The Seventh Stone

We set out roughly two weeks later—a lot longer than I thought we’d have to wait. But evidently, many of the ships had either been destroyed, or otherwise occupied with damage control. When the time finally came, our last few days in the city were spent getting some basic training and instruction on how to fly the little ship that was allocated to us.

It’s true the king followed through with his promise of setting us up with a sturdy ship that’d get us where we need to go, but that was where his involvement ended—thankfully. He didn’t ask too many questions, or make any other requests on our way out. He seemed hopeful though, perhaps hopeful that my loyalty’s restored in turn for his aid—or perhaps that it would ensure that he’d never feel the thin slips of thread tightening around his throat again.

And even this early on in our journey, I’ve made an important discovery—that all spaceships, big and small, are terrifying. They are mortifyingly different from airplanes, which really only move in one direction—forward. Spaceships, however—particularly ones being flown by the God of Mischief—are liable to go forward, backward, and side to side without warning.

“It’s all quite the same,” Loki says with an amused grin, wrapping his hand around a small lever and dragging it downward—making the ship drop several feet. “Only difference really are the symbols—I wonder how fast this one can go…” his voice trails off.

I groan loudly, my nauseated body sinking further into the leather chair. My eyes roll up to the clear, blue sky, over the spread of glowing shapes and buttons flickering across the bright, titanium-looking dash in front of me. 

“Well don’t do that,” he says, glancing at me for a moment. “I need you still—you’re navigating us, remember?” 

I drag my eyes down to his profile, turning my head slowly as my body remains half-melted into the chair. “Need me? Hard to tell by the way you’re encouraging vomit-induced asphyxiation.” 

His grin stretches a bit with a quiet chuckle. “Oh I would never,” he says in a bright tone, raising the lever back and returning his hand to the steering helm. 

My hair slides against the leather as I tilt my head—furrowing a brow at the sudden cheeriness in his voice. “You seem chipper.”

Loki bobs his head to the side, smile stretching further across his cheeks. “Excited to be off on another adventure, I suppose.” 

I stare at him for a moment, and both corners of my mouth curl downward with an affirming nod. “Good reason I guess,” I breathe out, looking drearily up into the sky from under my drooping eyelashes. 

Silence passes between us for a moment.  

“May I ask you something?” Loki asks. 

“Sure.” 

“When did you realize that Olen had struck that deal?” 

A smile tugs on the corner of my lip, and I push up against the chair—straightening myself to where I can see over the dash. “Well I had no idea, actually, until he told me himself,” I say with a light exhale. “I knew he was lying to me when he said they had no clue that Seron was back, and that’s when the idea came to me. From there, the accusation was a shot in the dark. I had no idea if I was right.”

His eyes narrow as he glances in my direction. “So you cast a guess… Quite confidently, I must say.” 

My lips thin into a cunning smile as I look over at him, waving a hand through the air. “Acting,” I say, throwing my right leg demonstrably over my knee. 

“Not bad,” he says. “Though I recommend wringing his neck a bit more from the start next time. Makes for better cooperation,” he says, crinkling his nose. “And you should either be wildly precarious, or circumspect. I personally perform the former, but you’ve been leaving me with hardly an opportunity to participate.”

I shrug. “Maybe, but at least this way, they’ll only be dying to kill one of us.” 

Loki chuckles. “Not with the hell I’d raise if they did,” he says, pausing on the last word—while a quick thought flickers across his profile.  “But that won’t happen anyway—I suspect they’d have already killed you for assaulting the royal family twice over.”

“Maybe,” I turn my head back toward the dash, looking over at the mountainous horizon—where a towering pillar of light nears us slowly, plunging down amidst the black peaks. I nod in its direction, “We’ve got that to focus on right now.”

“Are we getting close?” 

“Yes,” I nod, pointing in the general area. “It’s right between those peaks, so you should find somewhere near to… park,” my voice drops at the word—as the image of a rounded parking space in the middle of a shopping plaza suddenly appears in my mind. 

I grin at the thought, as Loki rears the ship behind a nearby peak, and lowers it slowly to the ground below. There’s barely enough space for the ship to touch ground without scraping the black, mountainous walls—but it looks like this is the best we’re going to get, unless we want to spend a hell of a lot of time walking.

