Choices

Chapter 64
"How long will you be gone?" Loki asked Cephera as she dressed the next day for her trip into the mountains.
"We should be home before bed," Cephera said. "Frigga says that they won't detain us for any reason and so the trip will not take days." She brushed her hair up into a quick ponytail and twisted it into a messy bun. It was getting long, maybe too long. She should cut it at least a little.
"Well hopefully those old Harpies don't give you a hard time." Loki growled. Cephera turned and frown at him.
"They are not harpies." She corrected him. "Don't be mean." Loki shrugged and kissed her before she threw on her cloak and departed the room.
***
The wind was colder than usual on the way up the mountain path. The gates to the stronghold were ajar when they got there. "Leave the horses here," Frigga said a hint of worry in her voice. "Where are the guard?" She looked around and Cephera followed her gaze. There was no one around, not even up high on the lookout walls.
Frigga pulled a dagger from under her cloak. "Danger?" Cephera asked. She hadn't come prepared for a fight, but she'd been trained without weapons.
"Perhaps, better safe than sorry. Stay close." Frigga ordered. Cephera followed the queens lead as they ventured inside. The stone walkways inside were littered with statues, all shapes and sizes, all female.
"Either they commissioned a ton of statues or these are the Valkyries." Cephera said to Frigga her eyes wide knowing the answer was most likely the latter. Someone had transformed the Valkyrie into stone. "We should go back to the palace." Cephera suggested.
"No, let's look around first, there could be someone still left to speak with. If we can find out what's happened here we can help them, besides, Odin isn't going to send help to here. The Valkyrie have never done anything for him and shows him no respect as the King of Asgard." Cephera frowned, but knew she was right.
She followed Frigga through the maze of frozen bodies. Some had weapons out, others looked too shocked to fight. Their faces were what worried Cephera the most. The horrified looks, the fear. The deeper they moved in the more they could tell that they had been taken by surprise at the gates. More warriors had been ready to attack the further they got, but so far they hadn't found not one who were still moving.
"Are they dead?" Cephera asked.
"Unlikely." Frigga replied. "There are several things that could have caused this. A curse, though I doubt it by the way they are ready to do battle. A potion, though once more they looked ready for something. I'd say someone did this through magic. Dark magic. A tough spell to accomplish."
Cephera nodded. In some places she could almost feel the dry energy where the magic was used most. Magic always left behind a light essence in the air that only those who wield magic often would feel. "Can we cure them?" Frigga stopped moving and considered her question.
"We could, but there is more than one spell that could cause this and none of the cures are easily made, but I'm sure with our combined efforts, myself, you and Loki, we could come up with a solution. I was hoping to find someone here, someone who could have information. Let's head to the fort, Burnhilda could usually be found there and if things turned ugly, they would have barricaded themselves in and defended from there until they could send for help." Frigga nudged her head toward the path to the fort.
Again they walked with weary steps, keeping their eyes open for anything strange. "Frigga, what if it wasn't a who, but a what. Aren't there animals that can do this too?" She asked.
"None that would leave behind a magic signature."
"Unless they were summoned here." Cephera added and Frigga stopped.
"I don't see any tracks, but this ground is pretty hard packed, it's possible." Frigga's grip tightened on the dagger she held.
All the way to the fort they kept there eyes wandering from the ground to everything around them. No clues were left as to the cause. The doors to the fort were broken down, their defences had been breached.
Entering at a slow cautious pace, Cephera jumped out of her skin when an air of magic hit her, but it wasn't magic, it was actually a residue from the darkness that now surrounded the queen. "Frigga!" Cephera cried reaching out but being knocked back.
"Don't touch." A female voice tutted. "Or you'll find yourself a statue as well." She chuckled. Cephera looked up and upon the steps, next to the statue of Brunhilda was a large woman. Her skin azure with marking over it, puckered out along her face and hands. She wore furs from the neck down and her smile showed aged worn teeth. She was probably as tall as Cephera's father.
Cephera took one look at Frigga and gave a frustrated cry. The queen was now stone. "He said you'd come," the woman said. "I've been waiting for you."
"Who are you?" Cephera demanded. Why had she been waiting for her?
"I am the sorceress Angrboða."
"What do you want with me?" Cephera wanted to yell at her to release the queen, but somehow she knew that would be futile.
"With you, nothing. You're the bait." Cephera swallowed.
"Loki? You want Loki." There was no way they were using her to bait anyone else but Loki.
"Good girl. Now sit tight, I'm sure he'll be here once you fail to come home." A fog came up and around Cephera. She couldn't move. Her legs were half encased in stone, but it didn't creep any higher.
"What do you want with Loki?" She asked seeing nothing else to talk about. She was stuck.
"Ever here of the darkest night, the end of Asgard, the demolition of the Asgardians..., Ragnorok." Cephera wanted to say yes, but she couldn't.
"No." She admitted.
"It has been prophesied that the Asgardians would succumb to death at the hands of a dark Sorcerer and his children." She smiled.
