“From this day forth, the God of Lies will be exiled from the city of Asgard. If spotted within these walls, citizens are expected to report the incident immediately. He may appear in many guises, so remain vigilant...”
—City Notice - Historical Archives
The mountains of Jotunheim loomed in the distance, grey and peeked with ice. The sun was disappearing behind them, seeming at first as if it were being swallowed by an enormous wolf, orange and red filling the gaps between its teeth. Below that, the forest stretched out before me, already bathed in shadow.
I dismounted at the tree line and tethered my borrowed horse to a strong branch. I checked everything again—an axe on my belt, rations in my bag, my thudding heart in my chest. Though there wasn’t a soul around to see, I put on a brave face and stepped into the underbrush.
There didn’t seem to be a path, and no wonder. I’d heard the city folk say the woods were full of beasts and spirits, and the Trickster was the worst of them all. He was the god so full of spite and treachery that Odin had cast him out of the city. The thought brought a lump to my throat. I tried to swallow my nerves down, reminding myself that time makes mountains out of molehills.
It didn’t line up. Idunn had told me about her visits before; she always reserved a whole day for her journey, not because of the length of the walk, but because she stayed for supper. If he were so evil, why would he cook for her? How could he be both these things?
The forest underbrush was thick and uncomfortable to navigate. After a while, the last of the sunlight faded until there was only black sky visible through the cracks in the treetops. I hit my toe on a rock, cursing. I couldn’t afford to twist my ankle on a root or wander past the cabin in the dark. I’d need a light.
I took a deep breath and cupped my hands in front of my mouth. I pressed myself down, grinding the soles of my feet into the soil. Energy lived in all things, and those who practiced seidr knew how to find and harness it. I called upon it, and it came, sliding up through the soles of my boots, warmth slipping under my skin. Gooseflesh crept across my arms, a long-familiar sensation. I whispered the runes for a lantern, letting them slip over my tongue and across the barrier of my lips without a sound. My breath escaped as wisps of light, flowing slowly into my cupped hands, turning round the shallow space until my palms were full, a ball of light coursing and churning. The lantern remained after my whispers stopped, casting just enough light to see by.
Carving a straight line through the trees was nearly impossible, but I tried, always listening for the rush of water. The woods were black, and the silence was only occasionally pierced by the scurrying of something in the brush. There was so much I couldn’t see, and the fear of it settled into my chest. Anything could be out there. A rustle in the trees could be a squirrel or a bear.
My mind raced. Idunn had told me not to come so late in the day. Perhaps I was a fool to have come out here at all. I wanted my title more than I wanted the air in my lungs, but maybe this was too far. Maybe there was a reason that—
Crack.
Something was behind me. I whipped around to face the noise. There was nothing but darkness in the distance, my lantern unable to pierce it.
Crack.
This time from the side. Again, there was nothing. Whatever was out there was keeping out of the light. I tossed the lantern into the air above me, where it stayed suspended. I pulled the handaxe from my belt, the weight of it reassuring in my hand.
“Show yourself,” I snapped, turning a slow circle, watching the trees for some indication as to who or what had found me. The answer came not as a word but as a low, rumbling growl.
Wolves.
One growl became two, then three, half a dozen, more, until I wasn’t sure where one started and the other began, circling around me as I turned. I could fight off a few, but this…this was a problem.
The light caught a pair of bright yellow eyes as they took a step closer. From the corner of my vision came another pair. Another crack behind me. I planted my feet firmly and slowly raised my palm out in front of me, whispering. A glimmer surrounded me, like the glint of sunlight on ice.
The wolf in front of me gnashed its teeth and leapt forward. Its body crashed into the barrier I’d summoned, and it fell to the ground in a stunned heap. Another lashed out, clawing at the invisible wall, tearing gashes in its surface. The barrier had bought me a moment, but nothing more. I let it fall.
I swung hard, bringing my axe down on the head of the confused wolf. The blade lodged in its skull. It crumpled into a heap, and I pushed down on its body for leverage, prying the axe back out. Blood poured from the wound, and bits of gore stuck to the blade. There were at least two more, and I needed to get out of danger.
