15

Six years past and worlds away

With little to do but wait for a bridge to be needed and equally little desire to mingle with anyone at all, I set up my easel along the bridge stone clearing’s outer edge and laid out my palette alongside. The buttery texture of paints and whisper of the brush across canvas brought me as much solace as the colors themselves.

Vivid as the colors were, on the canvas and in Asgard’s sky and forest, none were so brilliant as even my memories of Alfheim. Still, standing with the sun on my face as I interpreted the landscape’s light onto the canvas only ever made me feel better.

A sad weight had settled around my shoulders over the past days. Loki remained in Asgard, but I did my best to avoid seeing him. Apparently, he didn’t mind. Not running into him hadn’t been difficult. When I thought of him, fresh pain twisted in my gut, something that felt more like grief than anger. He’d been cruel, but really, I just missed my friend—the one he’d been on good days.

A different sort of emotion altogether fluttered in my chest and throat when I thought of Heimdal. I also hadn’t seen much of him lately. Odin had dragged him off to Midgard on some godly business or another. They hadn’t, as usual, entrusted me with the details. As I’d taken them, Heimdal had worn his usual unreadable expression. He’d refused to meet my eyes.

He hadn’t said he didn’t want me. He’d only said he didn’t want to hurt me.

What does that even mean?

Only with great effort could I stop thinking about his arms around me, the scent of his skin, the way he’d leaned in as if he were about to kiss me. Possibly that effort helped to account for the growing number of filled canvases hauled back from the clearing and leaned against the walls of my little house.

I concentrated on the aspen I was painting, crisp golden leaves silhouetted against a late afternoon sky. Heimdal’s face and the memory of his near-kiss continued trying to overwhelm my thoughts.

Off to one side, grasses rustled. One of the gods approaching, I assumed. Someone to be sent along my ways to another world, looking for me here where I waited for Odin and Heimdal or Thor to call for a return to Asgard.

Except the gods who traveled most frequently were out and about already.

The scent of oils and turpentine soured in the crisp air. The weight around my shoulders felt heavier. I twitched my gaze to the side, just enough to glimpse Loki in my peripheral vision.

“I’m a wicked man. Simpering child.”

The fluttering in my throat solidified and sank. More than anything, I did not want to hear any more of Loki’s disdain.

I returned my gaze to my painting. It needed ultramarine at the edges of the sky. Thin with linseed oil. Gentle touch. Pay no mind to anything else.

“I can’t apologize if you won’t even look at me.” The disdain that had cut me so deeply was gone from Loki’s voice. He sounded tired. Rough around the edges.

My throat closed. Tears touched the backs of my eyes. I wanted to hope that he was sincere. But I couldn’t just cave in to him, either. Even if I were willing to risk myself—and I wasn’t sure I was—if I didn’t help him to see that his actions and words caused real pain, then I was doing neither of us any favors.

I dabbed a touch more ultramarine onto the canvas, giving myself time. When I was sure I had myself pulled together, I set my brush aside and turned to face Loki. He stood at the edge of my clearing, much as Heimdal always did, as if awaiting permission to enter.

I didn’t give it.

Late afternoon light touched the red highlights in Loki’s dark hair, setting them afire. His thin face held no more malice than his voice.

“Please.” Loki tipped his head forward, but his eyes remained on me. “Give me another chance. I’ll never stop being an idiot if you give up on me, too.”

The tightness in my throat increased. The threatening tears lingered.

Gods be damned.

“Your words cut.” I hesitated before adding, “And I bleed easily.”

Loki edged a step closer. “I know. I’m sorry.”

I withheld any hint of forgiveness. “I thought we were friends.”

“Friends forgive each other?” Loki’s voice lilted with hope.

Or with wheedling? Impending victory? I could never tell for certain with him.

“Friends try harder to not hurt each other to begin with.” My words came out even more sharply than I intended.

Loki visibly flinched, although whether from the words or my tone, I couldn’t know.

“You’re right.” As Loki spoke, he brought his hands out from behind his back. “I brought a… All right, it’s not so much a gift as an outright bribe. But it’s very pretty?”

He held a delicate chain between two fingers. From it, a crystal dangled, capturing sunlight and flashing out streaks of colored light—a simple bauble, but my kind of bauble. This wasn’t just some pretty thing Loki had picked up. He’d put some thought into it.

I sighed. My father had taught me early the value of giving people chances. Apparently, I’d learned the lesson well. And Loki did seem quite contrite.

Loki lifted his face more fully toward me and tilted his head, waiting. As he did, I noticed a mottled purple and yellow mark along one cheek.

I frowned. “Who did that to you?”

Loki’s brow furrowed in confusion. Then he lifted his free hand and lightly touched his fingers to the bruise.

He scoffed. “Who do you think?”

My frown deepened.

“It doesn’t matter.” Loki lowered his hand. “It’s not like I didn’t have it coming, right?”

An odd note wound through those words, a blend of bitter resignation and deep-seated anger that was all too familiar.

If everyone gives up on him, he will give up on himself.

After a second more of hesitation, I took a deep breath and returned my attention to the bauble Loki still held between two fingers.

“It is lovely.” I attempted to hold onto my no-nonsense tone as I motioned toward a low-hanging branch not too far from where I sat. “It would look nice hanging right there, I suppose.”

Loki’s smile flashed, brilliant as the prism’s flashing.

I raised both eyebrows.

Loki’s smile evened out. He stepped into my clearing and approached the branch I’d indicated. “Its light is but a fraction of yours, little rainbow. Your light is perhaps even brilliant enough to save even a dark soul like mine.”

He hung the prism from the branch and bowed with a little flourish. I choked back a laugh and managed to snort instead.

