Fate Undone (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 5) (38 page)

First, Sigyn. When it came time for Loki to find his heroine, it was obvious to me that it had to be Sigyn. In Norse Mythology, Sigyn is Loki’s wife. In Old Norse, her name means something like “victorious girlfriend”. Sigyn and Loki are married at the time that he is chained beneath the snake, which did happen according to the Prose Edda, a collection of Old Norse poems recorded by Snorri Sturluson in 13
th
century Iceland. In the Edda, Loki never escapes the bonds—at least, not until Ragnarok. Sigyn stays by his side and captures the snake’s venom in a bowl. Every time that she needs to empty the bowl, the venom drips onto Loki. His spasms of pain are so great that he causes earthquakes that mortals can feel.
 

Well, I didn’t want my heroine to be defined by her relationship to the hero. She’s a hero in her own right, with her own story and accomplishments. I changed her from a goddess to a Vala and gave her a whole new backstory—one that didn’t involve marrying Loki (at least, not in Asgard).

Vala were shamanic seeresses and were well respected by Norse people. Vala is actually the Anglicized version of their true name—
v
ǫ
lva in Old Norse or völva in Icelandic. You can see why I changed it. The original is just a
bit
too close to the word ‘vulva’. Imagine the audiobook! Vala were mortals who practiced
seiðr magic (spelled seidr in
Fate Undone
), a type of magic that involves sorcery, prophesy, and shamanism. In
Fate Undone,
Sylvi is the first Vala, created by a union between magic and the goddess Freya (who has the most magical ability of all the gods). This didn’t happen in any myth, but Sylvi going to Midgard (earth) and training mortals in seidr is how I envisioned the Vala coming to life.
 

As for Loki, according to myth, he is bound beneath the snake until the great battle Ragnarok, in which he dies. I thought Loki deserved a happier ending, so in
Fate Undone,
Sigyn frees Loki. In the Poetic Edda, Loki is bound because he threatens the other gods one time too many. Loki does kill the god Baldr (or he creates the weapon that kills Baldr and tricks Baldr’s brother into using it, depending upon the source), but Baldr is actually not a jerk in in the real myths.

One of my favorite parts of the story was Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil is called the World Tree in Norse mythology and connects the nine worlds, Agard (one of the realms of the gods) and Midgard (earth) among them. Loki was never hung from Yggdrasil’s branches, nor was Yggdrasil able to take the form of
 
a human and hatch great plots.
 

In myth, the wolf Fenrir is Loki’s son (the myths were pretty crazy sometimes). In
Fate Undone
, Fenrir was killed by the other gods. According to myth, he was bound by the gods, then killed during Ragnarok (after wreaking some havoc himself). I chose to change this because if Fenrir was only bound, then Loki would have been able to try to save him. Loki is loyal and loved Fenrir, so of course he would have gone after him right away, but that didn’t work for the story. Fenrir had to be out of the picture (temporarily), and so he had to die and be put in hell, where Loki could not go. But I couldn’t bear to leave him there—Fenrir deserved a happy ending too. Death is a very fluid thing in the world of the Mythean Arcana and I just had to bring Fenrir back. The happy ending required it—and above all else, I believe in happy endings.

Thank you again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the story!

ABOUT LINSEY

Before becoming a romance novelist, Linsey Hall was a nautical archaeologist who studied shipwrecks from Hawaii and the Yukon to the UK and the Mediterranean. She credits the historical romances of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90's with her love of history and her career as an archaeologist. After a decade of tromping around the globe in search of old bits of stuff that people left lying about, she settled down and started penning her own romance novels. Her debut series, the Mythean Arcana, draws upon her love of history and the paranormal elements that she can't help but include. Several books may or may not feature her cats.