought once I’d gotten my abilities, I’d always be able to see.
“You’re as annoying as your little friend,” Loki said.
I could hear the fucker. Just couldn’t see him.
“But you’re too late. The fate’s been set. Now all I have to do is exchange places with Odin. And I’ll live past the end of the world.”
Maybe if I couldn’t see Loki, he couldn’t see me either? I wasn’t sure. He was a god, after all.
But he no longer had both eyes. Like Odin, he was partially blind.
Whereas while I might not have been able to visually spot Loki, I could still keep my eyes, both of them, on the prize.
Saving the world.
I turned and left Sam. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. She had to be able to take care of herself, even with a god. And since she’d mentioned EMTs, I knew Hunter was in good hands as well.
I had to go warn Odin what was happening. That Loki was trying to change fates with him. Or else.
***
The battle had grown more desperate behind me. The winds that circled the arena had made their way into the boxes, howling their anger. Seats rocked back and forth under their great strength.
I paused at the edge of the field of battle. It stretched far beyond the end of the box. Distance was an illusion, though. It was all happening right here as well.
I couldn’t move like Hunter. I didn’t have Sam’s authority.
But I had the stubbornness that my mother always claimed I did, more a curse than a blessing.
I wasn’t about to stop now.
Making it past the coils of the snake was tricky. The scales stung, tearing up my hands as I vaulted over first one loop, then the next. I stifled my cry of pain as another drop of venom dripped down my back.
Goddamn it. Not cursing using any god in particular, however; just in general.
Finally, I made it past the serpent. Then I had to dance around Frigg and the giantess. I slipped and fell on the ice, bruising my butt.
First time that winter I’d fallen, too. I hated breaking my record.
It only took a little more to make it to Odin’s side. He continued to fight the wolf, though his arm was torn up and even over the howling winds I could hear him panting.
Sam didn’t come out into the boxes. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, if she was safe behind, or if she was hurt, injured, and unable to follow.
Odin was losing. Even with my lack of battle experience I could tell that. He fought on, bravely, valiantly, almost dancing with the great wolf, his great spear weaving and bobbing, preventing the monster from getting closer. I knew this was the kind of battle that was made into song.
Then Loki exploded into view. He had to come to this world to finish his deed. He rammed straight into Odin. He was trying to throw Odin to the ground. Odin stayed on his feet, choking Loki. They embraced like angry lovers, each unable to quit the other.
Neither of them were paying attention to damned wolf. I swear that thing smiled like it had just been awarded a prize. It unhinged its jaw extra wide, like a snake’s. It was about to swallow Odin and Loki whole.
“Odin! Look out!” I shouted, trying to make myself heard over the sounds of battle, the crunch of bones, the howls of agony.
Neither of them looked up. They were too busy to see that they were both about to be eaten.
I did the only thing I could think of.
Ran forward, leaped up as high as I could, grabbed that huge, stiff tail of the wolf, and yanked on it. Hard.
I must have done some good, because the thing gave an ear-shattering howl. I barely ducked in time to avoid its snapping teeth.
But that distraction was enough to get Odin to pay attention to what was happening. When the wolf turned away from me, back toward his other prize, Odin used his great spear like a mighty bat, smacking the wolf’s jaw away from him.
Toward the figure lying on the ground a few feet away.
The great wolf leaped forward, its jaw open again.
And he swallowed Loki whole.
The winds died suddenly. The giantess gave a howling cry as she dissolved into a flurry of snow and ice. A great hiss filled the air as the snake wafted away like a poisonous mist. The warriors on the floor of the arena gave a great cheer before they disappeared, too, off to their victory feasts.
I stood in the middle of the darkened sky box, still in pain from the serpent’s poison. I was going to have to get that checked out, before it killed me.
Had we won?
“Cassie!” Sam called, coming up from behind me.
I turned to her, flinging my arms around her.
