by Mackenzi Lee
“He saw one of his sons leading an army against Asgard,” Loki blurted out. He had intended to say it, but not in such an inelegant tumble. “He thinks it means Ragnarok.”
He expected a reaction, but her face didn’t change. “Which son?” Amora asked, her voice flat.
“He didn’t say.”
“But you think you know.”
“Thor does,” Loki replied. “He thinks it’s me.”
She picked a strand of the fire grass, and it fizzled into ashes between her fingers. “Why does it matter what Thunderhead says?”
“Don’t call him that.” Loki wasn’t sure why he was defending his brother after what he’d said, but only he was allowed to mock Thor. Not that anyone else ever had. “Do you think I’d do that?” he asked her. “Fight against Asgard? Against my father and my family and my people?”
“I think we are all capable of things we’d never imagine.” Her tone was light, but layered as pastry. She knew what it was like, to live with a birthright that felt precarious and fragile. Amora was an orphan, adopted by Karnilla from an Asgardian orphanage when her natural talent manifested in her levitating the other children across the dormitories. But Amora was fearless. She was brash. She was off-putting, a word Loki had heard applied to him, too. Yet they felt like opposite sides of that coin. Amora said too much; he stayed silent. But both of them were strange and otherworldly, disliked by most for nothing but a skill they hadn’t asked for.
Amora brushed her hands off on her trousers, a few lingering strands of grass flaring against the material. “Short of asking your father, there’s nothing that can be done about his vision,” she said at last. “The only thing to do is live your life and wait and see if one day you find yourself standing before an army against your father.”
“Or I could look in the Mirror,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow, regarding him. “The Godseye Mirror?”
His mind was racing, the ideas leaving him before he even realized they had formed. “It will have been taken back to the vault by now,” he said. “No one would notice if we snuck in. And today is the only day for the next decade its powers can be accessed. If Odin can know my future, so should I.”
“If you’re going to look into the Godseye Mirror,” she replied, “you need someone to channel magic into it.”
“If Karnilla can, so can you.”
“Who says I’m helping?”
“Oh.” He felt himself go red. “I thought that—”
“Calm down, of course I’m helping.” She dug her elbow into his side. “You don’t think I’d let you sneak off into a forbidden wing of the palace to use dangerous magic by yourself, do you? That’s what I live for.”
He could feel his heart racing but tried not to betray it on his face. Amora didn’t like fear. She said she didn’t have time for it. He hadn’t even considered that he could look in the Godseye Mirror until he sat across from her. Perhaps because he wouldn’t be able to do it without her—whoever looked into the Mirror couldn’t channel magic into it as well. The Mirror was guarded. It was protected. It was only for the eyes of the king.
But he had also never thought about turning the flowers to dragons or painting his nails black or learning how to shift his form until Amora came along.
She was staring at him, her face absent of any of its usual mocking mirth. “Do you really want to know?”
He swallowed, the word stuck in his throat. “Yes.”
“Then let’s find out.” He started to stand, but she grabbed his wrist, stopping him. “One more thing.” Suddenly he was looking down at her, at the spot her hand wrapped around his. Her nails were green, his were black. He liked the way they looked together, like the scales of a serpent. He liked the way her fingers felt against his skin, the way his hand felt in hers. But all at once, he worried that she could feel at his pulse point the way his heart beat faster when she touched him. She was staring down, and he was sure she sensed the flush running across his skin and was about to say something about it.
But then she asked, “Are those my boots?”
“Oh. Um...” They both stared at his boots. “I saw you wearing them yesterday and thought they looked nice.”
Amora let out an exaggerated sigh. “Well, if you’re going to be looting someone’s wardrobe, I’m glad it’s mine. It’s like this entire city never discovered tailoring. All your draping and cloaks and swaths; you might as well be swaddling yourselves in window dressings.”
“Well, not everyone can pull off tight-fitting clothes,” Loki said. “We aren’t all blessed with a figure like yours.”
