Queen of Swords: The Banished Gods: Book One (The Banished Gods Series 1)

by L. A. McGinnis

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I’m the linchpin in this whole deal. And I want to know why.”

  As Loki stared down at her, he wished she was wrong. Wished it wasn’t true. Instead, he went against every instinct telling him, no, ordering him to take her away from here, run, run until no one could find them again…

  And gave her what she asked for.

  “All right.” Lips tightening, he countered, “All right, but what’s your plan? And don’t even think about asking us to leave because that’s off the table. We stay. Close. And this offer is not open-ended. A few moments, at most, is all I’m willing to give you.” He ran a hand over her, intending to soothe, and she shuddered in agony. “Come on, Mir, there has to be something you can do for her?”

  “Gods, not unless you want your daughter to come running, in which case, we’re all dead.” Though Mir’s eyes were cold as ice, his voice wavered. “Convince her to leave. Come on, Loki, this is crazy.”

  Fen dropped to his knees beside them. “Let me try. Hel’s magic and mine are similar. My guess is she won’t notice. At least, not right away.” Concentrating, he ran his fingers over the head wound, then the bruising, the wrists, the knee shifted horrifically out of place. After several long, tense moments, he rocked back, and Morgane relaxed into Loki’s arms with a sigh. “That’s the best I can do, we leave the blood and dirt in place, it’ll mask some of the healing. I left most of the bruising, but fixed the internal damage so you can breathe a bit better. The repaired knee will give you mobility, should you need it.”

  Morgane nodded in thanks, her face relaxed, her eyes clearer, and squeezed Loki’s arm. “This’ll work, I swear it will.” Those words, coming out of her mouth, sounded like an empty, hollow lie.

  So he murmured a lie in return, “I know it will,” his tongue tasting the ash.

  Ava crouched down next to them, two deep, angry lines on either side of her pinched mouth. “Figure this out quick and don’t do anything stupid, sis.” The shadows dancing in her eyes promised death for Hel. Loki only hoped she didn’t burn the entire realm down alongside her.

  He held Morgane for as long as she would let him. Minutes ticked past before she finally lifted his hand and kissed it. The soft, tender press of her lips, that wet, warm pressure nearly made him pick her up and storm out, promise or no. “I need to do this. We’ve got to do this if she really is planning such a thing. What if this is our only chance to stop her? I’m not going to doom everyone by running away. Give me this Loki, if it doesn’t work, then all bets are off.” As she implored, he didn’t like it and neither did anyone else.

  “It’ll work,” Morgane insisted, looking up at him resolutely. Looking over his shoulder, she urged, “The rest of you are going to have to hide down here, somewhere. At the end of the corridor, there’s a…”

  “I know what’s down here,” Ava interrupted. “We’ll be waiting, should you need us. Just shout.”

  Loki watched them scatter to dark corners. Desperately, he tried one final time to talk her out of this suicide mission. “You don’t need to fix this, when it wasn’t your problem to begin with. There has to be another way. I can’t watch you go through any more pain.” He begged quietly, pushing the tangled, matted hair out of her beautiful face. “You’re sure it’s going to be tonight?”

  “She bragged about it. A few hours, she said, which means you have to leave, so I’m waiting for her when she comes back.” Loki’s eyes flashed between her, the cell, the melted iron bars.

  “It’s going to kill me, you know, locking you back inside.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry.” She stretched out a tentative hand, rotating her wrist gingerly. “But I’m better, almost no pain, see?”

  She was so cold against him, her body a mess, deep shadows underneath her eyes, but when she smiled up at him, the only thing he saw was her smile, the joy, the hope, and a future. She leaned in and brushed a kiss across his lips. “I love you, too, just so you know.” Pure happiness danced in her eyes. “I only wanted to hear you say it first.”

  Pressing his forehead against hers, Loki untangled her from his lap, hating she was touching the gore-caked floor, hating she was so dirty, so horribly bruised, still. As if reading his thoughts, she smiled up at him, and whispered, “When we get home, I would love a bath. A really, really long hot bath.”

