I pressed my hands to my side and clenched my fists. That could be Fenris, damn it. That could be my husband in there. Although my legs trembled so badly I thought they might pitch me forward into the hard stone of the cave’s walls, I forced myself to step over the threshold.
As I did, something orange danced in the corner of my eye. I turned and saw a soft, low glow against the ragged, pale walls of the cave. It wasn’t entirely dark in here after all. Someone must have lit a lamp.
Biting my lip to keep from making any noise, I crept silently toward the light with one hand on the rough stone walls and the other wrapped around my abdomen. The twins inside me kicked and danced as I walked, and the harsh, panting sound grew more pronounced.
Someone was in here. Their rasping breath sounded forced, as though they’d just run a long distance. Perhaps even from Lake Amsvartnir.
I rounded a corner and stumbled into a room filled with light. But the scene before me made no sense. The room was empty; a few dark wooden shelves lined the stone walls, piled with broken barrel staves or loops of rusty metal. The air smelled faintly of sour wine and sweat, the kind of sweat that comes from torturous exertion.
And on the floor there was a fire. I stared at the fire for a long time. It was floating, chest high, above the gravel floor. It burned with a pure, golden light, gave off no smoke, and consumed no fuel.
A figure lay sprawled on the dirt behind the fire, although the flame’s light was so bright that it took my eyes a long time to even discern the inert body. A sudden, wild hope surged through me, and I stepped around the strange, magical flames.
My hopes fell like snow. It wasn’t Fenris.
It was Loki.
FENRIS’S FATHER LAY with his cheek against the dirt and his eyes closed. His flaming red hair hung limp against his skin, and his pale face was crossed with strange shadows. An odd sort of revulsion crawled through my chest as I watched him. Was he dead?
No. No, of course not. The breathing.
I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands and forced myself to pay attention. Loki’s body looked motionless, but his shoulders twitched with each pained, rasping breath. The dust around his mouth moved as his breath sent out small clouds, their shadows dancing in the light cast by that strange, floating fire.
“L-Loki?” I whispered.
He groaned. His body seized suddenly, and Loki pulled his head off the dirt of the floor. Dark mud clung to his cheek and stretched in a dark streak down his neck.
“Loki?” I asked again. “Are you—”
His laugh cut me off. He rolled onto his back and laughed until the cave echoed with it. I backed away. My thighs hit the rock wall. What in the Nine Realms would I do if Loki the Lie-smith had truly lost his mind?
“It worked,” he gasped. “Oh, fuck me, it actually worked.”
“What in the ever-loving, stars-damned Realms is going on in here?” Thrym roared.
I jumped, banging my head against the low ceiling, as Thrym barrelled into the room, his gleaming sword drawn. His eyes widened as he took in the strange scene. Before I could even draw a breath to speak, Thrym’s sword clattered to the dirt and he rushed around the fire to pull Loki into his arms.
“Oh, damn you, what have you done?” Thrym whispered.
Loki’s head listed against Thrym’s massive bicep. His skin seemed very pale. Now, in the harsh light of that strange fire, I could see a crimson trails of blood leaking from Loki’s nose and the corners of his mouth. His pale eyes sparkled with a strange fire.
“It worked,” Loki rasped.
“You idiot!” Thrym said, although his voice was gentle. “Of course it worked. But I thought you weren’t going to do it alone!”
Loki’s lips curved into a smile which looked like it hurt. “Now we can—”
“Now you can shut up!” Thrym snapped. “You’re half dead, you great, fucking imbecile. You’re not going anywhere.”
Moving with a tenderness I’d never expected out of a man so enormous, Thrym wrapped his arm around Loki’s waist and pulled him to his feet. Thrym’s eyes met mine as he turned to leave the room, pulling Loki with him. If my new uncle was surprised to find me in a cave with the Lie-smith, his expression gave nothing away.
“Shut the door behind you,” Thrym muttered to me. “The last thing we need right now is a crowd of stars-damned religious fanatics.”
His words made no sense, but I did as he asked and pulled the heavy, wooden door shut behind me, closing off the light from that strange fire.
