by Kendall Grey
Listening intently, I identify Sigyn among the whisperers.
“Why does she have to be so stubborn?” she laments. “All I’ve ever wanted was to help her, yet she keeps pushing me away.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” Freya says. “She’s her own person, a child of chaos and fire.”
“Who won’t answer her phone in times of trouble. We could’ve bailed her out of jail ourselves if we’d known where they took her.”
I furrow my brow. Phone? There are no phones in ninth-century Iceland.
Thor’s voice joins the fray. “I didn’t mind springing her. I needed to talk to her about a separate matter anyway. We were sitting at the restaurant when she said she had to step out. Didn’t give an explanation. Next thing I knew, she was on the ground with that ridiculous bird squawking up a storm to rival the one outside.”
“What did you talk about?” Sigyn asks, a sliver of wariness in her voice.
“Dreams,” Thor says.
“What kinds of dreams?” Freya asks.
“Doesn’t matter,” Thor answers. “What happened at Nine Realms?”
“She attacked a police officer,” Sigyn says softly.
“Why?”
“She kept going on about her runes being there,” Sigyn says. “I never should’ve let you two leave Atlanta without me. I could’ve written my thesis here just as easily as at home, and none of this would’ve happened.”
“You couldn’t have known how things would turn out,” Freya says. “Don’t regret what you have no control over.”
“While we’re on the subject of regrets,” Sigyn begins slowly, as if measuring her words, “I never told you I’m sorry about that three-way between you, Loki, and me. I wish I could take it back. I had too much to drink on top of those pills—”
“What are you talking about?” Freya asks, her tone light with amusement. “We didn’t have a three-way.”
“Yes, we did,” Sigyn replies. “I woke up half naked in bed with you the morning after the convention.”
Freya laughs. “Just because we woke up together doesn’t mean we slept together. I mean, I like you, but not that much.” More laughter.
A very long pause.
“According to Loki, it was the best sex I ever had.” Sigyn sounds shocked.
I smile.
“If by ‘sex’ you mean passing out and being dragged off to bed by two skinny bitches who could barely hold your six-foot-three ass up, then yeah. It probably was the best—and only—sex you’ve ever had.”
“I can’t believe she lied to me,” Sigyn gripes. “All this time, I’ve been walking on eggshells so as not to upset the balance among the three of us, and now I find out it was a joke?”
“She doesn’t call herself the trickster for nothing,” Freya says. “Plus, you’re pretty gullible when it comes to women. She didn’t even have to try with that one.”
“You all have quite an … interesting relationship,” Thor says. “Does she really believe she’s the god Loki?”
“Yes,” Sigyn and Freya say at once.
“Is she?” Thor asks incredulously.
Rustling and the click of a door closing interrupt the discussion. I scan the deck and sea again. I’m still alone on an empty ship with only disembodied voices to keep me company. The ache in my bones tells me I’m on a collision course with my destiny, and it’s gonna be a short trip.
“I’m Dr. Patel,” a lady says. “Are you Miss Jones’s family?”
“She doesn’t have family,” Sigyn says. “We’re her friends.”
“That makes my news a little sticky,” Dr. Patel says. “If she doesn’t wake up, I’ll need a next of kin to sign off on paperwork before we can perform the surgery she needs.”
“We’re it, doc,” Freya says.
“What kind of surgery?” Sigyn’s voice tightens. “I thought she just passed out. Dehydration or something, right?”
“It’s more serious than that,” the woman says. “Your friend is suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It’s a disease she was born with. Lots of people live their entire lives without ever knowing they have it, but for some, it can turn deadly. Her heart muscle is too thick, which can lead to episodes of unconsciousness like you witnessed, or much worse. She’s lucky she called 911 and the hospital is so close. A very small percentage of people with this disease experience sudden cardiac death. Miss Jones’s case is fairly pronounced. She could’ve easily been a statistic.”
“Wait. You’re telling us she had a heart attack?” Sigyn’s voice cracks.
