The Fate of Olympus | Reynabeth [✓]

19. Loki, God of Mischief and Artifice

Inside was a black metal ring with a small isosceles triangle-shaped diamond encrusted in a circular collet.

She felt a cold hand close around her stomach.

"What is it?" asked Loki.

"The Ring of Gyges," Annabeth murmured reverently. A cold wind swept across the road, sending shivers down Annabeth's spine. Loki must have layered his voice with a more subtle form of charmspeak because the answer spilled out of Annabeth. "Plato had mentioned it in the Republic, where the wearer could become invisible and reappear at will. With this ring, the wearer is free to do as they wish, even if it's evil. You can get away with anything."

"How did it get in there?"

Loki was up to something. Annabeth felt it instinctively.

"My mother appeared to me as an owl and promised me a gift."

"Or maybe Loki put it there," said Reyna.

Reyna had a good point. If the Ring of Gyges was Loki's gift, it was definitely a trick. If it was Athena's gift, then according to Sulis Minerva, it was a means of escape.

Assuming, of course, that Sulis Minerva and Athena could be trusted. What if Sulis had been one of Loki's illusions? The owl could have been an illusion too, but it was much less likely so close to Camp Jupiter. Annabeth had read a lot of Norse mythology for her class and all signs indicated that Loki could trick just about anybody, even immortals. Was it possible that the owl was him after all?

Then again, gods sent mixed messages sometimes. Maybe Athena was tempting Annabeth to do something bad so that the Olympian gods could justify destroying Annabeth.

Loki leaned to stare at the diamond, which refracted the light in mesmerizing rainbows. "You could never overthrow the gods anyway."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're no Percy Jackson."

"You know him?" Annabeth asked, playing dumb. Her mind was racing. Annabeth wondered, briefly, if the Ring of Gyges could just be a replacement for the Yankees invisibility cap that she had lost. If that was the case, why would Athena give her the Ring of Gyges, a corruptive, dangerous weapon, that could be used to overthrow the gods?

"Naturally. I know about all the demigods at both of your camps."

Maybe Athena saw what Annabeth saw. The gods had abused their power and neglected their children. Athena had defended Percy when he pointed that out to the Council after the Titan War.

"I need to leave-" Annabeth said.

"Do it," he whispered. "Put on the ring and overthrow the gods directly. You don't need anyone else's approval. You'd make a better ruler than Zeus. You're so much wiser."

Of course, Athena had benefited from her position, so to overthrow the gods instead of reforming them would seem counterproductive from a god's point of view.

"You're trying to manipulate me," Annabeth said.

Loki said nothing, he just stood there grinning like the Cheshire cat. Annabeth couldn't tell what he wanted. Did he want her to overthrow the gods? What did Athena want?

She looked to Reyna, who was glaring at Loki like he had punched her grandmother in the face. Reyna's anger filled Annabeth with determination.

Annabeth realized what she was doing wrong: she was focusing too much on the future. To see through the layers of Mist that Loki casted, Annabeth focused on being rooted in the present.

"Of course," continued Loki, "you could never overthrow the gods. You couldn't do something so selfish and stupid. Deep down, you know what would happen if you succeeded. You'd just end up replacing your corrupt and evil Greek gods with corrupt and evil Norse gods."

Annabeth focused on the feeling of her breath. She focused on being present in the moment, on mindfulness. Her mind was less noisy. Her thoughts were raindrops falling on a clear lake. One moment they rippled, then they were gone.

"Norse gods will be much less forgiving of demigods like you," Loki informed her.

Annabeth pretended to tie her shoelace and looked behind her, toward the squirrel. Her mind was calm. She could see the fox, the Teumessian Fox of Greek antiquity, a fylgja of Norse mythology, and a squirrel of modern times, simultaneously, layer upon layer of Mist, each somehow equally real.

"You're reading philosophy that's thousands of years old. You're comparing different myths to each other. You think I haven't read Plato?"

She looked at Loki. So many layers of Mist made it impossible to understand what she was looking at. Loki's forms looked like a cloud more than a man, with some recognizable pieces: a horse here, a beautiful woman there. One version of Loki, however, was particularly disgusting: a pile of goopy flesh with craters across its whole face, neck, and torso with no discernable features.

All the Lokis said, "I've read Socrates so many times that I've memorized his works."

Seeing so much made her head feel like it was splitting in half again. Her mind was clouded by doubt. Was she seeing deeper realities or was the Mist warping to show her what she expected to see?

She averted her gaze. When she looked back again, she saw Loki's handsome, mortal form again. She stopped fiddling with her shoelaces.

Loki said, "I've read every important book humanity has ever produced. Most of them are garbage. That's how you know humanity is destined for mediocrity. You won't discover anything new by reading old books."

"That's not true!" Annabeth snapped. She stood.

Loki shook his head in disappointment.

"How can you be so smart and yet so delusional at the same time?" Loki pondered. "Oh, that's right. You're not smart. You just think you are. You're good at memorizing stuff humanity has already figured out, but you could never come up with anything new. You're a schoolgirl trying to play a warrior. You'll never win. You can't."

"What do you want?"

"I want what you value most.

Too late, Annabeth remembered what Anansi the spider wisdom god had told her: the trickster is working with the king of your gods. He will take away your most valuable asset to try to unbalance you.

"You're working for Zeus," Annabeth realized.

"I work for myself, dear. But you're only half wrong, as usual. We did strike a temporary deal. He offered me something I couldn't resist: I get to keep what I take. And as a bonus, Zeus doesn't have to get his hands dirty."

What exactly did the gods think was most important to Annabeth?

Leave my friends out of this, Annabeth thought.

Okay, said Loki's voice in Annabeth's mind.

He tapped her forehead. Annabeth fell to the ground, right into a puddle.

Her clothes were soaked. Great.

Annabeth curled into the fetal position. Annabeth heard Reyna scream her name, but it sounded like Reyna was a mile away.

Loki vanished. He left the Ring of Gyges in front of them. Even he didn't want it. It was a reminder that Annabeth hadn't used it to escape from Loki when she'd had the chance.

Nothing seemed to happen at first. Oh, look, thought Annabeth. Her dagger had materialized next to her right hand.

Then a searing pain overtook Annabeth's head. The past decade of Annabeth's studies began fading from her mind.

~~~

A/N: I'm sorry Annabeth :'(
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