He wasn’t sure if he imagined it or if her cheeks colored a little when he said that. If they did, she covered it up with a sly half smile and a wink that sent him blushing. “I am rather divine, aren’t I?”
The Einherjar sentries patrolling the entryway to the palace vault snapped to attention as Odin strode down the stairway past them, his scarlet feast robes fluttering around his ankles. They clapped their heels together and pulled their shields in tight to their sides as they bowed their heads.
Which was lucky, because in spite of Amora’s tutoring, Loki was still only moderately competent at mimicking the exact appearance of another person, and had anyone looked too long, he was sure the illusion would not have held up. He hadn’t gotten his father’s nose quite right, or the shape of his shoulders, and the eyepatch was wreaking havoc upon his depth perception. He had twice nearly walked into a column and had only been spared a broken nose because Amora, glamoured as one of Odin’s personal Einherjar guards, had yanked him out of the way by one of his voluminous sleeves.
But he was halfway down the stairs and the only thing he could do was walk tall, pray they didn’t cross paths with the real Odin, and silently thank the All-Father that the Einherjar were taught to stare at their boots when the king passed them.
At the bottom of the stairs, one of the soldiers, the plumage on his helmet proclaiming him a captain, saluted. “My king, you were not expected—”
“Don’t talk to me,” Loki blurted.
The guard froze. “Your Majesty?”
Loki stared at him, his heart hammering. “I’m Odin,” he said quickly.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the guard replied, his brow creasing.
“Smoothly done,” he heard Amora hiss almost inaudibly in his ear.
Pull yourself together. Loki tugged on the front of his robes, tried to think of what his father would say, but then announced just as inelegantly, “Just...visiting my treasures.” When the soldier didn’t say anything, he raised one hand and gestured stiffly down the hall, to the vault door.
The guard looked confused but did his best to paper it over with a dutiful nod. “Of course, Your Majesty. Is there anything we can do to be of service?”
“His Majesty wishes to be alone,” Amora interjected.
“Of course.” The captain dipped his head. “If you require myself or my men—”
“I won’t,” Loki replied. “But I’ll let you know if I do. But I won’t. But. So. Thank you.” He nodded. The captain, more confused than ever, also nodded. Then Loki swept down the stairs toward the vault door, trying to salvage that shipwreck of a conversation with his posture alone.
Beside him, Amora ran a hand over the beard of the sentry face she had taken on. “A few notes,” she murmured.
Loki resisted the urge to roll his eyes—it would be less dramatic than he wanted it to be with only one visible. “Of course you have notes.”
“Everything is a teaching opportunity. First, red really isn’t for you,” she said, kicking at the train of his robe. “You’re far too pale. Greens and golds would bring out the complexion much better.”
“What does that have to do with my illusion?”
“Nothing, just a general observation. Second, you forgot to change your fingernails.”
Loki glanced down at his black nails. They looked opalescent in the dark hallway, like he was capped in jewels. “No on
e noticed.”
“I did.”
“Yes, well. No one looks at me quite like you do.”
She shoved her shoulder against his, her armor clanking softly. “Stop it, you’re making me blush. Third, I’m Odin? Really? How are you so bad at this?”
“I panicked!”
“I should hope so. If that was you operating with a level head, I’d be concerned.”
They reached the door to the vault, and Loki slid on his father’s riding gloves, lifted from the stables with very little effort while Amora was chatting up one of the groundskeepers. The doors were protected against magic, and could be opened only by his father’s touch. He wiggled his fingers, letting his skin absorb the memory of his father’s palm prints that rested in the leather of the glove. It was a trick Amora had taught him—small details could be picked up from items of clothing: the shape of one’s shoulders written in the tailoring of a coat or the way someone’s knees bent remembered by the creases in their trousers.
“And here’s your moment, Trickster,” Amora said.
Loki tugged the glove from his hand, his fingers now carrying his father’s prints like he had been born with them, and pressed his hand to the door. With a soft click, the doors unbolted themselves before swinging open.
