Page 60 of Last Thrall of Asgard

I expected another snarl, but Loki’s eyes looked damp.

I took another step closer to him. “I don’t think any of them believe that is where your future leads, and I know none of them want it. You think they do, but all of them forgive you for the part you played in making them see their faults too. You were all idiots. All of you. But they want to move on and live new lives, without obsessing over yours, or any other friend or family member, or even enemy. That sort of obsession is exhausting. Ask Odin.”

A corner of Loki’s mouth twitched. He looked so small, further shrunken, with liquid eyes continuing to pool.

“Loki…” I was a reach of a hand away from him. “You’re exhausted. And maybe you’ll never believe you deserve to be free of your scars, your past, your wrongs, but those things are not all that define us. Especially not scars. Or do you think Hel so terrible for her inhuman half?”

“That is not the same—”

“Or Tyr deformed for his lost limb?”

“He never should have had it so close to Fenrir’s—”

“Loki,” I stopped him, for it was not me who needed to be convinced. Not of his worth to be forgiven. “Even if you don’t believe it, your scars do not ruin you.” I reached for him, like I had tried to so many times, and again, Loki stopped me, butnot with a brutal snatch. He held my wrist, keeping both of our hands suspended.

“They do ruin me because I caused them. I caused too many scars I can never take back.”

“I know. And fun as it was being proxy for your apologies, there is only one thing left for you to do. If you want to.”

“You?” He attempted to grin.

Imp. “I was going to say: actually apologize. But you can do me too.Ifyou want to. Then you can send me home.Thenour pact can be complete. Not before. Because you are one of the gods who needs me, just like all the others.”

Loki seemed to look through me, his eyes unfocused. There was too much pain there for me to sift through it all and truly know what he was thinking.

Then his eyes cleared and snapped to mine like the crack of a whip.

“How about I send you home now?”

Before I could wrench my arm free, I found myself somewheremuchhigher.

I teetered at the top of Yggdrasil. The very top. I was on the highest branch, above Asgard, above every realm, and as distant as they appeared, I could see them like globes, like apples on a tree back home.

As I stared, breathless, at the expanse below me… Loki pushed me to plummet to the worlds below.

“Loki!” I screamed.

Thatbastard.

He wouldn’t let me die. He wouldn’t let me land and splatter upon the gleaming halls of Asgard, or on that altar where he’d first snatched me like a lamb to slaughter. I knew he wouldn’t.

But it was stillfuckingterrifying falling like a shooting star out of the heavens!

A giant eagle, large enough to carry me, swooped down beneath me and caught me on its back. It dove with me as I clung to its feathers, down, down, at such impossible speeds that I had to close my eyes to keep them from stinging. I was thrown from its feathers just as unceremoniously and toppled safely onto a bed of grass.

I sat up with a heave, trying to decipher if I was on Midgard or in the field where Loki and I had been talking, when the eagle landed beside me.

“Prick!” I snapped at him, because of course it was Loki, and he proved it by transforming as he neared me, still with his tunic torn.

“Why,whydo I want you?” he roared.

“Because I’m a delight!” I roared back, leaning on my hands, too breathless to get to my feet. “Just like you are. And I will not put up with your tricks. I would also never hate you for them, tempted as I am right now. Your tricks, your wrongs, your mistakes, are part of what makes you, you. What makes you as human as the rest of the gods, who’d have guessed? Only us mortals don’t get second chances after we die.

“So, one: don’t ever fucking do that to me again!”

Angry as Loki was trying to be, I saw his mouth twitch like before.

“And two: since you do get a second chance, don’t waste it. Don’t believe you shouldn’t be forgiven, not if you ask for it, not if you mean it and actually change and try to be better. Regardless of if some scars never heal. Scars don’t make you less insufferable. Or less delightful. They’re justyou.”

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