  “I can arrange that for you.”

  “I figured you could.” She paused, and he waited, letting her find the words. “Thank you for this. I know it would be easier to take me home. I know this way is harder, but there’s something that’s been nagging at me, Loki, and if I don’t figure it out, if I let this go…” She stopped.

  “I understand. Which is why I’m leaving you here. But my understanding only goes so far,” he added, rising to his feet. “And don’t be surprised if I decide to drag you off at the first sign of shit hitting the fan.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he sighed. “I won’t. I’ll want to but I won’t. Once you get your answers, then this farce is over and we are out of here.”

  Stepping back through the bars until he stood beside the others, he reformed the web of bars with a wave of his fingers. As the others melted back into the darkness between the flicking torches, he transformed into a hawk and took wing, heading for the next set of steps.

  The ones leading directly up into the Great Hall.

  Alighting atop the wooden beam spanning the hall, he preened his feathers, surveying the empty space. Moisture glistened on the walls like dew, and the silence seemed to suck everything into it, as if even the light of the torches was fainter here, swallowed up by the vastness around them.

  Forever, it seemed to take forever, but he finally heard Hel approaching and gagged as he saw what she was dragging behind her. Morgane, her pale, white skin glowing against the onyx, gave a faint grunt as Hel dropped her to the floor.

  “Now stay there like a good girl. It won’t be long now, and once my partner comes, this will all be over in the blink of an eye.”

  Loki stopped fidgeting and went perfectly still as the air in the chamber changed.

  39

  The humans had a saying up top.

  ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’

  Her bird was currently bleeding all over the pristine floor of the Great Hall. Hel had worked the situation perfectly, double-crossing that idiot Odin, taking advantage of his jealousy and anger to pry the girl’s soul from his grasp. The moron didn’t even know what a treasure he’d had. And now she had this brand new partnership to look forward to.

  More room for advancement. So to speak.

  And damn it, she had so much time invested in this. Years. Centuries. For Fucking Ever. But everything was about to pay off, in a matter of minutes. Her stomach did a little flip-flop of joy.

  As an extra special bonus, she’d get to screw over her father and Odin at the same time. “This is simply delicious,” she said to no one in particular. Well, to Morgane, since she was the only person in the room. “So delicious, in fact, I think I’ll be celebrating, once this final task is done. Perhaps with some shopping. Or a long trip. I’m still debating what to do first.”

  She risked a look at the girl. Still no response. It was infuriating, all this hard work going to waste. Even her gloating wasn’t making an impression. “I wonder where Ava is, up on Earth? Maybe that’s where I’ll head to first. Take a moment to visit my very favorite human. You know, check in, see how she’s adjusting to normal life.”

  It was intoxicating to savor the way Morgane turned her head. Slowly, because of the pain, of course. How her arms shook as she braced herself up, how the bruising painted delicate, overlapping watercolor patterns all over her body. Delightful, really.

  “I am going to miss you both, truth be told. But not as much as I’ll enjoy destroying your world. Crushing it under my expensive, handmade heels. Devouring it, bit by bit. I believe I might start with sweet little Ava. I do so enjoy listening to her scream.”
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  A whisper of warning crept into Hel’s chest when Morgane’s only reaction was to curl her fingers against the stone beneath her. “But then again, I might start with my father. There are so many crimes he has to answer for, after all.”

  Some small, incomprehensible sound issued from the girl’s battered face, masked by the fall of blood-darkened, snarled hair. “What was that? I can’t quite hear you.”

  “Please.” The girl’s voice quaked. Fear, Hel decided, was her very favorite thing in the whole, wide world. Besides, she might as well enjoy these last few, precious moments with her new toy, before it became irrevocably broken.

  “Please what?” Hel prompted.

