“I find brooches and apron dresses to be cumbersome when doing chores and chasing children,” Angrboda said. Such styles are more suited to women of higher status, like those in Asgard.
“They will make a fine necklace for you, then.”
Angrboda leaned over to place the beads on the table and said, “Thank you. But this still doesn’t make up for the fact that you were gone too long.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” he mumbled. He leaned up to kiss her and she pulled away, and he frowned and stared at her for a few seconds. “Are you still mad about Sigyn? That was ages ago. If you were going to be angry about it, Boda, the time has long since passed.”
“This isn’t about Sigyn,” Angrboda said through gritted teeth. I have enough to worry about besides trying to plot an undoubtedly ill-fated revenge scheme against my husband’s other wife, even though I’m sure Loki would delight in my undertaking such an endeavor over the likes of him. “This is about your responsibilities as a father.”
“And as a husband?” he prompted.
“Hel is miserable without you.”
“And Fenrir?”
“Less so.”
Loki lowered his voice even further. “He’s savage, isn’t he?”
“He’s not,” Angrboda said coldly. “You don’t care for him, so you would accuse him of savagery? Shame on you.”
“He’s a wolf. And you said that he bit Hel. Sounds savage to me.”
“Have you ever even spoken with him?”
“Of course I have. He’s intelligent, but—”
“But he’s trying.” She stood, speaking in a harsh whisper. “Which is more than one can say for the likes of you. What’s so great about Asgard, anyway, besides the opportunity to make mischief and spin lies to a wider audience?”
“When have I ever lied to you?” Loki stood as well, angrily, his scarred lips twisting in a sneer. “Name one time.”
“You always say you’ll come right back. And then an entire season passes.”
“Time isn’t an issue for us, you may recall.”
“It is when you have two young children who need their father.”
“I have two young children in Asgard as well, and a wife.”
“And tell me—do you lie to Sigyn about where you go?”
“Never once,” he ground out, “have I lied to Sigyn about where I go. I told you once that she thinks more highly of me than you do, and never has this seemed more true. And yet she has always seemed more bitter about my absences, where you have been indifferent until just now.”
“It’s not indifference, my love. I cannot have the children see me pine for you as they do, or all three of us would find ourselves in a constant state of misery. That wouldn’t do at all.”
Loki seemed amused. “And yet you do pine for me? What sort of woman are you, then, to sit back and watch me do as I please?”
Angrboda fought back a surge of rage. She needed to get away from him before she slapped him across his smarmy face. “Skadi has asked me the same question on more than one occasion. She thinks me spineless, though she doesn’t say as much. She thinks it’s a sign of weakness that I can’t control you, in that secret, subtle way a wife has control over her husband.”
“And what do you tell her?”
“That this is the way you are, and I accept it. It’s not the same as being weak.” Angrboda folded her arms, facing the fire. “Or at least I hope it’s not, for my own sake.”
“You’re not weak,” said Loki, coming up behind her and putting his arms about her waist, leaning his head on her shoulder.
Angrboda barely suppressed a sigh.
“You were burned three times and had your heart stabbed out,” he murmured into her neck, “and you’re still standing. And you’ve welcomed me into your home and bed for years with not a complaint until now.”
“Until the children.”
“Yes. Until them.” Loki released her suddenly, sat again, and looked down at his lap, where his hands were trembling. He gripped his knees to still them. “I don’t know why I do the things I do. I can’t stop myself.”
“It’s in your nature to do such things.” Angrboda, watching this gesture, sat and took his hands in hers. “I wonder if anyone else understands this as I do.”
“The Aesir don’t. Only Sigyn even tries. I think she would forgive me anything if I asked, but I don’t want to. She trusts me not to lie to her.” He grimaced. “I sometimes wonder if her trust is misplaced.”
A beat passed, in which Angrboda felt something not unlike sympathy for the woman. “I know the feeling well.”
He looked at her then, and his expression seemed softer in the firelight. “And yet you’re both still by my side. Why is that?”
Angrboda thought for a moment. There were plenty of things she could say: that he was the father of her children, that she loved him despite herself, and that she knew he loved her, too. She could say that if he would just stay, she would be content to remain in his arms for as long as he would have her—which would be either until the next morning or for all of eternity. It was hard to know with him.
And yet after all this time, she wasn’t sure if this was something that belonged on the list of reasons she loved him so dearly, or if it was a reason to hate him instead.
But last time they’d had that conversation it had ended with them both wanting to change the subject, so she replied instead, “This doesn’t mean I’m not still angry with you right now, but you did, after all, return my heart to me.”
“Hmm,” he said. “At least I can do something right by you.”
“Yes, well. I wonder about that sometimes.”
“Wondering whether it wasn’t right to give it back?”
Her silence was all the answer he needed.
“Come,” said Loki at last. “Let’s go to bed.”
