Unlike Loki

Chapter 88

(Loki)

It had been several days.

Several agonizing days.

I was this close to storming Midgard and getting her back.

But we needed a plan.

I simply wanted to go to Midgard in disguise, but Thor advised me against it, saying that they would know better. We had no idea what exactly we were going up against.

I'd had countless letters from the citizens saying they wished to help in anyway they could.

But I couldn't ask that of them. To fight to the death, no matter how brave they were.

I guess I had gone soft.

Thor was traveling again, trying to figure something out. He would check in with Heimdall everyday, but there was never any new news.

I cried myself to sleep for the 7th night in a row.

********

She looked surprised to find me knocking on her door.

I pushed my way into Lady Maleah's home, smelling the sweet scent of her cooking. To my disappointment, it did nothing to calm me.

"I need your help." I told her.

"Of course." She clasped her hands together and let them hang in front of her.

"You've heard Laufey's forces are moving? Heading this way?"

She nodded her head. "His armies are great in number and strong in force. But they come only for you." She looked at me sadly.

I nodded my own head slightly. "The demon spell... would it break if one of the two members died?"

She sighed, pain in her eyes. "Loki-"

"Answer. The. Question." I didn't have time for this. For lectures. I was tired of people telling me what I could and couldn't do.

"Yes." She breathed. I turned to leave. "Wait!" I stopped and turned to her. "But it's not that simple."

"Then make it simple."

"One of your deaths can break the spell, yes. But it has to be the right one. And there's absolutely no way of knowing which one of you that is. And the death can not happen by one's own hand, but at the hand of another."

I nodded my head in understanding and turned, once again, to leave. Lady Maleah suddenly grabbed my arm, her grip impossibly tight. "Your dealing with very old, very dark, and extremely powerful magic, child." I ripped my arm out of her grasp.

"Don't," I pointed a finger at her angrily. "Call me a child."

"If you give up your life for her, there's no guarantee that you are the child whose death will break the spell! And it will all be for nothing. She will be hunted and she will be alone. How do you think she will feel?!"

"I don't care!" I screamed. "Odin once told me that it was my birth-right to die!" I lowered my voice. "Maybe he was trying to tell me something."

"No, Loki." Lady Maleah shook her head sadly. "Either way, you'll be leaving her alone. She's not going to find anyone else who she loved more than you."

I was trying not to cry. I had cried so much. I used to say that crying was for the weak, but now I knew it was for those who had a heart. "If there is even a slight chance that my death will break the spell, then she will live, Maly. She will live a long full life. And she will eventually find someone who she likes well enough to settle down with. I just want her to be happy." Tears spilled over my eyes. "And there is exactly a 50% chance that I am that child. I've got to take the chance."

"It's not that simple!" she suddenly yelled.

"What else could there be to it?!"

"The demon mothers have to be present! They are the ones who will break the spell when they see the right child die!"

"What? That doesn't make any sense! how did they find them last time?"

"You only need the mother's when you want to break the spell by killing one child, the right child. If both children are killed, the spell automatically breaks."

"That's horse shit."

"They each have their catch, Loki. Don't you see that?" I scrunched my face at her. "If the right child dies, the spell breaks, but the living child literally loses the love of its life, and all those who were raised from the dead go back to being that way. If both children die, then the universe has to deal with the aftermath, the dead staying alive wrecking extreme havoc." She took a deep breath, her cheeks losing some of their redness.

"So, it's a no-win situation?" I clenched my hands, digging my nails into my palms.

Lady Maleah shook her head solemnly.

I walked out of her house, slamming the door.