Page 59 of Last Thrall of Asgard

“Exactly!” He gave up trying to get a proper hold of me and pushed me square in the chest. Not hard. Little more than a childish shove, and that was exactly how he looked. Childish. Young. Frustrated. “WiseOli, you do know me. You know me so well. And that is why you could never—” He snapped his mouth shut like he had said something he shouldn’t.

“Why I could never what?”

Loki flinched but refused to answer.

“It’s true that I know what an insufferable, infantile ass you are. That you sometimes push the joke too far. You make stupid mistakes. Got yourself into every mess that ever cost you something. Howhumanof you. You also got yourself into every mess that ended with a child you love and every story of you worth telling.”

“Right,” Loki scoffed. “Because you think from those stories that I never cared if it all went wrong.”

“What I was trying to say—”

“I always cared!” he bellowed again. “I always,alwayscared, but when things started to go wrong, I made it all worse! Every time. I was prophesized to end everything. And I did! It’s no wonder I was destined to…” He trailed off again. What wasn’t he telling me?

“To what? Loki, please—”

He launched himself forward to try seizing my wrists once more, but I was ready for his quick reflexes and spun out of reach.

Loki snarled, and when I looked at him, for a moment, his face, his whole form, seemed beast-like, poised on the cusp of transforming into something terrible.

“Don’t you get it?” he demanded, and I thought hewasabout to transform, but instead, he gripped the top of his tunic and tore it from his chest, causing the top to hang from his belt.

One side of his body was completely scarred like his face. The mottled tissue went all the way down, disappearing into the band of his belt and trousers.

“Since you know our stories so well, why do I have these scars?”

I knew. I knew and answered honestly. “They’re from the poison that dripped on you, while you were bound, suffering punishment after Balder’s death.”

“Andhowwas I bound?” he pressed, with another shimmer over his form like a beast about to burst from his skin.

I preferred the ridiculous stories. Ones so absurd, a little blood and violence hit with less impact. But to punish Loki for the start of Ragnarök, for Balder’s death, one of Loki’s more human-like sons had been turned into a wolf, a mockery of Fenrir, that thenset upon his brother, Loki’s other more human son, and killed him. The entrails were used as Loki’s bindings.

“I see from the green tint to your face that you do well know,” Loki sneered.

“You think yourself loathed?” I asked. I knew he bore a hidden pain, but I hadn’t thought it so deeply etched.

“I am.”

“But your wife,” I recalled her as I said it, “she caught as much of the poison as she could to protect you. If she hadn’t cared enough to do that—”

“My whole body would be scarred, yes. And Sigyn was the mother of some of my children but not my wife. I have no wife. Willing and wonderful partners all who gave me my children, the stallion who seeded me with Sleipnir included, but no spouse. Care about me though they might, none ever wanted to keep me. All eventually grew tired and left.”

“Not your children.”

Loki looked away, hunching from his proud stance like he wished he hadn’t torn his tunic and wanted to hide his scars again, yet he didn’t wave a hand to fix it either.

“You haven’t seen those sons since your escape, have you? Since their rebirth? They were the sons of a god. Surely, they were reborn too.”

“They were. But how does a parent face their child after inflicting such tragedy, even if not directly by my hands? It wasmyfault. And then, in my rage, in my vanity, I made it all worse again and did everything I was destined to. I gathered my children, every monster I could, everyone who might fight on my side from every realm and tore it all down for nothing.”

His rage was dwindling now, losing momentum and leaving him limp.

Which meant now was the time to push again, if only a little.

“You’re right, that was pretty selfish and stupid of you.”

Loki’s eyes glimmered.

“And nothing,nothingis ever going to change the moronic choices you or the other gods made.” I stalked toward him, boldly staring at his scars, at his twisted tissue, that no more marred him to me than his sneer or attempts to keep me away. “Even so, you’re all still here. Here again. So, you, just you, Loki, can either learn from it all and be better like the other gods are trying to be, both for themselves and for those they care about. Or! You can prove yourself right by being the whining, petulant brat you let everyone see.”

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