My efforts to sow discord and confusion by kidnapping Mothi disguised as Loki had worked. Loki’s involvement continued to grow, fueled by rumors and whispers. Tia was particularly effective in spreading those rumors. She blended in easily in her cat form, even nestled in laps receiving petting as she unleashed Illusion to stoke the tales.

Asgard was a realized realm with a microcosm of plants and animals that could be found on Urt. Odin had entirely embraced the ‘As above, so below’ concept, so seeing a cat wander in and around the city was not noteworthy. That she could hide her connection to the Tuatha de Danann was a feature endemic to all cats. The animals were adept at going unnoticed.

The city was a powder keg, only waiting for the fuse to be lit. Factions were forming, and seething emotions threatened to spill over at any moment. I was surprised that Loki hadn’t realized that [Illusion] had been used. He knew he hadn’t kidnapped Mothi and that he chose not to refute the evidence that Thialfi offered was instructive.

He had to have reasons for not proclaiming his innocence and revealing that trickery was in effect. As the days flowed one into another, I began to think the only reason for his silence was his pride. He was the Trickster God; to have been embroiled in a trick himself may have been humiliating.

I had a half dozen Azi-Fey keeping tabs on Thrym and Krampus. They seemed unconcerned, happy to hear their spies’ reports that factional warfare might break out in Asgard soon.

That was about to change. I would not let Thrym and Krampus’s treachery stand and was finally ready to act.

Thrym had made the mistake of showing me where his actual city was. It was possible, even probable the Asgardians knew of its location. Still, with the city of Utgard available to assault, there had never been a real reason to attack anywhere else.

It had taken time and effort to bypass the protections and wards hiding the entrance into the mountain and sneak in. An effort that would have been impossible without Balfour and the Azi-Fey’s ability to ignore wards. The effort was made more challenging because I had to use [Illusion] and [Look Away] spells to their fullest to carry the body of Mothi inside.

Thrym made it easy to find a place to stash the body. No castle or holding would be complete without a dungeon, and he was fully equipped with cells, even if empty. For some reason, they had stored Utgard-Loki in one of these cells. Once I had Mothi placed in an adjacent cell, I destroyed the blocks I had set, hiding Mothi from scry, scan, and divine senses.

Balfour short-circuited the protections Thrym had in place. The rooms had been designed to shield any presence, to restrict the [Domain] for any person placed in a cell were shattered. And in that shattering, a pulse of energy was released, and the subtle connections that existed between God and son were restored.

I left them in [Sleep]. I wanted to see if Loki or Thor could find or create an antidote to the drug. I doubted it, the Sidhe was as secretive as any other people, and the secrets to Elfshot were never shared.

But they were Gods, so perhaps they could engineer a solution.

Once Ag, Balfour, and I had managed to work our way out, being careful not to be discovered, I triggered a burst of magic. A divine flare that would echo throughout the Asgardian Realm keyed so that only the Asgardians could perceive it.

A flare of magic that contained a reflection of the [Domain] of both Utgard-Loki and Mothi.

I had removed the protections Thrym had installed in the dungeon, but I was taking no chances that Mothi and Utgard-Loki would not be found.

It didn’t take long for a response to be felt. The presence of Loki and Thor combined was as formidable as Odin. Their [Domain] crested and united as they followed the tendrils from the flare of magic I had released.

The Jotunn guarding their hidden refuge began shouting in alarm, their casters working frantically to get their defensive ward up and powered. A wasted effort, using magic against Loki, was futile.

Thor took the opportunity to breach the walls, his lighting and Mjölnir weakening the shield that reverberated with widening cracks each time he unleashed his fury.

Loki’s power was more subtle than Thor’s. He was adept at sorcery and trickery, so it came as no surprise that he used the widening cracks that Thor created to ferret his way past. His tendrils of magic stretched forward, searching, and finding the Jotunn magicians empowering the barrier and trapping them with ribbons of constraint that sealed their magic, making their efforts worthless.

The barrier, no longer able to repair itself without the magicians’ magic fueling the spell, fell. Mjölnir continued past the opening that had been breached to crash into a squad of Jotunn guards that had barely had time to form.

“Krampus!” Loki bellowed, his shouts punctuated with Thor’s thunder. “You will free my son, or I will tear this mountain down. I will make it my mission in life to destroy this place every time it reforms. There will be no safety, no succor for any Jotunn from this moment on unless he is returned to me.”

Asgard itself reverberated with Loki’s [Oath]. A blinding light that exploded into existence, growing and spiraling out with Loki as the foci. The [Oath] so potent that the Asgardian Realm stuttered, [Fate] and [Time] standing testament to his [Oath].

I watched as chains of runes formed and encircled him. Chains that would constrain his actions for all eternity. If Krampus didn’t return Utgard-Loki, then the Jotunn would never have a moment of peace.

“You would risk true war?” Thrym said as the guards parted, allowing him and Krampus to pass. “Is it time for Ragnarok?”

“If needs be,” Thor answered for him. “You have broken the covenant between our people, capturing my son Mothi. If Loki is willing to step back, I am not. Return our sons willingly or not, but they will be free of your vile mistreatment.

“You have done enough to cause enmity between my brother and me!”

Thor was not known for his intelligence. He was a fierce warrior, loyal to a fault. He was the kind of God that Asgard had been formed to amuse. A city to provide mead, women, and fighting, a place to assuage his baser instincts, the traits he was most known for. I wouldn’t have been surprised that Loki had figured out that they had been tricked into believing the other culpable of kidnapping; that Thor managed that leap in logic was proof that even a dullard could have moments of insight.

“Let them through,” Krampus said, glaring at Thor with such hatred that the guards who noticed his countenance took a step back in alarm. “The sooner they see for themselves there is nothing here, the sooner we can end this.”

Balfour sent Juju, the most adept of the Azi-Fey, to follow. All of the Azi-Fey were skilled, but she had elevated her skills to an art form. She was as capable as Balfour, even lacking his experience. I allowed her to follow, only after I cast a spell allowing me to see through her eyes.

I gifted her with a cloak of [Shadow], [Illusion], and [Look Away] before she left. Each spell layered and added to her own spells of concealment. It might be possible to discover her, but only if you knew how to look. And had [Divine Sight] more potent than the combined weight of my spells, [Domain], and the naturally gifted abilities to hide each Azi-Fey was born with.

I watched through her eyes as Thor destroyed anything in his way as they searched. Doors and furniture shattered as he and Loki stalked through the corridors and rooms of the citadel Thrym had built, following the faintest thread that connected each with their sons.

They might have overlooked the entrance to the dungeon. It was cleverly concealed by a partial cave-in. But part of that concealment had been behind runes, runes that Balfour had destroyed, leaving the gaping opening along the wall easy to find.

They would find their sons. I had made sure of that. If they could wake them, that would be the real test.