I Bring the Fire Part I : Wolves (A Loki Series) Page 9

  Chapter 9

  Loki pulls his neck back instinctively from the sharp bite of his blade. He just needs a moment’s distraction. He glances around the room. Perhaps if he set the curtains on fire...

  Hissing, the elf queen steps forward and he feels the point nip at his skin again. His eyes return to the shining piece of steel.

  “You should not be awake,” she says. That answers a question at the back of his mind. She’d enchanted him. He searches for something pithy to say, but before he can open his mouth, she shakes the book and shouts, “My lover’s book. You have it! Why?”

  The book is Lothur’s journal. Hoenir gave it to Loki centuries ago. Shocked by the question, Loki just stares at her dumbly. She wears only a dressing gown tied loosely at the waist. Her eyes are narrow and too wet, her mouth open and slightly turned down. He tries to parse the emotions he is seeing: anger, sadness, disbelief.

  “Can you read it!” she says, pricking the blade beneath his chin. He feels the warm ooze of a trickle of blood.

  Loki scrambles backwards on his elbows, the sheet falling away from his bare chest. “Gala—,” he starts to whisper.

  “How do you know that name?” the elf queen shouts, sword shaking dangerously in her hands. “Only she knew that name!”

  Loki blinks. How does he know it? Amy told him...but it’s more than that. She lowers the blade a fraction. “Can you read the book?” she says her voice a low hiss.

  Staring at the gleaming steel, he says, “Yes.”

  “Prove it!” she says, throwing the small, ancient volume towards him.

  Loki’s heart nearly stops as the book tumbles through the air and opens like a bird. Heedless of the blade, Loki throws up his hands and catches it as gently as he can. Glaring at her, he pulls it to his chest.

  “Read,” she says. Taking a step forward, she brings the blade to his neck again.

  He blinks and looks down. The book has fallen open. It always opens to the same place; it’s a passage Loki knows well. He makes a move to turn the page, but the elf queen says, “No, read that page. I know that page.”

  Loki looks up at her and then down at the book. He doesn’t like reading this passage. There is something about it. It makes his heart fall and a lump form in his throat. He reads it anyway, maybe because of the sword in the queen’s hand, or maybe because with it open in front of him, he can’t turn away.

  "And I have dreams of my love, who was not my love, but was. Her father said words low against me, so low that it caused her heart to flame.“

  Swallowing, Loki tries to banish the imagery that dances in his mind. The passage is too real. Not like a story, more like a memory.

  “Keep going,” says the elf queen.

  With a deep breath, Loki reads. “And the flame of her heart spread to the utmost ends of her limbs. My love died in flames..."

  There is a loud clang. The vision of flames in Loki’s eyes vanishes. He looks up to see the elf queen has dropped the blade on the ground. She stands before him, her shoulders slouched, her face empty. “Only my lover, and Lothur, could read that book,” she says.

  Loki looks down at the pages. There was an entry at the very beginning where Lothur said he’d enchanted the volume to be readable by no one but himself. But Loki could read it; he’d always assumed that Lothur was a touch mad.

  Suddenly very curious, Loki says, “But my lady, you have the Gift of Tongues. You must be able to read it.”

  Shaking her head and not meeting his eyes, she says, “No. No, I cannot.” Swallowing, she meets his gaze, her eyes red, her ears trembling slightly. Despite the rude awakening, Loki has an inexplicable desire to go to her and comfort her.

  He resists on principle. Tilting his head, he says, “This book was a gift. I did not steal it from...” he lets his words drift off.

  “Loka,” she says. “Loka...she died over 2,500 years ago. I betrayed her to Odin.”

  That is long before Loki’s time, but he feels a ripple of anger on Loka’s behalf. Loki shuts the book sharply.

  The queen meets his eyes. Her jaw goes hard. “I sent the royal messengers to Asgard moments before you awoke.” Turning quickly she says, “Gather your armor and meet me at the pool. We have only a little time to find your sons, and for you to make your escape.”

  Loki looks around the bedchamber at his blade lying on the floor and his armor strewn about like a jigsaw puzzle. Cursing, he rolls out of the bed, pulls on his breeches, and then yanks a sheet off the mattress. Spreading the sheet out, he tosses his armor onto it, then gathers it up by the corners, throws it over his back, and grabs his sword.

  As he paces into the other room, he has half a mind to run the elf queen through with his blade. But she’s standing over the pool. It’s casting white light on her face, and the murderous thought is subverted by curiosity.

  He goes to where she stands and looks into the water. Instead of their reflections he sees the front of Hoenir’s hut, its door flung open to the night. Hoenir and Sigyn are standing there and Loki’s eyes widen.

  “This is a few days ago,” says the queen.

