40. Erik

“Your death awaits you on the edge of this blade.” I lifted Dainsleif and Andvari eyed it with a flicker of discomfort.

“That sword cannot be sheathed again until you make a kill,” he hissed, his eyes slipping to Magnar. “It is powerful enough to wipe even a soul from existence. Let us see who it is you end up truly killing.”

He raised a hand and I shifted in fear as he tried to press his will into mine. He snarled, pushing harder and I felt his powers trying to snare me, but they couldn’t get a grip. A light broke out around Magnar and I in a shimmer of gold that circled us.

“Odin,” Andvari growled. “Well if the king of gods has turned against me in favour of two worthless souls, he will soon learn that I am not to be trifled with.” He stepped backwards into the glass until his reflection faded and he reappeared in another mirror across the hall.

His form had changed; he was younger, his eyes cat-like and yellow. He stepped from the glass with a twisted smile that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

I set my jaw, my gaze trained on him.

“You took my wife,” I spat, lifting my sword.

“And how delicious she was,” he cackled and I started running, fuelled by pure rage.

Magnar sprang to action on my left, charging forward with a battle cry.

More reflections appeared, ten of them in total, slipping out of the glass and surrounding us. Andvari was different in every one. Young, old, some with serrated teeth, others so achingly beautiful they made my stomach churn. I collided with the one with yellow eyes, swinging Dainsleif in a deadly arc. Andvari moved in a blur of motion, circling behind me and slamming a kick into my spine. I smashed into the mirror and great shards of glass fell around me.

I turned, slashing the blade through the air with all the skills of my youth fuelling my movements. I’d once been a warrior, and it was poetic that it would end the way it had started. With me running at the god, sword drawn in defiance. But I’d not saved my family that day. And I hadn’t saved Montana in the end either. All was lost, fallen to ruin, but I would have his heart and justice would be mine for those he’d taken from me.

“Just as weak as always, Erik Larsen,” the yellow-eyed Andvari taunted me as I spotted Magnar clashing with several of the god’s forms behind him.

I ran at him again, raising the sword above my head. He threw a punch to my gut, but I swept the blade down through the air and severed his hand from his wrist. The god wailed, stumbling backwards in surprise. I kept coming like a turbulent storm. I rammed the sword through his exposed belly, releasing a hiss through my teeth.

His yellow eyes met mine in shock.

“I am not Erik Larsen anymore,” I growled then dragged the blade upwards to sever him in half. Bright green embers burned where there should have been blood and the figure was cast to ash in a flashfire of jade. His eyes were all that remained, staring up at me from amongst the ash.

Another of his forms collided with me and I hit the ground, rolling to avoid a harsh kick. This one I knew well. The one with sharp teeth, his eyes as dark as the pits of hell.

He’d mocked me often when I’d called upon his reflection in a pool of water in a forest, a long, long time ago.

“I am a god!” he cried, leaning down to grab my robes in his fists. I brought up the sword, but he stamped on my wrist to hold me in place. His strength was immense, but nothing compared to my fury. I would not be held.

“And you will die as Idun died!” I bellowed, rearing up and throwing a punch to his jaw.

He bit down on my knuckles and pain flared, followed by a sucking sensation which drew the light inside me to the very edges of my skin. I yanked my hand back in disgust and Andvari laughed raucously, landing another kick to my side. I flew across the space, smashing more mirrors and landing in a pile of glass.

Pain flared across my torn flesh and light spilled from the wounds in a torrent. Several of the forms fell on it, kneeling on the ground and lapping at my life force. I groaned as some part of myself was lost to their mouths. Pieces of my past melted away, memories, friends. I shook my head, clinging on to the single memory that mattered. Rebel was dead. And Andvari was responsible.

As my wounds healed, I darted to my feet to end every last one of the apparitions.

“I’ll devour you both as I devoured the twins of sun and moon. The light of your souls will fuel my body, lift me higher in the ranks of gods. And you shall cease to exist, just as they did,” the Andvari laughed and every form in the space started laughing too.

Pain clawed at my insides, tearing at what was left of my fractured heart. Montana was gone. Her light had been devoured by this accursed creature and everything she was had been snuffed out of the universe.

Magnar cut down one of the beautiful illusions of the god and emerald fire flared in its place.

“No,” snarled the beast who I’d been fighting and I set my sights on him, wondering if he was the true god or if all of them were somehow part of the deity.

Dainsleif hungered for death in my hands and I would gladly give it what it wanted. I crashed into the one with serrated teeth, but found myself hitting a mirror instead. I gasped as glass cut into my cheek, turning to find only my reflection cast back at me. But it wasn’t truly me. It was him. The way he’d often come to me. My face not quite mine, my eyes endlessly dark.

Everything in the room faded away until it was just me and him. Nothing else existed.

I side-stepped to the left and he side-stepped right. My perfect equal in every way. But I had revenge in my heart and a god’s sword in my hands. I would win. And I would never again have my image seized by this creature of hell.

“I gave you a gift,” Andvari purred in my own voice.

“You gave me a curse,” I threw back at him, matching every step he took as we circled one another.

“You had more than a thousand years on Earth, more than any man has ever seen. The debt was always going to be high,” he hissed.

“I paid my debt over and over,” I spat. “And you took the one thing from me you knew I’d never want to live without. How heartless can you be?”

He held his chest as if an actual heart beat in there. I hoped it did, because I was going to cut it out. “You always knew there was a debt to pay. Your parents wronged me, then you deceived me by hiding under the protection of my ring. You must learn the consequences of your actions,” he said with a low laugh.

I made my first move, but a glittering sword appeared in his hand at the same moment and he parried my blow. The clash of metal rang out and I swung at him again, left, right, centre. He knew my moves. He was mimicking me somehow, and I knew I had to change tact if I was going to beat him.

I backed up again, falling into the slow rhythm as we circled once more.

“I didn’t make the prophecy,” Andvari whispered. “Odin designed it. So perhaps it is he you should truly blame...”

“You were the one who took them,” I said in a deadly tone. “So you will be the one to pay the price.” I slashed at him again but he parried once more, matching me blow for blow as neither of us landed a hit.

He backed up this time, tilting his head and spreading a sickly sweet smile across his face. My face.

I needed to find the weakness in him. And I realised with a jolt that perhaps it was my own weakness that he would have in this form. My strength as a warrior had always been in my skill with the blade. But if anyone got behind me, I failed.

I stopped moving and Andvari halted too.

I moved my gaze beyond his head and twisted my expression into excitement. “Magnar!” I cried, though he wasn’t there. Andvari turned and I shot forward, whipping Dainsleif through the air.

Andvari lurched aside as he realised his mistake, but I was faster, taking his head from his shoulders with a fierce strike of my blade. Flames burst to life and the form that had haunted me the most fell apart at my feet.

The room shuddered and Magnar was revealed to me once more. Andvari had him by the throat and was sucking the air as a golden light floated from the slayer’s mouth into the god’s.

Anger consumed me and charged my muscles with bloodlust. I threw Dainsleif with all my might and it carved through the side of the form holding my friend.

Magnar hit the ground and I reached him in a heartbeat, dragging him up to stand. He blinked heavily then raised his swords once more. I took up Dainsleif with a desperate hunger in my heart.

Six forms remained.

And we would kill them all.