Page 4 of Loki's Heart
He did as asked, about to dismiss it, when the black opal in its center caught his attention. The closer he peered, the more obvious it became.
“There’s a flaming heart in there.” His chest tightened again with what felt dangerously close to human sentiment. Hetouched it and narrowed his eyes. It felt so familiar. A part of him somehow.
“Because it is,” she said softly and proceeded to tell him the last thing he expected.
Chapter Three
“It’s your heart, Loki,” Revna said, explaining the fiery heart within her key's black opal. “Not the physical one but the spiritual one that guides your emotions.”
“Impossible.” Loki’s anger spiked. His eyes sizzled with fire. “I clearly still own my emotions.”
“Not the majority of those that pertain to love and desire.” Cian had withdrawn his blade again and shifted closer to Revna at Loki’s rising temper. “At great personal peril, Revna took those for safe keeping so that Yrsa might not get her hands on them. Onyou.” He shook his head. “Because if she did, you would be helpless against her.”
“Because above all, she’s a succubus. And a goddess of desire and beauty.” Revna held her ground when Loki tried to tear the key from her neck, but her magic blocked him. While not particularly pleased to say it if, for no other reason than Loki’s ego, she went on. “And you possess more physical beauty and desire than most, not to mention ample divinity. To that end, she wants to make you hers and will stop at nothing to achieve that goal.”
“Which means,” Cian continued when she hesitated, “she will drain Revna of her magic and life force until she has you. Then she will keep you as a never-ending source of godly energy. Her own little pet to use at will.”
“Little?” Loki growled, incredulous. “Pet?”
She felt his emotions fluctuate between pure rage and utter confusion.
“NoVanaheimdemi-god is that strong.” His eyes grew more fiery still. “The nerve of her.”
“She’s more powerful than you realize.” Needing to put distance between them, Revna started down the tunnel again. He had no idea the sacrifice she had made for him. How strongly his heart around her neck affected her. “And now she’s extraordinarily angry.”
“Because you kept my heart from her?” he accurately assumed, sounding perplexed. “Which begs the remarkable question, how did you get it from me in the first place?”
Where he had been enraged moments before, he sounded more intrigued now. Not surprising. Was this situation not chaotic in its own right? New and different? Because she was certain, just by the feel of him so close to her own heart, that nobody had accomplished a feat like this before.
“I used a spell Yrsa taught me amplified by not just my magic, but Cian’s,” she revealed. “I called your heart, and it came, then I tucked it away for safekeeping.”
“Amplified by Cian’s magic,” Loki murmured, understanding. “A type of magic Yrsa and I cannot bypass.”
“That’s right.” She had long sensed there might be more to it than that but couldn't put her finger on why. It almost felt like she and Loki might have some sort of connection that had aided in it.
“To be clear, however,” she went on, “Yrsa can bypass Cian's magic once my energy is completely drained. Then she'll not only fulfill her ultimate goal of becoming the most powerful seer of all on VanaheimandMidgard by destroying me, but she’ll take you, Loki.”
She wasn't entirely sure how she knew that, but she did. He was far more vulnerable than he realized.
“Unless we destroy her first,” Cian said as they entered a large cave where seers often came to practice magic. “Which means getting to Vanaheim soon and finding her.”
Loki followed Cian’s line of sight to the endless totems made of bones, sticks, and other magical bits hanging from the ceiling. “And I take it you intend to do that by accessing traces of Vanaheim left behind by Raven?”
The truth was Loki could probably get them there, but she got the sense he hesitated either because he didn't see Yrsa as a threat or possibly because he didn't want Revna near her. Which could be a direct result of her holding half his heart and its effect on him.
“Yes, I'll be utilizing the Vanaheim residue left behind on the totems.” Revna chanted a fire into one of the pits closest to a monstrous waterfall. “Yrsa has only ever come here to Midgard rather than the other way around, so she won’t be expecting me to travel to Vanaheim.”
“Yet she’ll sense it, will she not?” Loki tilted his head in question. “How can you possibly think you will evade her once you’re in her world? Moreover, that she and her kind won’t sense Cian and me immediately and attack?”
“Because when trying to gain my trust in our younger years, she taught me how to mask myself there.” Revna urged them to sit around the fire with her. “She also has an enemy or two I hope will help us. I’m fairly positive they will.”
“That’s little to go on.”
Where she expected him to make things more difficult, he surprised her and didn't. But then, she held half his heart, so who knew his motives.
“Do you have the energy left to accomplish all this?” Loki wondered, genuinely concerned no matter how briefly. “Is there anything I can do?” He chuckled, back to his old self in record time. “Other than be Loki, which should be enough to makethose lesser gods fall in line. Even this ridiculous succubus who thinks she might ever have any kind of hold on me.”
“I would not underestimate her or them,” Cian warned. “After all, you are one, and they are many.”