Weaving Fate - Nora Ash Page 0,49

denying your father, boy? Tail feathers take forever to grow back. Now quit your whining and keep walking. We’ll be there soon enough.”

I sighed. He had a point—in fact, I was mildly surprised the poor bird wasn’t plucked bald after we had him deliver the news about Magni’s interference.

I reached up to scratch at his head before I continued through the knee-high snow, knowing there was no alternative. If my father had decided to play games for me to prove my determination to reach him, then so be it. He was Saga and Grim’s only hope, and I would rather die a thousand deaths than let Odin send them to Hel.

My father’s new hiding spot turned out to be an old cottage deep in the woods.

Light shone through the windows, casting a warm glow on the drifts of snow surrounding it, and for a moment I was overwhelmed with memories of my mother’s cozy house in Jotunheim.

Loki hadn’t shared our home, but he’d visited when we were still children, often bringing presents. I hadn’t seen him in… decades now. He’d come to see us at the farm in Iceland once, after we were exiled, but that was many years ago. Our communication usually went through Arni and Magga.

I reached up to pet Arni, who’d grown quieter the closer we got to our destination.

“Is he in there? Or is this another red herring, hmm?” I asked, nudging his beak.

“He’s in there,” the raven confirmed.

Finally.

I breathed in a sigh of relief and went to approach the cottage, but Arni stopped me.

“Wait.”

I turned my head to arch an eyebrow at him in question.

The raven hesitated for a moment, then shook out its dulled feathers. “Be careful, boy. Ragnarök is here. No one is unmarked, not even the God of Mischief.”

I frowned. “What do you mean? Speak clearly.”

Instead of answering, he gave a squawk and set off from my shoulder, flying toward the roof of the cottage where he dove down the smoking chimney, disappearing from view.

I sighed. Messengers of gods they might be, but they’d all days had a penchant for dramatics over clarity. And marked or not, I had a task to fulfill.

I strode across the snow-covered clearing and paused in front of the door, rapping my gloved knuckles against it. Loki might be my father, but Arni was right—he was the God of Mischief, and only the dumbest of fools walked through his front door uninvited.

“Enter, son.”

That voice. I smiled even as the power of it shivered through my bones. I’d found my father. He would help us through this.

I opened the door and stepped inside a small, low-ceilinged room with rough planks for flooring and wooden beams supporting the ceiling. And there he sat, with Arni and Magga on his shoulders, one leg slung over the arm of a chair, straddling the old piece of furniture in an arrogant mockery of the god-king himself.

My smile widened. “Father, it’s good to see you. You look well.”

“Bjarni,” he greeted me, his voice frosty.

I sighed. “Arni said you were angry.”

“Angry?” Loki’s voice was deceptively calm, and I swallowed a grimace. I knew that tone. When I was a kid, a beating had usually followed.

“Why would I be angry?" he continued. "I task my sons with the survival of our family, set them a simple task—mate a human omega and keep her safe—and the next I hear, only Saga has managed to complete the task and the omega is also bonded to Thor’s bastard. Why would that make me angry?”

He pushed off the chair, coming to his feet as his voice grew rough with his fury. Both ravens on his shoulders squawked and flapped, clearly eager to retreat from the furious god, but they stayed put nonetheless. A binding spell, I suspected.

“Father, let Arni and Magga go,” I said, trying to intervene on their behalves. Arni was right—it took them forever to grow their tail feathers back, and they were a pitiful sight in the meantime. “They’re not to blame for what happened, and if you’d let me explain—”

“If you didn’t want them to shoulder blame, you wouldn’t have sent either with news of your shortcomings!” Loki snarled. “Their task was to watch over you and ensure you fulfilled my plans, and they failed!”

“We didn’t fail, Father, not in the scheme of things. Saga mated the omega, and Grim and I will too on her next heat. She is powerful, and she is determined to stop Ragnarök. Isn’t that what you wanted? Your plans