“Eternal youth isn’t something I intend to share with the nine realms. Bind the apples to Bragi’s new wife and make sure no one but her can pick them. Maybe the responsibility will make her stop crying.”
—Odin - Note to Freya
“They were all shoved under the door.” Bragi threw the handful of notes on the table, nearly all of them from me. “There’s rotted food and milk so old I could barely recognize it. How long has she been gone?”
“Weeks.” I choked back the bile rising in my throat. “We thought she was with you. The note on the door said she’d gone to Midgard.”
Bragi pushed his hair back, eyes wide and wild. “What note?”
Loki tapped his fingers on his arm, lips pursed. “When I went to the cabin, there was a note from Idunn that said she’d gone to find you.”
“Why would she do that?” There was an edge to his voice, panic sitting so close to the surface. “She’d have no idea what town I was in or what road I’d be on. She’s not a diviner! It makes no sense. How could you have believed that?”
“I had nothing else to go by, Bragi. I—”
Bragi slammed his fist on the table, knocking over a pile of my books. I couldn’t ever remember him getting angry. “You know her better than this, Sigyn! I don’t understand how you could let her be missing for weeks and think nothing was wrong.”
I swallowed. “Eight weeks.”
“Eight?” He turned and walked a few paces away, his palms over his face. “She could be dead, Sigyn.”
“Hey now.” Loki put his arm around my back. “Before you decide one of us is a murderer, why don’t we start by looking for her?”
“You should have been looking for her already!” Bragi picked up the closest thing to him, a wooden plate, and threw it across the room. There were tears in Bragi’s eyes, and his breathing was ragged. Beneath all the anger, he was petrified. “When I leave, I trust that Idunn is safe because she has people around who love her. I thought she’d be safe with you, and you didn’t even notice she was gone.”
“That’s not fair. We thought—”
“Alright, that’s enough.” Loki went to the door and pulled on his boots. “Standing here solves nothing—”
“Well, it’s suited everyone just fine for the last two fucking months!” Bragi tipped his head back and took a deep breath. All this anger that he never used, but that he had surely learned from our family, just like I had. Then the desperation started to bleed through. “I don’t understand. I just don’t. How could no one be looking for her?”
Because like me, we’d all been wrapped up in our own lives, too busy to look any harder at the lie. I’d just accepted it. Loki had brought home that note. A note I hadn’t seen. If she hadn’t written it, who had?
I looked up, watching Loki as he secured his cloak around his shoulders.
“I’ll tell Hod to keep the boys at study until we come get them, all night if needed. Then I’ll go to Odin and have them put out the word.” Loki turned to me. “Sig, try Freya. Maybe she can help.”
I nodded, doubts writhing in my mind. I shook myself and closed the door on them. There wasn’t time for misguided worry.
Bragi opened the door and stood for a moment, the wind whipping at his cloak. “You had better find her. I swear, if she’s missing and—” His voice cracked. “She is everything to me.” Then he disappeared out the door and into the city.
◦ ● ◦
When Loki had told me about the note, I’d been relieved. I’d taken it at face value, and so had the rest of the gods. It was inconvenient, growing older as we all waited for Idunn to come back, but there was nothing to be done. Without the apples, they’d been growing a little weaker every day. We’d all trusted that she’d be back soon.
Freya was no exception. As I explained to her what I knew, I noticed the furrows in her forehead and around her mouth. The way her eyes seemed to sit in hollows. She seemed thinner. She hadn’t worn metal armour in weeks, keeping only to dresses and thin leather when the occasion arose.
No one had asked Loki and I why we hadn’t faded quite as quickly. Silver had sprung up at the roots of his hair, and the lines in both our faces had begun to deepen. It wouldn’t be long before time caught up with us as well. But Loki had warned me not to tell anyone about the extra apples. Jealousy makes good gods do very bad things.
“So all this time—” Freya’s voice was raspy, like she’d been smoking a pipe all her life. “—the note was a fake, and she’s missing? You lied?”
“No! We don’t know where she is. She might have gone looking for Bragi and never found him. The note said—”
“And where did the note come from exactly?”
“I found it on her cabin door.” This lie, the only one, was necessary. No matter what doubts had crept into my mind, I wasn’t going to implicate Loki in this. It was too dangerous, and I knew that I had to be wrong. “It was her writing.”
“Runes aren’t hard to fake, Sigyn. It’s all straight lines and hard angles. I could write like her if I tried.” Freya opened the door to her student’s study hall and peeked in. They were still quiet. She closed it. “There’s been nothing found on the way to Midgard?”
I shook my head. “We’ve just started looking.”
