The world around him was utterly silent. After that last attack, the roar of the battle had died down and Loki found himself walking quietly among corpses, his clothes spattered with blood, none of it his.
Where was she?
Was she wounded?
Could she be… dead?
Loki clenched his fists to the sides, trying to keep his anxiety in check. It wasn't really working. Abruptly, he stopped that train of thought.
No. Mortal she might be, but by no means helpless. She is a warrior. She can't be dead.
Almost forcefully, he shoved his fears to the back of his mind. He didn't have time for them.
But he hadn't seen her during the battle. He hadn't seen her at all.
Where could she possibly be?
Loki was terribly, terribly afraid he was about to find out.
His body vibrating with tension, he forced himself to look at the corpses – really look at them – as he passed them by. There were so many dead – too many – and most of them humans. A pile of corpses was topped by the body of a little girl, her tiny hands still clutching a doll to her chest.
As he bent to check her vitals, Loki felt something fracturing inside his soul. He wasn't certain what would happen when it finally broke and didn't want to find out.
A chill ran down his spine as he surged to his feet.
He needed to find her.
Oh, norns, let her be alive!
He shouted her name, again and again, as he continued his search, fear and anguish mingled in his voice. The ensuing silence was deafening.
And then his eyes fell on her, pinned to a wall by dozens of daggers, each of them identical to his own.
Inhaling sharply, Loki stumbled forward, his heart in his throat.
"No," he whispered, shaking his head, as though he could make it all go away – the daggers, her eyes glazed over with death, her face splattered with blood. Tears started welling up in his eyes and a silent scream caught in his throat, choking out the very air he breathed.
Oh, no. Please, no.
His hands moved on their own accord, a burst of magic exploding from his fingers, pulling all daggers out at once. Her body fell in what looked like slow motion and hit the ground before Loki could reach it.
He dropped to his knees on the blood-drenched ground. Her blood.
They didn't kill her because she was one of the Earth's defenders. They killed her because of her connection with him.
This is your fault , a harsh, unforgiving voice said at the back of his mind. You got her killed. That's what the daggers are. A message. For you.
Loki wanted to scream but again, no air found its way into his lungs. He just stared at her wounds, his mind doing the math for him. At least twenty knife wounds, none of them fatal. Whoever was responsible, they had pinned her to the wall and left her there to bleed.
What was I doing when you drew your last breath? Was I thinking of you?
An anguished sound tore from his throat as Loki pulled her body into his arms and pressed her fiercely against his chest, the coppery scent of her blood filling his nostrils. Nausea washed through him as his mind served him up a fast-action replay of her death.
The only woman who's love you've prized will be snatched from you.
The words of a younger, crueler version of himself, aimed to hurt Thor. Get back at him for his audacity – his foolishness – to give his heart to a frail, ephemeral human.
Fate had a sick, twisted sense of humor.
Loki had never doubted her love. She had loved him when no one else did, not even himself. She had convinced Fury he was deserving a second chance. Helped him sort through his snarled web of emotions. Soothed him through his nightmares.
Most of all, she had accepted the hot mess that he was and never, never gave up on him.
The unbreakable love and faith she had in him had saved him. Not only he prized her love. He sought to redeem himself and be worthy of it.
He could almost hear her laughing, feel her hand on his cheek, and he missed her, suddenly, with a keenness that stole his breath away.
All her glowing warmth was gone now. She was gone now, and he was going to burn from the inside for letting it happen. There would be nothing left, only his soul's ashes and he deserved every bit of it for giving it whole to a mortal.
Loki had seen the signs for a while. But it had taken this - holding her corpse in his arms - for him to see it for what it was.
Love.
Perhaps, he thought, staring at her small, lifeless hands , if I hadn't been such a coward, I would have seen it sooner. Perhaps, if I had told her how I felt, if I told her I…
I loved her.
It was real.
I always loved her.
I loved her and I let her die without knowing it.
He couldn't feel his own heart beat.
This day, the next, a hundred years, it's nothing. It's a heartbeat.
It isn't fair. It is not fair.
She came and went from his life in the space of a breath, and yet her loss cut him deeper than he thought pain could plunge. Broke something so deeply within him he wanted to tear into his own chest so he could rid himself of it. He wanted this pain gone. He wanted every memory of her gone.
He swallowed back a sob that threatened to choke him. The thought of his memories of her fading until he wouldn't recall her voice, her smile , hurt a thousand times worse than living with them. It seared his soul like salt on an open wound.