The engine hums as Loki powers down the ship, and the leather chair scrunches underneath me as I get up, and we leave the helm. The back doors open, and the smell of rain and wet asphalt blows past my face immediately, as we stride down the ramp and onto the damp soil. My eyes trail upward over the sharp, ragged edges and corners of the tall, black bodies of rock stretching up into the cloudy sky. 

“That way, yes?” Loki asks, pointing in the opposite direction. 

“Right,” I nod. As soon as the doors are closed behind us, we turn and make our way around the ship, until we’ve reached the small crevice on the other side that leads further in to the mountain—toward the pillar of light. 

The ‘path’ is rather narrow space, twisting and turning between the walls—often breaking into small piles of black rocks and fissures. I’d hardly call it a path, but it’ll have to do.

Loki and I shift about it, taking turns being at the front—depending on who moves faster over the rock—until the individual strings comprising the pillar become visible to me from just around one of the corners. The walls finally open up into a clearing, and I trail along the edge of the pillar, looking down confusedly at the sight of the strings passing straight through the earth. 

“What is it?” Loki asks, stepping up beside me, following my gaze to the ground. 

“It’s…” I raise my hands to my hips, trying to formulate the sentence. “Down there.” 

“Down there—as in, it’s underground?” 

I nod. “I think so—they’re going down there, but… I’ve never seen them go through the ground like this.” 

Loki’s brow rises inquisitively as he turns his eyes around and upward, looking for signs of what I’m describing. “Well I suppose I means we ought to look for a way inside—or start digging.”

“Yes,” I say earnestly, reaching out to the pillar and brushing my fingers against the strings, before plopping my arm back down to my side. “There’s got to be something around here—I’ll look over there.”  

“Alright,” I hear him mumble as I trail off to the right. 

The perimeter of the opening reveals nothing—no hole or crevice for us to pass through. And after thirty minutes of wandering the outer areas, another smaller opening catches my attention—just beyond a small, tight section of the path. My feet shuffle against the ground as I wedge myself carefully between the walls, coming out along the edge of a large fissure in the ground, enclosed by the roots of the mountains. 

I call out to Loki before lowering myself down to the first platform, looking about at the edges of the tunnel, growing more and more black as it descends further away from the ambient daytime. 

“What is it?” I hear his strained voice passing through the crevice I’d gone through. 

“I found something!” I yell back, and my voice echoes off the walls. 

Finally he appears from behind one of the walls, and looks straight down at me—inside the fissure. “Down there, then?” He ask with a nod. 

“I think so,” I say, turning back down to it, and lowering myself down onto the next platform. But the deeper I go, my apprehension grows onward—onward down this large pit of a hole. 

With Loki behind me, my body bends and contorts with the edges as I crawl and stretch across the rock for some while, until it finally widens into a slightly larger tunnel—leading further and further into the ground, and curving slightly in the direction of the pillar. The sound of our movements resonates against the cold walls, and with the last bit of light behind us, every breath feels thinner with the growing staleness. I look over at Loki—straightening up beside me as we reach the part of the tunnel that’s finally tall enough for us to stand upright. 

“You alright?” I ask, looking up at his expression of sharp discontentment. 

“Yes,” he nods with a light exhale, lifting his hand as a small, glowing device materializes in it. “And I think we’ll need this now.” 

I look down at it—a small, circular knob of bright, glowing light. 

“What is it?” I ask. 

“Exactly what it looks,” he says, materializing one more in his other hand, and offering it to me. 

I reach out and take it slowly, pausing as I feel the warmth of energy against my fingers. “Alien flashlight,” I grin, lifting it slightly. “Got it.” 

Loki turns his head in the direction of the tunnel. In the pale, blue glow of the devices, I see his eyes narrow thoughtfully as he peers into the blackness. “Do you know where you’re going down here?” He asks.

I wipe the grin off my expression, returning my composure as I stare into the blackness with him. “Honestly, no—but as far as everything goes… It makes sense to just follow the tunnel, right?” I look up at him. “I mean, why else would it be here?” 

“Exactly—seems a bit convenient, doesn’t it?” Loki says, and his low voice reverberates softly against the walls.

I pause, eyes falling down to his chest as I consider his words for a moment. “Well… I don’t think it’s worth thinking about,” I say, meeting his eyes. “Whatever we find down here, we’ll make it back out just the same.” 

