Descendant by Lesley Livingston

Starling.”
    “Ah.” The grin faded. “Did you believe her?”
    “She also said . . . she was a queen here.”
    “Well. Yelena Starling is both those things. She is yourmother by nature . . . and she is Hel, dark and terrible goddess, queen of Helheim, also called Hel, by my hand. She is very dear to me.” His voice was soft and his gaze gentle as he looked at Mason. Then he looked away and said, “You have her eyes and her beauty.”
    “I don’t understand. The myth says that Hel is your daughter.”
    “I told you. I haven’t read the stories. Mostly because they tend to get everything wrong.” He sighed, and it was a frustrated sound. “I transformed Yelena, granting her the power of Hel not long after she first came to this place. So in a way, I suppose, she is my creation. A daughter in spirit , if you will.” He turned his grin on her. “Don’t worry, Mason. I’m not your grandfather.”
    Mason didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. She wondered what it would be like to have the blood of a god running through her veins and was suddenly filled with questions. And with a longing to know just what Loki was talking about when he spoke of her mother. The woman he’d described . . . that sounded like the mother she would’ve wanted to meet. She craved to know what had transpired between them.
    But suddenly, the ground began to shudder again, like it had in the moments before the crevasse had opened up and swallowed her. Loki turned his full gaze on her again, crystalline and bright blue and full of urgency. “You’ll have to go now, pretty Starling. Remember everything that I have said to you.”
    Mason gripped the edges of the rock ledge as it heaved. “You know you haven’t really said all that much, right?”
    “Then it shouldn’t be that hard to remember, should it?” he snapped, suddenly brusque.
    Mason blinked at him, but then a lightning-like fissure appeared in the rock face opposite them—a jagged, branching crack that split the stone open and sent sharp, flinty shards flying. The stone blew apart and a gaping hole appeared. And the tall, dark-haired woman stepped through.
    “Mason!” She thrust out her hand, a frantic look of panic turning the planes of her face sharp. “Daughter—come to me! You are in terrible danger!”
    “Are you referring to me?” Loki drawled. “You wound me—”
    “Be silent , deceiver!”
    Mason glanced wildly back and forth between the two of them. She couldn’t wrap her head around thesituation—not after what Loki had just said about how much he cared for Yelena. Clearly, if the feeling had ever been mutual, it certainly wasn’t now.
    “Mason,” her mother said again. “He is a liar. Whatever he has told you, do not believe him. He cannot help you. I can take you home. Together we can make everything right again.”
    “Well, if you put it that way . . .” Loki’s voice was rich with casual disdain. “ Looks like you might want to do what she says, pretty Starling.”
    Mason frowned down at the so-called trickster god and took a step back. She couldn’t be at all certain, but she thought that Loki had added a strange, pointed inflection to the words “looks” and “she” that made her think he was trying to say something to her. Something else. Of course . . . did it really matter what he said to her? After all was said and done, Loki was a liar. Wasn’t he?
    And he wanted to destroy the world. Didn’t he?
    The woman lifted her hand, beckoning urgently to Mason.
    No. Not “the woman,” Mason chastised herself. She’s your mother. . . .
    She is Hel.
    Mason glanced over her shoulder at the bound god one last time as she made her way toward where her mother stood at the foot of a path that led up into a narrow, dark-shadowed canyon. Mason hadn’t even noticed the path when she’d been sitting talking to Loki—even though she’d probably been staring right at it. She got the distinct impression that nothing