Pain shot through my calf, and I screamed. One of the wolves had bitten into my leg, its teeth caught in material and flesh. Enraged, I beat the wolf’s head with the blunt side of my axe. Bone cracked under the blow, but its jaws only clamped down harder. I screamed again and drove the handle into its eye with all the force I could muster.
The wolf collapsed, releasing me. My knee gave out, and I dropped down beside it, something warm and wet seeping down my leg. I pulled the axe back up, ready to fight, the pain twisting through me. The burning ran up my leg and down to my toes. My vision swam. I blinked and pushed it away. This wasn’t my first wound, and it would not be what killed me. Not if I could help it.
A new wolf came out of the darkness to take the place of its fallen friend. There were more. How many could there be? What if I bled out alone in these woods? They were coming, they were coming—
Teal flames lit the air within the darkness of the trees, flashing bright and then burning out almost immediately. Only seidr wildfire could have a colour like that. One of the wolves yipped and cried out somewhere in the darkness. Branches snapped as something approached. A growl rose up from behind me. I turned away from the flame to face the next hungry maw, and I stumbled. My head was spinning again.
Focus. Kill the wolf and live.
It stalked closer, and I drew back my axe to strike.
A ball of teal flame hit the wolf, setting its fur ablaze. It yelped and jumped back, falling to its side to try to douse the fire. The sound of boots stopped behind me.
A man, towering over where I knelt, flame-red hair falling over his shoulders in waves, skin as pale as ice. A Jotun. Tall and lean, his open palm full of wildfire. It was him. It had to be.
More growls came from the darkness. I crawled to my feet, all my weight on my good leg.
The Trickster’s gaze travelled to the bloodstain on my trousers and back to my eyes. “Let’s end this, shall we?” His voice was low and coy, a small smirk on his lips.
I nodded, gritting my teeth against the pain. The Trickster’s lips began to move, no doubt summoning up his own runes. The wildfire in his hand churned, and with one swooping movement, he lobbed the flame at the ground. It hit the dirt and burst upward, illuminating the woods like a lightning flash. I covered my face with my arm, the heat of the fire bursting against my skin. Chaos fell through the ranks of the wolves as they leapt back, whining and screeching. Then they were gone, three more wolves disappearing into the trees.
The Trickster flicked his wrist, tightening his open palm into a fist, and all at once, the enormous flame died out. All that was left was the blackened ground and the soft lantern light that shone down from above us.
Exhaustion swept over me. My leg started to give way again, but an arm caught me as I fell. The Trickster held me up, shifting my body like I was a ragdoll. My face was nearly pressed against his chest. He smelled like honey and cinders. I looked up, hazy. He was at least a head taller than I was. Small for a Jotun, really. And his face…it was sharp. Like a knife.
He settled me back onto the ground, and the pain of it shocked me back to my senses.
“Don’t think me too untoward, but I need to see your leg.” The Trickster knelt down in front of my feet, hands firmly planted on the ground next to him.
My head felt thick, but I managed a nod. I carefully pulled the leg of my trousers up over my calf. The bite was deep, made of dozens of punctures on either side of my calf, each running with blood. My skin and the leather of my shoes were painted red. My stomach lurched. I preferred my blood on the inside.
The Trickster pulled a knife from his belt and cut a long chunk of fabric from the bottom of my ruined travelling cloak. “We’ll need to get you to my cabin. I have supplies there.” His fingers brushed the underside of my calf, holding the fabric in place as he wrapped it around. I cried out, the wound burning as he tightened it. “It needs to be done, if I don’t—“
“I know. I’m a healer,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
He paused for a moment. “Good.” His hands deftly wrapped the fabric around and under and over. “I am not. You can get yourself in working order once we’ve cleaned it out. Don’t want to get slavering sickness.” A little smirk played on his lips, his emerald eyes on mine. He tucked the last piece of fabric into the binding. It was already soaked, nearly black. “Are you ready?”
I nodded. He stood and took my hand, pulling me to my feet. I readied myself to lean on him and stumble my way to the camp, but he bent down and picked me up before I could so much as protest.
“What are you doing?”