SLEEP DID NOT COME easily that night. The corridors were unusually active; the beat of many feet pattered along the cold tiles, and the whispered hiss of frantic conversations leaked beneath my door. Perhaps I should have found the constant presence of the other members of Thrym’s household comforting, but that horrible scream echoed in the dark corridors of my mind, making any comfort impossible. I lay on the couch in my room, hovering between sleep and wakefulness, while images of Fenris’s great, chained body tore through my mind.
It had been fifteen days since the Æsir wrapped my husband in Gleipnir. Fifteen days since he bit off Týr’s hand and blood filled the air above Lake Amsvartnir. Fifteen days since Týr pulled me beneath the dark waters, and we emerged at Freyja’s doorstep.
I shivered, despite the warm night air. Someone rushed past my door; the flicker of their lamp cast a brief sliver of light across the round bulge of my pregnancy.
Fifteen days without food or water. Fifteen days with a sword in his jaws, and the gleaming strands of Gleipnir cutting into his flesh. The dark contours of the room wavered as my eyes filled again with useless tears.
“You’ll lie on this island until the Nine Realms crumble to dust around you,” Óðinn told my husband as Fenris panted and growled before the All-father.
But how long could Fenris survive without food or water?
The twins inside me kicked and churned. I pressed my palms against the taut skin of my stomach, tracing their frantic motions. They seemed so desperate to live, to escape the confines of my body, to taste the air.
The memory of Fenris’s dark wolf shape rose in my mind, his muscles straining against the pale fire of Gleipnir. Another image tumbled in its wake; Fenris sitting next to me in Asgard, telling me how he’d leapt from a window in Angrboða’s castle and fled to the Ironwood.
“Your daddy wants to be free, too,” I whispered, blinking as my eyes burned with tears. “We’ll help him, little ones. Whatever it takes. We’ll set your daddy free.”
THE MONSTER FREED: CHAPTER ELEVEN
Morning finally dawned, stretching its thin, rosy light through the wooden shutters of my bedroom window. I pulled myself to my feet and shook my head, as if I could free the scream which seemed to echo inside my skull. Liburnia usually met me in my room, bringing food and water, but this morning my body felt jittery and tight, like a tether tied to a wild animal. I couldn’t sit patiently and wait for her; I had to move.
I pushed open my door. The sky above the compluvium was pale blue and streaked with gold, and the halls of Thrym’s estate were silent. I walked quietly along the cool tile floors, listening. Usually the cooks were up at this hour. I expected the subdued hum of chatter which usually floated from the kitchen along with the scent of spices and roasting meat. But the hallways this morning were as silent as a tomb. Or a cave.
I shivered again. What I’d seen last night seemed even more strange and improbable in the dim light of the morning. I paused at the walled garden, wondering where to go. Thrym’s private quarters were just past this garden; perhaps he could explain some of what had happened last night.
What had happened last night? Those horrible screams, which had sounded so much like Fenris I’d felt as though someone had pried open my mind and let my memories escape. The dark cave cast into stark illumination by an unnatural, floating fire. And Fenris’s father, Loki the Lie-smith, prone and bleeding in the dirt. Stars, it felt so much like a dream! Had I imagined it all?
> Swallowing hard, I turned away from the garden and approached the kitchens. I’d enter the cave again, in the daylight, before I approached Thrym. I’d see what was real and what had been a nightmare.
I heard voices as I approached the kitchens, but not the usual ebb and flow of early morning conversation. The words were rushed and clipped, almost impossible for me to decipher. And the air didn’t carry the scent of spice, or the hiss of food sizzling in oil.
Frowning, I pushed open the door to the kitchen. The cookfires were cold; pots and pans still lined the walls. But the far door was open, and there was a flurry of activity in the kitchen gardens.
Slowly, and feeling very much like a barbarian intruder, I walked through the kitchens to stand in the doorway. A crowd of what looked like all the servants in the household was gathered in the garden, whispering to each other with a grave sense of urgency. And the door to the caves was wide open. The passageway inside had been lit by torches. Two of the men from the stables stood at the entrance, nodding and murmuring. I recognized Kaeso, the handsome young man who made Liburnia blush and giggle.