  There is a flash of light outside the hut, and there are Valli and Nari, falling to the ground and gasping for air. Loki squats to the floor in front of the pond and holds out his hand as though to touch them, his mouth falling open in hope and relief. In the pool, Hoenir and Sigyn run forward and pull Loki’s boys into the hut. “They’re alive,” he says running a hand through his hair. “They’re alive.” He feels lighter. Like laughing aloud, like picking up the queen and spinning her around, faithless witch and betrayer though she may be.

  The elf queen begins to chant. The scene begins to move too quickly, like a human film played too fast. Dawn glows on the horizon beyond the hut and Heimdall appears with armed guards. Valkyries swoop and land to encircle the small dwelling. Loki scowls as Odin walks onto the scene and stands just within the circle of guards, about ten paces from Hoenir’s door. Loki can’t hear the words, but he sees Odin’s lips moving.

  Heart beating too loud in his chest, Loki watches as Heimdall goes forward. He is accompanied by Skaddi, a Frost Giant like Loki and the self proclaimed “goddess of justice.”

  The Valkyries begin to raise their spears, lightning flashes on the scene, and all eyes turn. Thor appears. Guards fall back to let him pass. He goes and speaks quietly to Odin and Heimdall. Heimdall scowls and Thor walks forward, turns so his back is to the hut, and holds up his hammer.

  Loki’s mouth falls open. “He’s protecting them. Thor is protecting them!”

  The guards don’t move, but Loki sees them scowl. Heimdall is saying something to Odin, and Loki can tell without hearing that the gatekeeper is shouting. Loki sees a few Valkyries pound their spears. He can see them shouting, too. Someone shoots a bolt of fire; it seems to go into the sky...

  But then at the top of Hoenir’s roof, there is a burst of flame. A swarm of butterfly snakes take to the air, birds with lizard heads take wing. New flames lick at the foundations; Loki doesn’t know how they even got there.

  Thor turns and tries to rush into the hut, but Heimdall and Odin hold him back.

  Loki’s eyes widen. “What is happening, what is happening!” Loki shouts. In the scene in the pool Thor holds up his arm, and Loki sees the sky darken. Thor’s calling rain. Loki has never been so grateful he gave Thor the damned hammer.

  The queen chants more quickly. The scene in the pool is smoky and obscure, but Loki sees the flames leap, even as the rain begins to fall. The flames surround the hut like a curtain. He can’t make out doors, windows or chimney. Odin pounds Gungnir into the earth in front of the hut and leaves it there upright.

  The scene is moving incredibly fast. It’s early morning there in the pool...and the curtain of flames is falling. He sees the downpour is now a drizzle

  Gungnir is gone...and Hoenir’s hut is not there. Where the hut stood there is only charred ground.

  Loki stares at the pool, not really seeing it. He feels as th
ough a weight was briefly lifted from his body and then hurled down upon him. He puts his hands to his head, runs his fingers through his hair, scraping his nails against his scalp with such force it hurts.

  As though from a great distance he hears the crackle of fire, and screaming — his mind supplying the details of Valli , Nari, Hoenir, Mimir’s and Sigyn’s brutal ends?

  And then another sound comes. Loud and insistent — the sound of a car calling for its master. Loki blinks...Amy and Beatrice...he has an oath to keep to them.

  He wants to stay, he wants to fight Odin and his legions — not to win, to die. Helen, Aggie, now Valli, Nari, Sigyn, and even Mimir and Hoenir. He squeezes his eyes shut. It’s because of him, somehow it is all because of him. Loki knows there is no afterlife, no Valhalla for the valiant, no Hel for the meek. And that is good, he wants the release of nothingness.

  The car calls again — it sounds so close, and the way its call echoes through the palace it sounds almost as though it is inside. Taking a sharp breath he opens his eyes. He doesn’t break oaths.

  That thought is the thread of strength that makes him stand up. He looks around. To one side is the receiving room he entered by last night, to the other side is the elf queen’s bedroom, now in flames. She stands in front of him, haloed by the fire, her face calm. “Once again you leave me for a mortal,” she says.

  Loki has no time for her games. Narrowing his eyes he says, “How long do I have?”

  “I will give you five minutes to leave the palace grounds before I send the guards after you. After that you’re on your own.”

  Loki tilts his head. In the receiving chambers he hears the crackle of more flames.

  “I cannot afford to let Odin think I allowed you to escape,” says the queen.

  “Of course not,” Loki hisses. For a moment the air between them shimmers. Loki wants to see her smooth beautiful body burst into flames. But another part...another part of him feels sorrow, pity and guilt that he cannot understand.

  The queen’s face is as unworried as a Greek statue, and that’s a shame. Such a beautiful face would be more beautiful with emotion on it — even if the emotion were anger or hatred.

  “You don’t have time for this,” the elf queen says. “Run.”

  Loki stares at her a heartbeat more. And then securing his makeshift pack over his shoulder, he backs away from her into the receiving room. The door to the secret passage is open, the covering tapestry nowhere in sight.

  Loki runs.