“You’d rather walk?”
I wouldn’t, no.
He pushed his way through the trees, into the blackness of the forest. He skirted between bush and branch with long strides, careful not to hit my legs on anything. Meanwhile, I was cradled against the chest of a stranger, one who was possibly very dangerous, and bleeding out through my leg. It might’ve been awkward, if I’d felt well enough to care.
There was a tiny pinprick of light in the distance, glowing teal. “I suppose that’s your cabin.”
“It is.”
“Naturally I’d get attacked two minutes from the place I need to be. Why not?” I hissed as another wave of pain rushed up my leg.
“That tends to happen when you travel in wild places in the middle of the night. Why did you?”
I cleared my throat. This hadn’t been how I’d planned to ask him. “I was looking for you.”
“For me? Well, isn’t that interesting.” He laughed, though I wasn’t quite sure what was funny. “I wonder if that makes you very brave or very stupid.”
I bristled at the comment. “Excuse me?”
“I’m sorry; I assumed you’d heard of me. Loki Laufeyjarson, Trickster, God of Lies, Sky Treader, Silvertongue, disreputable male völva, master to the beasts in the woods and eater of babies. Pleased to meet you.”
“Eater of babies?”
“Ah, that one didn’t stick? Too gruesome, I suppose. You can only spin so many tales before they become too tall. And for the sake of honesty, I also don’t control the beasts.”
I tried to make out the features of his face, but I couldn’t see anything but the outline of his sharp jaw. “You started those rumours?”
“Of course. It ensures a certain amount of peace and quiet.”
Loki stepped out from the brush and into a clearing. The teal campfire roared in the middle, illuminating part of the small clearing. A pair of wooden benches sat at the fire’s edge, and the barest outline of a log cabin was tucked into the shadows. He hurried me over to the fire and sat me down on one of the benches.
“Lucky for you, I keep a large stash of alcohol.” He left, bounding his way up the stone path to his cabin.
Pain shot through me again as I pulled my leg up onto the bench. There would be no getting around it. I found the end of the fabric and started to unwind it, gritting my teeth to keep from crying out as it peeled away from the wound. The bleeding had slowed, but red was still seeping down my calf. I pulled my bag from my back and rummaged around for my water skin. The water burned the moment it hit the open wound, and I tried not to scream. I breathed deeply, exhaling through my teeth. After I gathered my wits again, I leaned toward it, twisting my leg at odd angles, looking for anything lodged in the flesh that didn’t belong.
Loki’s boots crunched down the path toward me. He handed me one of the two dusty glass bottles in his arms. It was already open, and as I put it to my lips, I caught the smell of spiced honey mead. I gulped down a few mouthfuls.
Loki sat down next to me. “Let me look.” It was hard to see inside the wound, so I was in no position to argue when he lifted up my foot and placed it on his leg, my knee propped up across his lap. My white-knuckled hand gripped the side of the bench as he used the tip of his knife to edge pebbles out of the tooth marks.
I poured more mead down my throat. “Is it clean?”
“I think so,” he said, taking another look.
I poured the mead over my leg, soaking both of us. There was no holding back that scream. The alcohol burned into the wound, my vision darkening. Hands clasped my shoulders as I wavered. The bottle dropped from my grip and clunked against a rock. I blinked away the darkness, coming back to myself.
“Breathe.” His voice seemed far away, only a low whisper. “Are you able to heal yourself?”
I forced myself to focus. If I couldn’t concentrate, there would be no way for me to fix the wound. I took a few deep breaths and held my hands over my calf. The first runes I whispered weren’t correct; I knew it as I spoke. Another attempt left me with that familiar warmth under my skin as I drew up energy from the ground. This time was right.
Loki’s hands stayed on my shoulders, steadying me as I worked. I kept whispering, using runes to protect against sickness, bind tissue, and grow skin. The pain was lessening, little by little. The holes became shallow, the blood stopped leaking, and eventually, all that was left were faint silver scars in the shape of a wolf maw.
When I was finished, every part of my body was aching for me to lie down. I stretched out my leg, removing it from its awkward placement on Loki’s lap. At least I was whole again.
