“When asked, the gods seemed to have come to a consensus about his demeanour; Loki couldn’t be relied on. At the faintest sign of commitment, he’d run as far and as fast as he could.”
—God of Lies Revealed
I spat the lingering bile into the bowl, bent over the counter like a drunk. My stomach had stopped turning, but my mouth tasted like a troll’s backside. I got myself a cup of water, wiping the tears from my cheeks. Slow sips. Staring out the frost-edged window, I could already see Asgard’s new wall taking shape at the edge of the city in the early morning light. It had only been two weeks.
“Sig?” Loki stumbled out of the bedroom, still half asleep and wrapped in a thick fur. He was rubbing his eyes and blinking. “Again?”
I nodded, moaning like a child. “It’s been three days. Why?”
He pulled me into his arms and held me against his chest. “I think you’re sick.”
“No. I can’t be sick. Gods don’t get sick.”
“That’s not true. Every once in a decade, someone comes down with something.”
He was right, of course. It did happen. But there was something gnawing at me that I kept pushing down. A possibility that I couldn’t look at, let alone give voice to.
I groaned. “I hate this. I feel useless.”
He turned me around and nudged me towards the bedroom. “Let’s get you back to sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”
I grumbled in protest but didn’t fight him. He pulled back the mussed furs and tucked me into bed. For good measure, he felt my forehead with his hand and planted a kiss on my temple. “Sleep tight, darling.”
◦ ● ◦
There were voices when I woke up. Loki’s and another. I peeked open my eyes as a familiar face entered the bedroom.
“Eir? What are you doing here?”
I had studied under Eir for years in order to have enough medicinal seidr to practice properly. She had the same severe smile and salt-and-pepper hair as ever, pulled back into a bun at the back of her head. She was still wearing her grey infirmary uniform, though she’d taken off the ever-stained apron. She’d even brought her bag of tools.
Loki came in behind her and was quick to answer. “You’re sick, Sig. I got you a healer.”
“He’s quite concerned about you, you know.” Eir gave me a comforting smile and approached the bedside. “I told him there likely wasn’t anything to worry about, but that hasn’t stopped him.”
“There’s nothing wrong,” I protested, struggling to sit up against the headboard.
“Nausea, vomiting, and lethargy, yes?” She sat down on the bed and put a hand to my clammy forehead. “Warm but nothing drastic.” She pulled her bag onto her lap. “There’s a test I’d like to run. Will you pull up your nightdress and lay down for me?”
I squinted at her. The request narrowed the possibilities down significantly and was doing nothing to help the creeping suspicion at the back of my consciousness.
I did as I was told.
She laid a cold hand on my stomach, feeling around with her fingertips. “Any tenderness anywhere?”
“I don’t think so.”
Loki was hovering at the end of the bed, chewing at the pads around his nails.
Eir reached into her bag and pulled out a jar of rune ink and a brush. That narrowed it down even further.
“What are you testing for?” I asked. “Eir? A parasite? Ink can be used for locating parasites.”
“I’m not testing for parasites. You’re too smart for your own good sometimes. You’ll give yourself a heart attack one day.” She unscrewed the top of the rune ink and dipped the brush in, scraping it against the side of the jar. “When was the last time you had your bleeding?”
I started to answer, then found I wasn’t sure. Recently, wasn’t it? But between the trip to Jotunheim and everything with the wall, I’d lost track. I’d been using the birth control I’d learned with Eir to keep myself from being in this exact situation, but… I wracked my brain, trying to remember where I might have slipped up.
Loki’s face changed as the realisation dawned on him. “Oh. Oh. You mean…Well, how will you know?”
“It’s easy. A little ink and some seidr, that’s all.”
“Like divination?”
“No. This test is as accurate as they come. It either finds a child or it doesn’t.”
Loki’s long inhale was audible even from the end of the bed.
My mouth was suddenly very, very dry. This wasn’t a possibility we’d entertained. We’d been together for such a short time, especially in the grand scheme of eternity. Loki was good with children, but did he want them? His face betrayed nothing except deep thought and discomfort. But that could mean anything, couldn’t it?
The cold ink touched my skin, breaking me away from my thoughts. The brush tickled, but I did my best to stay still. Eir drew hard-angled runes, her lips barely moving as she whispered. As she drew, the ink sunk into my skin, disappearing by slow degrees. I’d seen the procedure a thousand times; hel, I’d performed it often enough on my own. But Loki hadn’t.
