They came for me on the third day after the Scepter was handed over.
Or the fifth. Or the tenth — time in Sanctuary was so relative that Einstein would have wept with envy. I counted sleep cycles, but even those slipped: sometimes I dropped into oblivion for minutes, sometimes for what felt like an eternity.
The cell door opened without warning. In the doorway stood not Chitauri — something new. Creatures in dark armor, with faces you didn't want to study for too long.
"Stand," one of them said. His voice was… wrong. Like someone recorded human speech and played it through a busted speaker. "The generals wish to see you."
Generals.
I rose slowly, keeping the Scepter in my hands. Over the last days it had become an extension of my arm — literally. The Mind Stone's energy flowed through my channels in a thin, controlled stream, restoring what the Abyss had burned out.
"Lead the way," I said in the tone of a bored aristocrat. "I hope this meeting will be more interesting than the previous ones."
They brought me to a hall I hadn't seen before.
Sanctuary was a labyrinth — I'd understood that long ago. Corridors led nowhere, stairs ended at walls, and some doors opened into rooms that physically couldn't exist inside this asteroid. Spatial anomalies, technology, or magic — I still hadn't pinned it down.
This hall was… a training ground?
A huge space carved from stone. The floor was covered in something like sand — dark, light-devouring. Weapons lined the walls. A lot of weapons. Blades, polearms, something like energy rifles, and objects whose purpose I couldn't even guess.
And in the center of the hall, they were waiting.
The Black Order.
In the films they were… villains of the week. Terrifying, sure. Dangerous — unquestionably. But in the context of Infinity War, they were more obstacles on the heroes' path than full characters.
Here, in reality, they made me want to run.
There were four of them.
Proxima Midnight stood closest — blue-skinned, predatory, with a spear that glowed with hungry light. She looked at me like a cat looks at a mouse: with lazy interest, the gaze of something that knows it can kill you at any moment.
Beside her — Corvus Glaive. Thin, angular, holding a glaive whose blade seemed to swallow the light around it. If Proxima was a huntress, he was an executioner. Patient, methodical, indifferent.
A little farther off towered Cull Obsidian. The Black Dwarf from the comics, though "dwarf" was some kind of cruel joke. Three meters of muscle wrapped in armor. Zero intellect in his eyes. More than enough killing power to compensate.
And finally — Ebony Maw.
He stood out among them like a professor among street thugs. Gaunt, wrinkled, with long fingers that never stopped moving — as if counting invisible beads. At first glance, he was the least threatening of the four.
At first glance.
I knew he was a telekinetic. I knew he was a telepath. I knew he was the mind behind Thanos's operations whenever "persuasion" was required.
And I knew he wasn't looking at me.
He was looking into me.
"Asgardian prince," Maw's voice was oily, insinuating. "What an honor."
"Former prince," I corrected, stopping at a safe distance. "But titles are formalities. To what do I owe this?"
Proxima snorted.
"The Master wishes to know what you're capable of. Beyond…" her gaze raked me with contempt, "…boasting."
"Boasting is an undervalued art," I shot back. "But if you want a demonstration…"
Cull stepped forward. The floor trembled.
"I can test," he rumbled. "Fast."
Fast, the inner voice translated, means he smears you across the wall. No contest.
"Not today," Maw lifted a hand, and Cull froze like a bull yanked by a ring through its nose. "We have… other plans."
He moved toward me. Slow, smooth, as if he floated.
"You are interesting, Asgardian. The Other reports that you are… stubborn. That your mind is a fortress difficult to take."
"I prefer the term privacy."
"Privacy." He tasted the word. "Yes. Privacy. A rare quality in one who will soon become the Master's instrument."
Instrument.
I forced myself not to flinch.
"I am an ally, not an instrument."
"Of course." Maw smiled. It was disgusting. "An ally. As we all are."
He stopped a meter from me. Too close. I felt his aura — cold, sticky, creeping under the skin.
"Show me," he whispered. "Show me what you hide behind your walls."
The attack came without warning.
Not physical — mental. Maw bored into my mind like an auger into stone. Hard, focused, surgically precise.