“Impressive,” Loki said, turning toward the fire and pulling at his mead-soaked trousers. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen seidr like that.”
“I could say the same for you.” I pulled my torn, stained trouser leg back over my calf. “That wildfire was extraordinary.”
“Just an old trick.” Loki picked up a still-corked bottle of mead from beside him and pulled it open. He took a drink. “So, tell me, which goddess are you?”
I froze in the act of examining the damage done to my clothing and looked up at him. “I never said I was.”
He started counting on his fingers, holding up another for each point he made. “The common folk don’t wear such extravagantly embroidered cloaks, especially out to the woods. Your seidr is far more complicated than what they use for weaving and home-making, and, if my lipreading is still accurate, you used some of the same healing runes they use in Asgard’s infirmary. Not to mention, you knew where to find me.”
“You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions.” I crossed my arms and stared at him.
“And how many are true?” When I said nothing, he continued, “Polite society demands a name, goddess, especially since I helped drag you out of the woods.”
I sat straighter, as if I could somehow give an impression of grace after everything that had happened. “Sigyn Odindottir.”
Loki barked a laugh. “Oh, I should have guessed. You don’t look much like him, though. You’re a bit more darkly complected. Thicker hair, friendlier. Two eyes.”
I bristled, pushing down the comments that came to mind. My features had always stood out in the halls of fair-skinned and smooth-haired gods. I looked more akin to the ebony Elves than the Aesir. My mother had been a human woman from Midgard, someone who had had the bad luck of catching Odin’s eye.
“You’re very condescending for someone who lives alone in the woods.” I glared at him, refusing to break the stare.
Loki just smiled. “Fair enough. Now, what is it you want from me?”
I tried to loosen my tensed body, shifting myself to the far end of the bench. “You asked me which goddess I am, but I’m only a goddess by birth. Odin refuses to give me a title and make it official.”
His brow arched, and he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, waiting for me to continue.
“I want to buy a favour. Odin says I’m not ready, even though I’ve spent decades studying everything I can. I’m a warder, disenchanter, curse breaker, and healer. Hel, I even tried to learn smithing in case that was what made the difference, but nothing’s worked. I’ve heard the stories. Maybe you can teach me something that will change his mind.” I took another drink, finally feeling the warmth of the alcohol under my skin, softening the edge of the world just slightly.
“You want me to be your teacher? Ymir’s breath, if someone had told me when I woke up this morning…” Loki took a long drink of mead. “You understand that whatever Odin says is law, don’t you? If you think he’s stubborn now, what do you think he’ll do when he finds you tangled up with me against his wishes?”
I stood up and walked to the other side of the fire, my tattered trouser leg dragging in the dirt. “What did you do to get yourself banished from Asgard?”
“You see, you should have led with that question. Maybe you’ll regret asking the first.” He reached down into my travel sack. Before I could protest, he pulled out the cloth bag of rations and laid it out on the bench next to him. “Let’s give the highlights, shall we? I lit a few sets of drapes on fire. Some expensive, well-aged mead went missing from the stocks. I took more than a few emissaries to bed with the goal of influencing the outcomes of some trade deals, sometimes at Odin’s request and sometimes not. I snuck into Freya’s room and stole her precious necklace, also at Odin’s insistence. That bridge-troll brother of yours, Heimdall, fought me and took it back, and he’s hated me ever since. Oh, and I once let some wild boars inside the halls while everyone was asleep. They didn’t find it as funny as I did.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t. “Wait. That’s it?”
He shrugged. “That’s it.”
I threw up my hands. “I was expecting something…heinous! Murder and treason! At your worst, you’re a mildly irritating thief. What did he banish you for?”
“He doesn’t like disobedience, and I was tired of obeying. Being his Blood-Brother comes with too many caveats.” Loki sifted through the rations and plucked out a couple of nuts, popping them into his mouth. “I’m going to be honest with you, Sigyn. In my experience, Odin never gives anything freely and never against his will. If he doesn’t want you to have a title, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
I stared him down. “Maybe you would give up that easily, but I haven’t. I’ve worked too hard. I’m too close.”
