Selfish Gods - Complete!

36

"Loki," The King repeated, slowly, as though the name belonged to a kind of food he didn't particularly like. The colour drained from his face.

Elira swallowed, her mouth suddenly very dry. She scanned the area around the raised platform. The elves had disappeared at some point and been replaced by tuxedo-clad waiters carrying silver trays with hors d' oeuvres and drinks. The musicians had started to play happy classical music. All of the King's warriors looked relaxed like they were sure the danger had passed; none of Jiutian's golden warriors did. There was a ring of the golden warriors encircling the platform right now, like a fence, and the rest were scattered throughout like landmines. None of them were eating or drinking or even talking to the other guests. They were watching their commander.

How many? Elira did a quick estimate. A thousand, easily, probably more.

More than Hilda had thought would come or were strictly necessary to get the job done. She had guessed... maybe 500.

Elira beckoned a waiter over, took two glasses of water off his tray and handed one to Celeste.  What Hilda had thought would happen after the end of the dinner was happening now. Elira shrugged away the tension between her shoulders and the hunger in her stomach. She satisfied herself with the water.

Time to party.

"Of course Loki!" Jiutian laughed brightly. She patted the King playfully on his shoulder, like a cat entertaining herself with a ball of yarn. "Don't look so alarmed, Sevrin. Of course, I know everything."

The King's gaze flitted beyond their immediate group. By the change in his expression Elira knew that he had seen the same thing – his army, convinced the danger was over, so relaxed they failed to fully account for the alert soldiers among them. His nostrils flared. He was doing the math, realizing that there were too many of them. "What do you mean by everything?" He asked flatly.

"I mean everything," Jiutian said very seriously. "I know you thought you could trick me, for instance. That you could manipulate me." She paused but he did not fill the silence and so she went on. "I know that Celeste meeting Kwaku was no accident." She purred.

She took a step toward the King, closing the space between them, her eyes burning into his. "It wasn't a bad plan. It worked. That blight on the universe that was your father is dead. Your army is twice the size it was. You've managed to charm my daughter."

She turned away from him and turned her back to him, her hands clasped behind her back, her posture erect. She paced, purposefully, like a shark circling her prey.

"The only thing I don't appreciate about your plan is the part where you thought you could deceive me. Lie to me. Pretend it was you who was helping me. Helping me save my daughter who very coincidentally ended up sleeping with Kwaku right after he escaped." She was speaking softly but each word was a shard of ice. Hers was a glacial, precise anger and it froze everyone around her in place. She turned slowly on her heel and looked him up and down scornfully, "It's so stupidly egotistical."

The King wet his lips. He kept his voice very even. "And what would you have preferred? I had tried seeking you out the honest way. You ignored me."

"Did you ever stop to wonder, Sevrin," Jiutian went on, going on as though he had not spoken at all. "How Loki knew where to find Celeste?"

"From Bia," The King answered readily. "He told me as much and he was right."

For the first time Elira realized Bia wasn't there. She searched the room again, her stomach cramping with nerves. No Bia. She remembered meeting the King for the first time on the beach and witnessing Bia's reaction to him. The way her large yellow eyes had softened to butter when she had looked at him. The near religious ecstasy she had exhibited when he knelt down beside her.