“She saw a prisoner bound under the hot springs
A lover of evil, in the likeness of Loki
There sits Sigyn, alongside her husband
And she feels no joy, do you not see?”
—Prophecy of the Seeress 35
I came back to the world in increments. My head ached as it lolled back and forth with the rhythm of the moving ground. The light burned through my eyelids, and my blood pounded in my skull in a way I’d never felt before.
When I managed to open my eyes, I had no idea where I was. The camp was long gone. I didn’t recognize anything, though it didn’t look like we’d travelled that far. The world was still rocky with Jotunheim on one side and the fields and forests of Asgard on the other. I strained to find something familiar, but there was nothing.
It wasn’t, in fact, the ground that was moving, but a horse. A rope chafed at my wrists, almost cutting off my circulation. I tried to move, but the rope was fastened around my waist, tying me to the saddle.
“Are you comfortable, goddess?” Skadi’s face was over my shoulder. “Don’t bother struggling. We’re almost there.”
“Where are you taking me?” Two of the einherjar who’d come with Skadi were riding next to us, each with one of my captive sons. They’d clearly gone down fighting, their faces already bruising.
“To your destiny. We wouldn’t want to be late for that.”
I didn’t bother asking for clarification. I knew precisely what destiny she meant. “Where is Hreidulfr?”
“What, your little companion? We left him there. We just need you.”
The riders brought us through a forest and up to the side of a mountain. There was a narrow cave entrance, well hidden by the trees. The riding party halted and pulled the boys off their horses. Skadi yanked me down with a quick tug of the rope, and I tumbled to the ground. The pain in my head erupted, and it was all I could do to keep from heaving my breakfast into the grass.
“Get up,” Skadi barked, tugging again on the rope. I crawled to my feet, my head spinning.
“Leave her alone!” Narvi fought against his restraints, but it was no good. His lips moved, whispers on his breath, and the air rippled in front of him. His captor flew backward, losing control of the ropes.
“You idiots, cover his mouth!” Skadi pushed me forward, and I tripped over myself, nearly landing on the ground again. She laughed as the einherji forced my son’s jaw closed and held it that way.
“You’re dead, you stupid bitch!” Váli thrashed against the arms holding him and when the grip didn’t loosen, he bit down on the nearest piece of flesh, drawing blood. He was rewarded with a set of knuckles to the face.
“You know, your father told me the same thing. You’d better get in line.” She pushed me forward again. “In you go.”
The cave was a dry, sickly warm echo chamber. It was tall enough to stand in most places but not always. Skadi was too tall by far and was forced to stay bent over. A light burned in the distance, a torch in the cave’s pitch-black darkness. I felt around with my feet, trying not to trip over the jagged, rocky surface. I couldn’t see a damned thing, and with no hands to brace myself, I couldn’t afford to tumble down the slope ahead.
The further we walked, the hotter it became. The air smelled sulfuric. I couldn’t place it until the torch-lit cavern came into view. The rocky floor ended a few meters from us, surrounding the milky blue water that steamed and hissed up towards its edge. They’d brought us to an underground hot spring.
This was really it.
When Skadi pushed me into the chamber, all hope fell away. I dropped to my knees on the rocks, barely feeling the pain as they hit the stone. In front of me was Loki, kneeling next to a flat rock outcropping, bound and gagged at the feet of Odin. His tunic was torn, and dried blood scabbed around wounds on his face and arms. I tried to crawl to him, but Skadi dragged me back like a dog on a leash.
The air was too hot, too stifling. My chest was a knot, tightening further as the einherjar pushed Váli and Narvi onto their knees in front of me. I had to save them.
And maybe it was already too late.
“You’re going to wish you’d already killed me,” Váli growled. “There’ll be nothing left of you when I’m done.”
“Lovely children you’ve raised, Sigyn. So polite.” Odin nodded his head, and the einherji punched Váli in the jaw, silencing him.
“Stop!” Tears streamed down my face. Loki struggled against his ropes, screaming something unintelligible through his gag. “Father, please, whatever you want, I’ll do it. Leave my family alone.”
“I wanted a peaceful future for my realms.” Odin rubbed his temples with his fingers. “I wanted to find a way around the prophecies. I did everything I thought I needed to do. I agonized over it day and night for decades, but there was no avoiding this.”
“What?” I searched for the words, baffled. “You knew full well what was going to happen, and you did nothing! You let me marry him, and you knew it would land me here.” I tried to get up, but Skadi’s boot hit my back, pushing me to the floor again. I stared up at him. “And if your plan was to bring him into the fold, you failed. You broke him at every juncture and expected him to, what, love you for it? You had choices, Odin.”
