Loki grinned a demoralizing smile. “Did you know Freya’s tears have unmitigated healing powers? One could even argue they can extend a mortal life span to even that of the fae.” He watched her as he spoke, but Ailsa steeled her expression. Leaving him to only guess at what she was thinking, the ideas connecting in her mind.
“Why are you showing me her tears?” she asked, clarifying his intent.
“Because I have an offer for you.” He stepped closer; the mossy tail of feathers skimmed the beaded floor. “And you would be wise to consider it.”
“Coming from the Trickster himself,” she retorted. But Loki shook his head.
“This offer comes from all the Aesir. I am just the messenger. The gods are granting you divine healing from your condition—”
“How does Odin know I’m sick? I thought he couldn’t see me.”
“Vali let it slip during his visit. He inquired one of the Norns about how to help you and extend your thread. It was not within his power, but it is withinours.”
He took out the jar and held it out for her to inspect. Ailsa took the tears from his fingers, feeling the ending to all her shortened breaths, the answer to all her struggles within the palm of her hand. She shot him a careful look. “What do you want in exchange?”
“Come with me now to Asgard,” he simply said.
“Now?” she exclaimed. Her mind raced with the consequences of this alternative. “But then… But then the fae would lose their end of the bargain, and Frey would never leave. Odin would be getting everything he wanted without having to pay for it.”
Loki shrugged. “But you would live, Ailsa. Is that not what you’ve always wanted? The ability to run without fainting. To walk without getting short of breath. Think of the mountains you could climb, the world you could conquer if you were well. All that was unfairly taken from you, now just a sip away from having.”
Ailsa stared into the cup, knowing his argument was rooted in a well of truth. All she ever wanted was to live a life to the fullest and a body able to do so. She was entirely deserving after the suffering she endured her entire mortal existence.
“After all,” Loki spoke quietly, “what do you owe the elfin? This is not your world. Not your fight.”
Sheowedhim nothing, yet he had taken everything from her. He had taken her family, left her orphaned and alone with no hope for a future beyond the adventure that would soon come to an end. He had been unkind, negligent, left her in the hands of giants, and she had cooperated this entire time just to please him. Just to help a man who had done nothing but steal.
But he had also saved her from a loveless future, a path promised to an unkind shieldmage in her small corner of the world. He expanded her map, stole her away from a meaningless path and presented a passion for life she would have never found on her own, gave her a purpose beyond living for the next breath. And for once she was not defined by her illness but by a power inside her she alone was destined to carry, so that an entire realm could be free of the oppression of darkness.
Yes, he had taken from her. He had stolen her heart, and perhaps that was the cruelest thing he had done. The most illicit of his crimes. One he would feel the punishment for the rest of his extended life.
“I drink this, and I will be healed?” she asked the god. “And then we will fly back to Asgard?”
“I’ll even let you wear the coat,” he grinned.
She brought the glass to her lips and threw her head back, letting Freya’s tears forever dry her own.
Vali watched helplessly behind the ajar door as Ailsa spoke with the god of deception, every word a dagger to his chest. Even he knew Loki’s offer was too good for her to pass up, but it didn’t ease the hurt. It did nothing to push down the unwarranted anger rising in his throat, inches away from spilling through with a hateful scream. The icy feeling of betrayal washed over him as she brought the cup to her mouth and drank the tears.
Then thawed away as she spat the golden liquid back into the god’s face.
“If Odin thinks for a second he will get out of this bargain with the elves, he is mistaken. I will leave with Frey, when the last of the gods’ influence is purged from this land. And do not ever try to tempt me again or use my illness as a weakness. Do I make myself clear,Loki Lord of Lies?” she hissed, and gold streaked across her lips as she spat the words. The sureness of her voice, the easy scowl she wore as she devoured Loki in her gaze, it was a devastating kind of beautiful. It reminded him of the day he arrived on the shores of Drakame, how she once looked at him with such unapologetic hatred.
How far they had come.
“You’d rather die for a fight you have nothing to do with?” he asked, wiping his face.
“I’d rather die than betray those I love,” she corrected.
Vali couldn’t hold himself in the shadows any longer. He pushed the door aside and stormed across the balcony, Ailsa’s eyes widening with surprise as they crossed him. She barely had time to let out a small yelp before he took her face in his hands, kissing the lips she parted in surprise. He pressed her soft body against the railing, bending her at the waist over an unending stretch of Alfheim meadows.
He tasted the sweet tears of the goddess as he threaded his tongue against hers, adoring the way her breath sucked in when she discovered how hard he was for her. She pulled him closer like an accepted challenge. This woman who held the world in her hands, a promise of unnumbered tomorrows, and let it all go because of her devotion, her loyalty, her vow.
Her love.
Those once impenetrable boundaries she’d been chipping away at finally shattered.
“I suppose that's ano, then,” Loki muttered.