But, just because she somehow survived, it doesn't mean it didn't hurt and that Angrboda wasn't bitter about it. Loki finds her sometime after her escape from Asgard, bearing her heart as a gift. As it turns out, the wily one returned her heart to her, while also stealing it, for the pair fell in love following a strange courtship where he would come visit her at Ironwood in her hiding place, far from Odin's ever-watchful eye. Odin seeks her once more, because she practices a very powerful magic called seid and it allows her to see the future, if she ventures too far into the dark void. Naturally, Odin wants to know the future so he can thwart it.
After what Odin and his fellow gods put her through, she and Loki develop a kinship, especially since he comes to her for help after he is badly mutilated following one of his many schemes. Eventually, the pair secretly become husband and wife, but Loki would never stay for very long, always needing to return to Asgard.
Even though she lives mostly alone at her cave in Ironwood, Angrboda eventually becomes close friends with a huntress named Skadi, an imposing woman who would take the potions Angrboda makes and trade them with the locals for much-needed provisions. The two become the best of friends, but Skadi soon has reason to hate Boda's husband when she discovers her friend is pregnant and her husband is nowhere to be found. When one of Loki's schemes then results in a family tragedy for Skadi, Boda decides to keep her husband's identity a secret.
Throughout the years, Boda and Loki have three children - Hel, a little girl born with dead legs due to an odd incident while she was in utero; Fenrir, a dangerous male wolf who would communicate with his family through mental telepathy; and finally, Jormungand, a male snake who does very little communicating, aside from curling around his mother's body. The male children grow very quickly, while Hel suffers from some lingering health issues that make her fingertips turn blue when she exerts herself. Other than that, she seems pretty normal, aside from the ointments her witchy mother has to apply to her legs to keep them from rotting.
Meanwhile, Loki has been quite busy outside of his family with Boda, having taken another wife in Asgard, at the behest of Odin and the Aesir, supposedly. Sigyn, his dutiful Asgardian wife, eventually has two sons, so Loki's time with Boda and her children is cut way down, since Sigyn insists he stay with her most of the time.
Boda finds her attempts at sleep plagued by someone trying to drag her into the void and, naturally, she assumes it is Odin. She has avoided him all of these years with a powerful spell of protection, but her sleep invader grows more persistent. Boda, herself, has seen the future and it involves her two sons and the destruction of all she knows, but who else has seen this vision of Ragnarok? When a betrayal like no other occurs and Boda loses her children, she decides to fight back. After all, she's used to coming back from the dead and, this time, she is fighting for her kids.
I absolutely loved The Witch's Heart. It is beautifully written and completely compelling. All of the Norse names are a bit much to get used to, but I didn't find it long before I had everyone's identity nailed down. There are strange things I've heard along the way about Loki and they cover them in this book, hilariously so. The one about Loki having sex with a horse? It's in here and it actually makes sense, at least as much as any of Loki's insane schemes do. The Witch's Heart wraps up beautifully, but is a joy to read from beginning to end. Even if you don't have a big interest in Norse mythology, you should give this book a chance. It's a fantastic story.