She sighed and stared at her hands. The skin was thinner, boney edges poking through. “I won’t do the divination myself. I can only do so much in a day now. I get tired. It’ll be good practice for the students.”
I followed Freya into the room. The heads of eight female völur looked up, eyes on their goddess, books in their laps.
“Stop what you’re doing. We’re putting you to the test. Go fetch the rabbits.”
Their response was immediate. They were up and gone, and when they returned a few minutes later, it was without their red silk robes and each with a rabbit wriggling in their arms.
Freya and I sat as the eight of them made their sacrifices and painted the blood on their skin. Their lips moved quietly, in near unison. Some slipped under more quickly than others. And then they were all gone, their bodies sitting perfectly still, waiting for their souls to return.
It was more interesting watching them come back. They returned to themselves slowly, one by one. Sometimes, it would be minutes between, sometimes only seconds. No one spoke until all eight were back in the room.
“Where is Idunn?” Freya asked.
“In the north,” said one.
“In a cold keep,” said another.
“Jotunheim.”
“Is she alive?” Freya’s knuckles were white, worrying one hand into the other.
“The Nornir say yes,” said a woman in the back.
The rest echoed her response; yes, yes.
I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Did they tell you what happened to her?”
“A forest.”
“An eagle, bigger than a bear. It took her.”
“To Jotunheim.”
“Someone was with her. Someone betrayed her.”
I sat forward, a knife twisting in my gut. “Who? Who betrayed her?”
There was silence and a look of shame on their faces. Only one dared to speak up. “It’s difficult to know. There were enchantments to keep them from being seen. But…” She took a deep breath. “They had red hair. Tall. This much I know.”
Freya stiffened beside me, drawing a breath so long that I thought her lungs might burst. She exhaled. “Thank you, ladies. Well done. Take your things and go.”
She said nothing as she waited for them to wrap themselves in their robes and take their bloody messes with them. When the room was empty, there was still a spatter of red across the stone.
“I know what you think—”
“Do you?” Freya snapped. “Because right now, I’m wondering if you helped him.”
“He hasn’t done anything! Why would he? Idunn is a sister to him.”
Freya straightened out, her body cracking and popping. “He doesn’t love anyone more than he loves himself.” She pried the door open and left it open for me to follow.
◦ ● ◦
We found Loki where he said he’d be, with Odin.
There were others there as well. Baldur, Thor, Sif, Bragi, Frey. They’d all seen better days. Though the gods sat on the Gladsheim thrones, they looked small. Lacking.
The only ones standing at the foot of the dais were Loki and—
“Heimdall?” Freya approached him, arms crossed over her chest, doing her best to look stern and strong, despite the frailty that had seeped into her bones. “If you’re here, we must really be in trouble.”
“You are.” Heimdall’s skin was leathery, too many centuries of sun catching up with him. He grinned at Freya, and I thought the corners of his lips might rip. “But more than anything, I wanted to be here to witness this.”
“Witness what?” Odin shifted in his seat, straightening his clothing. They were too large for him. Frigg had grown skeleton-thin, but he had shrunk in all manners, a thin old man playing at being a god.
Loki pulled me aside as Freya started to tell them what she’d seen. “You look worried. Are you alright?” He brushed back a loose piece of my hair.
I shook my head and pulled him close, stealing a kiss as an excuse to speak quietly. “Loki, you need to go. I know it wasn’t you, but she thinks it was. You should hide until this is all over and—”
“—and they saw a tall man with red hair helping an enormous eagle take Idunn.”
I turned, keeping myself between them and my husband. “What you’re saying is insane. As if you can identify someone on their hair alone. Ymir’s breath, Thor has red hair. Who says it wasn’t him?”
Freya had already taken the dagger from her belt. “Whoever it was cloaked themselves with seidr. Do you think Thor is intelligent enough to think of that, let alone cast the runes?”
“Wait just a minute!” Thor straightened in his chair. “How dare you.”
“Shut up.” Odin kept his eye on Loki. “And what do you say for yourself, Liesmith?”
“I didn’t do it.” He didn’t elaborate, so I did.
“Idunn is part of our family. She’s our best friend and an aunt to our children. Why would we do anything to jeopardize her safety?” I was seething. I was tired of being the target of their accusations.
“Except that he did.” All eyes went to Heimdall, the silence echoing through the room. “I’ve sworn to keep my nose out of things, just to watch and to intervene only when I absolutely must. But you’ve already found your answer. It was him.”
Loki stepped from around me, heading for Heimdall. “You’re insane—”
“I saw you. First in Midgard with Odin. You went to camp, and the eagle stole your dinner, yes? Hoisted you into the air and left your hands in shreds when he let you back down. But how did you get free, Loki? Tell them what you bargained.”
