Lower Your Eyes (A Loki Romance Fanfic)

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Final Amendment

My eyes opened slowly to the glow of firelight, the soft crackling of the flames into the air. Someone's hand was on my forehead, their thumb brushing back and forth across my brow. Soft sheets wrapped around my body, enclosing it wholly. My fingers were the first to twitch—the first signs of consciousness—followed by my arm moving, sliding across the soft fabric, which felt so familiar.

My lungs took in deeper breaths as I began to rouse, blinking a few times as the hand fell away from my forehead. Everything was blurred for a moment or two, including the figure sitting at the side of the bed. When black hair came into focus, emerald eyes shimmering in the light, I recognized who it was. "Loki?" I muttered. "I—what...happened? Where are we?"

"We are in our room."

"Our room?" I rose slowly to a seated position, feeling properly disoriented. Visions of memories scattered around my mind. "How did we—get here?"

"How much do you remember?"

"I don't know," I muttered. All the fragments of images were coalescing at an annoyingly slow pace. Leather and flashes of light bouncing off a sword— "The trial—we were at the trial!"

"Yes," Loki said solemnly, unblinking as he peered into my eyes. "Yes, we were."

"And you—you knocked me out," the words rolled off my tongue, then came louder a second time as I looked at Loki, "You knocked me out!"

He pressed his lips together. "Yes," he said the word more reluctantly this time. "And then I won. It's over, Aila. I took your form and faced him on your behalf—he is gone now, and you will be named queen."

We stared at one another for a moment. "You had no right," I ground out. "You had no right to do that! You jeopardized the realms and could've gotten yourself killed."

"Indeed. And there isn't a hint of uncertainty, anymore, when I say you would have died," he answered calmly. "We'd suspected it all along, but in facing him, I found confirmation—you would have died, and it would have all been for nothing."

Before I could open my mouth to answer, a third voice spoke, "He's right."

My eyes snapped toward two other figures I hadn't noticed were in the room—Thor and the queen. Both sat at the sofa before the fireplace, but only Frigga rose to walk over to the bed. There was a solemn look on her face, but not an apologetic one. She was the one that had spoken. "We had guessed you would be upset when you found out."

"Upset?" I gaped. "I—of course I'm upset!"

Anger, relief, joyfulness... I couldn't discern which of these feelings were dominating the mess of emotion in my chest.

Frigga continued, "I understand, but there is no use in fretting over what happened. You wanted to accomplish this yourself, but there would have been no winning. As Loki said, we all witnessed the king's skill in battle—he barely moved fast enough to strike the winning blow, and he has seen far more warfare than you ever have in your life."

I looked at Loki, but he was peering down at the nightstand beside the bed. Evidently, the book I'd left there for nearly three weeks now must have been quite fascinating. Something inside me was wilting alongside the ever-growing relief that I was alive—and that was the strangest feeling. I couldn't quite find the words to describe it. "I suppose I should've seen it coming," I finally murmured instead. Loki raised his eyes to me. "When I married the god of lies and mischief."

I wasn't smiling, but a tiny grin graced the prince's features—one that didn't reach his eyes. "Indeed."

"But now I have a crown I didn't win."