Loki looked to me, eyes glittering. I scrunched my face into what I hoped was a stern expression. “Did you apologize to Sif, too?”

Some of the good humor faded from Loki’s expression. He rolled his eyes. “As if Heimdal and Thor would have let me weasel out of it.”

The distaste with which he pronounced Heimdal’s and Thor’s names leeched away some of my improving humor. I frowned.

Loki glanced my way. Immediately, he stood up straighter and smoothed the irritated line of his mouth. “Not that I didn’t want to apologize. Of course I did.”

So like a little boy. Errant and unruly and too full of mischief for his own good. But like a child.

Loki sighed. His shoulders slumped. “I don’t understand what the big deal was. It was a prank. How was I to know everyone would get so bent out of shape about it?”

We’d had variations of this conversation before. I struggled to find words that would really, truly reach him this time. Being his light—as he put it—was about showing the ways he hurt people. If he understood, then he could stop.

“But you did it anyhow. You knew they’d all be upset with you.” I paused, looking for words that would reach him. “You knew it would cut you off from them even more. You had to realize that in the long run, it would hurt you as much as anyone.”

“If they weren’t worked up about that, it would be something else.” Loki shrugged, in a way that was obviously meant to be nonchalant but didn’t seem so to me. “Not a one of them know the meaning of the word ‘funny.’“

“It’s not funny if you’re the only one laughing.”

Loki narrowed his eyes and walked a few steps closer to my side. “You laughed. I saw you.”

I leaned back. He wasn’t wrong, exactly. It had been amusing to see Sif taken down a notch. And Thor turned into a blustering mess—not that he was far from that on even a good day.

“I’m as imperfect as anyone else.” I allowed a hint of sheepishness to creep onto my face. “But even Sif and Thor deserve to be treated with respect. You won’t ever see their good sides if you’re busy bringing out the bad.”

Loki opened his mouth. But he wasn’t the one to reply.

“You do bring out the worst in everyone, Loki.”

This new voice belonged to Baldur, who stepped out from the trees at about the same point Loki had, golden leaves brushing his equally golden hair as he ducked through—although Baldur didn’t bother to wait for an invitation.

I hadn’t seen or heard Baldur approaching. Neither, apparently, had Loki, for he jerked and turned his head.

Walking up alongside Loki, Baldur laid a hand on Loki’s shoulder, as if greeting a good friend. Loki’s dusky complexion turned ashen. He flinched but didn’t quite pull away from Baldur.

I glanced between them, frowning.

“We should possibly be worried about his influence on you, Bivrost.” Of course Baldur would use the name Odin had gifted me. Of all the gods in Asgard, only Loki and Heimdal chose to use my true name instead.

I was abruptly irritated—by the interruption to my conversation with Loki which had, for once, seemed to be heading toward a breakthrough of sorts. By how obviously Loki was intimidated by Baldur.

But also by Baldur’s use of a name I hadn’t chosen. And while we were at it…

“Why is it that everyone assumes Loki can influence me, but not the other way around? Everyone in Asgard seems inclined to disregard the possibility that people can change—themselves and each other.” I managed to keep my voice level.

Baldur shrugged, with his usual mild-mannered indifference. He let his hand fall away from Loki’s shoulder and stepped past him toward me.

“My apologies.” Baldur’s voice swooped into a genuine contriteness. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

However politely Baldur addressed me, I couldn’t forget the stories Loki had told. Thor had been the brother who’d handed out the physical punishment when they were children. Baldur, though, had inflicted the psychological damage, while also goading Thor into action. Thor might have been the muscle, but Baldur had been the mastermind.

Assuming, of course, that I could believe even half of everything that Loki had told me. That, of course, was always the most difficult part of dealing with Loki—discerning the truth from the tall tales. I wondered if Loki himself could tell the difference.

I took a steadying breath and was about to ask where it was Baldur wanted to go. The only reason pretty much anyone had for visiting me was to ask me to open a way for them to one of the other worlds.

Before I could speak, the prism at the center of the bridge stone glowed. I felt its light even from behind me, like a soft chiming more felt than heard. One of the gods already out wandering the other worlds wanted to return. Which meant that in a few moments, Thor or Odin or Heimdal would also be standing in this clearing, seeing me with Loki and passing judgment on both Loki’s nature and my decision to forgive him.

“Where do you want to go?” I snapped the question at Baldur.

Baldur’s eyebrows lifted. He leaned back from me, as if I’d verbally assaulted him.

Oversensitive gods.

I was, quite suddenly, ready to be done with the lot of them. Sometimes, Loki had a point.

“That is why you’re here?” Loki addressed Baldur in what seemed to be a purely conversational tone, although I heard a tremor of effort. And Loki’s face was a mask of neutrality. “Which world is Frigg sending you to charm into following her ways, this time?”

Baldur’s gaze shifted away from me and onto Loki. A furrow appeared between his brows. He seemed to weigh and measure Loki’s words with more regard than seemed reasonable.

“Midgard, of course.” Baldur’s reply was slow but still polite. “The mortals are most amenable to her views.”

A sense of relief flowed over me. Loki, being all gallant and rescuing me—without speaking for me, without attacking Baldur, with an obvious effort that reminded me again of my father’s words.

People can change. They just need to be given the chance.

“You see?” I addressed Baldur with a far-kinder tone than previously. “This is how it could always be—acting like we all belong to the same world instead of being so confrontational toward each other all the time. Isn’t this better?”

I’d spoken to Baldur, but I hoped my words might reach Loki, as well.

Loki’s smile faltered. But he looked into my eyes, and his smile recovered.

He was hearing me. Listening.

People could change.