“Did I?” Odin restrained Loki as he struggled toward me. “Do you think we’re here, at this moment, of our own free will? It was written, and if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that fate is sealed. No matter what wives-tales they tell about creating your own stars, none of us can escape it.” Odin looked almost nostalgic, speaking with his free hand. “I couldn’t save your brother. I couldn’t turn Fenrir to our cause. And Loki…I couldn’t keep you away from him. Years of second-guessing our every move. Can she truly tame him? Will the hammer and the wall and the horse be worth what it costs to keep him? Which of our actions drive us closer to Ragnarok? It’s enough to drive a man mad.”
Odin motioned again, and the einherjar dragged the boys into the space between Loki and I. They struggled to even sit upright, their heads bobbing. Váli’s clothing had been torn, and his chest was a mess of wolf scratches. He’d been bitten on the shoulder and blood rolled down his arm, dripping from his fingertips. Narvi was barely conscious, bracing himself against the floor with his bound hands.
“Please, leave them out of this.” I begged. “They’ve done nothing. Whatever you’re going to do, do it to me instead. I deserve it; I was complicit. They’re just children.”
“I know,” Odin said, kneeling to look me in the eyes. “Children really are the most precious thing to a parent, aren’t they? I’ve had decades to prepare for you to betray me. Decades to keep you at arms’ length, to remove you from my heart so that this moment wouldn’t hurt. It helped, I think. Knowing. I could prepare to lose you. You’ve had some time to prepare as well; I hope you’re ready.”
“I will destroy you,” I snarled, reaching deep for a connection with the energy, something to channel into fire, into death. To end this before he ended us.
“Oh, you can try.” He stood again. “It won’t do you any good. This cave is warded against all runes except my own. You won’t be able to raise enough energy to warm your hands, let alone kill anyone.”
He wasn’t bluffing. There was nothing. No connection to anything.
“Please,” I whispered.
“It’s rather poetic, really.” Odin pulled on Loki’s hair, forcing him to look at his children. “You’ve given life to all manner of monsters. How fitting that it’s going to be a monster that tears your family apart.”
Loki screamed behind his gag, fighting Odin’s grip, but it was useless. Tears rolled down his face, the cloth choking him.
“Just do it,” Váli spat, pushing forward against the ropes that held him. The tattoos under his shirt started to glow. “I’m not afraid of you, old man. At least I’ll die with some fight in my soul, some honour that I lived well. You’re just a coward with an army.”
Odin simply smiled. “I’d planned this the other way, but perhaps that’s too simple. You’ve been raised to die fighting. Why don’t we take that honour from you?” He began to whisper, his lips moving in quick patterns, a chant.
Váli’s body jerked back, an involuntary shudder that came from his core. The tattoos were burning bright. A second jerk shook him again, his head jolting back. He screamed, his body cracking and creaking, the sound of breaking bone and the wet slide of moving flesh. The scream became a howl as hair sprouted from his skin in patches, his clothes ripping away. He became the wolf, panting and enraged.
Narvi was awake now, his eyes wide as he knelt next to the wolf. “He’s not in there. His voice. I can’t hear him.”
The wolf turned to face me. His emerald eyes crazed, hungry. Animal. Void of Váli.
“What have you done?” I screamed. “Turn him back!”
The wolf leapt at me. It gnashed its teeth in front of my face, but Odin snapped his fingers, and it looked back. At the wave of Odin’s hand, the einherjar tossed Narvi forward, leaving him bound and helpless in front of his brother.
“Váli, you know me!” Narvi cried, trying to crawl away on his bound hands. “It’s me, you know me. I love you!”
The wolf stalked closer.
“No. Váli, come here!” I whistled, trying to get its attention. “Váli! Take me, you have to take me!” Tears poured down my face, the ropes burning into my skin as I pulled. “Narvi lives! Kill me, please, Narvi lives!”
The wolf’s teeth were in Narvi’s throat before I could draw my next breath.
I fell forward, wailing and crawling toward them on my bound hands. Skadi hauled me back by my hair and forced my head up. She leaned in, her lips against my ear. “I want you to watch.”
The wolf shook its head, pulling the wound in Narvi’s throat wider. Blood pooled around his legs. He struggled under the wolf’s weight—Váli’s weight—trying to loosen its grip. Choking on his own blood.
Its jaws opened for a second, only to clamp down again on his arm, pulling the flesh from it in thick chunks until the bone-white showed.
“Váli.” Narvi’s words were a rasp, bubbles rising at the open wound in his throat. His hand rose and fell again, and he pulled in a long, hard breath. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”
Blood trickled from his lips.
And I watched. Watched his body stop twitching, his breathing slow.
I watched the light leave my baby’s eyes.