Beside him, Amora said, “I’m impressed.”
“Didn’t you think I could do it?” he asked.
“Oh, I was almost sure you couldn’t.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
The walls of the vault slanted to high ceilings, and the path forward was lined with dark, polished stone that splintered into short walkways. Each led to an alcove holding one of the treasures of the Asgardian king, some hunted down with the aid of the Godseye Mirror.
Loki looked over at Amora as her guard face slimmed, the beefy skin suctioning so that the cheekbones popped and the chin turned smooth and pointed. The shoulder-length hair stretched like a snake uncoiling, spilling into a long plait. The clothes didn’t change at first, but the body beneath them did. Slowly, the garments adjusted to match, the armor vanishing as the tunic and trousers fit to size.
Amora slicked a hand over her face—her real face—leaving behind the light dusting of freckles that sugared her nose and cheeks. She did many things well, and perhaps chief among them was knowing how to look good while doing all those things. Every movement seemed orchestrated so that if it were to be immortalized in a mural upon a palace wall, the viewer wouldn’t be able to look away. And she was never prettier than when she returned to herself, shimmering and changeable as a flame for those few seconds before she settled into her own skin, an eagle landing with its wings unfurled.
In response, Loki’s return to his form was more like the flight of an awkward pigeon. Odin’s silhouette fell away, turning in a manner that always felt liquid, like it might flow into any mold and fit any shape it chose. It could. But, instead, he let it fall into himself, his resting appearance, trying not to shy at the way his own body felt so small and brittle.
Amora, who had been watching his transformation with a critical eye, grinned. “There’s that smile.”
Loki scowled at her.
She started off down the walkway, peering into each alcove as they passed. “Have you ever been down here?”
Loki chased after her, tugging up one of those magnificent boots that had slipped down past his knee. “Never without my father. He brought Thor and me when we were young.”
“What a lovely father-son outing. There’s nothing quite like showing your children all the ways the world could end that you have stored in the basement.”
“I enjoyed it only slightly more than our trip to the killing fields on Svartalfheim.”
Amora paused in front of the path leading down to the Tuning Fork, its surface reflecting a thin band of light across her face. “So. About the boots. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed that they look better on you. You can have them, by the way. My treat.” He glanced over just in time to catch her casting an appraising gaze up his legs. His spine prickled.
At the end of the walkway before them was the Godseye Mirror, its shimmering surface blending into the darkness. This close, it was the bluish black of a raven’s wing, but when Loki stepped up to it, it gave no hint of a reflection. He looked over at Amora as she touched a hand to the gold stave and traced one of its whorls.
“You don’t have to look,” she said quietly.
But he did. He had to know what his father had seen.
“Stand there,” he said, pointing her to the side of the Mirror Karnilla had stood on. As she stepped out of sight, even knowing she was still there, Loki felt his skin crawl with the sudden fear of being alone. Alone and staring into the end of the world.
“Do you know how to activate it?” he called, his voice higher than he would have liked.
Amora poked her head around from behind the Mirror, braid tumbling over her shoulder. “I channel power and the staves direct it. It’s basic runic magic.”
“Right,” Loki said, like he knew anything about runic magic. He’d never even heard of it. Yet another gap in his shoddy magical education.
She ducked back to her side of the Mirror, calling, “Runes and staves direct a spell. All the sorcerer has to do is channel power through them.”
“I know that.”
He couldn’t see her, but he could practically hear the smirk. “Of course you do, princeling. Are you ready?”
Over their heads, he heard a crack like thunder. A flash of white light that he felt sear his skin.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Amora’s grasp of the energy was not as elegant as Karnilla’s had been. The lightning forked and danced around the room before finding its way to her. Loki saw the tremble in the glass as she pressed her hands to the black Mirror, then suddenly his side began to sputter with light, like a firework that could not catch. An image flickered, then died, then flickered again, too blurred to be seen clearly.