“I used to say the same thing.” A smirk ran across his lips, but something else was underneath. “And after what you know about me, you still want me to teach you?”
It was a fair question. He wasn’t a good influence, but if half of what he said was true, it meant accessing locked rooms, the strength to take on other gods, command of elements, a strategic mind. All that and more. It wasn’t smart, but I’d been trying smart for decades. Maybe it was time to try sly. Besides, how bad could the price really be?
“Do you really have boots that let you walk on air?”
Loki shook his head. “Stolen by a dwarf. Such a shame; I do like the name Sky Treader.”
“How did you earn the title God of Lies?”
“By lying, one assumes.”
“Will you lie to me?”
He shrugged, nonchalant. “Not if I can avoid it.”
“And if I don’t believe that?”
“You’d be the wiser for it.”
“What do you want in return?”
Loki leaned back, eyes on the night sky. He thought for a few moments. “Affluence. I want to use the hot spring baths in Valaskjálf again. Sleep in those plush beds, eat those dainty pastries. New clothes, fine Elven wine, newly forged weapons, a hot meal I didn’t make myself. All of it. Treat me like a king again.”
That complicated things. With all the ways Odin had to spy on the realms, there was a good chance he had already seen me coming to the woods. If I brought Loki back to Asgard to lavish in comfort, Odin would have me strung up in the rafters in Valhalla for the disobedience.
Luckily for Loki, I was feeling reckless.
“And if I arrange this, you’ll teach me whatever I want?” I went back to sit on the bench.
Loki looked at me. “Whatever I know.”
“Prove it. Teach me wildfire.”
“Now?”
I nodded.
“Alright. Turn around.” He whipped one leg over the bench, straddling it. I did the same. He shuffled closer until our knees were nearly touching. “Give me your hands.”
I stretched them tentatively. It was a candid thing to do, having known him for the entirety of an hour. But he’d also pried dirt from my bare calf, so touching hands was frankly a bit of a step backwards. I held them out.
He cupped his hands underneath mine, holding my palms skyward. They were larger than mine, his pale skin against my bronze. Soft. And warm.
“Do you need a boost? It’s been a tough night, and I can lend you some energy if you’d like.” His skin was warming, an undercurrent of heat building in his hands where the energy was gathering. The look on his face was deceptively kind, and though I was trying to be on my guard, it felt too easy to just fall into it, to trust him.
I shook my head. “As long as I don’t have to close another wound, I’ll be fine.”
“Suit yourself. You know the runes for wildfire?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve read them, but it was a long time ago. I never had much skill for offensive seidr.”
“Doubtful. Practice makes perfect and all that bearshit.” He leaned in, waiting for something. After a moment, he twitched an eyebrow. “Well?”
I leaned in as well. To use a rune, one had to whisper it into existence, a secret on a breath. To say them aloud was to strip them of that power, to expose them to the world. Even written runes only held a small fraction of their power. And so, to teach a rune, one had to learn it through a whisper.
Loki leaned in further. His face was dangerously close to mine, our skin nearly touching. When he whispered the runes into my ear, his breath spilt over my skin. Gooseflesh ran across my body, a small shiver betraying me. When he pulled away, it was clear from his grin that if he hadn’t noticed the shiver, he had certainly seen the blush in my cheeks.
Summoning my focus away from the lingering sensation, I stretched my neck and readied myself. Exhaustion was creeping in, but I was able to draw up more than enough energy for the task. He lifted our hands, mine cradled in his, and I let the runes slip off my tongue.
Nothing.
“Try again. Watch your pronunciation.” He was watching my lips so intently that it was nearly disarming.
I drew in a deep breath, let it go, and whispered the runes again, changing the inflexion slightly. A spark flashed in my palm and disappeared, like flint striking on stone. “Oh!”
“Good, keep going.” He was leaning closer to our hands, the tension of the moment coiling up like a snake in the grass.
Another breath, another rune. And this time, the spark caught, a tiny lavender flame coming to life in the palm of my hand, flickering and dancing.
“Yes!” I leaned in to examine the flame, joy springing up under my skin. “But it’s a different colour.”
