Chapter Two
...
Lorelei crept up the stairs to her room, nervous that someone might notice and question the state of her dress, mud-streaked as it was. But she saw no one until she burst through the door of her chamber to see lounging on her bed the person she had most feared to speak with.
"You've been naughty," Amora said with a smirk. "How refreshing."
Lorelei looked at her sister warily. Amora's languid posture and laughing expression so often camouflaged a nasty humor.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"Not a thing, my sweet sister," the older girl said carelessly. The sisters stared at each other for a moment, and then Lorelei turned to her mirror and began to undo the buttons and laces of her wrinkled and muddy dress.
Amora watched Lorelei's reflection closely, until impatience began to creep into her languorous posture. She rose sinuously to a sitting position and swung her legs to the floor. "Come, angel," she murmured. "Aren't we going to talk?"
"If you like." Lorelei was cautious. She knew there was no escaping Amora when she was in a mood like this, cat-like, and it was important to tread carefully.
"I think we must. Before it's too late."
"Too late for what."
"Too late for you," Amora replied, and giggled horribly. She came up behind Lorelei and wound her arms around her younger sister's neck, a little too tightly.
Lorelei coughed as Amora's forearm pressed gently against her throat."I won't tell anyone."
"If you do," Amora said, laughing into her ear, "I'll carve out your liver with a spoon." She pulled the soiled dress away from her sister's shoulders and clasped them sharply.
"Have I ever betrayed your secrets?" Lorelei asked as calmly as she could.
"Of course not. You would never dare." She dug her nails lightly into her sister's skin. "Sweet, silent, obedient Lorelei."
Lorelei was cold in her shift, and Amora's hands were icy. The older girl whispered again. "But how difficult it must be. To tell no one that you saw your own sister at the Well of Wyrd, standing side by side with the witch queen of the Norns."
Amora ran her fingers through her sister's windblown auburn hair, ripping tangles apart with painful jerks. "How interested Thor the Thick-Headed would be to know that I have welcome passage where he is denied."
Lorelei did not reply.
"And how interested your beloved Loki with his precious little tricks would be to know all the deep secrets of magic that Karnilla has chosen to share with me," Amora continued, jabbing more sharply.
Lorelei looked at her sister's face in the wardrobe mirror. She was beautiful and frozen, with a face that laughed while her eyes remained pale and fierce. "Karnilla is teaching you?"
"She has taken me as her apprentice."
"Why?" Lorelei let slip, betraying her interest.
"Because I'm brilliant, my love. And, I suspect, she enjoys having someone to show off to," she added indifferently, with more insight than Lorelei would have given her credit for. But after all, you cannot manipulate people, as Amora loved to do, without understanding what motivated them.
"Karnilla is the greatest sorceress the world has ever known. For now," Amora finished. And she laughed again with a brittle hilarity that threatened to shatter.
"You were there, standing by as Karnilla wove," Lorelei said softly.
"I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I shall laugh for days to think of Thor's blustering idiocy."
"Would you have let the adder strike him?" she asked.
"Oh my precious darling," Amora said pityingly. "Do you truly believe it was your magic that saved him at the Well?"
"It was," said Lorelei in confusion.
"Your beautiful eyes, perhaps," the older girl said, caressing her sister's cheekbone with a long fingernail. "But I was the one who captured your sight and shared it with that great blond oaf, to keep him from posturing absurdly before his own doom."
Lorelei felt hot with embarrassment. So she had been right after all, had she known it, when she confessed her experience to Loki. She had been used by a power stronger than she was, she had been nothing more than a tool… "Why did you bother, when you despise Thor so?" she wondered bitterly.
"Lei," Amora pouted, "Do you believe me capable of standing by while my childhood friend is murdered?"
What did she believe Amora incapable of? "I'm sorry," she murmured.
"Besides," Amora shrugged. "A fool in a position of power can be useful to those who are not fools. Thor can be plucked like a lute. I shall look forward to playing him."
Lorelei thought of Loki's easy manipulation of his impetuous brother, and knew that Amora was more right than she knew. Suddenly, she was desperate to get away, before her sister could dig her nails into any more vulnerable places. She pulled a clean frock over her shift and laced it hastily.
But Amora was not finished. "Lei," she said, drawing her arms around Lorelei's waist and resting her chin on her sister's collarbone. "Do you love me?"
"Of course," Lorelei whispered.
"Not as much as you love Odin's changeling."
"Don't call him that!" she blurted.
Amora laughed. "Loki is so thin and dark and hungry. The Allfather must be thrilled to have such a son."
Lorelei flushed angrily.
"And yet you adore him. It's to him you run with your secrets, your fears, your sadness. Never to me."
"He is my best friend."
"I'm your sister." Amora squeezed her tightly, pressing her cheek against Lorelei's. "I could teach you, you know. All the dark and beautiful secrets that the Norn Queen shares with me. Power that Loki can only dream of."
"I don't want her secrets."
"Of course you do," Amora hissed. "You dream of magic. Of great power. I can see it in you. I can see your envy."
Lorelei shuddered and tried to pull away, but Amora held her tightly and whispered, her voice soft again. "Think how powerful we could be. There is such strength to be had, such forces in the realms. I can feel them. I can be potent on my own, but you and I could be unstoppable."
"No one is unstoppable."
"Not yet. But you and I, Lei…we could be everything."
"What would you do if you were unstoppable?"
"Drink the oceans. Hold worlds in my hand and spin them apart. Ride the back of the great serpent and see everything that has ever been or will be." For a moment Amora's eyes were dreamy and she looked almost gentle. Lorelei remembered chilly nights as a tiny girl, crawling into her sister's bed and listening to stories of dragons and giants and sorcery. Amora used to have the same look during those stories, her voice filled with wonder and her eyes alight with passion and excitement. Lorelei would have done anything for Amora then.
"You're remembering, my pet," Amora murmured. "How we loved each other once. We were all we had." She petted her sister's hair with what almost seemed to Lorelei like genuine tenderness. "You're still all I have. Let me teach you."
"Let me be, Amora. I don't want to be you," she said quietly.
Amora recoiled as though from a blow, and stood pale and angry. "If you turn from me I'll…"
"You'll what?" Lorelei demanded shakily.
"You are my flesh and blood."
"I don't belong to you."
"You're all I have!" she repeated.
"What do you want?"
"Don't leave me."
"Where would I go?" Lorelei said helplessly.
"I don't mean this room. This palace. Asgard. I mean here." Amora clutched violently at her heart. "I am by your side, but you shut me out. I feel myself slipping away. From everything. Sometimes I think I'm…I'm out of my mind. Can you believe that?" She laughed shrilly.
"With you I know who I am. Where I belong, You are the only one who can hold on to me. My flesh and blood. My sister." Her voice had risen almost to a panic, desperation shining through cracks in her icy demeanor.
Lorelei looked dumbly at her unhinged, impulsive, cruel, vain, and brilliant sister. Not knowing what else to do, she hugged Amora, half in fear and half with some echo of the adoration she used to feel for her only family.
