“I found that out when I sat in the reeds,
and waited for my best-loved girl:
body and soul was that wise lass to me,
and yet I couldn’t have her.”
—Hávamál 96
We made our way in relative silence out of Asgard, across the meadows, and into the woods where Loki had once lived. It was late when we arrived, stumbling through the forest in the pitch dark, not daring to light a lantern, but the tension kept us awake. The old cabin didn’t seem sturdy enough to sleep in, so we started a fire and huddled around it, the quiet chirping of the woods enveloping us, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
I hadn’t let myself think about it on the way there. I’d kept my mind on the plan: camp tonight, set out for the border in the morning. How rough the terrain would be, how much food we would need for the five—or maybe four—of us to make it into the mountains, how long it might take to find a village.
But staring into the lavender fire, it was hard to think of anything but the kiss. The reason had been simple enough; he’d been drowning in his own melancholy, and I’d done it to stir some kind of passion in him, some will to live. Like a bribe to keep going, whether I planned to fulfil the implicit promise or not. I hadn’t expected it to feel…like nothing. An absence of hate. The touch of him had turned my stomach for so many years, and it was hard to put my finger on what exactly had changed.
There had been so many things. Meeting Loki’s other children, learning to like them, then watching them suffer. Knowing the truth about the Seer’s Prophecy and our fates. Expecting to be killed, or at the very least, not to truly live. Counting down the moments until I watched my children die.
All the anger I held for Loki didn’t really matter anymore. It was there, but more imminent was the idea that this day might be the last. And if not today, maybe tomorrow.
Loki’s actions had brought us here. Of course they had. But if Odin had heard the prophecy all those decades ago, my name doomed next to Loki’s, and had done nothing...what else could it be but a betrayal? Odin had let my fate come for me.
It wasn’t fair.
All the hate, all the effort of it suddenly felt like such an awful waste of time. If we were going to meet our end, I wasn’t going to spend my last days filled with anger for the person who, for all his enormous flaws, had given me more of himself than anyone else.
When the end of everything came, my family would be all I had left.
◦ ● ◦
Late the next morning, we rose, ate, and left. It was hard going, trudging through the forest. We intentionally kept away from anything that might look like a path, doing our best to skirt around the brush. The quiet still hung over us. Someone would bring something up, and we’d talk or laugh for a moment, and then the silence would descend again. There wasn’t a lot of happiness to go around.
Váli held out a hand, signalling for us to stop. A stag was grazing in the distance. He was alone, his antlers bobbing as he ate, ears twitching for signs of danger. Váli passed his pack to Hreidulfr, making as little noise as he could. Then he notched an arrow into his bow and took aim.
The arrow snapped through the air and struck the deer in the flank. Its head reared back, and it cried out, but it wasn’t giving up. It ran, darting between trees, making it impossible to hit a second time.
“Skít,” Váli mumbled, borrowing his father’s curse. He stripped off, tossing his clothes into a pile, and started to run through the trees, naked as the day he was born. And then he was changing, the tattoos that curved over his shoulder glowing. He fell to all fours, melting into the wolf, chasing after his prey.
Once he’d disappeared, I started to pick Váli’s clothes off the ground and drape them over my arm. “At least we’ll eat well tonight.”
“If I could do that, I’d catch everything I hunted too.” Hreidulfr chuckled, adjusting the pair of packs on his shoulders.
Narvi perked his head up. “Váli’s caught the deer. He says we should follow.”
I stared at Narvi. “What do you mean ‘he says’?”
“Those runes I was working on with father to communicate with animals? We finished them last month. I can hear his thoughts when he’s a wolf, but only at a short distance.” Narvi blushed and started to walk away. “He’s over here.”
I caught up to him, stunned. “That’s fantastic, Narvi! Why didn’t you tell me?”
Narvi hesitated. “Things haven’t exactly been good lately. It didn’t seem like the right time.”
Hreidulfr put his arm around Narvi’s neck, absolutely colossal next to the lanky boy. “Never hold back good news, little brother. The realms need more of it.”
That brought a smile back to Narvi’s face, then something dawned on him. “I could teach you both. We should all know how to do it, just in case.”
“Yes, you should.” I squinted at the shape in the distance. A wolf was circling the carcass of a deer, splayed on the ground. “Among other things, it would be nice to know I’m approaching the right wolf.”
“It’s the eyes. Just like Loki.” Hreidulfr said, pointing at his own. “Never saw a wolf with green eyes before.”
A twig cracked under my foot and the wolf’s head jumped up, ears perked. But once it saw us, it sat down next to its kill, tongue lolling out of its mouth. The arrow still sprouted from the deer’s flank, but there were also a series of bite and claw marks along its body.
The wolf licked its lips.
I gave Váli a scratch behind the ears and set the clothes on the ground. “Nicely done. Get changed, and we’ll start working.”
Váli yipped, then took the pile of clothing gently between his teeth and padded into the forest for a bit of privacy.
The three of us went to work. Hreidulfr strung the deer from a tree and let it bleed out. Once that was done, he began at the head, and I started at the tail, cutting into the hide of the deer. As we worked our way around the carcass, Hreidulfr guiding my hand, Narvi built a compact fire. He came back again and again with rocks big enough to cook meat on, and as the fire warmed, we passed him cuts to cook. We wouldn’t be able to use the whole deer, but we’d take as much as we could carry and leave the rest for the wild.
Váli came back halfway through and sat down next to the fire, using his knife to flip the meat. “Not bad for a day’s work. Could you hear me after? When I went to change? I think I was further away than usual.”
Narvi nodded, desperately uncomfortable. “You said you found a creek and that there were berries nearby. But, brother…I heard everything, even when your mind was wandering. Could you just…keep some thoughts to yourself?”
I burst out laughing as Hreidulfr turned bright pink all the way to his ears. Váli put a hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh. “I am so sorry.”
We ate the first cuts while we waited for the next round to cook. We passed a few hours that way, talking and wrapping freshly cooked meat into some of the already empty cloth Hreidulfr had packed the rations in. When we’d had our fill and stuffed our bags, we smothered the fire and kept moving.
◦ ● ◦
“That must be it.” Hreidulfr shielded his eyes from the sun, staring out at the massive body of water below. “The lake.”
“That’s it.” I’d known the one Loki had meant when he said it. I’d passed it often enough on excursions into Jotunheim. Enormous and shimmering a soft blue-green, it was the product of glacial runoff from the mountains. It was hard to miss.
Trees dotted the grass around the lake, and as the terrain crept closer to the tall, snow-capped mountains, the ground grew steeper, rockier. Sparse and unforgiving. Once we crossed into the snow, things would get very, very uncomfortable.
But first we had to wait for Loki.