* * *
• • •
The thunderstorm had started up again, but inside the cave, despite the night’s events, there existed a sort of calmness. Hel and Fenrir hadn’t been awoken by the conversation, and their parents were grateful for it.
Perhaps it was a result of their argument that Angrboda found that her role this night was not as a mattress; rather, she settled down on her side, and Loki did the same behind her and pulled a woolen blanket over them.
Before he fell asleep, he reached around her and placed a hand on the solid bump of her lower stomach. “It’s small again. Think it’ll be another wolf?”
“I don’t know,” Angrboda murmured, putting her hand over his. He kissed her temple and set his head back down beside hers, burying his face in her hair. And for the first time in recent memory, listening to the beating of her heart and his, Angrboda went right to sleep.
She did not remain asleep for long.
* * *
• • •
The voice drew her out.
The words pushed her down, down, down, to the deepest, darkest place she had ever been: a place as empty as the very beginning of the worlds, the beginning of time.
She no longer had a form. She was spread out, her very soul dissipating like ripples in a stream, out over all the worlds, like the World Tree itself. For a moment, she knew everything. She was part of everything.
And she could see it all from there.
* * *
• • •
Angrboda gasped and sat bolt upright, shaking violently, gasping for breath, covered in a cold sweat. The fire had not even fully died. Loki, who had still been asleep with his arms around her, awoke as well.
He asked her what was wrong, pushed her hair out of her face, tried to hold her. She pushed him away. Nothing calmed her down.
“What happened?” he asked her, again and again, until finally she just looked at him, fighting back tears, and his concerned expression turned to one of alarm.
“I know who it is,” she said, her voice sounding dead to her own ears. “The man in my dreams. I know what he wants. I’ve seen it.” She let out a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s Odin. It has to be.”
Loki scooted closer to her, his brow furrowing. “What did you see?”
Angrboda shook her head, took a shaky breath, pulled her knees up to her chest, and stared at them.
“But what did you see?” Loki pressed.
“I’ve seen how the end begins.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper as the words tumbled out. “I saw everything in the Nine Worlds. I saw the Aesir, the giants, and shades and dwarfs and men. I saw Yggdrasil, and the dragon who gnaws its root. I saw a wolf so big that his jaws could swallow armies whole, and a great serpent rearing out of the water, and I saw the sun and moon go dark as the wolves who chase them finally swallow their prey, and I saw a ship crewed by dead souls. I saw so many faces that I can’t recall every one of them, so many names that I don’t know which matter, so many events that I can’t even begin to put them together—”
She stopped abruptly and pressed her lips together. There was something else, too. But she found that she could not bring herself to describe it to him.
Loki reached out to touch her shoulder but recoiled as she put her hands up and pulled at her hair. So he scooted up behind her and drew her into his lap, and she leaned against him, trembling. He pushed her hair over one shoulder and kissed the other as he put his arms around her.
But he didn’t sound quite certain when he said, “It was only a dream, Boda. Nothing more.”
“I want so badly to believe that,” she murmured. “I didn’t tell him anything. He’ll be back. He’ll be back . . .”
Loki didn’t respond except to kiss her shoulder again, and she could feel his breath and scarred lips on her skin, and they did not comfort her.
They sat that way for a while, until he got up and fed the fire and then coaxed her into lying down beside him as they had done before. But even with his arms tight around her, she feared she would never sleep again.
He drew me out and bade me travel to the most hidden place in the cosmos for that horrible vision of the future, but he didn’t get what he came for.
I didn’t tell him a thing.
And there were things she’d held back from Loki—things she couldn’t bring herself to say. Things he wouldn’t want to know. Three things in particular.
The first was that the wolf she’d seen—the enormous beast breathing fire from its knife-toothed maw—had been green-eyed and strikingly familiar and caused her to study her own son, an overgrown pup, who was sleeping peacefully at the end of her bed. It can’t be . . . can it?
The second thing was death. So much death—that was the part where she’d jerked away, the very end, so she wouldn’t have to see how it all played out. She didn’t want to know. So if it really is Odin who’s bidding me to access this information—and she was now certain it was—then he wants to know how he’s going to die.
And the third . . .
Angrboda rolled over carefully and looked at Loki, who stirred but did not wake; she ran her hand over his scarred mouth, brushed her nose against his, closed her eyes.
I saw you lead a ship full of dead souls into battle against the gods, she wanted to tell him. But how could this be? The dead obey no one, and you reckon yourself among the Aesir . . .
The second time she’d seen his face in the dream it had been worse, and the memory of it made her stomach churn.
I saw you bound.
I cannot remember what you did, or if I even knew in the first place, but you were punished for it.
And you were in pain. You were in so much pain.
What will you do to deserve this, and how can I stop you from doing it?