The wolf tucked its snout under the cloth of Narvi’s shirt and tore open his stomach, spilling entrails onto the ground. It pulled out an organ with its teeth and chewed it, blood sticking to the fur around its muzzle. And then it swallowed.
I threw up, vomit sloshing across the cave floor. Everything in me was screaming and numb and out of control, and I couldn’t move couldn’t breathe couldn’t keep awake didn’t—
Skadi’s boot hit my back, and I flew forward, nearly face-first into my own mess. The shock brought me back to myself. I was closer to him, to my baby, to the wolf. I crawled forward, slapping at the air with my arm. “Get off him! Get off!”
The wolf startled and turned to snarl at me, but when our eyes connected, something in them flickered. A moment of fear, of consciousness. Then it shook its head and growled. The flicker again. It pushed its face into the stone floor, whimpering. It smacked its head against the ground and scrambled to its feet. Darting around us, the wolf was up and dashing out of the cavern before anyone could stop it.
Sobbing, I pulled myself over Narvi’s body, the blood seeping into my clothing. I pressed my ear to his chest, but I already knew. His heart was silent. The pain wracked through me, escaping my raw throat in a cry. “What have you done?”
“Penance,” Skadi said, hauling me back up.
“What did they do to you?” I couldn’t fight her. There was nothing left to fight for.
She threw me on the ground next to flat outcropping of rocks. “It’s not about you or your sons. It’s about Loki. It’s always been about him and what he’ll do to us all.”
The einherjar pulled Loki up from the floor. His eyes were vacant as if no one lived behind them anymore. They cut his hands free and pulled him on top of the stone, laying him out like it was some kind of sacrificial altar. He barely flinched as they held him down.
“Loki, fight them!” I screamed.
But there was no one there.
Skadi passed my leash to Odin. She bent low over Narvi’s body and reached into his open stomach. When she withdrew her fist, it was dripping red and full of entrails, his intestines draped over her fingers, his stomach hanging aloft.
My stomach lurched again, but there was nothing left to spill. “What is wrong with you?”
“We’re protecting the realms from you.” Skadi tied the length of pink, wet intestine around Loki’s leg. It was loose; too tight, and it would tear. She wrapped it around one leg and then the other, then wound it around the base of the stone slab. The length of it kept moving, inching out of Narvi’s stomach like twine on a roll.
“Are you comfy, Trickster?” She ran her bloody hand from his navel to his neck, leaving a long, snaking red handprint in its wake.
Loki said nothing. He just stared blankly up at the ceiling.
Skadi stood straight and laughed. “I think we’ve broken him.”
She continued her horrific work until his hands, legs, and torso were tied to the stone, his arms up above his head and tied at the wrists. The line went taut, and the last inch of the intestine ripped free of Narvi’s gut. She pulled up the end of her makeshift fetter and tied it off around his ankles. “What a shame. I suppose that’s good enough. Ah, wait.” She untied the gag from his mouth and brushed her hands together like it was the final touch.
“Loki! Get up!” I sobbed, pulling against my own ropes. “That’ll never hold him!”
“Of course it won’t. Just a bit of drama, really. The prophecy insists.” Odin held up his hand. Runes slipped from his lips, and with the snap of a finger, the entrails turned to iron, binding Loki to the stone slab. “These will do just fine, however.”
“You can’t do this. You can’t keep him here.”
“I plan to keep you both here. As punishment for your crimes against the gods and the nine realms, you’ll stay here until Ragnarok itself. You’ll exist beyond time, trapped in this cavern with runes I crafted myself. You’ll never fade, never die, you’ll simply suffer.”
The words were too ugly to begin to register in my mind. “What kind of father does this to his own child? His grandchildren?”
“It’s adorable that you think it’s finished.” Skadi was standing above Loki with a bowl in her hands. She opened the lid and dipped her hand in. When she drew it back out, her fingers were carefully poised around the head of a snake. “This is the Hyrrormir. He’s a flame adder from the craters of Muspelheim. But they’re not called flame adders because they breathe fire, no.”
She held the snake aloft, cradling it like a precious thing. She reached up above Loki’s head where the roots of something had grown down into the roof of the cavern. The snake slithered onto the roots and settled itself. Skadi stroked its head, then forced a root into its mouth. The snake hissed and bit down, distracted while Skadi bound it where it was. “He’s called a flame adder because his venom is so potent that it burns the flesh upon contact. Just watch.”
It was difficult to see, but a tiny glistening bead was building up at the end of the snake’s fangs. And then it fell, so small it was almost imperceptible. It hit Loki just below his right eye.
He woke from wherever he had been, thrashing and screaming, tearing against the metal that bound him. The iron cut against his skin, but he didn’t stop. The venom burned more than the chains.
