by Unknown
Jaw tightening, she starts to pull away. Catching her hand, Loki’s eyes narrow. “You worried about me for two hundred years, don’t deny me my worry.” She softens, and Loki winces dramatically. “Besides, without you here I had to keep an eye on Nari and Valli …Valli could get in trouble in a cabbage patch.”
Sigyn laughs, remembering Valli just blowing a hole in Hoenir’s thatch.
Stroking her hand, he gives her a sad smile. “There’s never been anyone else but you, Sigyn, in all this time …”
Sigyn cocks her head and raises an eyebrow. Rolling his eyes to the ceiling, he pulls her hand to his stomach. She can feel the heat of him through his tunic. “None whose names I remember, anyway,” he whispers.
Her gaze has slipped to their entwined fingers; the sight is so familiar, her fingers gold against his pale skin. She nods, understanding. She’s had lovers too, but none have mattered. She lifts her eyes and finds she’s turned toward him and is leaning forward in her chair, and so is he. One of her knees has drifted between his. She reaches up and touches his cheek and feels the bite of stubble and his magic flickering beneath her fingers. She closes her eyes and imagines the flame of his magic wrapping around her. Heat pools under her skin and in her belly and time seems to stretch. And then she feels his nose brush against hers and smiles. Only Loki can make the brush of noses an elegant dance. He pulls away slightly, and his lips touch hers too lightly—and it’s still enough to send a bolt of heat to her core. Their lips meet again, firmer, more breathless, and she can taste a hint of honey on his tongue. His hand finds her hip and pulls her forward. Their chests almost touch and the air between them becomes so hot there may actually be flames. What they have, it still works.
“Sigyn,” he groans. And she thinks they may not make it out of this room before their fire is quenched.
“You confronted Odin for me,” she whispers against his lips, giving in and letting him draw her up onto his lap. His body is ready beneath her, and she gasps. She thinks they might self- combust.
Pulling away, he looks at her through hooded eyes. “What?”
“Hiroshima,” she whispers.
Looking bemused, stroking her hips, he whispers, “What are you talking about?”
“You confronted Odin,” she says again, drawing back, feeling like a candle caught in a breeze.
Loki shakes his head. “No, I didn’t. Odin found me passed out drunk … ” The bemusement vanishes. He strokes her thighs again, but the motion is like he’s trying to draw comfort, not like he’s trying to create heat. “If you’d seen what I saw there, you’d have gotten drunk, too.”
“I was there, Loki,” Sigyn says.
He blinks at her. “Oh … I suppose … Odin said something about you being called at first.”
“You remember nothing?”
Loki shakes his head.
Her heart sinks; he had been passed out drunk. “Odin tried to drag me back to Asgard … ” She pulls herself off his lap, the whole story pouring out of her. When she is done, Loki shakes his head again. “I know you don’t think you’re lying.”
She huffs. One of Loki’s many magical abilities is his ability to detect deliberate lies, but unlike Helen, he can’t know or reveal the truth.
“But you mistook what you saw,” Loki said. “Odin was distraught about the events in Hiroshima ...”
“We all were!” Sigyn cries.
“Which is why you misinterpreted what happened.”
“And when he pulled me away?” Sigyn demands.
Loki scowls. “Even I admit Odin can be a stubborn ass. I made a jest that pointed out the error in his ways with a laugh so he could let it slide.”
“You threatened him and he was terrified!” Sigyn says.
Loki looks out the kitchen window, as though he is afraid Odin’s raven spies are flying by. “I would never threaten the All Father.” He growls. “Not directly. No matter how wrong his ways may be, I would not jeopardize our lives here.”
“If nothing is worth dying for, nothing is worth living for!” Sigyn’s said those words many times before.
As usual Loki rolls his eyes. “I don’t see you leaving Asgard.”
Sigyn swallows. She hasn’t left Asgard because she, Nari, and Valli are spies for the democracy movements of the Dark Elves and the Mercantile Dwarves. In Asgard, Sigyn and her sons can only talk for the moment, but abroad they have saved countless lives, and saved women and children from being tortured and sold into slavery. She can’t tell Loki any of that. He wouldn’t betray her outright, but the man does get drunk, and when he drinks, he talks.