The Other had been a hammer. Raw force, pressure, an attempt to break.
Maw was a scalpel.
He didn't ram the front door — he sought cracks. Fissures in my defenses. Weak points I might have missed.
Server room, I ordered myself. Hold the perimeter.
The labyrinth of the mind activated instantly. False corridors, dead ends, scenery. Everything I'd built over weeks kicked into full power.
Maw skimmed the surface. I felt his presence — like a fly crawling on skin. Disgusting, but bearable.
He found the ruins. The broken palace, the images of hatred toward Odin and Thor. He dug deeper — and found the false memories. Contempt for mortals. Hunger for power. Willingness to do anything for a throne.
I let him see it. Even nudged him toward it — let him feed.
And then he found a door.
Stop.
Maw froze. I felt his surprise — subtle, barely there, but real.
"What is that?" he asked aloud.
"What — what?"
But I knew.
A door. One of the doors that led into the server room. I'd disguised them as part of the set — boarded up, rusted, leading nowhere.
But Maw wasn't the Other. He didn't just look — he understood.
"There is something here," his voice softened, thoughtful. "Something… real."
Damn.
The pressure increased. He pushed at the door — not physically, mentally. Tested the lock.
The lock creaked.
I had to do something.
Attack? Suicide. Maw was a telekinetic — he'd crush me before I could even raise the Scepter. And that was ignoring the three other Order members watching with varying degrees of boredom and interest.
Run? Where? Sanctuary was a prison the size of an asteroid.
Surrender? Open the doors, show him the server room, let him see the truth?
Not an option.
That left one choice.
A lie.
I am the God of Lies.
Not in the sense that I'm good at lying. Any idiot can lie. No, the title meant something deeper.
When Loki lied — the universe bent.
I'd felt it before. Tiny distortions of reality when my words didn't match the truth. As if the fabric of existence hesitated for an instant: what if he's right?
Now I needed more.
I focused on the door. On what lay behind it.
There is nothing there, I thought with absolute conviction. Just a wall. Scenery. The remnants of a broken mind.
And I added aloud:
"You found my shame."
Maw flinched.
"What?"
"Shame." I let my voice tremble. Played vulnerability. "The way I fell. The way I… lost. I hid it. Boarded the door shut. I didn't want to remember."
I reached for the Mind Stone. For the link we'd established.
Help, I asked. Make the lie… denser.
The Stone answered.
Energy flowed through me — thin, directed. Not mind control — more like illumination. I amplified the emotions I projected. Shame. Pain. Brokenness.
And I believed my lie.
For a fraction of a second — but I believed it.
Maw stepped back.
Physically and mentally. The pressure on the door eased. He looked at me with pale eyes, and I couldn't tell what he saw.
"Shame," he repeated. "Yes. That… explains it."
Did he believe me?
Or did he pretend to believe me to lull me into carelessness?
The problem with telepaths was you never knew for sure.
"Enough," Maw turned away from me. "He is ready."
Proxima snorted.
"You're sure?"
"He is weak," Maw replied. "Broken. Betrayed by his family, rejected by his people. He will cling to any chance to prove his worth."
Weak and broken, I repeated to myself. Excellent camouflage. Thank you for confirming.
"But his mind… is interesting," Maw continued. "Structured. Organized. He will be useful for the mission."
Corvus Glaive spoke for the first time, his voice dry as dead leaves.
"Useful — until he betrays."
"Everyone betrays," Maw shrugged. "The question is when and why. This one…" he nodded at me, "…will betray when he believes he has found something better. Our task is to ensure he does not find it."
Too smart, I thought. Too, too smart.
The following hours were… educational.
They didn't send me back to the cell. Instead — training. Or rather, an "assessment of combat capabilities."
Proxima stepped out first.
"Show me," she said, rotating her spear. "How you fight."
I looked at the Scepter in my hand. Then at her.
"Seriously?"
"Absolutely."
She attacked without warning.
Her spear carved an arc toward my throat. I slid aside — the body's instinct, not mine. Loki had fought for a thousand years. His reflexes were stitched into muscle memory.
Thanks, original.
