Loki pulled off his jacket and let the heavy garment sink to the floor. His leather vest soon also lay crumpled on the ground, leaving him in a silk shirt. The thin material rippled over his skin as a gust of cool air swept through the room. Loki reached for the window; there was an unpleasant chill to the wind this evening.

The lanterns down on the foreshore gave him pause. He hadn't expected anyone would still be out there.

He had come down for the funeral ceremony of course. The ruler of Asgard could hardly forgo attendance and Loki thought that Thor would appreciate him being present since Thor himself could not be there. But, for all the effort Sif's older sisters had expended in organising it, there had been an odd atmosphere to the event. Tyr barely met anyone's eye, the rest of the Einherjar's leadership surreptitiously attempted to coordinate troop movements throughout the ceremony, and half the gathered crowd seemed more interested in gawking at Loki than in paying respects to the dead. He had fled back to the palace minutes after Sif's funeral boat passed out of sight.

Someone knocked on the door.

Loki shut the window and called out, 'Come in!'

An aide-de-camp from Tyr's staff stepped into the room. With his hair slicked back and each tassel of his uniform in its proper place, he looked like the Einherjar was due out on parade tonight. His bow matched the immaculate state of his dress. His face, however, betrayed the depth of the man's nervousness.

'Something on your mind, captain?' Loki asked.

'Only the challenge that faces us tomorrow, your highness,' the man responded and made an effort to steel his expression. He thrust out a letter towards Loki. 'I have an update on the progress of the advance parties for you.'

'Thank you.'

The man's hand snapped back as Loki took the letter from him and he hurried out. Loki watched the door slowly swing shut behind him, wondering if he ought to have ordered Sif's funeral to be delayed. It was Asgardian custom to farewell the dead at the first sunset after their passing, but Sif's funeral boat aflame would have done nothing for the soldiers' morale. However much her personality had grated on Loki, she had been respected as a warrior. Her father too. And she had died by the hand of the very enemy the soldiers would be fighting come the morning.

Loki had thought Tyr would use his eulogy to rouse the Einherjar. For once his bluster and antipathy towards the frost giants would have been of some benefit. As it turned out, Tyr had been in the wrong frame of mind. His speech had been apologetic in tone, full of stumbles and at times impossible to follow.

Loki himself wasn't helping matters, he understood that. He lacked both Odin's experience and Thor's natural bravado. Worse yet, it was public knowledge he had been against the war with Jotunheim until the very last moment. Hardly an inspiring leader to rally around. He could only hope his council followed his orders and kept quiet about what had been said during the meeting with Laufey. There were rumours he couldn't afford to have flying about the palace right now.

'I'll have to find some words to say tomorrow,' he muttered under his breath. 'Something that'll get the drums of war going, otherwise Thor'll be Laufey's guest for a long time.'

Sighing, Loki broke the seal on the letter and trudged to his bedroom. He took off the two scabbards that held his knives, setting them on the bedside table, then collapsed onto the bed. When the unfolded the stiff paper, he found an equally stiff report inside describing the evening's efforts with the portals.

Asgardian sorcerers had spent days tracking down the narrowing gaps between the worlds and identifying where Asgard's vulnerabilities lay. But these portals functioned in both directions. By the time the main Asgardian force entered Jotunheim tomorrow, there would be dozens of advance parties already creeping towards Laufey's capital.

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After a few lines riddled with Einherjari jargon and short-hand that Loki had to strain to decipher, he pulled a pillow under his head and closed his eyes. His mother's potion had worn off hours ago; he needed a few minutes to himself right now. After, he would get back to the report and parse out the rest of its contents.

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Something pressed against his Adam's apple. Loki groaned and reached to pull the offending object away. A hand clamped around his wrist. Loki's eyes snapped open. There were several people in his bedroom - that was all he managed to register before he was pulled out of bed and dumped onto the floor.