As I watched, Pomptina, the old woman who oversaw the kitchens, emerged slowly from the dark entrance to the cave. Tears streamed down her wrinkled, smiling face, and she raised her arms toward the pale morning sky. She cried something to the heavens which I could not understand. The crowd gasped in approval.
Shit. My chest tightened, and the twins kicked inside me as if they could sense my discomfort. Religious fanatics, Thrym had said last night. I’d closed the door to the cave but, fuck me, I hadn’t even thought about locking it. I might as well have left it wide open for the entire world to see.
It must have been real, then. It must have all been real. That horrible screaming would have woken the entire domus, and I wouldn’t have been the only one to realize it came from the caves. Perhaps someone had even seen Thrym dragging a half-conscious man from the caves. Or seen me pull the door shut. And forget to lock it.
Something bitter rose in the back of my throat. I tried to swallow it. I stepped away from the door, creeping through the kitchen as quietly as possible. What would they have thought, the freed slaves who dared venture into the darkness of the caves after me? What would they make of a fire which hovered in midair, consuming no fuel, burning like a star in the darkness underground? My hands trembled as I pulled the door to the kitchens closed behind me. Thrym had told me the servants worshipped many gods. He’d seemed uncomfortable with the whole discussion.
“Best if we stick to our own barbarian customs,” he’d said. I’d nodded, assuming I’d be able to pick up those barbarian customs eventually by watching Thrym.
I padded through the silent, columned hallways. An occasional cry rose from the kitchen garden behind me, but the voices fell away again almost instantly. Before I had time to fully recognize where I was going, I’d stopped in the front entrance.
Thrym’s domus still felt enormous, although it was nothing near as vast and insurmountable as Nøkkyn’s castle or the strange, shifting corridors of Val-hall. Still, it was big enough to have entire sections I rarely entered, like the kitchens.
And here, the vast front entryway.
I paused, letting my eyes drift over the brightly painted walls. Most of the frescos in this room were landscapes; some I recognized as attempts to replicate the Ironwood, with towering, dark trees and a sparkling river weaving between their columnar trunks. On the far side of the room, facing the door, was what I’d first taken to be a large, sheltered well built to mimic the lines of the house itself.
But it wasn’t a well. It was a shrine.
Liburnia stopped here every day to pinch some salt between her fingers and whisper something to the little figure carved in bas-relief in the back. She called him Lares, although I wasn’t sure if that was the name of the figure or the name of his strange little columned home. I’d held back during these foreign prayers, trying to act like I was maintaining my barbarian customs.
But now, with the room deserted, I bent down for the first time to examine the little building. The shrine held a lamp, a delicate, ornate bowl filled with what smelled like wine, and a still-smouldering lump of incense. There was a second intricately carved bowl holding what looked like white sand.
Beyond that was the carving. Unlike the portrait of Marcus in Thrym’s tablinum, this carving was not disturbingly lifelike. It was a stylised male figure, standing tall, with his arms outstretched. Flames rose from the palms of both his hands and his long hair snaked upward as well, mimicking the motion of the fire.
I didn’t even need to see the face to know I was looking at Loki.
I stepped back, feeling almost like the image had burned me. Stars, what had I done? I spun on my heels, turned my back to the altar, and raced down the hallways to Thrym’s quarters.
His heavy, wooden door was pulled shut. I tapped on it but heard nothing in response.
“Thrym?” I called, only half expecting an answer. I’d never called on him in his private quarters before. We only ever met in his tablinum, after breakfast but before the heat became unbearable. But, damn the stars, I was afraid to wait now. I’d left the cave unlocked; I might as well have tacked up an invitation on the front.
“Thrym?” I called again. “Thrym, I’ve got talk. It’s important!”
No response. I bit my lip and shifted back and forth on the cool tiles. Did I dare to open the door myself? The image of Thrym and Loki, deep in a kiss in the darkness of the garden, rose unexpectedly in my mind, bringing with it a sudden rush of heat.