  “Please don’t hurt them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love them.” Morgane began to shake, her arms trembling, her hair dragging on the ground, as broken, raspy sobs echoed through the chamber. As Hel stilled, Morgane husked out the words she’d been waiting for. “Fine, you win. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  “Leave them alone and I’ll give you what you want…” Morgane’s voice trailed off as she coughed, the sound wet and rough. “Anything you want, if you will just tell me why.” Tears fell to the stone beneath her face. “Why are you doing this? What are you after? And why did you choose me?” Hel grinned, delighted.

  “Why?

  “Because even if I was free of this place, do you seriously think the nine realms would be enough for me?” Hel shuddered in sinful pleasure. “The God of Chaos offered me everything. The entire universe, the whole galaxy. So of course, I jumped at the chance. Incidentally, he’s the one who named your soul as the price, though I have no idea why.” Licking her lips, she relished what came next. “But in the end, I’ll get what I want.”

  “I’m to be a queen, you see. In his new world. A beautiful world of darkness with an endless supply of slaves. It will be a lovely place to rule. A place worthy of me.” The back of her neck prickling, Hel swore she felt eyes on her, but searching the darkness overhead, she found nothing. She was only jumpy, of course.

  “As for you…”

  With those words, the air in the chamber did change. Pressure squeezed against her ears, as if a hurricane swept through, pushing in an invisible tempest before it. A void of sorts swirled into place in front of Hel. A place the light did not penetrate, as if repelled by its very presence.

  And when Morgane slumped to the ground, and the void took on a shadowy, almost solid presence, Hel tilted her head and grinned.

  “Just like we agreed, paid in full. Now. Give me what you owe me.”

  40

  From his perch, Loki watched Morgane’s lifeless body splay out on the stone, her limbs white and limp, her eyes vacant.

  Felt the whisper of her soul as it fled past him.

  Within that instant, in the blink between Morgane being alive and being dead, Loki felt his last chance slip away. And that quickly, his instincts went from protecting the woman he loved to retaliation. Whatever was below him was not of this world. Nor any other.

  Hel stood face to face with some formless, shadowy spectre.

  The faint smell of primordial ooze, maybe rot, wafted up to him. His hawk’s smell was not so sharp, but it was a foul, foul, thing, whatever had blown in on that wind. And as the brimstone smell permeated his senses, an icy fire crackled through him, leaving only the need for vengeance. He dropped from the ceiling, landing on his feet between his daughter and whatever in the holy fuck she had decided to usher into this realm.

  The atmosphere in the cavernous space groaned, bending in on itself, the wooden beams overhead splintering, pieces of rock shattering to the floor all around them as he bent the very air around them to his will, the physical world following in its wake of his descent.

  Spinning, Hel foundered on her heels as his feet hit the bedrock, the floor shaking, a kernel of fear igniting in her eyes. “Father?” she mouthed over the roar as Loki’s impact sent cracks through the floor in all directions.

  For eons he had muted himself, protecting the world, everyone and everything from what he was. What he was capable of. His true power could shatter this realm, break this place, cleave it to rubble. But before he unleashed himself, a blast of something equally powerful struck his back.

  As the thing that had taken Morgane away rose up behind him.

  It looked like the end of the world. A swirling, ebbing darkness shrouded in shadows, a dense inkiness swallowing everything, as if it were the nexus of a bottomless void. Without hesitation, Loki blew into the middle of it like a knife and disappeared. Torn apart, he foundered in the center, his momentum sputtering out, before bursting through the other side, coated with ice, his flesh tattered. Turning, he panted, breaths coming fast through barely parted lips as the darkness coalesced and spun, waiting.

  “Give her back to me, you fucker.” He swore the thing heard him. Understood him. Watched him. As if in answer, the darkness shuddered.

  A heavy thud, and Mir and Tyr emerged from the shadows beside him, feet spread, their eyes a darker echo of his, questioning and slightly terrified.

  “I said,” Loki advanced, until his chest brushed the darkness, sensing the absolute, crackling nothingness of it, and hissed, straight into the middle of it, “Give her the fuck back to me.” And he shoved everything of himself straight through it, smashed a fiery battering ram of his own magic right through the center of it. For a second, torchlight flickered through the hole he’d made, then disappeared, as the entity reformed. Loki fell another blow, and then another, hammering away at the dark, writhing creature, and with every slicing arc of his magic, the darkness grew watery. Fainter.