"Loki would never do that. He loves his family he'd never hurt them." Cephera argued. "And he hasn't any children."
"Not yet." She chuckled, Cephera didn't like it.
"No child of mine will help you either." Cephera scolded with a glare.
Angrboða threw her head back and laughed. "You really think you're the only one in this world that is meant for Loki's future." She laughed harder and Cephera felt her face go red with anger.
"Still, he'll never help you."
"He won't have a choice." Their chat became quite. Cephera didn't want to hear anymore. The woman was unlikely to tell her everything anyway.
After a but it occurred to Cephera, "why would you want the Asgardians dead?" She asked.
"Because of what they did to my people. Odin and his army, you've heard of Jotunheim and the war I assume."
"I have." Cephera nodded and knew now this woman was a frost giant. She'd never seen one. Loki had told her the story one night while they lay in bed together. She'd heard it told by Fandral, but she hadn't paid enough attention then to pick it all out.
"I want revenge for my people." Angrboða hissed. It was the first sign of anger she'd shown since their chat began.
"And you think killing all the Asgardians is the answer." Cephera tried to shift in her stone prison, but to no avail.
"Of course. With no one to stand in our way my people can regain their power and take up where we left off."
"The casket." Cephera muttered the words. She'd seen it once, the Casket of Ancient Winters. The Jotuns power source locked within Odin's vault.
"It is rightfully ours and we will have it back."
"And you're doing all of this on your own? Where are the rest of your people?" Cephera hadn't seen an army and the Jotuns were pretty hard to miss according to how big this woman was.
"Clearly I didn't need an army. Even the Queen of Asgard herself walked right into this trap." Cephera glanced at the queen and her face forever frozen in a state of shock.
Cephera ceased her questions and thought. How did they know they would come? The hadn't been scheduled to come here. In fact, it had only been the day before that Frigga even decided to come. Someone must have told this witch they were coming, or maybe she had been in disguise in the palace. Cephera wouldn't put it past her. She cast magic with ease, she could have disguised herself easily.
***
It was night outside. Cephera watched the light disappear from the sky through the broken doorway. She hoped Loki wouldn't come, but she knew better. She'd told him she would be home before bedtime and soon is would be way past that. Her sister was still is Mechanova with Fandral. Thor had plans to go drinking with his warriors. The likelihood that Loki would show up alone was high and it frightened Cephera.
Loki was quick with his magic, but not this strong. Each hour that she continued to stay rooted to the floor her heart hammered faster. She'd tried to transform herself into something else, but she hadn't perfected it like Loki had and besides the stone around her legs grew tighter when she did. Hours later Cephera found herself breathing hard, when Loki arrived she'd scream for him to run, to get Odin.
"We gave company." A new voice said. A mans voice. Another puff of smoke and a cloaked figure was standing in front of Angrboða.
"How many?" She asked in return an excited look crossing her face.
"I kept my word, I saw to it only he would arrive," the man said back, his voice sounded raspy. So she did have help. Cephera got ready to scream only to find a hand forced firmly over her mouth. She and the stranger got teleported from the doorway to the very back of the room, far from Loki's entrance point. The stranger held her roughly, one hand pressed to her mouth so hard she could feel her lips grinding against her front teeth. His other hand seizing her arm as though she might run, even though she couldn't.
Five minutes passed and no Loki. Maybe he'd gone to get help. 'Please be gone to get help.' She thought to herself.
Another few minutes and a sense of dread washed over her. The man beside her called out but his voice was no longer raspy, but her own. He sounded just like her and he screamed 'help!'. Cephera yanked and twisted the best she could but she couldn't shake him. He called it over and over, luring Loki closer.
'Why did it have to be Loki!' She screamed it to herself. They'd been through enough already, why did it have to be Loki chosen for this? She felt bad for wishing this on anyone else, but at the same time she didn't. She really felt like they could use a break, but they weren't going to get it. Loki came inside the room, a blast from his magic sending the remaining tatters of the door flying.
"Fool." The strange man chuckled, his voice back to normal. He let Cephera go and disappeared.
"Cephera." Loki stared at her as the dust cleared. Cephera noticed both Angrboða and the stranger were gone.
"Loki it's a trap, run!" Cephera said the words knowing it was too late for warnings. No sooner had she spoken the last words did the cloaked stranger have his hold on Loki.
"Love is for the weak," he cackled and both him and Loki disappeared. Cephera's legs came loose as the magic faded with their departure. Away melted the stone into liquid at her feet and looking around it was melting off everyone else as well. They got what they came for and the energy that held their curse was let go. Cephera ran to Frigga and threw herself at her.
"He's gone!" She cried.
"What? Who's gone? What's going on?" Frigga was confused. One minute she'd entered a room and the next she'd been frozen. Cephera, her face streaked with tears of frustrated worry, told Frigga everything as fast as she could while the Valkyrie around them listened and everything after was quiet.

Notes