Askel sighed again. He had no idea what was going on with his sister anymore. Only, she wasn’t his sister. Akira was his half-sister. Her father was Loki. When he’d found that out, Mavi and Asena had had to hold him back. He’d hurled every insult in the book at Loki.

-Flashback-

“I feel it!” he huffed. “I feel the root of the curse. It’s in her heart.”

Everyone had sucked in a sharp breath at that.

“Can you remove it without killing her?” Thor asked.

“We need to stop her heart in order to remove it,” Askel replied.

“WHAT?!?!” everyone’s voices overlapped and made him cover his ears with his hands.

“The machine Eir set up will keep her alive until the curse is removed completely,” Askel told them.

“I…I…I can’t,” Loki mumbled the words but Askel still heard him.

“Why the fuck not?” he demanded.

“Because…of who she is to me,” he said quietly.

“And just who is my sister to you?”

Loki had looked up then and Askel didn’t realize that he’d been looking down until those chartruese eyes locked onto his.

“She’s my daughter.”

The room went still. Everyone, it seemed, was waiting for his reaction. That’s when he realized they’d all known Akira was Loki’s daughter the entire time.

“And no one thought to share this with me before we started?” he growled.

“Askel, there was no time to tell you,” he couldn’t be sure who was talking. “Your sister’s life was more important than telling you who her father was.”

“You do realize it was her own FATHER who did this to her?” he snapped glaring at Loki.

The two men standing on either side of Loki sucked in a sharp breath.

“He didn’t tell you?” Askel sneered. “It’s his fault my sister is like this. It’s his fault her body is giving up on her!”

Everyone gasped at that.

“You think I didn’t know my sister has been dying since she was 16?” he asked them. “Hel may have saved her from the blood poisoning but she couldn’t remove the curse embeded within the marks. She might have lived a semi-normal life if it hadn’t been for me. Had Master Arrhenius not tried to remove the curse himself, it wouldn’t have begun to mutate. If her father had just removed it completely 8 months ago, we wouldn’t be here!” He was shouting now but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. “There is plenty of blame to go around,” Ehren’s voice broke the silence that had fallen around them. “Your sister was whipped a second time while I was visiting. She was protecting me from the Mother Superior.” Ehren rolled up his sleeve. “I always wondered where these scars came from, but I was so messed up back then that I don’t remember much of that time. Your sister saved my life, at significant cost to her own. Have you ever wondered why she can’t access the power all our people can in order to travel from place to place?” Askel had cocked his head and furrowed his brows. “She can’t sublimate because of me. She saved my life and I nearly cost her hers. I’m the reason she got blood poisoning. I’m the reason she was even whipped a second time to begin with.”

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By now, everyone had gathered back in Askel’s room. Even the wolfdogs had joined them, save for Kairos.

“You expect me to believe my sister was whipped because of you?”Askel demanded not looking at Ehren.

“Believe me or don’t, that’s up to you,” Ehren sighed. “But the fact of the matter remains, your sister saved my life that day and in so doing she signed her death sentence.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did she save your life?”

“Because the Mother Superior caught me helping a girl who was Tara’s age.”

Askel sighed deeply. That sounded like something his sister would do.

“Askel?” Loki’s voice startled him, mostly because he had closed his eyes in frustration. “For what it’s worth, which to you now is probably nothing, I regret everything that has happened to your sister because of me.”

Askel didn’t answer.

“I have no excuse; she’s my daughter and I was the reason terrible things happened to her.”

“Terrible things didn’t happen to me because of you,” Akira coughed from beside him. “They happened because they needed to happen. Fate has a funny way of controlling people. I’m not dying because of anyone. I’m dying because I’m human and that’s what we do. We’re born; we live; we die. I made my mark on the world; let me die in peace.”

She closed her eyes again. Suddenly, Loki began sobbing uncontrollably. His words were obsured by his harsh sobs. Askel watched in horror and disbelief. Before he knew what he was doing, he was in front of Loki slapping him.

“You goatish, mangled, cod piece!” he shouted. “You don’t have the right to cry or sob at my sister’s dying words! You…you…I don’t even have enough words to describe you!” He raised his hand again but was caught by Mavi.

“Let me go grandfather!”

“No! Loki has every right to be just as upset as you!” Mavi thundered.

“He has no rights! He gave those up when he abandoned our mother all those years ago!”

Asena had to join Mavi in holding him back from hitting Loki again.

“Do you think I wanted to leave Seona?” Loki asked quietly. “I didn’t. I loved her. Fuck, I still do. But I couldn’t offer her what she needed most, stability. She needed stability in order to raise Akira. I could never give her that. I’m the god of chaos. Stability avoids me like the plague. I could have stayed, yes, but chaos always finds me. Neither of them would be safe with me around, especially if my father had found out. You’re still probably wondering why I cursed her if she was my own flesh and blood. Truth is, I didn’t remember I had a daughter until recently. I was drawn to the power in your sister’s blood without knowing the reason why. It wasn’t until you all came here that I began to wonder why she reminded me so much of Seona. I searched every archive I could find but it didn’t get me any closer to the answers I sought. My memories slowly began to come back and that was how I figured out just who your sister was.”

“Does she know?” Askel snapped straining against the arms that held him.

“Yes, Kely, I know,” Akira wheezed from behind him. “I met him in my dreams, along with mother.”

“It was the Alhambra that made my memories begin to surface again,” Loki murmured.

“That and me talking about my mother’s drawings,” Akira coughed. “Kely, let me die in peace. I’m so very tired. I can’t fight this anymore.”

Askel turned to her, tears brimming in his tiger-brown eyes.

“Don’t say that!” he cried. “You’ve always been stronger than me.”

“Don’t ask me to be strong anymore,” she whispered reaching out to him. “Please don’t ask me to hold on anymore. I…can’t…I…just…can’t……hold………o-on………”

Each word was a struggle for her, that much he could tell.

Askel sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time. He hated that Loki was Akira’s father and that she had forgiven him for everything he’d done to her. He couldn’t understand why his sister would forgive him. Because of him, who she was was dead.

Askel rubbed his forehead as he continued reading the book laid out in front of him. According to the somewhat ancient text, his sister was a demigod. Half divine and half human. The text also said that if her human half died, her godly half would take over. It wouldn’t make her fully divine but it would also render her inhuman, which made no sense. Hence the headache building behind his eyes. The headache may also have had something to do with the fact that he’d bare slept since Loki had removed the last of his curse from Akira. Akira’s vitals were barely there and that scared the ever-loving shit out of him.