Page 16 of Loki's Heart
“But I didn’t,” he replied as Cian pulled her up a steep embankment. “And I have no idea why....”
“What is it?” She glanced back when he trailed off and froze at the sight of the blade resting at his side. One that must have been there all along yet seemed to suddenly catch him off guard. His dagger. Loki’s Dagger. The blade he had created to Forge dragons in Fire and win the Great War. “Why do you still have that?” She shook her head. “Has it not served its purpose?”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged and leapt up next to her, the look in his eyes different. Almost as if he had figured out all the mysteries of the Nine Worlds when he looked at her. “Perhaps not.”
She had no idea what to make of that other than she once again felt off balance. Only this time, not physically but emotionally.
“What is it, Loki?” She looked from the blade to his intense face. “Why do you have that?”
“Because it belongs to me. Because—”
“We need to keep moving,” Svend’s voice echoed from up ahead. “Best not to linger until we reach where it’s safest.”
“He’s right.” Cian glanced from the blade to Loki and Revna in that wizardly wise way of his before continuing. “We should not linger.”
“No.” Loki’s surprisingly tender gaze lingered on her face before he prompted her to keep moving. “We will talk once you’re safe.”
For some unexplainable reason, she said, “I look forward to it,” rather than her intended, “we better.” She wanted answers, understanding, but strangely, not in the overwhelming, angryway she had hours ago, and she couldn’t quite figure out why. It was almost as if something worth remembering was just out of reach.
“Because it is,”Loki said. “Let me help clear away some of the confusion without the benefit of magic.” He spoke aloud so that everyone might hear. From Cian, Svend, and Truthsayer up ahead to the five nameless seers behind. “Let me tell you about us from the beginning, Revna.”
What he said next shocked even her.
Chapter Ten
Loki was going to hold back but knew when his blade, commonly known as Loki’s Dagger, warmed at his side that it was time to roll back the clock and look at everything. From the moment his daughter, Hel, pointed out Revna being born into the realm of mortals and said that he should pay attention.
“Who was I?” Revna wondered, as curious as Loki had been back then. “Had I been someone important to you in another life?”
“Not according to Hel.” He shook his head. “She just urged me to follow you. Watch. Pay attention. And with good reason as you became a monumental piece in my Forge.”
“So you didn’t track me specificallyforyour Forge?”
“No.” He made sure she remained steady when Cian helped her up another steep incline. “As far as I know, your soul was randomly selected by Raven when she saved you and Cian before birth.”
“Not so random, it seems,” Cian said.
“No,” Loki agreed. “Somehow, you were pre-destined for all of this, Revna. Chosen, I would imagine.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know.” Ordidhe? Had Hel done this? Had she somehow known how drawn he would be to Revna? Drawn to her above all mortals and gods alike? “What I do know,” he pulled himself up and cupped her cheek, making sure she knewhe meant business, “is that you are different.” He searched her eyes, hoping she saw what he felt more by the moment. “You havealwaysbeen different.”
“And we still need to keep going,” Truthsayer prompted, “if we hope to stay alive long enough for you two to have a conversation.”
Revna’s eyes lingered on his face, almost as if she lost herself for a moment, before she jerked away, nodded, and continued. “Tell me more, Loki. Tell me all of it.”
So he did, starting with those first few hours after she was born. Those precious moments she had been left alone in her cradle, and he held her.
“You were fiery even then,” he mused, remembering it like it was yesterday. But then, for him, it wasn’t that far off. “You remained perfectly quiet as though you didn’t want your parents to discover me there. Your eyes flamed the first time you stared up at me.” He smiled, cherishing the moment. “Bright, brilliant little demon flames.”
He was fairly certain she’d had him from that moment.
“The years rolled on, and I watched you grow,” he continued. “I kept my distance, but I was always there, keeping you safe.” Loving her, he realized. Loving her in the most basic, pure way before it blossomed into something else. Something inevitable with him, he supposed. They weren’t nearly to that part yet, though.
No, he had much to tell her first.
So as they hiked up, then down, then up and up, heading into a mountain range that would eventually lead to their volcano, he shared the story of her life seen through a god’s eyes. From her ups and downs to her growth as a seer to her triumph as a fire demon. Through the years as she rose from a lower apprentice in Mt. Galdhøpiggen only to take her mother’s place at the mountain’s summit.