“What now?” He normally knew better than to speak while someone was casting runes, but I could hardly blame him; the worry was churning knots in my insides too. Besides, Eir had performed through worse.
“The ink will either rise to the surface as a rune or it will come back like a spill.” I kept my voice low, trying to be a good patient.
“Which is the good one?”
“That depends.” His eyes met mine, and he stared until I felt so uncomfortable that I had to speak. “The rune means a baby.”
He nodded and went back to chewing the skin on his fingers.
Eir put the brush back in the jar and placed her hands above my belly. She was still whispering, her palms hovering over my skin. I couldn’t breathe.
And then it happened.
I drew a breath, unsure what else to do. I was too shocked to cry and too confused to do much else.
“Congratulations. You’re having a baby.” Eir squeezed my hand, then took in the utter silence in the room. She wiped the rune brush on an ink-stained cloth, closed the bottle and put everything back into her bag. Before she got up, she leaned over me. “If you need anything, I’m always available. You have options, should you wish to take them. Think hard, and when you decide which path you’d like to take, I’ll be there to help you.” She closed up her bag and let herself out without another word.
Loki hadn’t moved. His knuckles were white, wrapped tightly around the end of the bed. And then, as if snapping out of some thought, his head came up, and he came to sit next to me.
“Well.”
I sat up, trying to find something to wipe the ink from my stomach. Loki jumped up and brought back a rag from the kitchen. I scrubbed my skin until it was clean. Neither of us said a word.
For a long moment, we just sat and looked at one another. I couldn’t read anything on his face. It was as masked a thing as I’d ever seen. I couldn’t stand it. “I’m tired. I’m going to take a nap.”
“Alright.” Loki’s voice was low, barely more than a whisper. I rolled away from him, pulling the blankets up to my neck. He hesitated a moment, then got up and left the room.
Only then did I cry.
◦ ● ◦
The house was quiet when I woke up. I rubbed my eyes. Dried tears flaked away. It took a while to wake my limbs, having been curled into such a tight ball for so long. I looked out the window. The sun was already fading into the early evening of the winter months. I’d slept at least a couple of hours.
I didn’t want to leave my bed. Leaving the room meant seeing Loki and discovering whichever truth he’d decided on, and I was terrified of both. But I was thirsty, and I hadn’t heard a peep since I woke up. Besides, there was no fighting the inevitable.
I went out.
No one was there.
He’s gone. I scrambled around the table. His shoes weren’t by the door, and his cloak was missing. But it was winter, and he wouldn’t leave the house for any reason without them. I went back to the bedroom. His newest book was still on the night table along with a cluttered assortment of the baubles he sometimes wove into his hair. His clothing was in the wardrobe, his favourite soap still in the bathing room. Everything was still there. Except him.
He wouldn’t run. Not without his things.
Right?
I was being stupid. Nothing helpful would come from worrying, so I got myself some water and sat down to worry anyway. I flipped through the pages of a dozen books before setting them down again. I tried to scribble a list of things I needed, but that list quickly became a series of pros and cons about babies. All this thought of Loki, but did I want a baby? I trailed runes over the page, spelling out everything from soiled diapers to restless nights to long cuddles. A baby had never been part of my plan to achieve glory, but it sounded…good. Mostly. It would change everything. Including the single-minded pursuit of my title.
The clunk of boots stirred me. They knocked on the porch several times, the sound of trying not to drag snow inside. The door handle twisted, and Loki stepped inside, shaking the white from his cloak, his hood still up around his face, royal blue against the flame of his hair and the emerald in his eyes.
He had a basket in his hands, its top sealed shut to keep out the snow. He kicked off his shoes and came to the table. As he approached to set the basket down in front of me, I scrambled to move my lists, flipping them upside down.
Loki sat down next to me, pushing his hood back. His eyes met mine, and he sighed, his shoulders dropping. “Are you feeling better?”
I licked my lips. I couldn’t manage more than a whisper. “Still nauseous, though I think for different reasons now.”
“I’m sorry.”
My voice caught in my throat. “For what?” There were so many things he could be sorry for.
“For putting you in this position. For not knowing what to say. For letting you wake up with no one here.” He reached out and pulled the lid off the basket. “But I needed to get a few things.”