I didn’t care if it wasn’t appropriate. I was going to get to hold her once. She was soft and warm and smelled like sunshine, the other side of winter.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Odin turn to look at me as well.
Shit. It never paid to draw the attention of a god.
“We gotta get out of here,” I warned Sam.
“Wait,” Odin said.
I froze.
“Thank you,” Odin said formally. “We are in your debt.”
I glanced at Sam. She was going to have to accept me as I was, crazy or not. I took her hand and turned us both to face the
one-eyed god. He’d grown in stature, towering far above my head now. His gray robes were clean, he held a huge oak staff instead of a spear, and his one eye appeared to twinkle at me, as if he’d just heard a great joke.
“You’re welcome,” I told him. “Anytime.”
Sam gasped beside me. “Holy… That’s what you see?” she whispered.
Odin gave me a wink, then disappeared.
We were suddenly alone in the darkened sky box.
“So, babe,” I said, turning toward her, taking both her hands. I realized that she was bleeding, a long cut down one arm.
But since she was ignoring it for now, so could I.
“You ready to ride this crazy train?” I asked.
“I am,” Sam replied, leaning forward and giving me the sweetest kiss in the world.
Followed by one that was equally dirty.
Everything was going to be just fine. At last.
Chapter Fifteen
Odin walked beside the new ocean. Fresh winds scoured the coast, unburdened by the past, carrying scents from hundreds of miles away. The green of the grass on his other side hurt his eye with its purity. Everything seemed possible, now that so many paths had been wiped clean. Even man had so many options now.
Loki appeared beside him, his face a wreck from the renewed poison dripping on it in a different past, another way. His bare chest gleamed in the morning sunlight, and his gray woolen pants were filthy and hung from his emaciated hips.
“Wouldn’t this fate have been better?” Loki whispered from across the worlds. “Wouldn’t it have been easier?”
Odin shrugged. Maybe this fate that Loki had engendered would have been better.
Not easier. It was harder to start again, to try to live fresh, to not make the same mistakes as had been made in the past. Especially as Odin would appear in this place, his skin hanging from him in folds.
“It is a lovely fate,” Odin did finally admit. “Thank you for letting me see it.”
Since Loki had brought it into the world, Odin had found a way to step through to it, following the planes on Yggdrasil, the world tree.
This fate wouldn’t last, however. The edges were fraying fast. The old fate would return to dominance soon. Odin would only be able to visit this other fate, where he survived the Twilight Battle, this one time.
“Always. Only for you,” Loki sighed and shivered in pain.
Odin knew better. It wasn’t for him—none of this had ever been for him.
However, he didn’t blame the trickster. Loki couldn’t help but try to find a way to cheat Fate of her due.
“I will find another path, you know,” Loki admitted. “To free myself from this place. To end my pain.”
“I’m not sorry you’re in pain. It’s only equal to what Frigg suffers, every day, from the death of her son,” Odin pointed out.
“How can she stand it?” Loki cried out. He writhed, trying and failing to free himself from his fetters.
Odin looked out across the water. On a nearby point, two fair-haired gods strode, blessing the earth with every step, their song ringing out clear across the new land, bringing joy to all who heard.
“She has her ways,” Odin said. Knowing her sons would live on past the end of the gods helped.
Loki didn’t have such assurance, such faith.
And Odin couldn’t give him any.
Each person had to find their own path out of darkness. Such was the curse of all fates.
About the Author
Leah Cutter currently lives in Seattle—the land of coffee and fog. However, she's also lived all over the world and held the requisite odd writer jobs, such as doing archeology work in England, teaching English in Taiwan, and bartending in Thailand.
She writes fantasy set in exotic times and locations such as Tang dynasty China, WWII Budapest, rural Louisiana, and the Oregon coast.
Her short fiction includes literary, fantasy, mystery, science fiction, and horror, and has been published in magazines as well as anthologies and on the web.
Read more stories by Leah Cutter at www.KnottedRoadPress.com.
Follow her blog at www.LeahCutter.com.
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