“No, but the blood leaving her heart is obstructed. Weak flow can lead to dizziness or passing out. On top of that, the thickened muscle has stiffened. If it gets too hard, the heart won’t be able to fill adequately, which could create an inability to circulate sufficient amounts of blood to the rest of the body. Has she mentioned feeling tired, experiencing weakness, or having chest pains?”
“No,” Sigyn says. “I’m sure she hid it if she did. She’s good at hiding things.”
The sadness in her voice touches the deepest part of me. After all I put her through, she deserves happiness, not me mucking up her life again.
The woman sighs. “For the time being, your friend needs to rest. Once she wakes up, we’ll get her history. If all goes well, we’ll implant a cardioverter-defibrillator and hope for the best. I must be frank. This is a profound case. Surgery might not be enough.”
“She doesn’t have insurance,” Freya says.
“Regardless, she needs this procedure. It could mean the difference between life and death. We have onsite social workers who can assist with payment plans.”
The discussion continues, but the voices fade. It’s just as well. I don’t understand what they’re talking about anyway. The most important takeaway is that Huginn was right. I’m going to die.
Scratches of anxious chicken feet skittering over a smooth surface and the thrum I’ve come to associate with hummingbirds splinter my attention and channel it elsewhere. I turn my head to hear better.
A fretful Huginn says, “I warned her. When Odin showed me the future, I broke out of my cage to save Loki, but I was too late.”
“I’m sorry, Huginn.” Muninn’s deep voice sounds genuinely remorseful. “But you threw down the gauntlet when you betrayed Odin. He’ll never take you back. You destroyed his trust.”
“And what about my trust?” Huginn says. “Having seen the future, he made empty promises. He goaded me into pledging my allegiance to him under the guise of rewarding me with immortality if I delivered on my end of the bargain. He used me to get to her, to send her to Las Vegas, knowing she’d die here.
“I love you, brother,” Huginn continues. “Don’t fall for Odin’s tricks. Loki may be the trickster god, but Odin is the real cheat. You can be sure whatever he claims his motives are, they’re the opposite.”
“What are you going to do?” Muninn asks softly.
After several seconds of silence, Huginn says, “Odin and I are through. I’m staying with Loki. I have nothing to go back to.”
“I don’t have a choice.” The ache in Muninn’s voice plucks a melancholy chord.
“I’ll be here if you change your mind.”
A moment passes, and the quiet flutter of wings flapping in slow motion slips into oblivion.
I’m alone again, standing on the deck of my empty ship. The ghost navigator turns the wheel away from Valhalla, steering us in the opposite direction where the sea churns with unseen dangers and no stars are bright enough to penetrate the sky’s black curtain.
My hands are empty. I have nothing but memories of people I shouldn’t care about tucked into the recesses of this broken, leaking heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I travel aboard the vacant ship in complete darkness for what feels like nine nights. Familiar smells weave in and out of my nostrils, helping me pinpoint the locations I traverse along the way. Judging by the whiff of burnt oil, I sailed past the Kormt and Ormt Rive
rs days ago. Thankfully, I seem to have avoided the Vadgelmir River, which punishes liars. But now, I fear I’m heading to the outer reaches of the Norse world.
There are no sounds other than the wild thrashing of the Gjöll River, which separates the realms of the living and the dead. My stomach lurches and tilts on a nauseating, never-ending loop that lingers just outside the gates of full-blown sickness.
Am I dead? Dying? Having another nightmare? No answers come. Endless hours of nothingness envelop my existence.
Maybe that’s the point. Odin is grinding my willpower down to nubs so I’ll be mentally, emotionally, and physically unable to fight whenever he shows up to finish me off.
Well played, old man.
I spend my time in the void thinking about Gunnar Magnusson and Sigyn. I’m stuck in a feedback loop of uncertainty. Will she ever forgive my transgressions?
I’d like to think her kind heart endures despite many centuries away from me, but there’s no way to be sure. Gunnar Magnusson may be Sigyn, but he’s also lived a life as his own person.
