When Loki's consort and soulmate marries his rival to save their son from a curse, a prophecy leads to consequences even the God of Chaos couldn't predict.
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The Unseelie Goddess of War's revenge against Asgard's Dark Prince puts him in a no-win s...
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Conjuring the cell phone I used for my Midgardian Tod identity, I sent a message to Lu Dongbin, the Xian Leader of Eight Immortals. Hoping he wouldn't find it presumptuous, I asked for a meeting tomorrow anywhere on the Bohai Sea. I knew it was the location of the Eight Immortals' island residence. Despite knowing of its presence, I'd never been there on any of my previous trips to the region for diplomatic visits or my Midgardian career.
It was shielded from mortal sight.
I'd seen Lu in his mortal Simu Lang identity at various Marvel events over the past year since Aidan was born, and we continued our carefully polite exchanges. He'd been on the red carpet during Shannon's unexpected appearance due to our son's portalling abilities. His assistance with subtly changing the mortals' recollection of the event and corrupting the video footage had allowed us to shift the focus to Shannon going into labour, instead of her appearance out of thin air. I hoped he would be equally willing to work with me now.
Shannon, Elatha, and I finished our meal of fish stew and were relaxing, chatting as we sat around the curved glass-topped table, when my phone buzzed with Lu's reply. Mount Penglai at noon. He'd supplied coordinates, but Elatha already knew the location.
"We have the island on our maps," Elatha said, an amused half-smile stretching those full lips. With a touch, a pale blue holographic screen rose above the centre of the table, and using voice commands, he pulled up the information to display.
"Their cloaking doesn't work against your technology?" Shannon asked as she traced a finger along the contours of the three-dimensional map.
"No. Ours doesn't rely on just physical dimensions, but takes planetary energetics, gravity, and other mass-less dimensions into account. Their cloaking works well enough for mortals, cleverly diverting their submarines, now that humans have the ability to travel underwater. It's similar to our methods of keeping mortals from finding our outposts, although many are still too deep for their craft to penetrate," Elatha said, shrugging. "We so rarely interact with the Shen that I think they've forgotten our presence on this planet. I'd have to confirm with my brother, but I don't believe we've encountered them in the last couple thousand Litaui years."
"Is it a problem if you come with us, then?" I asked, meeting his gaze. "I wouldn't want to accidentally start a conflict between Atlantia and Kunlun if this goes sideways."
Elatha's lips pressed together as he tilted his head and scratched his jaw. He looked away, ran his hand through his hair, then locked eyes with me again. He shook his head in a single sharp motion. "No, it's fine. They are going to find out you've got a second consort one way or another. I'd rather be upfront about it."
A curl of pleasure warmed inside me and I agreed. I suspected Elatha's presence would be important for us to get to Helheim and retrieve Baldur, or the Norns wouldn't have specified the three of us in the prophecy. Besides, I was already planning on doing something I didn't think the Shen would easily agree to. If I could avoid pissing them off by getting permission for the three of us to travel through their lands, all the better.