Loki exhales lightly. “Indeed,” he says, practically whispering. 

A grin tugs on the corner of my mouth. “What,” I ask softly. “Scared of the dark?” 

He shakes his head. “No,” he says, and I narrow my eyes slightly at the flatness of his tone. 

“Are you alright?” 

Loki glances at me briefly. “Yes,” he says tonelessly, and strides ahead into the darkness. 

I pause for a moment, watching the light in his hand get fainter as he walks off. “Alright…” I mumble quietly, before following after him. 

After what feels like another thirty minutes of walking, a patch of blackness appears in the ground ahead, with a faint glow that casts no light on the surrounding walls—a telltale signal to me, that we’ve reached the pillar of light. As we come up to it slowly, I realize that the blackness I’d seen is a great, gaping hole in the ground before us, where the strings are passing through. 

My palms moisten as I step up to the edge and look over it—at faint, glimmering twinkles of red and blue light at the bottom. The only sign of light in this otherwise dark, cold underworld. 

Loki looks over at me, at my slightly nauseated expression, and chuckles. “Oh, don’t tell me…” 

I nod slowly. “I’m afraid I’m telling you… It’s there.” 

“How do we even get down there?” he mutters. 

Get down there…

I pause.

“I know how I can get down there, but…” I say tautly, pausing for a moment before turning and striding away from the edge. “Nope.” 

“What?” I hear Loki protest, and his boots shuffle behind me just before his tight grasp reaches my shoulder. “What do you mean ‘nope?’” 

“I mean, I’m not doing this.” 

“What?” he pulls me again. “You must—”

“Loki,” I interrupt him. “This’ll be akin to bungee jumping for me, except if I lose focus for one second—which I’m likely to do when I’m getting half the usual oxygen to my brain and barreling down a pit—I’ll fall. And I’ll probably die.” 

“You’re not going to die,” he says laughingly with a grin. 

“What makes you say that?” I ask, letting every ounce of fear and apprehension pour out with my voice. 

“Because,” he leans forward. “You’re strong,” his voice falls low, and his left hand suddenly grasps my upper neck and tightens reassuringly. My eyes widen, and despite the chill air, my limbs grow uncomfortably hot underneath the suit, as I feel his breath against my face. “And you want it—that’s how I know you’ll get it.” 

A different type of tension tightens in my chest, and my breathing slows abruptly. “No, you don’t know that…” I say softly. 

Light flickers against Loki’s skin as I turn the device over in my hand, and his eyes narrow with intentness as he peers down into my own. “But I I’ve come to know you well enough,” his head tilts downward slowly. “Just the fact that you’re still here, doing this… After all the lies that have been fed to you, you’re…” he pauses, and a quick thought flashes across his pale, uncertain eyes. “You’re many things I wish I could be.”

A gentle warmth spreads through my chest, even as I furrow a brow softly at the comment—unsure of whether we’re still talking about my ability to not jump into a pit and fall to my death. 

I turn my head slowly to the right—toward the hole—and his hand slides down to my collar.

“Okay,” I nod, lifting a hand up and placing it over his with a gentle squeeze. “I’ll try…”  

Loki’s parted lips seal tightly with an approving grin, and he holds my gaze for a moment. My breathing stops entirely for a quick heartbeat, as I slide his hand off my shoulder. The touch lingers for a moment until both our hands are extended between us, and I pull away from his slowly and turn, taking a deep breath as the contact ceases. 

I turn and stalk toward the edge—reeling over the realization that I’ve happily spent every minute for the past several weeks with this man, and those simple moments of contact just negated the heavy effects that this darkness had on my heart. 

If only for a few seconds.

With another calming inhale, I shake my head and peer at the strings—refocusing my attention. I slide my left foot back against the dirt and lift both hands slowly, willing the strings to expand outward from the middle—and others to slowly thread around my hands and feet. 

“Here goes…” I mumble.

Don’t think about it, don’t think about it… The thought circles through my head several times, and the fifth time around, I force my left foot off the ground, and leap into the chasm. 

My hair and cape fly up over me, and my stomach lifts with the weightlessness. I keep my eyes locked on the strings around me as I near the flickering lights, and tighten the strings readily with my mind as I grow near them—allowing them to slow me to a soft stop at the bottom of the pit, just above a veiny web of glowing, metallic veins. 

