Page 41 of Fire Kissed
Because of her.
“What did Loki mean yesterday about the Light King being a dog elf and what he did to this realm?” She looks up at me curiously.
My brows lift to remember things I’d long thought I’d forgotten.
“Gods leave their realms all the time. I left. Loki left. Your mother left. Your mother came here. And at the time, the light elves welcomed her with open arms. She was the first god to come and spread good in their world without expecting anything in return. She spread her love freely. It was a much less vicious place back then.”
Her emotions are always written across her face. Especially when someone speaks of her mother. So for once, I’ll tell her everything I can.
She deserves that and more.
“And then, King Mordon took notice of her. He loved her. Naturally. And she adored his devotion. She was intrigued by his powers as most people are. He’s a hybrid: part elf, part shifter.” I swallow hard when the idea of the King and Goddess becomes a bit too similar to myself and Hela. “But when someone’s a giver like your mother, and someone else is a taker, like the King, it can slowly kill the giver from the inside out. Her magic weakened. The King is a selfish man. And he soon realized he could have all of her magic. All of her love. He kept it for himself, taking it from his people and turning this realm into a dark and bitter world. People hated him. Called him the Dog Elf which turned him against his own realm. Time passed, and your mother hid here in the elaborate nature of this world. But he found her soon enough. The elves knew then that she wasn’t his lover. She was his slave. And when the people here rebelled against their King, he left. And he took her with him.”
I think about what Rhys brough to her realm and what the Goddess of Love brought to this realm as well.
“Without her magic, the elves turned cruel and conniving. They war with anyone who dares come here. That’s what lack of love does to someone.”
It’s what it did to me.
Until I met her.
“We should get going.” We both turn to look up at the man shadowing over us.
Latham’s gaze isn’t as carefree as it was last night. Aric stirs at Rhys’s side, and he, too, grows somber the moment understanding sinks in. They know just as we do that the war the Light King started years ago is still waiting.
Except now, it’s waiting for us.
The Tree House
Rhys
As Loki said,the trek through the realm is safer at dawn. It’s entirely silent actually. Our heavy steps over beautiful, dancing flowers are weighted with the thought of what’s to come. I’ll return home. But I won’t stay. How can I when my mother is being held captive by not one, but two Hell-spawned psychos?
We’ll prepare. We’ll lure them out away from their protected realm that stunts my magic. Somehow... I just haven’t figured out all the fine details yet.
“You sure you know where we’re going?” Aric finally mutters as he shoves away a braided vine of blue-and-silver streamers that are growing from a tree. He curses it for good measure once more before roughly getting caught up in the party paper once more. “Fucking Loki magic,” he huffs.
“Loki said the exit to the realm of the living is through the treehouse on the far north side of the forest.” Latham holds back a tangled bush of shining, barbed wire thorns for me to pass through.
My attention scans the endless terrain for any hint of a treehouse, but the lush forest shows no sign of any such thing. Another thick branch of completely normal but bubble-gum-smelling leaves is shoved aside with a push of my hand and then... a brown seventies shag carpet scuffs my boot where soft moss once was. I look up from the strange flooring and realize an entire living room is just beyond the bubble gum tree. Records line the right-hand wall while shimmery lights of a disco ball dance across the room. The guys all stop around me as well to take in the strange sight. We stride through the space in a matter of just a few steps to stand before a hall that’s veiled in an assortment of beads hanging from the doorframe. I push back the clattering, rainbow-colored curtain and walk into a hall of mirrors. My own reflection bounces across both walls.
I can’t help but feel like the floor might be ripped out from beneath our shoes with every step we take. Latham said Loki wants his approval though. It makes sense.
He wouldn’t deceive his son. Not Latham any way. Aric and he seem like total strangers but that might be Aric’s total lack of care for anyone outside of his dragon dungeon.
With a nod, I decide not to release some of the tension in my shoulders as we walk through the portal and toward my home realm. Everything will be fine.
Soon enough.
I pull back the next tie-dye curtain then and step through.
And come face to face with Hela.
* * *
The cavernous spaceof the realm of Hell is just as I remember it, unfortunately. Right down to my very own mother who sits on her knees at the side of the Light King’s chair. He smiles slowly when our eyes meet, a gleam of cruelty shining in his disgusting gaze.
My jaw grinds hard. Loki lied. He didn’t offer us the way home. He sent us back.
