“There will be no more mention of the previous master archivist in these pages. He has died a murderer of the worst order, and he will receive no immortality by our hands.”
—Archives of Asgard, Daily Records
Váli had Loki pinned against the door before he could finish his sentence. The blade of the knife bit into Loki’s throat, a trickle of blood already sliding down the metal. Váli’s teeth were set in a growl, every muscle in his body tensed with the force it took to keep his father trapped. “Every time I think you’ve hit rock bottom, you make it worse. You’re a fucking monster.”
Hreidulfr put his hand on Váli’s shoulder. “Breathe, love. Put the knife down. Hurting him won’t change anything.”
“Oh, but it will,” Váli hissed. “Killing him stops everything. No more tricks, no more pain. Just the end. Maybe killing him stops Ragnarok.”
I stepped closer. “Does it? How can you know for sure?”
Narvi pulled in a laboured breath, curled up in his chair, his legs drawn up against his chest. His weeping was like choking, grief so strong it pushed the air out of him, the background noise to Loki’s imminent death.
Váli whipped his head around, snarling at Narvi. The tattoos that peeked out from under his shirt had started to ocellate, and his eyes were wild. His voice turned gravely as he barked the order, “Shut him up!”
He wasn’t paying attention and the blade dug into Loki’s skin, drawing a hiss but nothing else. Too afraid to speak, Loki’s eyes caught mine.
As much as the moment was cathartic, someone would get hurt if Váli couldn’t control his rage. I touched my hand to my son’s shoulder, a rune on my breath. Except mine was stronger than Loki’s had been, and Váli collapsed to the floor in a sleeping heap, the blade clattering down next to him.
Loki slumped against the door, hand pressed to the small wound on his neck. “I think I nearly pissed myself.”
“Shut up,” I snapped at him. “Hreidulfr, help me get Váli into bed.”
Hreidulfr and I hoisted Váli up, each taking a shoulder. My son was all dead weight and muscle, and it took us a few minutes to haul him into his chaotic mess of a bedroom. Hreidulfr settled him onto the mattress and pulled the blankets up over his lover’s chest, pressing a kiss against his temple.
I shut the door behind us. Loki had found a cloth to stem the bleeding, and the three of us sat down at the table. He knew better than to sit close to Narvi, who was still sobbing, and so Loki chose the furthest from all of us.
I put my arm around Narvi. “I’m so sorry, darling.”
He pulled his wrist across his face, and it came away wet and sticky. “Hod can’t be dead.”
“I wish he wasn’t. I tried to help…” But there was nothing I could say that was going to ease his grief, especially when both the boys blamed Loki. I pulled him against my side, blinking back my own tears. “But this, all of it—” I looked at Loki “—has to end here.”
Loki’s whole body tensed. “How can you say that? They took my children and—”
“With all respect, sir,” Hreidulfr said, turning to Loki. “I’m the only one here who isn’t acting on emotion. On Midgard, no one would question what you did. You’d have been within your rights to kill Baldur. I understand what you did and why. But you keep putting people in danger, and I can’t let you do that to Váli. He told me what’s supposed to happen to him, and I already have enough nightmares about his insides being used to shackle you down. I don’t need you trying any harder to get him killed.”
Loki’s face paled at the accusation.
Hreidulfr turned to me. “So what now? How do we keep everyone alive?”
We fetched parchment and charcoal and went over the facts. The realms thought that Loki was gone, disappeared into thin air. He would stay missing, never leaving the house in his own shape. And no one could know what Loki had done. Váli had direct access to Fenrir, and he could act as eyes, ears, and messenger. Hreidulfr would continue to funnel supplies to us and would use his temporary postings around the city to bring us news. We drew out an escape plan in case things went badly. A place to meet on the border of Jotunheim, where we could seek refuge in exchange for information.
It was as good a plan as we were going to get.
I turned to Narvi. “What would you like to do?”
His eyes had dried halfway through the planning, but he hadn’t said a word. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want to keep studying?”
Narvi was quiet for a moment. “It’s the best way to honour him. He would want me to work harder.”
“I think it’s important you keep your routines, as much as you can.” Hreidulfr tapped his hand on the table. “No one is coming for you, and you can’t act like they are. It’ll make them suspicious.”
“I want a funeral for Hod.” Narvi blinked back more tears.
“Of course.” No one else would be celebrating the life of the man who had supposedly murdered the God of Light. It would be up to us.
Narvi stood up, composing himself. “I want to do it tonight, but there’s something I have to do first. I’ll be back soon.”
