Betrayed By A God

Sickness

The moment Loki appeared in her room he knew something was terrible wrong.

Snows face was bright with fever, her cheeks almost scarlet, but the rest of her skin was sheet white and waxy, a thin sheen of sweat beading along her forehead.

"Where?!"

Sebastian whirled around, and nearly fell over as he tried to jump up from where he had been sitting.

"That doesn't matter, I am here now. What happened?"

"Snow cut her hand sword fighting, she was keeping it cleaned but an infection set in. We didn't know what to do. I think she's going to loose her hand. She's been in and out of conscious for most of the day but when she wakes she isn't herself. We had to tie her down to keep her from hurting herself."

Loki listened as Sebastian spoke, the young boy looked so tired and scared.

"Go rest, I am going to try to help her."

Loki ushered Sebastian across the room and pushed him down into a small day bed that he had not seen before.

When Sebastian started to open his mouth when Loki hit him with a sleeping spell, the boys eyes rolled back in his head as he fell back on to the bed at an awkward angle, his limbs askew.

Lifting the boy he moved him so he was on the bed and then turned back to Snow.

"Oh Snow what am I going to do with you?"

The floorboards creaked as he moved back towards the bed.

He sat down next to Snow, the bed dipping and moaning under their combined weight, in other circumstances he would relish the squeal the metal springs made at their movements, but now he only prayed that the noise wouldn't disturb her.

Letting his eyes rove over her, he was horrified, such sickness was rarely seen in Asgard, their scientific advancements and magic rarely let anyone become so ill, yet the girl lying near death in front of him was a stark reminder of how fortunate he was.

Her beauty was marred by this illness, the heat from her body radiating out to the point he was beginning to feel overly warm.

Yellow sweat stains stood out against the white sheets underneath her, the blanched fabric of her nightgown was still unblemished, it must have been changed recently.

With a wave of his hand the sheets were changed and the bowl on the night stand refilled with icy water and a clean towel rested on the table.

Carefully he dampend the cloth and wiped the sweat already beading on Snow's forehead, then rinsing the cloth out he slowly dampened the cloth again and wetted down the rest of her face and neck, attempting to lower her temperature just a little.

Loki knew he was stalling, healing magic was a branch of magic was a branch he had not studied very much of, beyond healing of simple wounds, preferring instead to study forms of magic that were showier.

Now that lack of knowledge might be his downfall, he thought to himself as he wetted the cloth once again and settled it upon Snow's brow.

"I promise," pressing his lips to her burning forehead, "I promise you Snow, I will try to make you better."

Abruptly he stood up and took the chair Sebastian had vacated, moving in closer to the bed, he sat down, slowly he untied the fabric knotted across her chest that kept her bound to the bed, and carefully rolled up Snow's sleeve to reveal the puffy discolored skin of her arm.

A slight putrid smell met his nose as he delicately unwound the bandages, they must have just been changed as well, as they were not stained much by the oozing infection.

Steeling himself, Loki took her hand in his hands, closed his eyes, and reached out with his seidr.

The infection beat almost with a pulse stronger than Snow's heart, like a beast it roared ravaging her body, starting at her heart Loki instinctively pushed the infection back, thru her veins, burning it back.

But the infection did not go without a fight, Loki held on to Snow's hand for hours thru the night, slowly gaining ground, inch by inch, taking Snow's body back for her.

Finally he had pushed the infection back into her hand, but try as he might, it had no where to go.

Opening his eyes he stared down at the half healed cut that had obviously been reopened several times and grimaced, as he realized what he had to do.

"I'm so sorry Snow, please forgive me."

He let go with one hand, careful to keep his seidr in place thru the other hand so as to keep the infection from spreading again, and a knife appeared in his hand.

Gritting his teeth he made quick work reopening the wound, and began pulling out the infection, till her blood ran clean then he destroyed in a burst of flames.

Snow's eyes burned she desperately tried to fight against what ever what pulling at her, holding her down in this darkness.

Her body burned with what felt like the heat of a thousand sun's, and she prayed an end, either to be healed or for death, instead of being forced to continue to dwell in this firey purgatory.

Then slowly she felt the burn lessen and began to recede.

Her hand gave one last painful throb and then the pain was gone.

Slowly the pressure on her lift and she opened her eyes, the flickering light from the candles in the room hurt her eyes and she squinted, closing her eyes again.

"Snow?"

The anxious low voice could only belong to an angel she decided, cautiously opening her eyes again.

Loki stared at her as a slow captivating smile spread across her face, she felt too exhausted to speak but at that moment wished she could express just how grateful she was he was there.

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Thank you for your patience. 

I have been dealing with writers block and mental health issues.

But thanks to therapy, medication, and sunshine I am back... sort of...

For now this story is on hiatus, I realized trying to write two very different stories at once did not work for me, and as this story is going to be part of a trilogy, I want to finish Utter Devotion first.

So until otherwise stated there will be no upcoming updates for this story.

Thank you

💛🖤💛🖤💛🖤