Hel Lokisdottir's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Hel Lokisdottir wanted every soul in the nine realms, but tonight she could not catch a single one. She rode Fenrir through her father's portal into Asgard, the great black wolf's red and green eyes cutting the dark. Her wings hung loose at her back. She was the goddess of death, ruler of the underworld, and she had come to make herself queen of the Aesir. Yet a farmer had just died three realms away, and his soul had slipped past her before she felt it go. That was the flaw in her whole plan. Death happened everywhere, all at once. By the time news reached her cold halls, the soul had already wandered elsewhere. She claimed the dead in her own realm easily. Beyond it, she was always too late. To rule death across all nine worlds, she needed to know the instant each life ended. Loki met her on the pale stones, his golden armor bright against the gloom. He smiled the way he smiled before every ruinous thing. "You look hungry, daughter," he said. "And empty-handed." "The dead escape me," Hel said. "I need eyes that miss nothing." "Then take Odin's," Loki said. He lifted one finger toward the towers of Valhalla. Above them, a black raven circled. "The Allfather keeps two birds. They fly the nine realms each day and whisper him everything. Every battle. Every last breath." His grin widened. "Steal one, and you will hear each soul die as it dies." Hel dug her heels into Fenrir. The wolf leapt up the fortress walls. The raven saw them and screamed, but Hel was faster. She snatched the bird from the air. Its wings beat against her fist. In that touch she felt it at once, a thousand deaths flickering across the realms like sparks. A drowning sailor. A gutted warrior. An old woman by a fire. She knew each one the moment it ended. The fortress gates burst open below. Odin walked out alone, his spear catching the light. He did not shout. He looked up at her on the wolf, at the raven crushed in her hand. "That bird is mine," Odin said. "You have taken my sight of the realms." "I have taken death itself," Hel answered. "Now I feel every soul fall." "Then you feel what I have lost," he said. "Munnin flew to me. Now she does not. Every god-king will know a raven is missing, and they will know who took it." Hel felt the truth land. She could sense the dead now, all of them, everywhere. But she had blinded the wisest of the Aesir, and Odin never forgot a debt. Below her, Loki had already vanished into the dark. Hel wheeled Fenrir toward the portal. The raven throbbed in her grip, feeding her the whole world's dying. She had her eyes at last. She had also made an enemy of the one god who saw everything coming.