Descendant

if I did, they didn’t want to make it any easier for me.”

“I guess I can kind of understand that.” Mason nodded. “From their perspective, I mean.”

Loki shifted his head so he was looking at her again—this time with two piercing sky-blue eyes, glittering and gemlike. Beautiful. And there was a fierce, surprising honesty in them when he said, “I didn’t write the stories, Mason. I’ve never even read them. Can you believe that? I don’t know what people say about me. About what I’ve done. What I will do. So I really can’t say that I believe a word of it.”

“What . . .” Mason was a bit speechless at his admission. She gathered her thoughts and tried again. “You don’t believe that you’re the reason the whole world’s going to one day end in a cataclysm of ice and fire? That armies of undead and frost giants and fire demons and all kinds of other monsters—especially your ‘pup,’ as you call him—will wreak havoc and destruction on mankind? And that you’ll do it just . . . just because it’s in your nature? Because that’s pretty much what they say about you.”

Loki didn’t say anything to refute that.

“Really?” Mason sighed and looked at him sideways when he remained silent. “Ya got nothin’?”

“If you already think I’m a liar and you ask me if it’s the truth, are you going to believe me when I say no?” He smiled sadly. “Better to say nothing than to speak a truth that will never be believed.”

There was a sudden sound, like loose pebbles rattling in the moments before a rock slide. It came from somewhere above Mason’s head, and she glanced up just in time to see the cold, gleaming eyes of the snake glaring like twin spotlights down on her. And on the helpless figure of Loki, whose expression wavered between resignation and fear.

Suddenly, a surge of rage washed over Mason. The same kind of red fog that had taken hold of her when she and Fennrys had fought the draugr in a riverside cafe in Manhattan. Without stopping to think, she drew her rapier from its sheath and vaulted up onto the stone slab beside Loki. She shouted angrily, incoherently, at the vile creature and—attacking in the way that Fennrys had taught her to—lunged for the serpent, burying the tip of her sword in one of its hideous eyes. The snake made a furious squealing shriek—a sound like claws dragging down a chalkboard—and snapped its head back, thrashed madly as it retreated into its crevasse.

When Mason stopped screaming at the top of her lungs, she realized that Loki was laughing, the rich, delighted rolling sound that made her smile through her own blind panic and rage. She jumped back down and leaned shakily on the edge of the stone bed. Her rapier blade was sticky with greenish blood, and she used the tattered edge of Loki’s cloak to carefully wipe it clean. As his laughter subsided, she shook her head, pushing the black hair from her face with one arm, and gazed down at the bound god.

“Sorry,” she said, ruefully. “You’ll probably have to pay for that.”

“Don’t apologize. That?” He nodded in the direction of the snake’s hasty retreat. “That was worth the extra drop of venom she will bestow upon me next time around.”

“You know . . . you’re wrong about being the only one here.”

“Really? Have you been making the social rounds since you arrived?”

“I met a woman.”

“That sounds promising. I like women,” Loki said with a lazy grin.

“She said she was my mother. Yelena Starling.”

“Ah.” The grin faded. “Did you believe her?”

“She also said . . . she was a queen here.”

“Well. Yelena Starling is both those things. She is your mother by nature . . . and she is Hel, dark and terrible goddess, queen of Helheim, also called Hel, by my hand. She is very dear to me.” His voice was soft and his gaze gentle as he looked at Mason. Then he looked away and said, “You have her eyes and her beauty.”

“I don’t understand. The myth says that Hel is your daughter.”

“I told you. I haven’t read the stories. Mostly because they tend to get everything wrong.” He sighed, and it was a frustrated sound. “I transformed Yelena, granting her the power of Hel not long after she first came to this place. So in a way, I suppose, she is my creation. A daughter in spirit, if you will.” He turned his grin on her. “Don’t worry, Mason. I’m not your grandfather.”

Mason didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She wondered what it would be like to have the blood of a god running through her veins and was suddenly filled with questions. And with a longing to know just what Loki was talking about when he spoke of her mother. The woman he’d described . . . that sounded like the mother she would’ve wanted to meet. She craved to know what had transpired between them.

But suddenly, the ground began to shudder again, like it had in the moments before the crevasse had opened up and swallowed her. Loki turned his full gaze on her again, crystalline and bright blue and full of urgency. “You’ll have to go now, pretty Starling. Remember everything that I have said to you.”

Mason gripped the edges of the rock ledge as it heaved. “You know you haven’t really said all that much, right?”

“Then it shouldn’t be that hard to remember, should it?” he snapped, suddenly brusque.

Mason blinked at him, but then a lightning-like fissure appeared in the rock face opposite them—a jagged, branching crack that split the stone open and sent sharp, flinty shards flying. The stone blew apart and a gaping hole appeared. And the tall, dark-haired woman stepped through.

“Mason!” She thrust out her hand, a frantic look of panic turning the planes of her face sharp. “Daughter— come to me! You are in terrible danger!”

“Are you referring to me?” Loki drawled. “You wound me—”

“Be silent, deceiver!”

Mason glanced wildly back and forth between the two of them. She couldn’t wrap her head around the situation—not after what Loki had just said about how much he cared for Yelena. Clearly, if the feeling had ever been mutual, it certainly wasn’t now.

“Mason,” her mother said again. “He is a liar. Whatever he has told you, do not believe him. He cannot help you. I can take you home. Together we can make everything right again.”

“Well, if you put it that way . . .” Loki’s voice was rich with casual disdain. “Looks like you might want to do what she says, pretty Starling.”

Mason frowned down at the so-called trickster god and took a step back. She couldn’t be at all certain, but she thought that Loki had added a strange, pointed inflection to the words “looks” and “she” that made her think he was trying to say something to her. Something else. Of course . . . did it really matter what he said to her? After all was said and done, Loki was a liar. Wasn’t he?

And he wanted to destroy the world. Didn’t he?

The woman lifted her hand, beckoning urgently to Mason.

No. Not “the woman,” Mason chastised herself. She’s your mother. . . .

She is Hel.

Mason glanced over her shoulder at the bound god one last time as she made her way toward where her mother stood at the foot of a path that led up into a narrow, dark-shadowed canyon. Mason hadn’t even noticed the path when she’d been sitting talking to Loki—even though she’d probably been staring right at it. She got the distinct impression that nothing in this place revealed itself willingly or without reason.

The trickster god’s gaze was unblinking, placid, and laser-beam focused on Mason’s mother. Like a blazing blue searchlight, it raked over her from head to toe. Loki opened his mouth and looked as if he was on the verge of saying something. Mason hesitated, wondering if she should stay and hear what it was.

Yelena—Hel—saw her hesitate, and in a low voice murmured, “He lies. I’m your mother, and he lies.”

Loki’s gaze sharpened, and Mason knew he’d heard. But his mouth drifted closed and he lay his head back down on the stone slab, turning his face away.

Better to say nothing than to speak a truth that will never be believed.

Mason felt a sympathetic twinge, but she still turned away, back to where her mother stood, waiting. The dark stuff of Hel’s cloak draped from her outstretched arm like a raven’s wing, and Mason saw that beneath it she wore a long gown of sapphire blue, the color of her eyes. Hers—and her daughter’s. A pouch hung from the broad, ornate belt that girdled her slender waist, and it looked as though it was made of silvery-furred sealskin.