I parried the second strike with the Scepter. The clang of metal against… whatever her spear was… rang up my arms. She was stronger. Much stronger.
Don't play her game, the inner voice warned. You're a mage, not a warrior.
I sprang back, creating distance. Focus. An image in my head. A green flare.
Three copies of me appeared around Proxima.
She froze for a fraction of a second — enough for the real me to slip behind her. The Scepter aimed at the back of her skull.
"Bang," I said. "You're dead."
Proxima whirled. Her spear passed through two illusions — they shattered into sparks — and stopped a millimeter from my throat.
"Not bad," she admitted. "For a conjurer."
"A conjurer who 'killed' you," I reminded her.
Her eyes narrowed. But there was something new in them.
Respect?
Or at least acknowledgment that I wasn't completely useless.
After that it got worse.
Corvus didn't fight — he interrogated. Tactics. Strategy. What did I know about Midgard's defenses? About S.H.I.E.L.D.? About "defenders" who might stand in our way?
I answered carefully. I gave information Thanos could obtain anyway — base locations, the organization's general structure. Nothing critical. Nothing that could harm… me.
Cull simply stood in the corner and stared. Apparently his function was "intimidate by existing." It worked.
And then Maw came again.
"You have studied our archives," he said. It was not a question.
I didn't deny it. Denial was an admission.
"Scrolls in my cell. The Chitauri brought them with food. I assumed it wasn't accidental."
Maw tilted his head.
"Not accidental. The Master wanted you to… broaden your horizons."
A test, I realized. Another test. He wants to know what caught my interest.
The scrolls were… informative. Sanctuary's history. Thanos's conquests. Descriptions of races he had destroyed, and those he had "blessed" with his philosophy of balance.
But one subject caught my attention more than anything.
"Necromechanisms," I said. "And the beings who control them. Fascinating."
Maw froze. Barely — but he froze.
"You read that?"
"Fragments. Mentions. Enough to understand the universe is far more terrifying than it appears."
Gorr, I thought. The God Butcher. In the comics he nearly wiped out Asgard's entire pantheon with the Necrosword — a symbiotic weapon created by Knull.
In the MCU he wasn't here yet. He'd appear years later. But here, in reality…
Here everything could be different.
"Necromechanisms are ancient," Maw said carefully. "Older than most civilizations. Older than… Asgard."
"Older than Jotunheim?"
A pause.
"Possibly."
So it's not a myth, I realized. Knull is real. Symbiotes are real. And somewhere in the dark between stars, something sleeps that makes even Thanos look small.
It was… terrifying.
And at the same time — useful.
Knowing your enemies is the first step to defeating them.
"You are smarter than you pretend," Maw said as they took me away.
I feigned surprise.
"I pretend?"
"Broken prince. Victim of betrayal. You wear that mask… convincingly. But beneath it — something else."
Damn.
"Everyone wears masks," I replied evenly. "Even you."
Maw smiled his disgusting smile.
"Yes. Even me. But my mask… is transparent. Everyone knows I serve the Master. That my loyalty is absolute. And yours…"
He leaned closer. I felt his breath — cold, stale.
"Your mask has too many layers, Asgardian. And I intend to strip them all away."
He stepped back.
"Until Midgard."
The return to my cell passed in silence.
My head buzzed with information. With strain. With the constant need to control every word, every gesture, every thought.
Maw knows, I thought. He doesn't know what — but he knows I'm playing.
That was bad.
But not fatal.
As long as he didn't know what I was hiding, I still had an advantage. Small, fragile — but an advantage.
Plan, I reminded myself. Focus on the plan.
Midgard. The Tesseract. The invasion.
And somewhere in that chaos — a chance to escape. A chance to start my own game.
I lay down on the stone slab, placing the Scepter beside me.
The Mind Stone pulsed with quiet blue light. Calming. Almost… friendly.
We make a decent team, I thought in its direction.
The Stone didn't answer. But I felt something like agreement.
Or maybe I imagined it.
With Infinity Stones, you never know for sure.
Maw will be a problem, was my last thought before sleep. A big problem.
But problems are just tasks that haven't been solved yet.
And I'm very good at solving tasks.