Arha watched him with a smile as he paced his quarters. He would have have thought her amused were it not for the fact that he had been watching her for what felt like aeons and knew that the stillness was nothing natural. He had watched her unable to keep from moving, like a newborn deer she was always twitching and now she was still.

She was being hunted.

"Why would they want to kill you?"

"I don't know."

Loki's eyes narrowed at that and he stopped abruptly. She didn't know, but she could always—, "Guess."

She shrugged heavily, as if even that was a tiring thing. "We were...There were raiders going around, ransacking villages, burning them down and we were stopping them."

"Why would the King want you dead for that? Surely coming to the aid of people isn't something to be condemned?"

"I can't be certain of anything."

"But you have your suspicions?"

"We were able to...gain some information."

"You had your spies." Loki interpreted correctly.

"Of sorts."She let out a huff of breath. "Every time the villages were destroyed The Steward called for the Aesir and they always came too late."

"Your point being?"

"The Allfather had to recompense him for the damages. Something in the treaties, I don't know the exact wording but it lined his pocket and, well, we were costing him quite a bit of weregild."

"We?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course 'we', I can't very well go around defending entire villages against groups of bandits on my lonesome.

"Yes but 'we' isn't the one being targeted, that's just you." Loki snapped and she swallowed. Arha knew what he meant. "Why?"

"I was one of the leaders so to speak. I mean not exactly—" She began flailing again, not nervous but still twitchy and he was glad to see that. The stillness had been disconcerting to say the least. "I was just one of the more experienced ones and my station meant I had resources in the citadel as well and, yes."

"Yes?" As if that was really the best way to end it and she cleared her throat shifting on the armchair.

"There may also be some lingering animosity towards my family."

"In what way?"

Arha took a long shaking breath. "In that my parents were unhappy with the reliance on Asgard and wanted to ratify a different treaty and they were executed for making noises and charged for various instances of apparent treason."

"Ah."

"Yes."

That complicated things. Arha had already told him she was raised in a place that held no little animosity for the Aesir and if the executed parents were along the same line it meant that she would find no supporters here, not except for him.

Which was probably why they'd brought her here, he realised. After all, Loki had wondered why she was a part of the envoy and there was his answer. They wanted to isolate her and a death in a foreign land was much more easier to explain and lie about than one at home.

But there was still the matter of the Vanir King abusing the treaties laid down, one Loki himself could substantiate as being true.

"The Allfather—"

"Will take the side of his steward and his wife's family. Has no reason to believe me."

"He might believe his son." Even as Loki said it he did wonder about it. Would he ? Would he listen to Loki, the God of Lies?

She looked just about ready to cry, a hitch in her voice as she stared at him like she couldn't believe what he was saying and he just knew immediately that was more to this, more layers to this whole affair than he could fathom. "Loki they—they'll say I bewitched you. Lied to you, used you for revenge."

"Will they?" That was hard to believe. Loki wasn't the one fooled often, it was usually him doing the manipulating. And what exactly did she mean by revenge?

"They will. The Allfather was the one who signed off on the execution orders for my parents. Under the advice of the Steward, of course but...yes." She smiled weakly even as he reeled.