What’s going on?
The evil, protected by the laughing wind, had already reached the hallway. Snow White could feel it. She could hear it taking confident strides toward her room. Whoever, or whatever, Axel and Fable were screaming at was at her door.
“Please, no,” Fable said again, climbing the stairs. “Don’t kill her!”
Is that Loki coming to my room? To kill me? Again?
The evil scent was Loki’s. She knew it well.
She wondered how it was even possible: Loki not remembering who he was. Snow White had been afraid to remind him or he surely would have killed her in the Dreamworld.
She turned around.
Loki was standing behind her, wearing Axel’s hood.
Still resisting the idea that he’d come to kill her, her fangs drew back and the muscles on her face relaxed.
“Loki,” she still liked the sound of his name on her lips. Her eyes widened cheerfully. “You came back for me,” she ran across the room and threw herself in his arms. “You came back for a monster,” she muttered, rubbing her cheek against his hollow chest. Her longing for him blinded her from the obvious. Love tends to blind people and urge them to sleep in the arms of the enemy sometimes.
Although Loki hadn’t spoken a word or shown signs of passion, she pressed her head closer to him like a lovely pillow she could confess all her secrets to.
Finally, the truth hit her like a dagger. She noticed he was frigid, cold, and speechless. His heart wasn’t beating, just like the dead. This wasn’t Loki she was hugging anymore. It was the shell of what was left of him. Loki was gone; the boy behind his eyes had disappeared. This was Loki’s shadow, the Huntsman with the three-eyed unicorn.
She turned away, and then looked into his eyes one more time, wishing she would get a glimpse of the boy she loved. His eyes sent rays of horror into her soul. They were slatted and yellow like a snake, the Queen of Sorrow’s eyes.
She took two steps back, gathering all of her energy.
You know what you have to do, Shew. The voice in her head reminded her. If you’re really the Chosen One, the first thing you have to do is … kill him.
“No,” she screamed. “What happened to you, Loki?” unaware she was close to tripping over the glass coffin behind her.
Loki didn’t say a word. He just kept staring at her, his eyes turning black as night and appearing endlessly hollow with that glimmer of gold.
Snow White had confronted many demons before, but Loki’s stare bored through her and a headache started pounding in her head.
The whiny, funny, and adventurous Loki she knew was gone. This, standing in front of her, was the Huntsman whom everyone in the Kingdom of Sorrow feared.
“Talk to me, Loki,” she pleaded. Another step back, her stomach hurt as if butterflies where being slaughtered inside it. She felt weaker. “What happened to you?”
He looked so powerful, so cocky and sure of himself. His shirt, ripped open, revealed a six-pack underneath, his body had changed from a boy to a man.
Oh my God, Snow White thought when Loki’s hood fell back. She saw his hair had turned platinum blonde again, the color of the Huntsman’s before he’d been unshadowed by Charmwill. He also had his Alicorn in his hand.
Snow White tripped backwards into the glass coffin, unable to take her eyes off him. It was a hard choice. Death in front of her or the grave behind her.
Back to where you belong, Shew. Her inner voice taunted her.
“Come on, Loki,” she forced a crooked smile on her lips. “You’ve killed me before. It didn’t work,” she tried to sound playful.
Axel and Fable were nearer now, calling for him again.
“Mircalla did this to you,” Axel said from the hallway. “I don’t know how this happened but Mircalla is Carmilla Karnstein, the Queen of Sorrow.”
“She controls you through the Fleece,” Fable said, reaching the door with her brother.
Slowly, Loki turned back to them. He waved one hand in the air, sending the laughing wind whipping at them. The wind laughed hysterically as it blew them back into the hallway. Snow White heard them thud against a wall then fall into silence.
Loki met Carmilla? In the real world?
A Dreamhunter’s Fleece was like his soul. She had been next to Loki when Carmilla took it in the Dreamory.
Loki turned to face Snow White; he had a cocky smirk on one corner of his mouth. The sweat caused by Snow Whites racing heart stuck to her dress.
“Loki,” Snow tried one last time. “Don’t you remember me? I’m the one you love.”
Her words had no effect on him. He knelt down and pulled her hair violently with one hand, the way ancient people grabbed their sacrifices before they slaughtered them for the Gods.
Her veins fueled with anger. The smell of his blood was so intense and beautiful she could just suck him dry. Her fangs drew out, feebly without grit or strength to use them.