She tries one more time. Clutching his hand, she says, “You are stronger than you know … and I know what I saw. Odin was afraid of you.”
His lips flatten. “You’re delusional.”
Sigyn pulls her hand away. Sighing, he says, “Come, Sigyn, we’ve had disagreements before.”
She feels herself go cold. “No, Loki. Not like this.”
His jaw tightens. After a few long minutes of heavy silence he stands abruptly, sending his chair skidding across the stone floor. And then he leaves, slamming Hoenir’s door behind him like a petulant child. She feels adrift—she thought they’d been bound together again, but they are still two disparate particles, blown apart, with no charge to bind them. The moment she witnessed in the atomic fires meant nothing.
3
Sigyn kneels on one knee before Odin’s throne, head bowed. The palace has been recently illusioned to look like the architecture of the realm of Musselpheim pre-Sutr. The flagstones look like rugged black obsidian, but she feels smooth concrete beneath her. All change in Asgard is an illusion—but on Earth, real change is happening.
Her eyes flit up to the All Father. He’s sitting on his throne, his spine too straight to be comfortable. His lips are pressed together. He looks concerned. As well he might be. The Diar, the judges that help him rule the realms, flank him on either side, their faces looking as though they’ve eaten something sour. Loki, leaning against the throne, looks well into his cups even though it’s not yet noon.
“Say that again!” says one of the Diar.
“Humans have landed on their moon,” Sigyn says.
“Impossible!”
“Can they do that?”
“Can we do that?”
“No,” Sigyn says, and can’t keep the sharp smile off her face. “We can’t.”
“Can we even trust this account?” someone shouts. “Sigyn said she saw this on a human magic box, a … what did you call it?”
“Television,” Sigyn says. She’d been called again to Earth, apparently for no other reason than to see the moon landing on “TV.” Perhaps her purpose in the universe is just to witness the ascent of humans? In any case, the moon landing had been glorious—as had the television—magic for the masses.
“Heimdall!” Odin says.
“It is true,” Heimdall, the magical all-seeing gatekeeper, replies.
“This must be kept a secret!” one of the Diar declares.
“Our young are restless!” someone else says.
Sigyn frowns. The young who don’t drown their ennui in mead are restless.
Another voice joins the choir. “Some of them idealize the so-called freedom movements. They must not know of this victory for the Americans.” The name “American” is said with the same inflection as “bread mold.”
“Death in the Void for anyone who spreads word of this!” cries another.
Sigyn’s smile fades. She should have expected that. The same judges have helped rule Asgard for over two thousand years. They feel safer believing their civilization is above all others in every way. A flurry of conversation rises as the Diar discuss just how a species as inferior as humans and a society as depraved as the United States could possibly send a “boat” to the moon.
Odin’s voice finally rumbles above the rest. “We should not let the general populace know that the Americans are on the moon.”
She hears murm
urs of agreement, and her body burns with anger and frustration. But then from behind Sigyn, a voice rises in the Great Hall. “The Americans are on the moon?” and Sigyn thinks a cold knife has pierced her ribs.
She turns and sees Valli, standing just inside the double doors of the Great Hall, lips parted in a look of wonder. Nari is wincing behind him, pulling his brother’s arm. “But that is splendid!” Valli declares.
Sigyn can feel her heart pounding in her chest. The boys should not be here, obviously. But she can well imagine Valli telling Nari, “Make us invisible, so we can walk past the guard and learn all about Mother’s summons to Earth!”
A silence settles in the hall, thick as the air before a thunderstorm. Nari has publicly obeyed every letter of the law, but no one doubts where his sympathies lie. And no one thinks for a minute that Valli can keep his mouth shut. Sigyn feels her blood go hot. Her hand drops to her sword, anticipating the decree … and then a bright burst of orange fire by Odin’s throne makes her spin.
Loki flounces off the dais. As he passes her, she can smell the alcohol seeping out of his pores. Standing between their sons and Odin, Loki gives a bow. “Gentlemen, we’re being foolish. To try and hide this American failure, we’ll turn their defeat into a victory for their philosophy.”