How many women has he been with aside from Kathy, the black-haired cheater? Sigyn was a virgin when we wedded, and as far as I know, she never strayed outside of our marriage bed. Does the Sigyn trapped inside Gunnar Magnusson remember me? Does she still love me?
Do I love her?
Love has always been a pesky word for me. I can honestly say the only person I’ve ever truly loved is myself. Yes, I felt affection for Sigyn and our boys. I felt white-hot lust for Angrboda. I felt camaraderie for Odin and even Thor on occasion. But love?
Perhaps I simply do not comprehend its meaning well enough to know whether I’ve ever experienced it.
Leave the past in the past, Laguz advises. You cannot truly move forward when you’re trapped somewhere else.
“You’re suggesting I forget about the terrible things I did and hope everyone else does too? That’s a recipe for disaster when they remember the truth. And they will remember.”
What if they do? What would you say to Sigyn? Practice it. Right now. With me.
“What’s the use? I’m probably dead anyway.”
Close, but not quite.
“Well, that’s comforting.”
Play along. A nearly indecipherable current of urgency underscores the rune’s words, as if it’s trying to hurry me along a path without warning me of the dangers ahead. I think Laguz is keeping me in the dark to direct my focus away from the monsters salivating for a piece of me.
Pretend Sigyn has just been awoken. What do you say to her?
I shrug. “I suppose I’d open with, ‘I’m sorry.’”
A good start, as long as you mean it.
I close my eyes. “I do.”
Suppose Sigyn says you hurt her. What then?
“I can only say I’m sorry so many different ways.”
You’re thinking like a god. You’re not a god anymore. How would a Midgardian respond?
I recall the many times Gunnar Magnusson modeled respectable behavior and say, “Thank you for taking care of me when the snake spat poison in my face.”
Go on.
I feel like a child being schooled with etiquette lessons from his mother. “This exercise is stupid.”
You have something better to do? the smart-ass asks.
I huff. “You were the only person who cared enough to stay and help me.”
And?
“And I wasn’t very kind to you while it was happening because every time you left to empty the bowl, poison burned my eyes and it hurt bloody bad and maybe if you’d devised a more complex system for catching the venom such as rigging up another bowl to contain the overflow when you walked away—”
Try again. Stop putting the blame on her, Loki. You were the one who killed Baldur.
“No, I wasn’t,” I object. “His idiot brother Hod did it.”
Technicality. You put him up to it. The key to winning back your former friends’ respect is honesty. I know it’s a difficult concept, but would it really hurt you to tell the truth?
“I always tell the truth,” I fib.
Laguz zaps my hip.
I stifle an “Ow!” and rub the spot. “Sometimes.”
When it suits you, Laguz agrees. But it might be useful to ask yourself why you lash out at everyone you care about. Why do you fight when they only want to help you? You were once loved and revered in Asgard, but you blew it with your antics. Why do you act out?
Isn’t that the million-dollar question?
“I don’t know.”
Yes, you do.
“You’re the rune of intuition,” I snap. Blood surges behind my ears, and my cheeks burn. “Why don’t you tell me, know-it-all?”
I’ll give you a hint. It all comes back to Othala, Kenaz, Ihwaz, and me.
I laugh without humor. “Ah, so it’s mommy issues?”
Laguz doesn’t answer.
“The son of Laufey was so delicate, he couldn’t bear the fact that Father ignored him, and Mother hated him, cut him, damaged him, and left him to figure things out on his own. Where’s my tiny violin? I’ll play myself a dirge to mourn the loss of my innocence. Such a fragile thing poor Loki is.” I pout mockingly, recalling Freya’s snipes at me in Ægir’s hall. Acid bubbles in my gut.
You are the son of frost giants who hewed and harvested your runes from your baby bones, Laguz says gently. Even for Norsemen, that’s harsh.
“I don’t remember it,” I lie.
You can tell falsehoods to others. Maybe they’ll even believe you. I know better. Laufey’s actions destroyed the sacred trust between mother and child. She made you hard before you even had a chance to protest. She took away your choice.
I swallow. “Life’s tough. Death ought to be easier.”
