Stolen Relic ~ A Loki Fanfic

Chapter Sixteen

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Queen Frigga stood in the center of the small potting shed. It was just before dawn and she wasn't surprised to find it empty. The elf slave had been missing since the feast two nights previous. And while her son had tried to conceal the slave's whereabouts it was fairly obvious to a mother what Loki had been hiding in the library after an unseemly brawl with one of the warriors three.

She had hoped it was nothing but a dalliance. Which was why she hadn't yet reported the missing elf to Odin. While not great for his sons reputation it was certainly something he could recover from with her help. But now, she was sure there was more going on. She could no longer feel the magic binding the slave's collar and hadn't been able to for days. She had not forged it alone however and so she was unable to tell if it was the proximity to Loki's magic simply disrupting it or, the more terrifying prospect, if the elf had escaped her magical prison.

She opened cupboards and dug through baskets, but nothing in the sad little shed revealed the answer. It looked as though someone had hurriedly left and if that was the case she couldn't protect her son from his father's wrath any longer. Loki didn't understand the secrets surrounding the small elf. In fact, Frigga doubted the elf slave herself understood the larger role she was destined to play. If the daughter of Ljosalfar had been freed they were all in danger.

She had to tell Odin.

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Loki woke sweating. He threw off the blanket he never used and looked around his room in surprise. Curiously, there was an orange glowing fire smoldering in the fireplace. Also something he never used.

He sat up, grimacing only slightly as his healing muscles stretched and reformed. He rotated his left shoulder, content to note it too had healed. His power still felt less than normal, but he assumed it would take time for his magic to find its way back to him as his body continued to heal.

He glanced around in confusion. How had he ended up here? He didn't recall getting home, only the intention of teleporting. It was a frightening prospect to consider he had teleported when he wasn't fully lucid. So many things could go wrong. It was why so few ever attempted to learn the skill and even fewer lived to master it.

His last memory was of a final power channel with Kenna, drawing her personal power into himself. He had read about them in theory, how intimate they could be, but nothing had prepared him to be entirely immersed in Kenna. He could hear, smell and feel nothing but her heartbeat, her essence. He could feel her, even now, her warm presence so much closer than even the amulet allowed him to feel. Some of her personal power must still be clinging to him like cobwebs. He closed his eyes and shook his head as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. She was a slave.

It shouldn't have surprised him to discover she had power of her own. The slave collar was specifically designed to block not only her memories but also magic. It would have been a foolish use of such a powerful artifact for a non-magic user. The fact the she was also an empath made sense as well. Through the amulet he had unknowingly been tapping into her empathic abilities and thus able to feel what she felt. Now that they had unwittingly forced her into her powers it would remain to be seen if he would be able to continue to use them.

He felt better, being up and moving and it took him a moment before he saw her. She was curled up in a ball in his chair before the remains of the fire. It was still before dawn, but the auroras dancing across the sky illuminated her face. Her arms were wrapped around herself and he frowned. The room felt uncomfortably warm to him, but she appeared to be chilled. He picked up one of the many throws his mother had placed in his room, even though he never used them, and tucked it carefully around her.