Revenge| Book 6| A novel in the Blue Moon series| An Avengers fan fiction series |

51- From The Inside Out

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Chapter 51:

Emerald and silver bore into each other, driving holes into the other's soul as Loki and Neidra circle each other like lecherous vultures.

"Do you see this war?" shouts Loki, pointing furiously downward at the frenzied fighting below the canyon. "Do you see this death, this ruin, this darkness? It was born from you, Neidra. You are the mother of this war, and you are the mother of pain!"

"Me?" growls Neidra, swirling around to slam her sword in Loki's direction. Her hair hair, drenched in the pouring rain, flaps around her like the dead wings of ravens, dipped in silver. "You blame this war on me? You and your aristocratic airs are the ones who ruined my life. You and Saldra, rebuking me in my time of need. I needed your aid, Loki, and you turned me away for nothing but mockery and superstition!"

"Mockery and superstition?" Loki throws his hand forward, but Neidra dodges both his blades and his fire. "You killed your husband, Naolin, and married him only to bring yourself out of the woods, where you were scorned as a lowly witch." He jumps backward, up onto a rock, and Finji whooshes through the rain and wind. "Eala found in your possession letters to Fjdor, already beginning to destroy my family, to destroy my throne so you could take it for yourself! It is hardly superstition if it is true!"

"You denied me the life of my child!" Neidra practically screams, silver eyes blazing like the seventh pits of hill. "If you and Saldra hadn't turned up your noses for a mother in pain and in need, this war you blame on me would never have been born!"

Fire explodes from Loki's fingers, but Neidra ducks away, and the flames dissolve into the rain.

"Saldra and I may not have been able to save your daughter. We might-"

"You left me to scream on my own- Caomh saw blood for the first time that evening. Blood and screaming. We are the way we are because of you. Though..." Neidra grins through hissing teeth. "I suppose I should thank you. Never have I been more alive."

"Than when you take life?"

"You're one to talk! You killed Heira and Tatiana and more than you care to count! You killed my daughter, you killed Fareen!"

"I never touched your daughter!" shouts Loki. "I never would have."

"You refused me! You refused her!" Neidra grabs Loki's wrist, twisting it, and in one swift movement, Loki is thrown to the ground. Neidra leans down, her voice as torrential as the rain. "You do not know how it feels to hold your dead daughter in your arms, to see her take one breath of this life before departing it! I know it because of you. You do not know the loss of a mother, you arrogant, self-centered, royal bastard!"

Suddenly, Loki grabs Neidra by her throat. While her silver eyes bulge, Loki's green irises flash. "I do know that feeling. I do know that feeling of holding my daughter dead in my arms, to see her breathe one last time, to feel her life running out through my fingers. And I know it because of you!"

Neidra screams, knocking Loki's hand away and kicking him to the dirt. The Asgardian king's arm cracks as it is broken on the cliff's rocks, and Loki shouts in pain.

"You and your daughter, through your care for each other, do nothing but mock me!"

"I will not apologize," growls Loki. "I will not apologize. For all I know, Fareen would have grown up just like Caomh, with nothing but bloodthirst and lust and greed!"

"My boy is worth ten of your little wench of a daughter," snaps Neidra. "With all her weak talk of mercy and love and loyalty. Greatness cannot be achieved with mercy, not love, nor loyalty."