“It’s done. Tell them the truth but remember: she was no daughter of mine.”
—Message to Master Archivist
Things were so quiet in the solitude of the cave, and yet there was so much to hear. The low bubble of the hot springs. Loki’s laboured breathing. The drip, drip, drip of the venom. The screams that played themselves over and over in my mind.
The only thing to pull me from my grief was the ache in my arms. Holding the bowl aloft made them tired, and after a while, the weariness turned to pain. I tried to rest one at a time, but it wasn’t enough. Before long, both arms were stiff and cold, begging me to just give in.
A voice of reason spoke through the fog of my mind, that darkness I’d retreated to, and reminded me that I had legs. That I could stand. I held the bowl at my hips and the blood rushed back to my arms.
Unable to keep it down any longer, I spoke up. “If you’d have come sooner, we’d have been long gone by the time Skadi arrived. Why didn’t you come? What did you do to them?”
He waited so long to answer that I thought he might not. When he did, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “I did what I wanted. I always do. And look what it cost me.”
“You said you were going to finish it,” I snapped at him. “Not make it worse.”
He didn’t look at me. “I wanted vengeance. I wanted to tear open the secrets they’ve been keeping and remind the gods of how ugly they are. And I did. I followed them to a banquet, and I killed a servant and told all their secrets, everything I knew about them. Laughed in their faces. They were furious. I ran, but they caught up. And now...”
“And now they’ve taken everything that matters.”
“Yes.” Loki choked on the word, fighting back tears. “Maybe he’s still out there. Váli could still be alive.”
“And if he is? Is there anything left of him?” I sat down and leaned on my elbows, resting my head against the stone. “You saw it, his transformation. It wasn’t like what he does or what you do, it was something else. Something permanent. He ate his brother, Loki. He’s not in there.”
He shook his head. “Everything can be reversed; we just need the right runes.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s out there, and we’re trapped. There’s nothing we can do.” I sighed. “He always hated seidr. The only runes he knows are the ones tattooed on his chest.”
Loki pulled in a slow breath. “He’s always been stubborn.”
“Only with you.” I looked into Loki’s weary eyes and tried to manage a smile.
The corners of his lips turned up, only slightly. “He always was your child, right from the beginning. Never mine. There was always a mountain between us.”
“He wanted to be his own man. He wanted to be better than you were.”
“I don’t know why,” Loki smirked, tears spilling over. The sarcasm just barely hid the crack in his voice. “I was a perfect role model.” He sniffed, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft. “I know what I did. To him, to Narvi. To you. I know he never forgave me.”
“He loved you more than he showed. He was too young to understand that life isn’t black and white. I used to be like him, thinking there was good and bad and justice for all. He didn’t live long enough to know better. We do the best we can with each moment and hope our choices will be enough. Mostly, they’re not.”
“If I never came back to Asgard, you would’ve been happy.” His chest rose and shuddered, the sob still held prisoner in his chest.
I let the thought sit on my tongue a moment, to see how it tasted. “If you hadn’t come, I’d still be waiting for you.”
He shook his head, lips pursed in defiance. “I destroyed your life. I always made the wrong choices. You know I did. Just say it.”
I wanted to say something comforting, I did. But… “You did. We used to be so in love, but you ruined everything. Why? Why are you like this?”
His jaw clenched, and he pulled at the shackles again like he could run from it. But there was nowhere to go. “What chance did I have to be anything else? Odin made me into a liar, a thief, and a whore, and I lived up to those expectations gloriously, and everyone hated me for it. I tried to be better for you, I did. But this is all I am, Sig. There is no better part of me. Everything led here anyway.”
He was right. None of it mattered. We were trapped in this endless nothing together, and we’d always be trapped. Everything was gone. I wanted to be held, to be told that it was okay, that tomorrow I’d wake and it would all be a terrible, terrible nightmare. But no one was coming. There would be no one to hold me ever again. This kindness felt like the least I could do.
“I hate what you did. To say anything else would be a lie. But you gave me so much. I fell in love again because of you. I’m stronger than I was before you. You gave me children and love and time. I don’t want to return all that in order to undo the rest.”
Loki smiled, pushing down a sob. “It’s a beautiful thing to say, Sig, but you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it today. Ask me again tomorrow.”