“Defeat?” someone asks.
“Failure?” asks another.
“Of course it is a failure,” Loki says, lifting a hand above his head and giving his fingers a snap. The flame that leaps from his thumb is blue, and his body and undulates slightly, like a snake. “They’ve wasted tons of treasure on this adventure. Just think how disappointed they’ll be when they realize the moon isn’t made of cheese.”
The hall erupts in chuckles and outright guffaws. Sigyn’s eyes go to Odin. He isn’t laughing. His single eye is wide and riveted on Loki. Loki snaps his fingers again. There is another bolt of blue flame. This time Sigyn sees his skin turn blue in the glow, and she doesn’t believe it is a trick of the light.
“Loki is right,” Odin says. “We will let the news be known.” Sigyn notices the All Father’s hands are squeezing the armrests of his throne so tightly his knuckles are white.
“But …” a Diar member starts to protest.
“We will let the news be known. Immediately,” says Odin.
“Excellent,” says Loki.
Sigyn’s eyes snap to him. His frame has already relaxed, and he’s pulling a flask from his robe. The fission between him and Odin is just a memory.
SIGYN SEEKS out Loki later that night, hoping maybe this time he’ll remember. But when she finds him, passed out drunk in Odin’s library, she realizes that hope is in vain. Slumped in a chair, he’s holding a bottle in his hand. She slips it out of his fingers so it doesn’t shatter, and he stirs.
“Have your humans worked out fusion yet?” Loki asks, startling her. His voice is surprisingly coherent.
Sigyn lifts a brow. Fusion is the uniting of unstable atoms, the fuel that powers Earth’s sun. Cleaner than fission, it’s widely hoped by human scientists to be a new source of energy, but it hasn’t been done in a way that can be practically applied. “No,” she answers.
“Pity,” Loki says, looking at the ceiling. “That is real magic.”
“Loki,” she starts to say, but his head lolls to the side and his eyes slip closed. She sighs. The position of his neck is preposterous, and she knows it will hurt in the morning. Readjusting the angle, she pauses to stroke his cheek. There is no heat any longer beneath her fingers, no attraction, just pity. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
One of Loki’s eyes slides open. “If I’m too drunk to follow orders, Odin can’t use me.”
Before Sigyn can respond, he hiccups, and his eyes drift closed again.
She leaves him, but later that night, while she is eating with Nari and Valli, she continues to mull his words. Loki might be called a fool, but he had done a lot for Asgard. He has given the realm some of its most powerful treasures, and Loki is who Odin calls when he can’t solve things himself—or when things are too unpleasant to do himself. And now Loki is done with it, but instead of fighting, he’s merely evading being Odin’s puppet. Because … her eyes catch on her two sons, centuries old, who look to be in their mid-twenties. As long as he is loyal, their sons remain in Asgard and they will never die. Asgard is the safest place to be in the Nine Realms, if you obey.
The boys say they are prepared to die for their freedom. She’s ready to die with them; of course, she hopes it won’t come to that. Slow and steady change is possible. Nari believes it, and so does she. Valli goes along with Nari.
When Valli makes a joke and Nari laughs, Sigyn can’t help but smile. She’s caught in their magnetism, happy in the warmth of their orbit. Valli nudges her, grins, and she nudges him back. They’re more than happy to have her here. It’s a sort of victory, she feels, to still have her sons’ love; other parents aren’t as lucky. She feels pity for Loki. Her sons avoid him, for the same reason she does. He’s a drunk. Even if he hides behind alcohol to protect them, it’s made him an unstable element, left him loose, drifting, and alone.
4
Sigyn picks at the fabric of her gown. She’s been called to pay a visit to the queen, and has left her armor and sword at home. She looks up as she walks through the palace’s halls. On Earth, architecture is stretching closer and closer to the clouds with beams of steel, poured concrete, and glass walls that reflect the skies. Humans have had a technological revolution—calculating machines allow them engineering marvels that stretch their dwellings and workshops to the clouds. Even their travel is elevated—their airplanes are more common than magic carpets.
