The royal warren where the women and the children lived, ate, and slept was sumptuously appointed, the wall-ice smooth and opaque, natural mirrors. Dug leagues down into the caverns below the surface-ice, the sorcerers' songs had crafted a truly beautiful maze. Loki was reading in his favorite frost garden, kept warm enough to grow plants in the midst of lumps of snow like downy feathers that was carted in early every morning and shaped, never the same images twice.
He had bemoaned the trip to his hangers-on in bored, sibilant tones, and then dismissed them to take a long, lasting scrub in the cool water of the bathhouses, deep in the heart of the warren.
A desire for solitude led him here, with the soft-snow curled around his toes, and Litner huffing wolfishly beside him.
Engrossed in the treatise he was reading, he knew nothing of the impending horror before his concentration was split by shouts of, "My prince! My prince!"
A haggard steward raced up, towering above Loki with his blue cheeks sucking in and out with caught breath, and sunk into a bow that was a finger's breadth too high to be proper for a prince. Loki would normally have had the man's hide for hours on end, but the steward looked like the hounds of Hel were chasing him, so Loki forgave him with merely a raised eyebrow.
"The Aesir are coming," the steward told him between pants, beckoning harshly at two servant women following him in a sedate run.
Loki was hurried into his iron war skirt by the chamber-women while the steward clucked. No sooner had his helmet been squared on his head than he was urged to an undignified run by the steward, who he left clasping his palms in worry, ordering a grim man-at-arms to accompany him to the courtyard. Litner took the running as a game, bounding and snapping at his master's heels.
There was tension in every smooth face he passed, the women and children evacuating deep into the warren and warriors in their skirts at every juncture, talking in low voices. He found his father seated on the ice throne with his head thrown back in what could only be fear.
Litner padded by Loki's feet as he came to rest behind the seat of his father's power. The wolf lay by his side, flesh burning Loki's shin slightly, tongue lolling in pants. They were loyal animals, dire-wolves, and Loki had raised Litner from a pup.
Something was amiss. It was all over his father's face, his brothers' squared shoulders.
The rainbow of the Bifrost shone in the distance, reflecting glaring colors through the grey sky. Surely such a sustained blast would be too much to carry just a handful of statesmen or soldiers.
Loki whispered into his brother's ear, "What news of Asgard brings them here?" and was surprised when pompous Helbindi, who could not bear to gain knowledge without flaunting his possession of it, merely shushed him. The worry of his kinsmen made Loki shift back on his heel. Litner, feeling his discomfort, settled his furry haunches on Loki's foot. Loki fondled his ears, tugging lightly, and listened as an arch collapsed in the distance.
They came to the very gates of Utgard, the sight of them nearly blinding Loki. The nynkle elks that Loki found so garish would be muted and faded before these warriors.
For the first time in his life, Loki felt a stab of true fear punch through his heart.
At the head of this hoard was a bearded, one-eyed man balanced astride an eight-legged beast with mad eyes, red as any Jotun's, and a sleek black coat. Loki had heard of the All-Father, of his evil and treachery, and was surprised at how small the actual warrior was, dwarfed by his steed. The differences in Jotnar and Aesir features were bewildering to Loki, raised in the heart of Jotunheim, but even then, Loki guessed that Odin was quite old for his race. Any feeling of comfort Loki could have felt from that was robbed by the sorcery that coated every inch of Odin's person. He shined brighter than fire, making Loki's eyes narrow and, to his shame, tears spill over his cheeks.
Beside him was a young man on foot, golden and fair as only an Aesir could be, wielding a war hammer whose strength was barely lessened by the great immensity of Odin's power. They were surrounded on every side with warriors, none of whom could hold a candle to these first two, all of whom were still frighteningly powerful.
Loki looked sideways at his sire. The tightness around Laufey's lips told him all he needed to know.
Their armor reflected light like sheer-ice, making a stab of pain slice through Loki's head. In front of their mouths rose clouds of vapor like the breaths of a furred beast.
Loki froze the tears and made them fall with a flicker of magic so he could stand firm behind his brothers, his fingers tracing the ridges in his legs.
"Laufey," Odin said. Some spell ensorcelled his voice, carrying it far beyond what should have been possible.
"All-Father," Laufey acknowledged, looking old and tired. "Have you come to wage war?"
"To prevent it," Odin replied.
The golden man by Odin's side jerked as if struck. "Father!"