Inside were piles of mint and ginger tucked around a vial of something that looked like it came from an apothecary in the market. There was warm bread and soft cheese and a tiny cloth bag labelled cocoa.
“They recommended these against stomach sickness. The rest was just…”
“Thoughtful,” I finished, pursing my lips in pleasant surprise. “What’s this?” I reached in and picked up a small oak box from beneath the mint leaves. It was polished and plain, on golden hinges. Simple, but expensive. I started to open it, but Loki laid a hand on mine, holding it shut.
“Sigyn. This isn’t what either of us was expecting. I don’t know what you want to do, if you want a baby or not. Ymir’s breath, we haven’t even… There are reasons not to, and maybe I’m one of those reasons. But I would do this with you if you want to.”
His hand moved, still cupped over mine, and opened the box. Inside were two gold rings, one thin and one thick. They were plain, the kind that goldsmiths showed to prospective buyers before having patterns etched in. Unfinished stories.
He squeezed my hands. “Will you be my family?”
My eyes travelled from the box to his face and back. Words escaped me. I thought that this wild chariot ride of a day had peaked at the announcement of a baby. And here was Loki, proposing to me. Part of me screamed to say yes, and another…
“You barely know me.” I shuffled in my seat. “You’re being impulsive, like always.”
The look he gave me was akin to one he might give an imbecile. “There is nothing impulsive about this. I love you, Sigyn. It’s not the first time I’ve thought about it. I would’ve asked anyway. Someday.”
“Someday?” I sniffed, tears pooling in my eyes. Anyone could say that after the fact.
“Yes. I’d have asked you someday, in the same way that summer will come someday. You’re inevitable.”
I chewed at the inside of my lip, blinking back the tears. “This is a lot, Loki. All of these things at once, and what if we fuck it up?” The questions poured out of my mouth as fast as I could think them. “What if I say yes and we get married and we have this child, and you change your mind? What if you don’t love me anymore or if you get yourself in so much trouble that you can’t talk yourself out of it? What if you die or we both do? What if we’re bad parents? What if we ruin their life? And—Yggdrasil shade us, what is my father going to say?” I buried my face in my palms, sobbing.
Loki fell to his knees in front of me, gathering me into his arms. He hushed me. “That’s not going to happen, Sig. I’m never going to just fall out of love with you. How could I? How am I supposed to find someone else like you? Someone who cares for me the way you do? No one else has, maybe ever. You’re my home. I love you, and the rest will come together; it has to. We could take on all of Asgard, you and I.”
I tightened my hands around the collar of his cloak. The crying became long, uneven breaths, steady enough to speak. “If we do this, you have to be better.”
He pressed his forehead against mine. “I am better, because of you.”
“No. You have to mean it. You have to swear to me that you’ll be the kind of father this child deserves. Not one who lies and gets beaten by his brother-in-law every second month.” I looked him in the eyes. “Not one who doesn’t care, like mine. Not a father who doesn’t love his child.”
His face hardened, brow furrowed. Each breath he took was sharp and deep, his eyes uncertain as if he were waiting on the judgement of his own execution. A lonely tear ran down his cheek.
“I would love that child until my last day.”
“Promise me,” I whispered.
He took my face in his hands, his fingers gripping me like I was a bird, about to fly off. “I promise. I’ll love you both. I do love you both.”
There was a sincerity in his eyes that I couldn’t deny. Whatever trouble he got himself into, whatever bad relationships he’d fostered with other gods, he loved me. It was easy to imagine him putting himself in harm’s way for me, sacrificing for me. For a child. And I wanted that. I wanted someone to love me so much that they’d burn the realms for me.
“Alright. Yes.” A nervous laugh escaped my throat. “Oh gods. Oh Loki, what are we doing?”
“Something amazing.” He kissed me in short, desperate bursts, then reached for the box on the table. “I don’t even know if it fits. I just got the same size as my little finger. We can get a new one.” He took my hand and slid the smaller of the two onto my ring finger. It slid on, only slightly too big.
I stared at it, my hand sitting so delicately in his. We would have a child. We would be married. Our friends would come, and we’d stand in the gardens at Valhalla in the company of my family, my father—My father.
“Odin is never going to allow it.”
“No. He won’t.” He moved to lay his head in my lap, his palm against my stomach. His breath was hot on my leg, even through the fabric of my dress. There was a glaze over his eyes, a peace. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have to.”