I pulled Loki back, trying to keep him from ripping Heimdall’s face off. He was snarling. “I didn’t bargain anything. He dropped me and I lived.”
“That eagle had you in the clouds.” Odin rose from his seat and came down the steps, leaning on his spear for support. “If it had wanted you dead, it would have dropped you from there. But it didn’t. It came back down. What did you bargain, Loki?”
After dragging his hand down his face, Loki groaned. “I can’t make you believe me, but that’s the truth. There’s nothing else to tell!”
“Guards.” Odin waved a hand, and his einherjar were on Loki in an instant, tearing him from my grasp. He started to whisper runes until one clasped his jaw shut. They bound his hands. He tried, but in all honesty, Loki was older than he once was. Slower. Weaker. And the einherjar were an unageing snapshot in time, solid ghosts. They won before it had started.
By the time I’d summoned up a crackle of lightning in my hand, another of the guards had found his way behind me. He struck me in the head, and the world dimmed. I fell to the floor, everything spinning.
I blinked the haze back as they pulled me up and covered my mouth.
What a pair we were: husband and wife, bound and gagged.
Heimdall smiled as the guards pinned Loki to his knees. “I saw you with Idunn that last day. You’d slathered yourself in enchantments to keep our prying eyes off, but I knew. It was you, clear as day. You laughed and joked and charmed her and took her out to the woods across from the city. Took her to your old cabin. And after a while, the eagle came. It flew into the clearing and left with Idunn, flying toward Jotunheim.” He crouched down in front of Loki. “I’m not sure what’s more disgusting. That you’re capable of that kind of betrayal, or that you passed by the market for fresh lamb shanks on the way home.”
No. That sinking feeling I’d been fighting all day. That thing I hadn’t wanted to believe, couldn’t bear to look at.
He couldn’t.
He would never.
Odin waved a hand. “Let him speak.”
The guard let go of Loki’s jaw, and immediately the runes were on Loki’s lips. Odin snapped his finger, and the guard punched Loki in the face, stopping the whispers before they could become anything.
“You have one chance to defend yourself, Liesmith. Use it wisely.” Odin shifted his feet, leaning on the spear as if it were the only thing keeping him standing.
“Husband.” Frigg tiptoed down the stairs, her frost blue skirts dragging behind her like mist. “This day changes everything.”
Odin looked at her. “Stay the course? Or turn away?”
Frigg turned her head and looked directly into my eyes. “This must happen.”
Panic streaked through my body. I struggled against the man holding me, trying to pry my wrists from his grasp. What must happen?
“Who is the eagle?” Odin asked, trying to mask the weakness in his voice.
“It was trying to kill me, so I never thought to ask—” Loki’s grin was met with a fist. He spat blood across the stone. “Oh, I have missed this. Nothing like a good beating to get a man all riled up.”
“Please.” Bragi approached Odin and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We’re wasting time. My wife is alive, out there somewhere, waiting for us.” Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Freya turned to Loki. “He’s right; let’s speed this up. Tell me exactly where Idunn is, or I’ll burn you alive.”
Loki licked the blood from his lips. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“You always know something.” She held out her hand a few inches from his chest. As she whispered, a crackle of lightning jumped from finger to finger as if it were alive. And then she pressed it against his chest.
Loki seized against her touch, back arched and eyes wide. He choked on the scream, the sound bubbling in his throat. The current ran under his skin, charring his clothing at the point of contact.
I swung my legs, trying to hit the guard, strike him where it counts. He cursed at me and pulled my jaw back, trying to snap my head from my neck. I had to stand on my toes to dull the ache.
Freya pulled her hand away, and Loki’s seizing slowed. He slumped forward, panting and shaking. Between pained breaths, he managed a single word. “Again.”
Her hand connected, and the smell of burnt hair was overwhelming. She was killing him, and she was smiling while she did it.
She released him. “Who is the eagle?”
“Go to Hel.” He spat on her boots.
The strength was leaving Freya. She wobbled, moving her feet to stand more steadily. Normally, she could keep something like this up for a few hours, but already she was dwindling. And so she looked at me.
“I suppose if you won’t talk, perhaps your wife will. Forever your dutiful accomplice.” She reached toward me, her sparking fingertips hovering over my chest.
“No.” Loki stopped struggling. The defiance in his eyes turned cold, empty. “She doesn’t know anything. Not now, not ever.”
Freya wiggled her fingers over my skin for him to see. “Then tell me what you know.”
