XXII
Shock numbed her tongue, colder than snow, more binding than ice. His father? This monster of a man—except he wasn't a man, and neither was Loki—who stood at more than twice all their heights in a body of hard, carven planes of muscle darker than obsidian?
As he rose from his throne and drew nearer, a frigid cold radiated from him, so strong it hit Jane like a gut-punch. Her teeth gritted, then gave, chattering uncontrollably. Every foot he gained on them chilled the atmosphere around them, until Jane felt the bare skin of her cheeks going dead and hard from frostbite. Loki's magic within her was no match for this; the flame he'd lit was sputtering and dying in the face of this implacable freeze.
"Stop," Loki said, raising a hand. While it did not flash with magic, the threat was there. "You know they cannot bear it. I will not have you kill my allies, however little you like them."
"You dare command me in my own kingdom, runt?" Laufey's voice snapped like a frozen river, a deep crack that shattered through the air. Nevertheless, he stopped. From his bare feet, tendrils of ice sluiced down to the ground, as though he were rooting himself where he stood.
Loki spread his hands, placating, reasonable. "Not a command, then. A request. To have a care for guests you permitted me to bring you. A great king like yourself has no need to break the laws of hospitality, especially since you may in future need to host them again."
"If they cannot bear a minute in my presence, how do you expect them to survive until you may rescue them?"
"You and I both know that Jotunheim offers more comfort than what may be found in your throne room," Loki's jaw clenched along with his fists. "If all you meant to do when I arrived was lie, why did you permit us to come at all?"
"Lie?" Laufey roared. Jane's frozen legs jerked; she stuttered a step back and nearly fell as her clumsy feet found no purchase on the slick floor. Something in his voice harmonized with the ice panels on the wall, reflecting his cry back and back onto them until a dozen echoes clamored in her ears. "You speak to me of lies, when the very skin you wear is a deception? I should peel it from your bones in punishment for daring its trickery here."
The reverberations took a long time to fade. When they did, Loki breathed a quiet, resigned sigh.
"Forgive me, Father. I forgot Odin's spellcraft offended you so. With your permission, I will remove it."
Laufey's fingers twitched, which Loki seemed to take for permission enough. Raising one hand, he bent his middle finger, crossed it over his forefinger, and touched the nails of both to his forehead, dragging them down over the bridge of his nose, to bisect his lips and hug the curve of his chin. From the bare brush of his fingers a blue blush—pale as morning sky at first, then darkening—spread like a bruise over his skin. The smooth skin of his cheeks rippled, then sank into harsh lines of scarification, geometric designs that highlighted the aquiline bridge of his nose and the sharp edges of his cheekbones.
Jane swallowed. Those lines…were they genetic, or some gruesome right-of-passage among the Jotun? They dipped low enough to hide in the neck of his tunic, and how far below that did they travel? Laufey's certainly seemed to have no limit, even tracing the very bones of his feet. Would wounds like that even bleed on a world as cold as Jotunheim? Did the Jotuns even have blood?
"There," his voice had deepened, harsh and grating as hailstones scraping a glass window, and Jane shuddered. If this wasn't another deception—and she didn't think Laufey would be so easily fooled—then this creature was what Loki was and had always been. "I should have known you would want to see your son in his true flesh. You have always been the most affectionate of my two fathers."
Laufey's hand rose, and a howling wind with it, shrieking over his clenched fist and lashing down on them all. Loki threw his cloak up to shield Jane and Darcy from the worst of it, but it scalded over their skin as they both shrieked.
"Son of mine!" he bellowed, "You are no son of mine! What are you, Odinson? Merely a cast-off runt my enemy thought would have value as a hostage. I had already given you in sacrifice by leaving you to die. Only your schemes hold any value to me. So," he dropped his arm and the wind ceased as fast as it had risen, "tell me your schemes."
"I will," Loki stood, brushing frost off Jane's cloak. His blue fingers, the nails turned black, brushed over her bloodless cheek, and a welcome tendril of warmth thawed her. Magic? Why would he risk it? "If you will refrain, as I requested, from murdering these women."
"Speak, before my patience is gone and I silence you all."
"We need to know he's telling the truth!" Darcy's voice shook—from cold, from fear, who knew?—but her wavering words didn't stop. "You trust him. We need to know why."
"I do not trust him," Laufey snarled, "I trust no one raised in that den of thieves and liars. I hold his promise, and he holds my pledge. If he crosses me, he dies."
"Dies?" the word was faint, but Jane pushed it out.