I peer down at them for a moment, lowering myself slowly between the veins—flowing in the same direction as the strings threading through the veins as well. I continue downward until it’s time for me to stop, and climb further down myself. The tubes vibrate under my skin as I grab a hold of them, while the throbbing lights illuminate my eyes every couple of seconds, as streams of energy pass through them. 

I begin to climb downward, sweating profusely and wiping my clammy hands against the suit every few moments to regain my grip. 

Several feet down, a faint, white light becomes visible through the web. As I get closer, the veins begin to disperse, while the strings meet at a single, floating point in the middle of a small pocket of space. And there it is, the stone—floating between two convergences of string. Just outside of reach. 

I tug on the strings, which only stretch and bend with the movement, and have no effect on the stone itself.

Damn… Okay, Plan B.

I hook my right leg over the lowest tube that I can get to, wrapping my right ankle around my left leg securely, and let go carefully—reclining my body down toward the brilliant, white gem below. I reach out slowly around the strings, stretching my entire torso, and grab it with my right hand—feeling a rush of energy ripple through my body, and disappear in an instant. 

“Whooh,” I exhale sharply, hanging for a minute with the stone in my hand—until I realize that it’s better placed in my teeth while I climb back up through the web. 

The gem clinks as I place it between my teeth, and lift myself back up. At the top, I take it into my hand once more and grip it tightly, allowing the strings to wrap around my hands and feet once more, and pull me back up to the top of the chasm—where I fly over the edge, with Loki to my right, and stumble forward as soon as my feet hit the ground. With a quick motion, he reaches out and stops me. 

The impact nearly forces the air out of my lungs as I bend over his arm, inhaling sharply with the stone in my left hand, while my right grips Loki’s pauldron. 

I blink, sighing deeply—happy to have my feet back on the ground. And Loki… He was right. He was right—I could do it, and I did… 

Trust and relief sweep through my body with the momentary embrace, as I grip his shoulder tightly and pull back. I look up to meet his eyes, which instead fall downward to the white, glowing light in my hand—and I instead look straight up at his distracted face. 

Is he thinking of…?

The stone suddenly begins to vibrate violently, and my vision explodes into waves of white light and time—fleeting moments of life, etched into the designs of every string in his existence. Loki’s form towers before me, while faces and voices spin and flash in my mind, and pressure presses against every inch of my body. 

With a quick pulse of energy between us, Loki leans forward with a sharp grunt of pain. The sound  disappears faintly as a loud buzzing noise bursts in my ears—complementing the whirling, chaotic sight before me. I close my eyes tightly, trying to regain a bit of control over one of my senses. 

“I was a king!” Loki’s voice suddenly thunders in my ears, overpowering the rest of the noise. 

An unfamiliar feeling of dread, anger and cruel amusement pours through my chest. I don’t know how I know, but one thing is certain—it’s not from me. 

“A king?” A woman’s voice suddenly echoes responsively in my ears, and I open my eyes to the sight of a beautiful woman with curly blonde hair, clad in blue and silver robes. Wisps of light and strings thread against each other as she leans slightly with intent, peering in my direction. “A true king admits his faults. What of the lives you took on earth…” 

Her voice trails off as the vision fades, spinning and whirling me around into the next moment—where Loki suddenly appears before me, wearing a golden horned helmet, and glancing about panicked to his right.

“Look at this—look around you!” a deep, masculine voice rings, and I follow Loki’s eyes to my left—at the sight of burning buildings and explosions, and… 

I recognize these buildings, it’s… 

New York?

Was Loki in New York? 

“You think this madness ends with your rule!?”  The voice reverberates in my head and melts away as I look on at the chaotic scene of carnage and destruction—while Loki’s soft, mellow voice pours into my mind. 

“You pretend to be separate, to have your own code,” he croons. “Something that makes up for the horrors,” his voice pauses for an instant, and my chest tightens painfully at the exclusive view of my home city crumbling—the precipice of so much grief and sorrow that followed. “But they are part of you, and they willnever go away.”  

With a sharp, banging noise, I jump as my eyes bolt back to the figure of Loki before me—arm curled above his head and pressing against an invisible barrier. He looks different—straighter hair, and a face twisted with the rage and cruel delight pounding through my body. 

