Free Loki: Why I Began the End by Maia Jacomus Page A

fear, I remembered I was a shape-shifter. Why couldn’t I turn myself into a ridiculously enormous owlbear?
         Because it’s a lot easier to hide from a beast than to fight it. I formed into a fly and hid myself in a tree hollow. I felt confident that Balder would be fine on his own, as fast as he could run. Well…I convinced myself that I was confident. Really, I was acting on self-preservation. When the owlbear passed, I peered out from hiding. In his haste, Balder tripped on a tree root and fell flat on his face, with the monster gaining on him. Finally, my survival instinct upgraded to humane decency. If I just sat there and let Balder be killed, then I would be responsible for the world losing the best thing that ever happened to it. Also, I would see my half-brother die.
         I didn’t have enough time to shape-shift into a decent competitor for such a beast. As I flew to Balder as fast as I could, I formed into myself just in time to push Balder aside on the ground as the owlbear struck. With Balder out of danger, the beast’s talons gouged the right side of my body. I still have a scar left, see? Just there, at my waist. That’s what it’s from. Anyway, after it struck me, the owlbear left. Just left, just like that. But stranger than its sudden departure was what I finally noticed about it. As I was breathing through the pain, trying to rise to one knee, I saw that the owlbear only had one eye, a left eye—just like Odin.
         Balder put his arms around my shoulder and helped me stand. “You have my gratitude, Loki,” he said. Then he added confidentially, “But it really wasn’t necessary.”
         “You think I did that to save your life?” I jeered. “Nah. I’d gotten scars on my left side from a hoard of angry ferrets. I just wanted my right side to match.”
         “Can you walk?” He motioned like he was going to carry me, but I pulled away.
         “Thanks, but I’d rather crawl on my belly than possibly have your father see me draped in your arms like some damsel in distress. Just be my crutch, and I’ll make it fine.”
         Every hobble was a new discovery in pain, but it seemed to numb as we returned to our campsite. Not two seconds after we sat down, Odin came back with an armful of kindling for a fire. He played stupid—he looked at my scars and feigned confusion as he dropped the kindling.
         “What happened?” he asked.
         “An owlbear attacked,” I answered wryly.
         He sat down with us, and between their powers, I started to heal. “Did you get it?” he asked.
         “No. It just hit me, then went away…a big, one-eyed owlbear.”
         “You don’t say.”
         “I really do.”
         The healing completed, with the exception of one scar leftover—intentionally. Then Odin suggested we start the fire so we could eat. All conversation turned to more inane topics as we roasted and ate our game. But the one-eyed owlbear didn’t leave my mind for a second, and as soon as Balder was asleep by the fire, I sat myself next to Odin, and without preliminaries, resurfaced the incident.
         “Any particular reason you decided to cut me apart today?” I asked. “Or was there just a theme to this party that no one told me about?”
         He shook his head with a glint of amusement in his eye. “I should have known I couldn’t hide from you, Loki. At any rate, be assured that your death was not my intention.”
         “Then I should have told you before that I have no interest in joining the blood baths you host in Valhalla.”
         “That’s not it, either.” He peered across the fire at his sleeping son, and his tone changed to complete sincerity. “His mother and I have been worried about his safety. We have reason to believe that someone means to harm him.”
         “Ah!” I nodded. “Naturally, I’m a prime suspect.”
         “You’re Jotun, you’re inscrutable,