Laufey nodded.
"Can you—"
"Wait," Jane cut her off, "Wait a second."
Her arm was clumsy as she reached out to tug Darcy away from the other two, and she could barely move her creaking knees—and hoping from feeling from the deadened blocks that were her feet was a fool's dream—but they had to talk about this for a second.
"What?" Darcy shrugged off Jane's hand, cocooning herself in her cloak. "What's your problem? Let's just get this done before we really do freeze. Or he freezes us. Whichever."
"I just…" a tear oozed to the very edge of her duct and stuck fast there, scraping harsh in her eye as she blinked, "I didn't think this would kill him. Isn't that a bit much? Do we want to be part of that?"
"Jane," Darcy sighed, "if he gets caught, we're dead anyway, right? We need him to be careful, and the only way he's going to care about us is if he cares more about himself first. Why do you even care? You shouldn't, you know you shouldn't, not when he doesn't give a shit about either of us."
Jane's lips parted to reply before she caught herself, reflecting that saying anything just then would be a spectacularly bad idea. And after all, where was the lie? Darcy was right. She was absolutely right, about everything. Loki would be much more cautious if throwing them to the wolves meant his death. Their plans still might not work—and with all the forces arrayed against them, they probably wouldn't—but Loki would be on the hook if they failed. His life would be the most security they'd have from this situation.
Now wasn't a time for hesitation. She had to let the winds of Jotunheim freeze the charity out of her heart and leave her hard and sharp as crystal. Hadn't she just told Loki she couldn't and wouldn't forgive him? He deserved nothing from her, not even the instant's hesitation that dread, final word 'death' had given her when her heart skipped a beat. No. It was time, and well past time, for Jane to stand by the truth of her feelings.
If he died, he would deserve it.
She nodded, locking her jaw tight. They returned to where Loki and Laufey awaited them, and as they faced each other down Jane had to blink hard before she saw them as anything but a fun-house mirror reflection of each other. The lines on Loki's face were exactly the same as his father's. Genetic, or had Laufey mutilated his son in his own image, before realizing he was deformed and casting him aside?
"If you hold Loki's death for you," Darcy started, tilting her head back, boldly staring down the red eyes that scored her, "we would like you to hold it for us. What are your terms with him?"
"If Loki betrays me, by word or deed, in that instant I may take his life from him."
"And how would you know?"
Laufey sneered. "A magical contract is binding when sealed by blood. Would you shed yours to secure this bargain for yourselves?"
"Yes," Jane answered for them, as inspiration struck. This bargain was fine, but it could be better. Loki dead was a nice, simple cipher, but Loki alive was still too unpredictable to reliably manage. If he had been willing to give Laufey his death, certainly that meant he had a way to wiggle out of it? This might be her only chance to set some limits on his chaos. "But I want something else, too."
Loki's eyebrow would have twitched, if he had eyebrows in this form. "You would hold my life inside you, bound in my blood. What more could you want from me that I have not offered you already?"
She glared. "I want you to tell me the truth. I want the magic to force you to answer me truthfully, no matter what question I ask."
His mild surprise hardened into fury. Two steps put him within arm's reach, and the cold he radiated, while milder than his father's arctic blast, was still enough to set her teeth chattering again. But she stared him down, chin high, and for a moment there was nothing around them. No Darcy. No Laufey. Not even the hellish wasteland of Jotunheim. They were alone, only their two wills battling for a strategic high ground.
"And if I should lie to you?" he murmured, but she heard him perfectly. One sharp canine nipped his lower lip. "You would have me killed for it? Is that the vengeance you would enact for yourself, that my lies should be the end of me?"
"No," she replied, "you'd deserve it, but no. I don't want you accidentally committing suicide because you just can't help it. Certainly the spell can adapt to another punishment? How about...a headache? One that gets worse until you finally tell me the truth about whatever you lied about in the first place?"
"You think I have never lied under duress? That I could not withstand your pain?"
She shrugged. "Why don't we find out?"
Steeling herself for the pain, Jane set her teeth and took a step towards Laufey, feeling every inch of her skin contracting, pulling all warmth towards her heart, which was giving ever-more labored contractions under her physical strain. Laufey's face doubled, then tripled, through the hazy ice-veil of her frozen, scoured eyes, but his eyes saw her clearly.
"Can that be done? Can your magic hurt him until he tells me the truth?"