  A final blow into the middle of the void and it dissipated, leaving the cavern’s wet, glistening walls gleaming brightly. As if it had never been.

  Loki stumbled over to Morgane’s limp, crumpled form, fumbling for her. “Morgane,” he gasped, “Morgane, please…please, baby, open your eyes.” Pulled her into his arms. Rocked her. Breathed in the faint, barely-there scent of her, the last, lingering essence of her that had yet to be wiped away.

  “You are going to pay for this, you bitch.” He vaguely heard Mir snarl behind them. “That girl was not yours to take.”

  “I did not take her. Technically.” Such careful, deliberate maneuvering corrupted his daughter’s voice.

  “There’s not a technicality in this world that will save you now.” Mir continued, every word promising retribution. “If I were you,” he went on, “I’d think about running, now. I cannot imagine your father is in a forgiving mood, especially toward the person who sold his lover out to the highest bidder.”

  Morgane was still warm, a slight blush on her cheeks, her lips. And there was still a flicker when he held her, a flicker of their bond, a flicker of their love, a flicker of what they might have been to each other, had they been given the time. Running his fingers slowly down her face, Loki couldn’t help but notice the dirt, the streaks of crusted blood, wondering at how much of this his daughter had done out of simple, careless cruelty. And how much out of hatred for him.

  When he finally rose, setting Morgane’s body down, even Tyr looked away. Hel, however, stared, riven, as if she couldn’t tear her eyes from him. “Father?”

  One step. One step and he would kill her. End this terrible thing he had created, gave form to, breathed life into. Something enormously evil must have shown in his eyes.

  She backed away, hands up in front of her, warding him off. “No. Please. You can’t.”

  He wished he might feel something. Anything. But nothing plucked at his insides, only an endless, icy cold. “I can, and I will. My only regret, daughter…”

  No, not daughter. This death goddess was not his, not any longer. “My only regret, Hel,” he continued, his voice growing colder with each step, his face frozen into a mask of rage, “is that I did not do this long ago. I believe at long last, you will get what’s coming to you.” With those words, fire exploded through the room, fillin
g it, raging into the corners, the crevices, consuming, crackling up along the walls.

  Everyone stumbled away, Mir throwing up a shimmering dome of magic to protect the rest. Blue-white flames, fanned by an invisible hand, wrapped around the Goddess of Death like vines, choking off her air, her words, her sight. Loki wanted her to burn. He needed her to suffer, and suffer, and suffer, until she couldn’t suffer any more. Until her pain made everything right again. The flames turned bluer. Then flared to white. Watching her writhe in them gave him little pleasure, however.

  It felt…anticlimactic.

  With a thought, they disappeared, leaving her heaving on the now-glowing floor, smoking. She was a vile, evil thing. And she deserved this.

  Even if it didn’t change a thing.

  With a tilt of his head, the flames wrapped around her again, and as the air sucked from the room, at least it cut off her screaming.

  41

  Wherever she was, where this was, felt like ice edged with razor blades.

  Just beyond the edge of where she was trapped, life beckoned. Morgane sensed it. Felt the faint, humming pulse of the living, the drum of heartbeats, blood pumping through veins. A bloom of heat outside of this achingly cold bubble. But in here? There was nothing.

  Yet she felt confined, somehow, to this place, even though only a thin veil separated her from the world where she belonged. She had to get to Loki, and she swore she felt him pulling at her, so she tried to reach for him too. Her neck corded, her arms ached with the strain, and yet, she could not move, not a hair, not a blink, not an inch.

  Frozen. Imprisoned.

  As the blurred, beckoning world slipped farther away, shadows swirled in, blocking her sight, pulling her farther and farther away. From life. From those whom she loved.

  No, please, no, she wanted to say, but she had no voice.