(SIGYN)

Loki couldn't talk to me—well, he wouldn't anyway. I spent hours trying to bring him comfort, apologizing, even singing. He didn't so much as turn his face toward me.

I wanted so badly to look at his pretty eyes one more time, if it was to be the last.

No one told me how they'd do it, so when I grew tired of trying to get his attention, I was left to my own horrific imagination. Was the damage already done? Had they poisoned him with the intent to let him suffer, retch, and rot in front of me? True terrors were invented in my fear—they could tear him limb from limb with horses, burn him, even starve him to death. If my gentle self could conceive of such things, surely their plans were even worse.

Without natural light, there was no sense of time in the dungeon. Eventually the white room dimmed, and I caught just enough sleep to be surprised by the four guards who came to collect us. Mercifully, the man who brought Loki and struck me yesterday wasn't one of them.

I'd still learned my lesson and greeted them with silence and stoicism. The man and woman assigned to me did the same, cuffing my hands in front so I could lift my own skirt. Another stroke of luck—none of them had discovered the secret of the cape. Perhaps it was the last secret I'd ever get to keep.

Loki was reduced to being pulled from his cell like a child's toy. He was submissive and wilted, adding to my suspicions that more happened to him beyond beatings and humiliation. No point in asking; therefore, no way to know for certain. His eyes did flutter open once or twice when we reached sunshine, so he was not yet deceased.

Thor and Odin stood together at the helm of a skiff glider—one larger than those used for battle. The four guards who brought Loki and I came aboard as well; eight passengers in a golden vessel, bound for an unknown destination, with no indication of how many might actually return. Beyond whisperings to one another regarding navigation, the only sounds above the wind were whirring mechanics of the ship.

Far beyond the edge of the city, we flew. Past the camps at the base of the mountains where Theo and I shared the unfortunate kiss. Over the first peak and into a valley. Waterfalls sparkled with prisms on either side of us, singing with mysterious divinity. The deep green foliage almost matched Loki's preferred shade, and it might've been comforting if I thought he chose it from such a place; instead, the slightly bluish tone gave a somber aura to our surroundings.

The deeper we went, the more I shivered, wishing I could separate my hands and clutch my arms. Loki wasn't watching—his two guards held him up by his arms while he hung his head forward. I wondered if he was unconscious or knew where we were going and couldn't bear to see the journey. Somehow knowing this would end in such a picturesque location felt like the grimace after hearing two incongruent notes—grating, uncomfortable. It didn't fit.

The valley terminated in a dead end. A huge waterfall crashed straight ahead, and a sheer cliff jutted out on the west side. A closer look revealed a few room-sized pockets in the rock, which were decorated in hanging spires from each ceiling. Stalactites. If any animals lived in such places, they had to fly in and out. We hovered over the largest clearing in the wall, which looked like a man-made platform compared to the cleavage surrounding it. The floor was too flat and perfect to be natural.

Odin nodded to one of the guards holding Loki and yelled over the rushing water, "Skadi, I want him awake."

She gave an acknowledging glance and said something inaudible to her companion. Together they pulled him off the ship to the landing below, laying him flat on the stone. He didn't fight in the slightest.

I squinted to try and see anything around where they jumped, but it wasn't deep enough to be a cave. When the sunlight hit just right, the whole place shimmered with crystals. What danger could lurk in this beautiful place?

Loki's arms were extended above his head; his feet nearly reached the edge. Skadi knelt by the inner wall and struggled to pull out a thick chain, attached to the cliff itself. After locking it to Loki's hands, his ankles were bound with a braided black rope. The man who tied it grimaced and looked at his palms afterward—the fibers had teeth.

I jolted when the guards responsible for me gave the order, "Move forward." They pushed me to the front of the ship and refastened my hands behind me, winding a rope around my middle to keep me from turning away.

My heart never pounded so hard with fear, and not even for myself. Hurting someone I cared for was far more harrowing than anything they could do to me.