Sigyn walks through the light dappled hall. On Asgard everything continues as it always has—it only looks different on the surface. Currently, Asgard’s architecture and fashion is based on the styles of 13th century France. Lit by stained glass windows on either side, the palace today reminds her of the cathedrals of Europe, but the walls are polished white marble, and no cathedral in Europe is quite as open, airy and bright. It’s beautiful and imposing. She reminds herself that beneath the magical facade it is all dreary gray concrete.
She takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know why the queen has summoned her. As she walks by a cluster of maids, one of them whispers to another, “Oh look, it’s poor Sigyn! Did you hear Loki’s locked in the Tower for drunkenness?”
“Do you think she’s come to plead for his release?”
Sigyn halts her stride, and the maids scurry away. Sigyn did not know that. She tilts her head. Why would he be there for drunkenness? The Tower inhibits all magic use; being drunk is hardly a crime to warrant that. If it were, Loki would never be allowed out.
From the direction of the Great Hall, she hears a roar. It sounds like the Diar are declaring a sentencing. Her blood goes cold.
She hears heavy footsteps. Turning, she finds a squad of Einherjar. The lead one bows. Behind her, she hears soft footfalls. Spinning again, she finds herself face to face with the queen. Heart beating in her chest, her nails bite into her palms. She knows she has been imprisoned as much as Loki … but why would they both need to be imprisoned? From the Great Hall she hears another roar from the Diar.
SIGYN KNEELS BEFORE QUEEN FRIGGA, All Mother, in the queen’s chamber. “Nari and Valli ... accused of treason, my Queen?” Sigyn’s breath is shaky. She hopes it sounds afraid. She carefully keeps her eyes cast down lest they betray her rage. “On what evidence?”
Sitting beside her spinning wheel, Queen Frigga sighs. “A document that lays out a plan for changes to the Diar was discovered. Our mages have identified it as being in Nari’s hand … though Valli insists he helped.”
Sigyn feels she might splinter and fly apart in the heat of her anger. They are not accused of letting the Dark Elves know about Odin’s planned strike force into the Delta of Sorrows, or letting the Merchant Dwarves know about the planned cave-in of their underground ghetto. They are accused because of a document that ske
tches plans for a hypothetical constitutional monarchy.
Frigga’s magic wraps around her, strong, and as cool and blue as a cloud. But when she speaks, the Queen’s voice is tired. “I counseled my husband to commute their sentence to merely imprisonment, but the Diar is adamant. And things are afoot in the other realms, dangerous things, and this is not a time for division among our allies.”
Sigyn wants to make herself invisible—she can do that—but Queen Frigga’s magic is nearly as powerful as Odin’s, Hoenir’s, and Loki’s; she’d see through the ruse. Sigyn is trapped.
“You know I’ve been in your shoes,” Frigga continues. “We must keep calm even when those we love become tangled in vicious political rivalries.”
She’s talking about her son, Prince Baldur. Sigyn’s lips flatten. Sigyn’s sons aren’t psychopathic narcissists. She wants to scream, to rail against this injustice, but somehow manages to contain the heat of fury burning in her chest.
“I saw Hiroshima, Sigyn,” Frigga says. “I was called, too, by mothers who lost children. We can’t let that happen here.”
Sigyn keeps her head bowed. Why is Frigga talking about Hiroshima? Sigyn doesn’t have an atom bomb. And she doesn’t have time to kneel here while her sons’ lives are in danger ... yet she can’t excuse herself from the queen. She finds herself wondering what Loki would do. She blinks. He’d lie through his teeth. “Yes, my queen,” she says, trying to be agreeable.
Exhaling softly, the queen touches her chest. Is that relief? Sigyn decides to feed it. “We must think of Asgard’s children.” She manages to force a tear of rage out of her eyes.
“You would have made a wise advisor to my son, Victory Woman,” Frigga says.
Sigyn’s heart stops. It’s been centuries since Frigga has brought up that and decades since she’s been called that name.
“ … perhaps if you … ” Frigga’s voice fades in a sigh. “Thank you for this painful victory. You do justice to peace in the Nine Realms.”