*
I watched the sailor, guarded him and fed him for eight days, until the next ship cruised through. I had no way of knowing whether the men who took him aboard were his countrymen or not, but they wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and forced a bowl of something that steamed into his fingers the moment he climbed aboard. Then a man decorated with gray and blue feathers herded him below deck. I watched the ship until it sailed out of sight. Then I crept back to my den and waited for the trickster to seek me out.
I didn’t have to wait long. I had no sooner laid back on my spongy pallet, when Loki slipped under the cabin door. They flattened their body like a sandfish and oozed through the tiny crevice. Silver oil rose in the water as they materialized into a solid form.
Tonight, they chose the body of a human woman, a woman dressed for an occasion. They wore their long hair in curled rivulets that remained dry and springy, though we were more than sixty arm-lengths under the sea. A shimmering green dress clung to their silhouette almost like scales. The dress fanned out delicately at the ankles to reveal shoes made entirely from mother-of-pearl. If they weren’t such a monster, I would have said they were beautiful.
Loki stumbled to my table and lifted the vial filled with the sailor’s voice. They opened it, and then drank the voice like thick milk. When Loki spoke, the sailor’s voice spilled out, but it was tainted by what was inside them and the low gravel came out like a hiss. “You made your own deal with the human. That wasn’t what we agreed.”
“We never agreed anything about that,” I said, returning their glare. “The deal we struck was simple. I bring you three voices: one creature, one human, one merperson. In exchange, you give me what I ask before I give you the third voice. We didn’t negotiate any more specifics than that.”
Loki cursed, slamming their delicate-looking fist on the table. The old, sodden wood caved under the impact, and splinters floated into the space around us. I cringed. “Be careful, little mermaid. Remember that you are dealing with a god, and I could crush the life from your body with a snap of my fingers.”
“I don’t forget what I am dealing with,” I said quietly.
“You’ll never finish this bargain anyway,” they sneered. “This summer looks like it will be a long one. A few years at the least. The merfolk are looking for a new ice mountain, farther to the north. You’ll be all alone here. Who knows if you’ll live to see them return.”
A dull ache pulsed in my chest. I wanted to taunt them, and remind them that I’d bested them twice now. But if the merfolk had started migrating, then my chances of success were dwindling. I had to risk sneaking into the glacier again. “You’re not the god of fate. You can’t predict the future.”
Loki’s nostrils flared. They jabbed an elegant finger at me. “I’ll see you rot here. Wouldn’t that be something? A monster’s corpse, buried here amongst the bones of the humans she loved so much?”
Three
Loki left me with that final taunt. The hollow ache spread through my whole body. Even my rogue tentacles lay limp by my sides. I had little time to find a merperson to help me. The idea of waiting years, trapped inside this hulk with no one… it made me want to impale myself on the human sword in the corner. I was willing to spend my dying breaths wriggling like a worm on a human fishing hook until the blade pierced my heart.
I slept fitfully, dozing in and out of consciousness until the water lightened with the morning sun. Even then, I couldn’t motivate myself to leave my bed. So I counted cracks in the weathered wooden ceiling and tried to find some meaning in my situation.
In many of our legends, Loki was depicted with a sense of humor. When I was young, all the storytellers talked about them as if they were a jovial prankster—not to be trusted, of course—but not exactly evil either, just a being that lived for their own entertainment and didn’t care who got hurt in the process. When I turned thirteen and Mama had allowed me to stay to hear the stories the bards only told the adults, I’d learned about Loki in a different light. The god of lies enjoyed pain and didn’t care if their bargains ruined lives or caused deaths.
My own experience told me that the misery of lost hope pleased the god above all else. Loki promised the world and delivered hell, but here I was, still striving to meet their conditions.
I rolled over and buried my face in the seaweed cushion that grew from the decaying pallet. The seaweed smelled sweet and grew thicker by the day. Algae covered the walls, and a family of sand crabs had made their home in the drawers next to the bed. It seemed that the heat emanating from my scales had brought life to the ship, reviving the titan from its deathly slumber in a kind of reincarnation.
Someone tapped on the door. I thought I must have imagined it, but the sound came again, louder and more insistent. It had to be Loki, probably ready to forge a new deal and try to bind me closer to him. He knew that despite my small successes, I still had the hardest challenge left, and my hope was fading. If I didn’t try to complete Loki’s tasks, what would be the fun for the god? Maybe they would let me die in peace if I became too boring. I turned over on my stomach and blocked my ears with my hands. They would come in anyway, no matter what I said.
“Ersel?”
Tears sprang to my eyes. The trick was too cruel. Even for Loki.
“Ersel?” The voice repeated. “Please. Please just let me in. This is the first chance I’ve had to sneak away. King Calder has had me under guard. I only managed to come because they assigned Havamal to me… and he turned a blind eye.”
Against all my judgment, I swam to the door. A storm of emotions flowed through my body, and when I reached for the knob my hand buzzed as if with lightning. I sucked down a deep gulp of water and slowly turned the handle.
And flung myself into the arms of my mother.
She felt smaller. Her arms were strong, but shaking, around my back. She’d always struggled to wrap her arms all the way around my back, but now her elbows sagged behind me with inches to spare. She pushed me back and looked into my face. I studied her. Her cheeks looked hollow, and her eyes were set deep in their sockets. I wondered what I must look like.
“Thank the gods,” she whispered. “I thought I might be too late.”
I didn’t dare to ask her what she had imagined I would do. The relief at seeing her was so great that all I could do was stare.