But somehow Angrboda knew that it was not her place to become involved in these events, for in the dream he was not alone: There was a woman at his side when he was bound—a woman she somehow knew distinctly to be Sigyn. Even now that the woman’s face had grown fainter in her memory, she remembered the emotions she had seen there: unhappiness, even grief. Arms outstretched, clasping a bowl near Loki to catch the venom of the snake fixed over him, tears running down her face every time she had to move the bowl to empty it.
Angrboda could still hear his screams in her mind as the venom burned his face. And yet it was Sigyn who was by his side, the picture of perfect loyalty.
But I will never see you suffer this way. What will stop me from coming to free you from this fate?
What will happen to me, to us, to prevent me from standing by your side as well?
Angrboda pulled the blanket over them again and pressed yet closer against him, felt the heat of his skin against hers. Thunder crashed outside, but still Loki did not wake. She envied how peaceful he seemed in sleep—the only time he was peaceful. And yet he was unaware of the woman who was holding him so tightly now, so unwilling to let go of him.
Indeed, Loki did not know how safe he was with Angrboda at his side.
Some part of her knew that things between them would not last forever, for forever was quite a long time, and her husband was easily bored. And yet, the question continued to eat away at her:
Where will I be when this terrible fate befalls you?
* * *
• • •
After that night, Loki seemed hesitant to leave again for any length of time. Hel and Fenrir had been overjoyed to see him the morning after Angrboda’s dream. They, too, seemed unwilling to let him out of their sight.
Angrboda felt uneasy in the days following for reasons she could not quite articulate. She suspected at first that it was because of the vision but knew part of her unease was due to her pregnancy; she couldn’t help but wonder what form her next child would take, and this troubled her.
She was mixing potions one afternoon under Hel’s watchful gaze—which switched constantly between her mother and her father—when Skadi and Gerd dropped by. At the time, Loki was playing tug-of-war with Fenrir on the floor, using a large bone as a rope. This resulted in the massive wolf pup dragging him around the cave and, eventually, right up to the door. Papa, Skadi’s here—there’s someone with her!
Angrboda stiffened and she and Loki exchanged a look. Two seconds later there was a knock at the door, and Loki, still sitting on the floor, dropped the bone for Fenrir to scoop up. Then he scooted over to the cave’s entrance and reached for the door handle.
“Loki, don’t—,” Angrboda began.
“What? I’m not scared of her,” he said, and he opened the door to find Skadi glaring down at him. Hel screeched with delight and ran to her, Fenrir loping at her heels—both of them had pushed past their sitting father, who seemed offended.
But not more offended than Skadi, who scooped up the child in her arms and ruffled the wolf pup’s head without tearing her gaze from Loki.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Loki pointed over his shoulder with his thumb and said, “We’re married.” And then he hopped to his feet a fraction of a second before Skadi’s boot came down to stomp his testicles into the ground.
“Hey!” Hel cried. “Leave my papa alone!”
“This?” Skadi said, ignoring her and gesturing wildly to Loki. She looked at Angrboda with fury. “You’re married to this? This dreadful piece of work is your husband and the father of your children and the love of your life and so on?”
“ ‘Life’ is sort of a loose term when you’ve been thrice reborn from fire,” Angrboda said, turning away from her potion making. “ ‘Love of my existence’ would probably be more accurate.”
“Aww, and here I assumed you thought so little of me,” Loki said. He sauntered over to her and made a show of putting an arm around her shoulders and planting a fat kiss on her temple.
Angrboda rolled her eyes and gave him a playful
shove. She then turned to Skadi, who was positively twitching with rage. “You can come inside now, you two, and share a drink with us. And dinner, if you’d like. It’s chilly out there.”
“We’re well aware,” Gerd said, pulling her hood off and pushing past Skadi. “And we would be most grateful. Thank you.”
To Angrboda’s surprise, Fenrir trotted right up to the maiden and laid the bone at her feet, wagging his tail bashfully. Hi.
“Well, hello there.” Gerd did not hesitate to lean down and give him a pat on the head. Fenrir licked her face, and she smiled and scratched him behind the ears.
“I could have castrated you nine times over in Asgard, Trickster, had I known you were the useless husband of my dear friend,” Skadi sneered at Loki as he plopped down at the table. She sat on the bench across from him and set Hel down next to her. Gerd poured them each a cup of ale and went straight to Angrboda’s side, intent on staying out of this particular conflict.
Loki sneered right back at the Huntress. “Well, obviously you weren’t thus informed, as my balls are still where they’re supposed to be. I’m surprised no one has tried to lop yours off.”
“She deserves better than the likes of you,” said Skadi with feeling. “Anyone does.”
“Gerd, will you help me prepare dinner?” Angrboda asked tiredly.
Gerd nodded and leapt to the task, and they started skinning rabbits by the cave’s entrance. For all that Angrboda could say about the girl, at least she was helpful.
“Your scars look more disgusting up close. Almost as disgusting as the things that come out of your mouth,” Skadi was saying to Loki in the meantime.
“My scars are dashing. It’s not my fault you have poor taste.”
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