No, he couldn't forget. Wouldn't forget. It hurt too much to even contemplate it.
You'll never be ready.
No, he thought, frantically. I won't be. I'm not.
The shapes softened around him through the blur of his tears, the edges less solid, less real as though the world wanted to shelter him from the pain of his loss. As if it didn't already rip his soul to shreds even when he wanted to scream.
He willed himself to get up, but he couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't take his eyes from her beautiful face, forever frozen in death.
Every book on magic he had ever read said it was impossible to bring back the dead, and yet his mind insisted that he should try, that maybe his magic, his skill, his pain were strong enough to beat death.
It is only a spell , he told himself.
But it wasn't only a spell. There wasn't anything like it.
Loki wasn't any sorcerer, either.
He closed his eyes and drew in the magic. More than any sorcerer had ever drawn, way more than was right. Far beyond safety, far beyond reason.
Loki was scarcely aware of Thor calling his name, shouting some nonsense, but he barely heard him over the roar in his head.
"Don't do it, brother! Listen to me, Loki!"
He wanted Thor to leave him alone. But to tell him that, he would have to stop casting, and Loki couldn't do that. Nothing could make him do that.
Breathless, voiceless, mindless, he kept absorbing more and more magic, breathing it in until it filled every cell of his body and every single part of his being. It sang through his veins, tearing his mind open until there was no boundary between himself and the vastness of the universe.
It was terrifying and painful and… exhilarating.
The sheer power of it was incredible. He could feel everything around him – every droplet, every breath, every heartbeat – and it was all his. If he wished, he could snuff out of existence every living thing on that cursed field. In the whole town. He might even kill Thor.
His eyes focused on her ghostly white face and his thoughts struggled to regain focus.
I never wanted to kill Thor.
I only want to save her.
Closing his eyes, Loki pressed his hand on her chest and willed the magic to flow through her veins, into her heart, across her muscles and bones. He didn't only control the magic. He was the magic, and it was him. Carefully, he started to heal her wounds, one after the other, taking his time to make sure he was doing it properly. Broken bone ends found their pairs and knitted themselves together. Open slashes along her chest and midsection pulled closed. Broken veins and torn arteries mended back together.
Come back , Loki pleaded. Come back to me.
She should have been healed by now, and yet magic continued to flow out of him, sucked away like a vacuum, and it went on and on, until he was sure he was going to die before he could finish the spell.
He could hear Thor screaming "Loki, stop! Brother, please!"
I can't, I won't-
The last thread of magic left him. The roar finally stopped. Everything went quiet. Around him, dozens of people moved in silence, surrounding him, and he knew his magic had healed the wounded, saving them all.
It took him a moment to realize she was still dead.
He hadn't beat death. He had only healed the living.
Deep, all-consuming grief tore through him.
He couldn't breathe.
All the words he had never said, all the words she would never hear choked him.
His world faded away into nothing, his eyes fixated on the dead human that laid in his arms.
It was over.
No power in the Universe could grant him another minute, another second with her. The brave, foolish, loving mortal he cherished above all else. The mortal he loved. The mortal he failed. The mortal who would never know he had been willing to trade his life for hers.
Would never know just how much he loved her.
He stared at his hands, cracked and sticky with blood, wishing he could throw what little energy he had into another futile, possibly fatal attempt to snatch her back from the dead, but when he reached for his magic, he found nothing there.
Shaking, he reached down and closed her eyes with his fingers. The eyes that always held a smile for him. He had just seen them for the last time.
It broke him in a way he didn't know he could break.
And then, suddenly, strong arms surrounded him from behind, pulling him close in an unbreakable, fierce embrace.
"Loki… I'm here, brother. I've got you. I'm here."
Of course it had to be Thor.
Thor, who had also given his heart to a mortal.
Thor, in whose steps Loki had foolishly followed.
Thor… who would have never failed to defend Jane.
For a brief moment, Loki dug the knife deeper, picturing the two of them together. Laughing and kissing and unbearably happy. The knife twisted inside him and it felt like iron claws tearing mercilessly into his heart.
„I'm sorry, Loki! I'm so sorry!"
Too weak to push the damn fool away, Loki leaned into his embrace and started laughing, gasping for breath, shaking, shattered until, mercifully, the darkness opened its maws and plunged him into its depths.