"Silence, Thor," Odin said, his every movement a command. He never so much as glanced at his son. "You will forgive him." He spoke to Laufey again. "The life your men took was a great loss to him. A great loss to me." His voice broke as he said it, and suddenly the All-Father looked older and more tired than even Laufey.
Loki watched his father lean forward, a wolf scenting blood.
Odin saw it, and the anger that welled up on his face was nearly palpable, his strange Asgardian brow lowering thunderously.
"My youngest son is dead." He said it bluntly. "Your men killed him for no greater crime than being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Father," Thor growled, but he was cut off.
"If you atone for his loss, then I and my nation will mourn him in private. If you withhold tribute, however," his voice was now booming, the spell in full effect, "your lands will once more be ripped apart by senseless war."
Loki looked away from the All-Father, and then his breath stopped.
His father's eyes were not on Odin. They were not on the ground, or on either of his two brothers. That familiar red gaze was fixed speculatively on him, Loki, the youngest of his sons.
Loki opened his mouth to plead, but closed it. He would not shame his house. He would not.
"A son for a son, All-Father."
"Father, no." Loki couldn't stop the anguished exclamation, anymore than the night could stop from coming. Laufey silenced him with a gesture.
"My youngest, Loki, will serve your house in my stead."
Odin considered it for but a moment, and then smiled bitterly. "A neat trade. Very well," he said, ignoring the discontented mutters breaking out from the warriors he'd brought with him, the white look of anger on his son's face.
"Open the vault!" Laufey roared, and soon, under Laufey's direction, fine furs and gold, radiant statues carved of bone, and jewelry worked with beautiful gems were being piled on a litter in sullen tribute for the Aesir, who looked on with hatred and distrust.
Býleistr was watching Loki, muttering in a constant hiss into Helbindi's ear, his hands fisting as he tried so obviously to think of a way around giving up his favorite brother to almost certain torment and death.
Loki felt numb as the ice that separated throne room from courtyard was opened with a flex of his sire's powers, thralls directed by his father's steward walking past with armfuls of the greatest treasures Jotunheim possessed. He tried to catch his father's eye, but Laufey avoided his gaze carefully, sitting at a table of ice with three Jotun advisors and three Asgardians, drawing up the terms of the treaty.
They wrapped fine furs around Loki's shoulders. His helmet was removed so his short black hair could be braided behind him, fastened with ribbon inlaid with emeralds. A beautiful gold circlet was clasped to his arm. It was all happening too fast, far too fast, and Loki found himself panting. The tribute ended and the rough treaty was outlined, to be gone over in more detail in a later meeting. His father stood from the table and walked to Loki, his hand on his shoulder, collaring him and restraining him as much as guiding him forward, as if Laufey feared Loki would run. Loki refused to stumble, not allowing himself to stare up in awe when Odin remounted before him, his great beast pawing into the snow and snorting clouds of breath into the air.
"As of this day," the statue that had once been his sire said, "Loki is not a prince of Jotunheim. His death or torment at your hands will not be met with diplomatic action, as by all rights your son's has not."
"Father, please."
The man Thor glowered at Loki. The All-Father was impassive, unreadable, terrible to Loki's eyes. Laufey let go of his shoulder, and a warrior to Odin's left grabbed Loki's arm.
A growl ripped through the air, and the Asgardian let go with a shout of surprise when a force toppled him, snapping at his throat. A great spear smashed the dire-wolf away from its victim, who staggered to his feet, unscathed and proud.
"Litner!" Loki wailed, seeing Asgardian weapons drawn in a glittering circle around his sole, snarling defender. He shoved through the crowd and flung his body over the wolf's. "Leave him be!" Loki sounded every bit as ferocious as his pet. He eased back his weight when Litner's rumbling growl lightened to a whimper. He favored one of his hind legs.
"You may bring your pup," the All-Father said in an unexpectedly kind voice. "But you must carry him."
Loki shivered, and in the silence of the Asgardian host and his own men, hefted Litner's big body, careful with his hurt leg, and stood refusing to tremble before the All-Father and the hateful, distrustful glares of his men.
"We move out," Thor said, sounding disgusted. Loki carried the dire-wolf the short distance to a nearby ledge. He ran starving eyes over the hard-ice, the soft-ice, the cavern-ice, the snow-ice of his homeland even as the Bifrost opened and, in a wave of colors brighter than Loki could stand, he and Litner were sucked away to a fate unknown and frightening.