When I crept closer, the shark spooked and darted away. I almost laughed. The great whites inspired terror across the ocean. What did it say about me that I scared them?
I clutched Loki’s vial. I’d gotten so used to murmuring the invocation that the words had become a blur, almost without meaning. The trickster hadn’t reappeared, and I supposed they were giving me space, hoping the misery of our deals faded in my memory so they could compel me to work with them. What was a few days to a god who lived for millennia? I made a silent promise, a prayer, not to Loki or any of the other gods watching from Asgard, but to myself. I was through living a life driven by others. I would never get involved with the trickster again, no matter how desperate I became.
A pale blue light flickered in the dimness: Havamal’s signal. I could picture the jellyfish he held in his hand, illuminating the way toward a mythical school of tuna as he bought time and trust by chattering to the king about feasts and parties and pretty mermaids. I moved to the edge of the iceberg before whispering the invocation and shifting into my new mermaid form.
I swam out to greet the hunting party, plastering my best smile in place. My new pearl scales glittered, and I arranged my hair so it half covered my face.
“I’m lost,” I called, making a show of swimming sideways as if I were confused and starving, struggling to stay upright. “Please, I’m lost.”
“Whoa,” Calder breathed as he caught the flicker of my multicolored tail. I moved my hips suggestively. He turned to his companions and whooped. “Have you ever seen such a beautiful creature? She must be a long, long way from home. What are you doing here, my starfish?”
His use of the silly nickname made me want to vomit. But I forced myself to simper and swim a few feet toward him. He would see what he wanted to see.
“Bet she’s fertile,” said a yellow-finned guard by the king’s right arm. Calder licked his lips and passed the man his whalebone trident. His look of possession made my stomach squirm. Pure lust was dulling the king’s instincts and killing all traces of suspicion… for the moment. But, if this plan didn’t work, and these animals attacked me, I hoped I would be able to defend myself. I prayed that giving me the vial hadn’t been a trick of Loki’s. I could imagine the trickster retracting my abilities at exactly the moment that would leave me the most vulnerable.
There was a murmur of assent from a few of the guards, but those with Havamal formed a circle around Calder’s back. He was too enraptured by my strange and beautiful scales, too used to the guards circling around him, to notice as the hunting party split into factions. Havamal still held the jellyfish light, but he made no move to close the gap between us. I stayed half hidden in the shadows.
I molded my features into an innocent, wide-eyed expression. I pulled more of my hair across my face and peered through the curtain of blue. “Where am I?”
Calder swam toward me with an expression of wonder on his face. Up close, all the pockmarks and scratches on his weathered skin stood out. I’d always thought of the king as a handsome man, but maybe the cruelty inside him was beginning to show on the outside. He adjusted the mother-of-pearl crown that rested atop his head and extended his hand to me.
I closed my eyes and shifted forms, as I pivoted to gain speed. My tentacles fanned around me, whipping into the king’s remaining loyal guards as I spun. I knocked them aside as if they were toys. The lust in Calder’s green eyes darkened to fear. In a flash of silver light, Havamal swam up behind him. He pressed the end of his tapered harpoon to the back of the king’s neck.
“Traitor,” Calder hissed, his voice as low as an eel’s rasp. “Traitors, all of you. Siding with this fugitive? She’s a killer and, from the looks of her new powers, she’s sold her soul again.”
“Quiet,” Havamal said, jabbing the harpoon. A trickle of blood flowed from the king’s neck, then diffused in the water. I wondered if the white sharks would come back and finish the king for us.
King Calder swallowed hard, but his chin remained raised, defiant.
“It’s interesting you bring up treason,” Havamal drawled. I had to respect him for his control. His voice didn’t betray anger, and the rest of the guards took their cue from him, remaining silent and still, with their arms crossed. He really had grown up. “We are here to prove treason was committed. A long time ago.”
Only three of the assembled hunting party had remained loyal to the king. The three guards bobbed in the water now, rendered unconscious by the blows from my legs. At Havamal’s nod, one of the men with us swam to check their breathing. He rested two fingers beneath each sagging chin and pronounced each alive in turn.
Havamal beckoned to me, and I swam from the glacier’s shadow into the open water. His men trembled, tightening their circle around Havamal to put distance between themselves and my muscular tentacles. Sighing, I shifted back into mermaid form. But the beautiful scales that had drawn looks of appreciation only moments ago now had the men exchanging nervous looks. Magic scared them even more than the monstrosity of my legs.
Two of the men grabbed the king by both arms. Silent Rala swam forward, his eyes blazing with a lust for revenge as bright as his ruby fins. He considered his sovereign, then opened his mouth and flashed the stump of his tongue for all to see. All the color drained from the king’s face as he realized what Havamal meant by treason and why we had come to the north point. Rala led us around the iceberg to the left corner where he’d marked his carving, where Ragna waited to blow the ice apart.
Rala swam to the glacier’s edge and felt around with his hands. His arm sank into a tunnel. He turned to us with a triumphant smile. The king flailed in the guards’ grip. He clipped the guard on his right with an elbow to the back of the head, but another guard swam to them. In seconds, the men subdued the king, wrestling his arms behind his back.
I swam for the surface, gathering as much as speed as I could. The shimmering fins Loki had given me seemed to buzz with energy and strength. I dug my nails into my palm. I couldn’t think that; Loki hadn’t given me anything. I had paid for this magic with suffering, and, despite the invocation, it belonged to me now, not the trickster god.
With a final kick, I breached into the air. The sunlight glistened on the colors in my scales like a beacon. I landed with sideways splash, signaling to Ragna that it was time.