“I won’t touch Barton,” he growls—not at me, at something or someone behind me. “Not until I make him kill you. Slowly. Intimately. In every way he knows you fear. And then he’ll wake just long enough to see his good work, and when he screams I’ll split his skull!” 

Icy terror grips my chest at the sight of pure, sadistic pleasure in his eyes. I gape, crying out as I push away from him sharply. The stone flies out of my hand, and the vision fades as I fall back onto the ground—Loki against the wall. 

The silence is only broken by the sound of us both panting—myself in fear and shock.

 “What…” he breathes out sharply, turning his head up to me. “Was that…” 

I look up at him slowly—quietly—in horror, while a deep, fearful ache spreads through my chest. 

As our breathing slows, the silence hardens around us once more. 

“You..” I whisper breathlessly. “You were in New York…” 

The confusion fades from his eyes slowly—replaced by a look of subtle shock and doubt. 

“What?” 

The word flies out of his mouth in disbelief—without a hint of denial or reassurance. 

Even in the faint darkness of the tunnel, my eyes blur slightly as tears well up in the bottom of my eyelids. “You…. You were there, you…” I say breathlessly. “Did you do it?” 

Still leaning against the wall, Loki’s body visibly stiffens as he gazes at me. And the look on his face says it all. He knows what I saw—what I know—and… He doesn’t look sorry. 

My eyes trail slowly down to the stone, glinting softly between us. My eyes dart back up at him—and his at mine—and his expression hardens with sharp reprisal. 

“Don’t,” his voice pours out. “This isn’t the place for either of us to die.” 

This isn’t the place… This isn’t the place!? 

“Is that what it was?” My low voice trembles with every word—with the sting of realization and betrayal. “Is that what you were thinking before? Whether or not you’d have to kill me down here?” 

“I…” he shakes his head slightly, his doubtful eyes darting between me and the stone with uncertainty. Acceptance and vague decisiveness finally fill them as they land reluctantly on the stone for a moment, before rising back up to me. “I’m sorry…” he whispers, and bolts toward the stone.

In a quick impulse, I lunge toward it, capturing it under my palm. Power surges through me once again— and outward with a sharp explosion, that forces Loki back against the wall. 

I scramble quickly to my feet as he turns over, groaning in pain. I turn, and the movement finally forces a tear down my cheek as I run back down the tunnel—alone. Completely alone.

Hot pain flares in my chest, and I struggle to keep every movement precise as I crawl back out of the fissure and into the night—using the light of the stone to navigate my way back through the crevice, and into the opening. I run across it quickly, aiming to reach the ship before Loki gets to me, when a sudden bolt of light bursts by me. I jump, feeling the air blow past me, as the pieces of the rock fly by my face in a sudden explosion.

I pivot sharply toward the source. Not soon enough—as another beam cascades by me, and I gasp in pain as hot pressure bursts against my side, taking a slice out of me. I stumble backward, and look down at the gaping hole in my side—at the blood glinting about the edges of the wound. My breath slows as I roll my eyes up at the sight of five masked figures approaching me slowly, with a ship hovering overhead—resembling one of the ships from Seron’s fleet—and guns pointed in my direction. 

The stone grows hot in my left hand as three more beams cut through me like thick knives. In a moment of rage and power barreling through my veins, I throw out my right hand with a pained cry—wanting more than anything for these people to be dead, and for this to be over. 

Ten long streams of light burst from their bodies and from the ship, spiraling down through my arm, and into the stone on the opposite side. The ship whirs loudly, floating side to side for a moment before it crashes into the mountainside. I drop my hands to my sides, and a light whimper escapes my throat as I shut my eyes tightly—wincing at the burning pain left behind in my arms and chest.

“Lara!” I hear Loki call out to me from behind. 

Wetness presses against my skin beneath the suit as my hands I open my eyes and turn slowly, swaying slightly as the fiery scene begins to spin. My eyes stop at the crevice, at the sight of Loki grasping at the rock with his hands, trying to pass through it quickly. He emerges into the opening, and the entire right half of his body glows brightly from the burning fire. He glances once at it, before returning to me. 

“Loki…” my voice trails off as the stone falls from my loosened hand, landing amidst the drops of my blood in the dirt. 

He steps toward me as my head hangs over slowly, and my body sways once more before giving out entirely. I barely feel the impact against the ground before blackness spills into my vision, and I’m alone—once more—in the darkness. 

[to be continued]