“Oh, it’s perfect.” Skadi crossed her arms, admiring her handiwork.
“It’ll do nicely. I do hope that this satisfies our bargain.”
Skadi grinned, her teeth like a wolf. “Oh, it does. Father would be proud.”
Odin pointed to Narvi’s body. “Remove this mess.”
“No, leave him.” I clawed my way back toward Narvi. “My baby…leave my baby.”
They didn’t listen. One man took him by the legs, the other by the arms. Some dark piece of flesh fell out of him as they carried the corpse out of the cave, blood trailing on the ground behind them.
Odin let go of the rope, and the sudden slack sent me sprawling onto my hands and knees. My ears rang again, another of Loki’s screams shaking through me.
Skadi followed Odin towards the tunnel, then turned at the last minute. Like she was savouring it.
“So this is it?” I crawled towards them on my hands and knees. “This is what you raised me for? Why you never gave me a title? So you could kill my sons and abandon me in a cave without even a hint of guilt?”
Odin smirked under his beard. “I’ve known your title for a very long time. I couldn’t give it to you before; it wouldn’t have made sense. But it will today and every day after. You’ve stood by Loki all these years for better or for worse. Now you’ll stay by him in this cave, locked inside for good. Everything you did will be rewritten. You’ll be forgotten. When people speak the name Sigyn, it will be this and this alone that they remember. Loki’s wife, the woman who stood by the enemy of the realms and bore his pain. Sigyn, Goddess of Fidelity.” He turned his back on me. “See what good those loyalties do you now.”
And they left. They just…left.
The second they stepped out, the air shimmered. I pushed my hand against the opening and came against something solid. A barrier. I clawed at it, helpless, screaming. This couldn’t be it. It couldn’t be.
It wasn’t the fresh scream or the begging that brought me to the moment. It was the cavern stirring around me. I turned back to Loki, struggling against his bonds. It couldn’t be, but it was. A new drop of poison hit him, and dust fell from the ceiling, the walls shaking. And the intensity was building.
I jumped to my feet and ran to his side. The venom rolled slowly down his cheek, toward his ear, leaving swollen lines of red flesh in their wake. My ears rang. Dirt clouded the air, invading my lungs.
The snake.
I climbed onto the stone, feet on either side of Loki’s chest. I was nearly face to face with the flame adder, its beady eyes piercing and angry. I just needed to pull it down and dash it on the rocks. I reached out, and my hand came up against another barrier. Cursing, I felt around it, but there was no way in. It wouldn’t budge.
Another drop of poison, and Loki screamed again.
There had to be something. We were going to be crushed.
My eyes fell on the wooden bowl that sat abandoned in the corner.
I jumped down and dove for it, fumbling it in my useless, bound hands. I struggled to grip the curved surface. Every scream and moan from Loki and every shake of the walls around me tore at my nerves. The bowl dropped back to the ground, clattering and rolling. I needed to free my hands.
I found a jagged rock and rubbed the rope against it, praying that the friction would be enough to fray the strands. One by one the fibres broke, painfully slow as Loki begged, howling my name like he was dying.
“I’m coming. I promise, I’m trying.”
He couldn’t hear me, my name repeating on his voice like an unholy chant. Sigyn. Sig. Please, it hurts. Sigyn.
Finally, the rope broke. I scrambled to free myself, ripping at the knot with my teeth. It fell away. In one swift movement, I scooped up the bowl and fell to my knees next to Loki’s head, the bowl held out above his face. The venom splashed against the wood, a dull, powerless drip on a dry surface.
Not thinking, I wiped the venom from his cheek with my thumb and immediately understood. It seared my skin as if I’d stuck my hand in white hot flame. It drilled itself into my nerves and bones, spider webbing out into my palm. I tried to wipe it off on my dress, gritting my teeth against the burn.
“Sigyn,” Loki whimpered, his voice weak. “Sigyn.”
“I know.” I cried with him, kissing his unscorched cheek over and over, careful to keep the bowl balanced above us. “I’m here. I’m with you.”
It took time for the pain to subside. I sat with him in silence, listening only to the rhythmic drip of the venom. If I’d ever thought I’d seen him in pain, I knew now that I’d only seen the surface of it. At last, he spoke, his voice barely a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”
I sighed, trying to blink back the tears, but they spilled over. “I know.”
“Don’t say that. Say anything else. Blame them, blame me, blame someone.” His voice cracked, tears wiping the venom from his cheek. “They took them from us. They murdered our boys, and I let it happen.”
The last string of my resolve fell away. I burst into sobs, leaning into Loki’s neck. In my grief, I nearly let the bowl tip. I pulled myself up and tried to stem the tide of my broken heart.
I couldn’t let the bowl fall.