“It needs more power!” Loki called to Amora, and he heard her draw a deep, ragged breath. The air around them shimmered again.
The image began to sharpen into rows of soldiers. Not soldiers of Asgard—they had no armor, no banners, and they looked instead like feral creatures, pale and foaming and bloated. They were pouring from the observatory that connected Asgard to the Bifrost, along the rainbow bridge toward the capital. A lone figure stood out among the masses of soldiers, planted at the door to the observatory, the glint of a blade in his hand. But the image was too smoky to make out much detail.
Loki balled his hands into fists at his side. He wanted to reach into the scene, wanted to grab this unknown person by the shoulders and demand to know who he was, even if it meant looking into his own face.
“It’s not enough!” he called to Amora as the image flickered again.
“This is all the energy I can summon!” she shouted in return.
Loki leaned forward, pressing his fingers against the glass. Show me, he thought. Show me who it is.
The image flickered, flushed with a clarity that didn’t last long enough for him to make sense of what he was seeing. It was there, right at his fingertips, his future.
He hadn’t realized his own power was gathering in his hands until it burst free. The surface of the Mirror burned with white light, and Loki tumbled backward, his hands searing. He heard Amora cry out on the other side of the Mirror, and he threw his arm up against the impossible light radiating from their combined power, washing out the vision entirely.
The Mirror shattered. The cracks seemed to begin at a point in the center, and then it collapsed upon itself, caving into a slick dust studded with shards as long and sharp as his knives. Several buried themselves in the walls. Loki threw his hands over his face, but Amora cast a spell, some kind of barrier, so that the shards flying toward them bounced off. One flew sideways to the alcove across from them, striking the Tuning Fork. A single crystalline note
echoed through the room, so high and clear Loki felt it more than heard it, even over the sound of the breaking Mirror. It rattled his teeth. All the lights in the alcove flared, then winked out, casting them into darkness.
Loki sat up, a fine layer of black dust blossoming from his clothes. He felt coated in it. Across from him, Amora was doubled over, coughing, her blond hair darkened from the dust. He crawled forward to her, his palms burning. “Are you all right?”
She rubbed a hand over her face, smearing the dust into black streaks. “What did you do?”
“I think we overpowered it.”
“We didn’t do anything,” she snapped, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “You cast a spell.”
“It was an accident. I was trying to help you.”
“I don’t think your father will care about your intentions.”
He followed her gaze over his shoulder to the remains of the Mirror—black dust and the charred, curled outline of the staves. Panic made his stomach clench, and he thought for a moment he was about to vomit. They had destroyed the Godseye Mirror, one of the most powerful magical items in Odin’s treasure room.
I was powerful enough to destroy the Godseye Mirror.
The thought flickered through him before he could stop it. It should have horrified him. It didn’t. It thrilled him.
I am powerful.
From the darkness, Loki heard something rumble. The floor beneath them trembled.
Amora raised her head. “What was that?”
Loki climbed to his feet, one of his knives sliding into his hand as he surveyed the damage. He could feel something stirring in the darkness, some power beyond what they had funneled into the Mirror. “Stay here,” he said, turning back to Amora. “I’ll see if—”
Something grabbed him around the waist and yanked him off his feet. His knife flew from his hand, clattering somewhere into the shadows as he was thrown to the ground, landing on his back. His head slapped the stone floor and for a moment, his vision spotted.
When his eyes cleared, he heard a roar, and above him loomed a massive creature, purple skinned and six feet tall, with a shining bald head and a grotesque face, blunt teeth poking from beneath its thick lips. Its shoulders were built like boulders, and its barrel chest swelled. The monster’s mouth gaped open in a roar, its skin ropey with veins and muscles as it brought down a fist toward Loki. The Trickster rolled out of the way, his heartbeat spiking with panic. The creature roared again, its torso bulging, and suddenly a third arm sprang from its side. Loki scrambled backward, watching in horror as it seemed to grow a foot taller. Its next steps toward him smashed craters in the stone walkway.