No. No, I was not going to open that door uninvited.
“Thrym!” I called again, trying not to sound half as desperate as I felt. I brought my hand to the wood and smacked it, hard. “Damn it, Thrym!”
The door swung open. I almost fell into Thrym’s room.
“Damn it?” Thrym asked.
My cheeks burned as I stammered incoherently, searching for a response. Thrym was almost naked, with just a white cloth wrapped around his hips, and he was grinning like a cat. The memory of the kiss I’d witnessed surged forward again, and I tried to ignore the way my body ached in response. Oh, stars, I missed my husband.
“Sorry,” I finally managed to say. “I just...I have something I need to tell you.”
Thrym chuckled. “No need to apologize. You’re hardly the first person to damn me, Sol.”
Someone laughed from behind Thrym. I glanced past his very muscular bare chest to see Loki sitting on Thrym’s sleeping couch. He still looked very pale, although spots of color flared in his cheeks and his sharp eyes followed my movements. A fire flickered on the hearth behind him, although the room was already warm.
“Do come in,” Thrym said, sweeping his arm into his room. “Loki was just telling me his most recent idiotic plan.”
I hesitated, shifting awkwardly on the tiles. I’d been prepared to tell Thrym about the unlocked door to the caves and the apparent frenzy of the servants, but admitting my own stupidity in front of Loki was somehow much more intimidating.
Loki, ignoring me, raised a glass to his lips. “Idiotic, perhaps. But it worked.”
“On this scale,” Thrym countered.
Loki’s eyes narrowed. “It’s possible. That’s all I needed to know.”
I coughed delicately. Their eyes settled on me. “I left the door unlocked,” I said. My voice sounded very small. “To the cave. Someone found it and, uh, they’re all out there. All the servants.”
Thrym’s brow knotted into a heavy frown, but Loki’s grin just widened.
“Well, that should be fun,” Loki said. “Do they still worship me?”
Thrym sighed heavily. “I tried to discourage it, but that only made it worse. Now I’m trying my damndest to ignore it, but I swear on the Realms the stories get more outrageous every year.”
Loki rolled his eyes. “You get drunk at one party...”
“You lit a ring of fire around the entire house!” Thrym replied. “Instantly!
Yeah, I think it’s fair to say they noticed that.”
“It was getting cold!” Loki protested. “And I only did it the one time.”
“I—I’m sorry about the door,” I said, forcing my apology into the middle of their strange conversation.
“Damn,” Thrym muttered, shaking his head. “But not your fault, Sol. Someone would have found it eventually. We can’t exactly keep an ever-burning fire hidden forever.”
“What...What is it?” I asked, curious in spite of myself.
“It’s a part of me,” Loki replied.
“Like an illusion?” I said, remembering the horses and their massive wooden carriage.
“No,” Loki said. “My illusions can’t stand without me. If I fall asleep, or if I’m killed, they vanish. I can pull things through the aether and move materials, but my illusions are a part of my conscious awareness.”
“Oh,” I murmured, trying to follow his logic.
“But that fire,” Loki waved his long fingers in the direction of Thrym’s kitchen. “That fire will burn forever. Even after I’m dead. It’s a part of my magic, pulled from my body.”
“Stars!” I covered my mouth, remembering the horrible screams that had echoed through Thrym’s hallways last night.
“He’s a damned idiot,” Thrym said. He took the glass from Loki’s hand and refilled it with something that didn’t look much like water. “He could have gotten himself killed.”
“Unlikely,” Loki countered.
“But, why?” I asked.
Loki drained the glass and met my gaze with his strange, burning eyes. “Why do you think?”
I bit at my lower lip as my thoughts churned. Why make an ever-burning fire? I could see no benefit to drawing that much attention to our household, especially since Thrym tried so hard to remain anonymous.
“Who do you know who has powerful magic? One powerful magical trick?” Loki pressed. “One very powerful trick that’s happened to cause him a great deal of recent trouble?”
The Complete Fenris Series Page 57