Skadi produced a small bottle from her beltline and fed the elixir to Loki. She and the man who shackled him hoisted each other on the glider, which flew back a bit and away from the cliffside.

I caught a glimpse of the canyon below and gasped, gripping my hands behind the pole to make me more secure. Below was an endless chasm that swallowed all light, and the height alone gave me vertigo.

Loki wheezed with a rattle in his throat, shooting both eyes open in panic. Whatever Skadi gave him, it cleared his mind of weakness, though his grimaces said he was still in terrible pain. He tested his restraints above his head first, yanking at the chain tied to the cliffside, then shifted his legs and bared his teeth at the serrated rope.

Odin struck his sceptre into the bottom of the boat, calling all attention to him. It even calmed the roar of the waterfall behind. "We gather today in judgment of this...trickster's attempts to take over this realm and her people. He has been found guilty of his crimes, and now must be condemned for them."

Loki's brow furrowed and he stopped struggling, staring at the glider above him, and Odin especially from what I could tell. His panting chest was visible from far away, and his terror flowed from him in a draft of cold swirling around us.

"Great Orm, as Allfather to Asgard, I summon you." Odin clanged his weapon three times more.

For more than a few moments, nothing happened. Loki and I both looked up and side to side as best we could.

Is it a trick?

I tried to twist myself and ask, but the guards gripped my arms and pointed me forward again.

"Keep us steady," Odin said to murmuring behind me.

I searched the wall ahead once more—what I thought had been nothing was what we were waiting for. The rocks above Loki's platform shifted. Crawled, even. It was almost an illusion—the shadows cast by the fluid clouds blended with the monster's skin, which shined in the same iridescent tones as the crystals that surrounded us.

Loki twitched and panted again, calling out to the ship, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please."

My expression was frozen open in both awe and alarm at the shield-shaped head and diamond scales of the serpent, which may as well have been a dragon for its size. Its body weaved back and forth between crevices leading down to the victim.

He yelled with more heart, adding tears to his plea. "I'm sorry, truly, I am. Bargain with me. Anything."

No one on the ship said anything, and I was afraid to. What comfort could I give?

"Father, please!"

My stomach squeezed with this. How desperate is he?

When Odin still snubbed him, Loki was left with little choice. "Thor, you can stop this. Please, won't you try?"

Something shifted behind me, but it stopped when Odin grumbled.

You're nothing but a coward. If I could've shot daggers behind me, I would have aimed for Thor's forehead.

"Brother, think about what you're doing. I'm sorry. Don't let me die like this."

His every word broke my heart over again. I cried alongside him.

"Thor!"

"Gods, won't you do something?" I screamed over my shoulder, having to swallow my pain when the guards tightened their grips.

Odin was relaxed in his response. "You and Loki are both self-righteous traitors. He has earned his fate, and so have you."

The irony of his sanctimonious comment didn't escape me.

The creature didn't stop while Loki begged for his life and for family to save him. It coiled around a few of the spires of the ceiling, finally threading its head through a hole right above him. A solid place to rest the weight of its long body—but for what purpose?

I continued to weep, certain I would witness it devouring my lover.

Loki's eyes were clear, like from our childhood. Filled with promise. Void of heartache. They reflected the possibilities wasted on this cliffside: the dreams he had for family honor, a rebuilt realm of peace, and endless laughter. He was misguided as Odin accused, but were his crimes worth making an example of him?

He mouthed a few clear words to me—the last words of a man before accepting defeat: "Ginny, close your eyes."

I took a deep breath and clenched them shut, waiting for some gruesome feast to take place.

I would've preferred that.

Loki's scream was otherworldly, ricocheting off the canyon walls and shaking the ground, even vibrating through me. His beautiful low voice duplicated and rasped, screaming wordless notes of prayerful clemency upon deaf ears.

And I cried with him, for him, about him, unable to keep that merciful last gift of his suggestion. The guards pulled my hair and forced me to watch.

The snake dripped luminous poison from its jaws upon his face, no sooner making him a meal than the end of all existence. Its black whirlpools for eyes were endless and cruel like the abyss below.