Pressing my toes into the floor was the most I could do, trying to force the guard and I back, away from her hand. He was an einherji; he’d be fine. I wasn’t ready to die, not at her hands, and especially when we were innocent.
“The eagle is Thjazi of Jotunheim. He took Idunn.” Loki stared at the floor, his head drooped in resignation.
No.
“Thjazi.” Odin turned over the news, scratching his coarse, brittle beard.
The guard made the mistake of loosening his grip on my neck. I drove my heel into his foot and startled him. One bite into his hand had him threatening me again, until Freya intervened.
“Let her go. It’ll be more entertaining.”
The guard did as he was told.
“Tell them you don’t know anything, Loki.” But he wouldn’t look at me. “Loki!”
He took a deep breath and then another. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” Tears welled in my eyes. It was hard to breathe, like someone was squeezing my lungs. “You wouldn’t. Not this! Loki, please!”
“I had to.”
A scream ripped through me. I pushed him, toppling him backwards and out of the grip of the guards. On top of him. Pounding my fist into his chest. He tried to catch my arms, but I fought him, thrashing and clawing until there was blood under my nails and he had stopped trying. He didn’t hit me back, but he’d already ripped my heart out. He smelled like burnt flesh and shame, and I wanted him to feel the gaping, searing hole he’d torn in me.
He took each blow until the fight went out of me. Then I sat on his chest and sobbed. “How could you?”
Someone pulled me away, aiming to hold me down, but it wasn’t needed. I was a void. People spoke around me, but the words couldn’t hold my attention. I tried to grasp for something that made sense. Idunn was gone. My husband had orchestrated it all. Had he ever loved her? Did he love me? Did he know how to love? I couldn’t linger on any single thought. Any one of them was enough to shatter me.
“Loki’s collusion with a known enemy of Asgard shouldn’t surprise any of you.” Freya made her way up to her seat, one wary step at a time. She nearly collapsed into it. “He should be killed now.”
“What about my wife?” Bragi had slunk down onto the stairs, head in hands.
“Justice can wait,” Frigg said. “We must bring Idunn home before we’re all too withered and weak to do anything about it.”
“It’s nearly true already.” Thor’s words slurred as one of the help filled his horn with dark ale. His arms had become loose bags of sagging skin, the muscle wasted away. “I can hardly lift Mjolnir anymore. Look at me. What good am I to the realms like this?”
“You’re better off sober than drunk,” Odin chided. “If any of the gods appear at Thjazi’s doorstep looking like a bag of bones, they’ll laugh us out of Jotunheim. Someone else has to go.”
I shook myself and sat up. “I’ll go.”
“Why?” Bragi’s voice was weak at first, but rage flooded in. “Why would I ever let you near her again when you let this happen—”
“Quiet,” Odin cut Bragi off before another fight could begin. “Perhaps, Sigyn, but what chance does a healer stand against an entire keep? What could you possibly do?” Odin glanced up and stared at the wall, lost in thought. He stayed like that for a very long time. One of his ravens cawed from its perch above his head. The second was missing. “Sorry. I’ve lost my place. What was I saying? Yes, yes, Thjazi. No, someone else must go.”
“I can do it,” I pleaded. “I’m not just a healer. I’ve been studying disenchanting and elemental seidr for years, and I know enough—”
“I’ll get her.” Loki pushed himself upward, gritting his teeth as he moved his bruised and charred body. He wiped his face with his sleeve, smearing the blood that dripped from his nose. “No one needs to sacrifice anything for me.”
“What makes you think you’ll live long enough?” Freya snapped, leaning forward in her seat.
Loki struggled to his feet. “Unlike you, I can manage more than a few runes before I need to lie down, and if I have your falcon cloak, I’ll have enough seidr to get into the keep and bring Idunn home.”
Odin looked to Frigg.
She nodded. “It’s the clearest path ahead of us.”
“Fine,” Odin said. “Freya, have someone get the cloak from your keep.”
Freya shook her head. “I don’t trust him.”
“No one in this hall is stupid enough to trust him.” Odin looked down at Loki. “But if you deceive us. If you don’t return here with Idunn, your children will be punished in your place.”
“What?” I strode towards Odin, blocked at the last moment by a guard. “You can’t. They haven’t done anything!”
“Neither has Idunn.” Bragi rose to his feet and came within a breath of me. “I’ve never wanted violence for anyone, but for you? You and this piece of shit you call a husband? I would see you bled out and hung from the rafters for what you’ve done to her.”
I glanced around the hall, eyes travelling from face to face. Sullen, angry, horrified. I hadn’t known. Hadn’t touched her.
But that didn’t matter.
I had no allies left in the room.