Loki stole back one of his hands and lit a teal spark on his fingertip. “Everyone’s is. Yours suits you.”
After a moment, the exhilaration of my accomplishment faded, and I realized how closely we were sitting, and how his hand was still on mine. I cleared my throat and moved away, shaking the flame to snuff it out. “I suppose that settles it.”
“I suppose it does.”
Silence settled in, neither of us quite knowing how to disarm the moment. And then I caught a sliver of gold peeking out from inside my bag. I reached down, plucked out the golden apple, and handed it to him. “Idunn says hello.”
A genuine smile lit up his face as he took the apple, brushing it off on the front of his cloak. “We have a friend in common.”
He stared into the fire as he cut slice after slice from the golden apple with his knife. I watched, curious to see what type of rejuvenation the apple would bring him. The change didn’t take long. The faint smile lines around his lips and across his forehead faded, leaving it as smooth as white ice. He hadn’t seemed all that old to begin with, but now he had the youthful look of a man in his prime. Another month on the tally of his life, however long he’d lived.
It was hard to say how much of him was honest, but I didn’t need him to be genuine. I just needed him to give me an edge towards the one thing I wanted. There would be a price; even if Odin saw logic, there would be more than one god in Asgard that would be furious with me for bringing him back. But I’d been furious for the last two decades. What did I care if it was someone else’s turn?
When he was finished, Loki tossed the ravaged apple core into the fire. It cracked and sizzled, filling the night with the scent of baked apples. He licked the tips of his fingers and turned to me. “Time to rest our heads, I think.”
He stood and started up the stone path to the cabin, and I assumed that I should follow him. When we reached the door, he turned back to the fire, and with the whisper of a rune and a clasp of his hand, the teal flame quenched itself, the clearing falling dark.
The cabin was pitch black as well, but in the space of a heartbeat, Loki had a spark of wildfire on his fingertip. He used it to light the hearth, illuminating every inch of the tiny, single-room cabin. There was a small kitchen with shelves, and a water basin not far from the hearth. A quaint bed was pressed up against the opposite wall, space enough for one. Most of the room, however, was taken up with bookcases, each one overladen with books.
I walked to the bookcase without waiting for permission and ran my fingers down the spines. ‘Into the Deep: An Elven Perspective on Dwarven Culture.’ ‘Cast in Moonlight: Seidr at Night.’ ‘Myths of Midgard.’ I picked one up and turned to Loki, staring incredulously.
“What?” he asked, straightening out the unmade furs on his bed.
I slipped the book back in place. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the reading type.”
“No, I don’t imagine you would.” He held out a fresh tunic, still folded. I hesitated, and he shrugged. “Unless you want to sleep in your own blood.”
I took the tunic.
He gestured to the bed. “I’ll take the floor tonight, since there’s a feather mattress waiting for me in Asgard.” He thought for a moment. “That or a funeral pyre. I suppose we’ll see.”
He pulled a sleeping roll down from a hook on the ceiling and laid it out in the middle of the floor. He turned his back to me and started to change into drier trousers. I blushed and turned immediately, taking it as an opportunity to get out of my torn clothes. My cloak and trousers were torn, some of it stained a deep red. His tunic was big on me, but it still only came down to my knees. I hurried under the furs of his bed and pulled them up over my chest.
“Why did you agree to come back if you think Odin may kill you for it?”
He turned to me, a grin on his lips. He tossed a pillow toward the head of his sleeping roll. “I’ve been gone almost a century, darling. I’ve travelled, and I’ve behaved—more or less—and I’m bored. It’s time to do something new.” He sat down on the furs and pulled off his tunic, revealing a lean, muscular chest. A thin scar snaked from his navel to his side and a trio of scars ran over both shoulders. Claw wounds, likely. He looked up and caught my stare. “Besides, I want to see the look on their faces.”
I pulled the furs tight against my chest at the same time he crawled into his bed roll and turned toward the fire. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” I murmured back. I shifted my head, getting comfortable on his pillow. My limbs were heavy, and I felt like I’d melt down into the mattress and never return. The smell of cinder and honey floated at the edge of my senses until, eventually, I fell asleep.