Disorientated, he was still clambering up to his knees as hands slid under his armpits and pulled him to his feet.

'What is the meaning of this?' he demanded. Once he blinked away the bleariness out of his eyes, the world around him found focus. There were six people in the room, apart from himself. Agnar, Tyr and four high-ranking Einherjari soldiers. Loki snuck a glance to the bedside table; his knives weren't where he had left them. 'Lord Chancellor, care to explain?'

Agnar's reply was a bewildered stare; his mouth dangled as low as his overly-ornate collar would allow.

Tyr nudged the chancellor. 'You believe me now?'

'By all that you hold dear,' Loki said, 'you had best have a very good reason -'

'Lord Agnar wanted proof.'

'Proof of what?' Loki turned to face Tyr and felt something rigid against his throat once more.

He reached for it, then froze. The back of his hand was blue.

Fucking hell.

'What have you done to me!' Loki tried to restore the concealment, but his magic had been stripped. He grabbed the object wrapped around his neck - a wide collar, metal and etched with some kind of inscriptions. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't rip it off.

Right. Ok. You'd better give the performance of your life here.

'What is this collar? Get it off me!' Loki said in a shaky voice. He pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and upon finding only more blue skin, palpated his face. 'What have you done to me? Why?'

Agnar shifted from one foot to the other. 'The collar is dwarven work, your highness, one of several items in the vault that can be used to bind a person's magic. We needed to see if there were any concealments on you. It seems there were, and not minor ones.'

'And my, what a tragedy to have you hidden all these years.' Tyr chuckled. 'Your eyes are striking. Nifmar, there's bound to be a mirror somewhere in here. Fetch it for our resident frost giant, will you?'

'Frost giant?'

Tyr moved aside as Nifmar dragged over the full-length mirror from Loki's bathroom. He angled it so Loki could peer right into his reflection. Blue skin, clan markings, red eyes. Loki didn't have to force the shiver that rattled through his body.

'This isn't real!' He clawed at the collar and tried to figure out the lock mechanism keeping it in place until two of the soldiers moved in to restrain him.

Tyr shook his head. 'Enough with the melodrama. Let's not pretend you thought Laufey was talking about anyone other than yourself. How many frost giants are there in Asgard?'

'Laufey was angry; he was making things up.' Loki sucked in a breath and furrowed his brows. 'He was, wasn't he?'

'I think the answer is self-evident,' Tyr replied. 'Take the prince down to the Great Hall. We will continue the conversation there.'

The Einherjar prodded him forward. As they moved through the half-lit and near-empty hallways, Loki considered calling out to the palace guards, but he suspected in his present form he would have problems proving he was who he claimed to be. Tyr, on the other hand, was their commander. They would do whatever Tyr ordered.

Loki's thoughts turned to Agnar. The chancellor was the king's second-in-command and wielded more authority than the captain of the Einherjar - Asgard wasn't a military dictatorship after all. Apart from the man's initial incredulity, Loki wasn't sure what Angar's thoughts were about the present situation. Perhaps if he were to make the man remember that he was more than a frost giant, Loki could yet make an ally of him.

'So Laufey was telling the truth, I was taken after the war?' Loki said softly. 'Why would my father do that? Why not tell me the truth at least? Lord Tyr, Lord Agnar, please explain how this is possible.'

'War does strange things to men.' Tyr threw open the side doors to the Great Hall. 'I told Odin back then that you were not worth the cloak he wrapped you in, but he refused to listen.'

The bulk of the lamps in the Great Hall were extinguished. It was hard to even make out the walls, leaving Loki with a sense he was in some cavernous pit. The sole island of light was the dais. The throne was unoccupied, but the rest of the king's council stood on the steps below it. As Loki's small party approached the dais, more Einherjari soldiers emerged from the darkness. There were dozens in all. Far more than necessary if they were worried about Loki. His magic was bound and he had no idea where his knives had ended up.

Something tells me the collar won't be coming off just yet.