You’re a Jotun, the most hated race among the Asgardians. Yet, Odin welcomed you, gave you a chance despite the gods’ disdain for your kind. You repaid them by inciting violence, causing death, and starting the war to end the world. You must understand why they were upset with you.
“I do. And it’s too late to fix things now.”
I disagree. You’ve been given a second chance. Perhaps waking up in the ice, stripped of your power, wasn’t a curse. It was an opportunity.
“You’re getting awfully philosophical on me, Laguz.”
It’s my nature to be so. I’m your temperance. Your control. Your feminine side. Is it any surprise you found me first?
“I don’t suppose it is.”
By reincarnating me as a woman, maybe the Norns gave me an out. A second chance, as Laguz said. Maybe this body was the best they could do for me, and they’re watching to see whether or not I’ll continue down the same path as before or choose a kinder, gentler one.
Odin said he was trying to break the cycle of Ragnarok by taking me out of commission. I am the lynchpin everything hinges on. I’m the one who decides whether to start another war, though in my current state, it’s a moot point. Odin has already won.
The ship slows, but I still can’t see anything. The blackness is so thick and pervasive, it weighs down my soul.
“Where are we?” I whisper, afraid someone or something might be poised to pounce on me and drag me to my destiny.
I don’t know. The rune isn’t bothering to cover its dread. I can taste its metallic fear on my tongue.
The raucous listing stops, and the path smooths. A patch of gray appears ahead, lightening with every second until a dull mist envelops the ship. The stench of rotten flesh wriggles like worms into my nose. A bridge looms. Thatched with gold, its planks are falling apart.
Gjallarbrú, Laguz says.
Well, shite. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but it’s time I accept the truth. I really am dead.
You’re not dead, Laguz says. A hint of doubt hides under the words. You’re the trickster god. Use your skills to stay alive.
As I disembark from the ship into the frigid water and make for the bridge, I recall what transpired after Baldur died
. Hermod rode eight-legged Sleipnir on a quest to offer a ransom to Hel in exchange for freeing his dear brother. There was a giantess—
“Who approaches the land of the dead without invitation?” a booming female voice intones ahead of me.
Shivering against the cold, I squint through the streams of fog. The giantess Modgud stands guard, staring down her huge nose in judgment. She wears the battle gear of a Valkyrie, but she’s far more imposing than the choosers of the slain. Long, thick braids are tied loosely at her nape, and her sharp eyes flash with fierceness. Her hand curls around the pommel of a great sword the size of ten horses stacked end to end.
I bow my head in deference to the giantess. “I am Loki, son of Farbauti and Laufey of Jotunheim. You are correct, Modgud, furious battler. I do not have a right to be here as I am not yet dead, but I was a passenger on a ship that has a mind of its own. It brought me to you.”
“You may pass, Loki,” Modgud says, lowering her hand from the sword. “Hel is north of here.”
She steps backward and disappears into the foggy recesses of night.
I tremble. It appears that whatever force brought me to this place wants me to pay my respects to my estranged daughter. “North it is.”
It’s so cold, I can’t feel my fingers or toes, but I must continue. Senses on high alert, I mount the snow-covered, swinging bridge. The river below churns like a hungry stomach denied food for centuries. Deep-throated, malevolent laughter rises from under the bridge. Each step elicits a groan from the withered boards under my feet. I ball my hands to minimize their shaking, which is no longer due to the frigid temperature.
With a silent prayer to the Norns for safe passage, I mount the rickety bridge and run as fast as I can. Bits of rotten wood crack and plunge into the bucking waves below. Disembodied voices chant, “The trickster, killer of innocents, finally graces us with his presence. The denizens of Hel have waited many a century for this reckoning. Welcome to your eternal nightmare.” Crackly laughter spills like blood from a fatal wound.
Tremors rattle up and down my spine, lifting the hairs at my neck. All I can think about is what’s going to eat me when I get to the other side. Assuming I make it there. I push past my fear, leap across the threshold onto land, and crumple into a pile of quavering bones and frost-speckled skin.