For a beat, he regarded her, thoughtful eyes banked like a furnace's coals. Then, with a tearing crack, Laufey's mouth opened and a sound akin to laughter creaked out. It reminded her of a great tree bent to the earth under a weight of frozen rain, its fibers, branches, and roots straining until they broke. Jane flinched, but Laufey didn't see it.
"It can," he said, nodding, teeth bared in a vicious grin. "Even I did not think to ask it of him, but I will take pleasure in tying his silver tongue into knots for you. So. You wish for death in case of his betrayal, and his truths withheld only with agony?"
"We also ask for a refuge with you," Darcy put in, "in case we need to escape Asgard. Loki will bring us here, but we'll need your protection."
Laufey's humor blunted quickly when faced with a reminder that he also had some responsibility to them. Torturing your son was all fun and games until there were consequences, after all. But Jane's gambit had bought them enough goodwill, so with a grumble and a nod, Laufey assented.
"I give you my word. Do you agree, Odinson, to all terms?" he sneered down his broken nose at his son, who was still as a statue, as if Jotunheim had succeeded in freezing his icy blood to the spot. At first, it didn't even seem like he'd answer.
But he did, because he had to. Their skeptical, patched-together alliance was now bigger than any of them, and if he pulled back now, the whole thing would collapse.
"I do," he said, drawing one of his knives. The blade was a streak of cold light, like the candles above and the stars above them. He set the tip of it to one finger and pierced the skin with a chime like shattered glass. Blood, black and sluggish, welled from the wound.
He held his hand to Jane, the bead of blood sitting on his finger, a gruesome offering. "Take it."
Jane stepped towards him, her exposure to Laufey making him seem balmy in comparison. "Drink it?"
He nodded, pressing the finger to her lip. She breathed—through her nose, which caught the dense, stinging copper of his blood—opened her mouth, and closed her lips around him.
His skin was so different in this form. There was no give to it; the pressure of her mouth left no dent in his flesh. He might as well have been cast from glass, a perfect, seamless sculpture. Jane stole a glance up through her lashes, meeting his eyes, and wondered, wildly, what would happen if she bit down. But if his skin was unyielding ice, his blood was a blossom of fire. It lit her tongue and scorched her throat, taking hold somewhere deep in her belly, sending tendrils of magic from her center throughout her body. She felt him everywhere.
The flow dried up as his wound sealed, but Jane's tongue flicked over his finger for the last lingering trace of it. Loki's lips parted, a quick flash of teeth in the darkness, gone as soon as Jane swallowed and pulled away.
He breathed. "Your turn," and flipped the knife so Jane could take the hilt. Her fingers, while still clumsy in the cold, had revived enough to grasp it firmly and draw the blade of it over her own finger. But she was only mortal; her blood crystallized into a jagged red flower the instant in left the protection of Loki's spell in her body.
That didn't stop him. The heat of his mouth thawed it—how could it be so much hotter than his frigid hand?—and the pressure of his lips pulled more from her as he sucked. Jane wavered on her feet. Had she looked up at him like that, eyes fixed and desperate?
A wave of heat rolled through her, and for the first time since arriving on Jotunheim, she had enough heat in her to flush.
She yanked her hand away, and the wound froze over, skimmed with a glaze of his saliva.
"Now Darcy," she said, stepping away and handing her friend the knife. The exchange between Darcy and Loki went quickly, and if Darcy felt anything like the riot of physical sensations that had sparked in her at the taste of Loki's blood, she didn't show it. In fact, when she pulled away, her nose wrinkled and she coughed, as if trying to clear that rich, tart taste from her tongue.
"The bargain is made," Laufey said, "I hold his promise. Our business is concluded."
Without a word of farewell, Laufey retraced his steps towards the end of the hall. When he reached his throne, he sank down and closed his eyes, becoming again the motionless monolith he'd first appeared to be. It was a dismissal, and one that allowed no argument.
Note: Woo! An update for every week of March? What is this insanity of a regular update schedule? I have to say, though, it's all down to the amazing way you guys are turning out for this story. You give me so much amazing feedback and encouragement, and I'm so grateful for it all. Thanks as well for all your birthday wishes; I really appreciated them.
Few quick announcements: I'm moving a lot of my original fiction over from FictionPress to my AO3 account. If you haven't read my original work, please consider checking it out. My AO3 account is linked in my profile. The Three Sisters is a Regency romance which is complete, I just have to get the last few chapters over. And I've started a new novel, Diaspora, which tells the story of three women moving in together on a farm in rural Minnesota. If you've ever thought of doing that with a group of friends, this novel might be for you.