My heart ached, worry flooding me. But what could I say? “Be careful, please.”
We watched in silence as he pulled on his boots and left.
When he returned a while later, he had someone with him.
Eyvindr.
His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale and empty. He trembled, and if a stiff breeze came by, he might collapse under it.
“He should be there,” Narvi said before anyone could ask. “No one should mourn alone.”
I approached Eyvindr and took his hand. “I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could say…”
Eyvindr sniffed. “There isn’t. They’re calling him a murderer.” His breath hitched, and the next words came out as a wail. “They left his body for the crows!”
I pulled him against me, holding him as tightly as I could. Narvi started to cry again, and the room was silent, brimming with grief. Loki kept his eyes on his own lap.
When he’d gathered himself, Eyvindr took a look around. “Will we do it here?”
“No. We know a place that’s better. Private.” Narvi pulled his satchel onto his shoulder. “Somewhere we can speak honestly.”
Eyvindr nodded, wiping his tears with his sleeve.
◦ ● ◦
It took longer than I would’ve liked to walk out of Asgard and into the woods where Loki’s cabin still sat. No one spoke. We pushed forward, two by two, with Loki and I bringing up the rear. He knew better than to look at me, and it was better that way. I wasn’t sure what I’d do if he spoke.
The cabin had seen better days; the roof was threatening to cave in, and the old benches around the firepit had turned decrepit with time. But we made ourselves as comfortable as we could, all of us tucked into furs, a cup of drink in our hand. We’d brought more than enough to last the night.
“Do you want to start?” I asked Eyvindr.
He shook his head.
“I will,” Váli said. “When I was a kid, Hod caught me picking on Narvi. Mother had sent me to bring him home from his lessons, and he was so peaceful, just reading. So I started talking nonsense, trying to distract him. Narvi got so frustrated that he started to cry. And Hod, he came over, as patient as could be, and made me shelve all these books for him. Must have been hundreds. And he did that every day for a week until I could come into the archives without causing trouble. Smart bastard.” He tipped his cup and poured a mouthful of mead onto the ground. “For Hod.”
I held up my cup. “I was jealous of Hod for a long time. No one else ever was. He was smart and skilled but quiet. No one ever envies humble people. But I did. He somehow saw everything, even without his eyes. He knew everything. He got to spend his days with the books, and when I was growing up, that was all I wanted. To be him, listening to all these stories and making sure they were preserved for the future. No one ever paid him any attention unless they wanted something, but I thought he had it all. I was lucky that he loved me for as long as he did.” I tipped my cup and let the whole thing pour out.
There was a silence, waiting to see who would go next. Loki cleared his throat. “Hod believed in me when I was too young and too angry to think I was worth anything. I had no parents, and Odin took everything I had, but Hod was just a friend. He wanted me to be better. While I was choking on Odin’s influence, Hod was telling me to smarten up. Make better choices. Eventually, I listened. Never well enough.” He poured out a drink and then gulped back the rest. His head dropped, eyes pinned on the ground.
Hreidulfr held up his cup. “I didn’t know him. But he did good work for the realms, and he made your lives better, and that’s enough for me. For Hod.” And he poured a drink.
We looked at Narvi. He took a drink straight from the bottle and wiped the residue from his lips. “I always accepted that I was alone. That I didn’t really have anyone the way other people did. They were always too afraid of us. But Hod saw me. Every time I thought something was interesting, he found me a book or a scroll so I could chase the idea. And I don’t have friends or anything, but I had him and a whole future in front of me. And now he’s gone, and it’s like everything else is too. I always thought he’d be there for whatever came next. I don’t know how to do it without him.” He let half the bottle trickle out in a thin stream, puddling on the ground.
And there was no one left but Eyvindr.
He drew a long breath. “I have never told anyone this, and I will never tell anyone again. I loved Hod with all my heart. He was everything to me. We always thought you knew, but we were happy as we were, our love as our secret. There will never be anyone like him again, not if the realms live to be hundreds of thousands of years old. And all I can think is that I’d rather be dead than here without him.” He looked up at the stars, sniffing. “You know, he liked to knit. He would make these long, awkwardly misshapen blankets out of wool yarn, because he could do it by touch alone, but it was more difficult for him to get the shape exactly right. He’d make them again and again. I have six of them because he wanted me to have something to keep my feet warm at night. But nothing is going to be warm again because he’s not here.”
The silence after enveloped everything. No one knew what to say.
Across the fire from me, Loki leaned back, his face shrouded in darkness, as if it could hide his guilt as he sobbed.