43. Magnar

The cold stone pressed against my knees as I bowed my head and let out a heavy sigh.

A pit of despair was opening up before me as I held Venom to my heart, preparing to end all that I was.

We had finished Andvari and gotten revenge for the deaths of the women we loved but in the end it hadn’t done anything to lessen the pain of their loss.

“I do not wish to exist in any form now,” I murmured. “I will cast my soul into the eternal flame and let it be burned out of this world forever more.”

I took a moment to think of my friends from before my sleep and after it. Of my mother and father and my brother and the love we’d all shared. I clung to every good memory I could find of them, wrapping them around my heart in a final farewell before turning my mind to Callie.

Her life had been so short. So savage and unfair. She’d barely even begun to live when fate had demanded her death.

I thought of the way she’d mocked me and teased me, laughed with me and loved me. Of her eyes which were as blue as a summer sky and her lips which set my skin alight with a desire for everything she was. And of her long, golden hair which seemed to shine with the light of the sun even in the darkest of nights.

Any amount of pain was worth the price of a moment in her arms. And if there had been any place for her in any level of existence then I would have gladly followed her there. But her fate was so much worse than that. To have been wiped from the world as if she’d never been there in the first place was the greatest crime imaginable. The world would grieve for all eternity that such a soul had been lost for all time.

What had happened to her wasn’t right. To have been consumed by a beast so foul as the god who had cursed the Earth...

I gripped my blade more tightly, pressing its tip to my heart as I leaned my weight forward, preparing to throw myself down upon it.

I wondered if it would hurt? If destroying my soul was akin to ending my time in my flesh? Or if I’d just simmer away, fading from memory into nothing but an unfulfilled dream.

I took a deep breath, my last in any sense of the word and I felt Venom cutting into my flesh.

A deep warmth brushed against my cheeks and a golden aura shone through the thin skin of my eyelids, reaching out to me despite the fact that I wanted nothing more from this world.

I hesitated for the briefest second, wondering if the gods had been kind enough to grant me one last moment in the sun with the girl I loved. Even if it wasn’t real, I’d take it. The thought of her gaze locked with mine, her lips on my lips, her breath on my cheek...

I opened my eyes and I frowned at the sight which reached me.

The blazing frame of Andvari’s last mirror was laying on the dark floor, burning brightly as flames consumed the final echoes of his power.

My mouth fell open as a golden figure spilled from the smoke which rose from the blaze, thickening into the form of a man who stumbled forward in confusion.

The soul’s eyes found mine and he reached out, his fingers brushing my skin in thanks before he headed on, aiming for the stairwell which would take him from this place.

“Erik,” I breathed as my friend gritted his teeth, about to plunge Tempest into his heart. “Something strange is happening.”

I didn’t want to voice the guess which was forming in my mind. But as I watched, another soul clawed her way from the smoke pouring from the frame.

“Thank you,” she breathed before hurrying away and my heart pounded with the most desperate of pleas.

“You don’t think-” Erik began and I could tell he was just as afraid to hope as I was.

If we were witnessing the release of the souls that Andvari had devoured then maybe, just maybe...

Erik pulled the blade away from his heart. Just an inch. But the small gap held a thousand hopes in the space between heartbeats.

I loosened my hold on Venom too, feeling a bead of sweat slide along my skin beneath the black robes I wore in this realm.

We watched in silence as soul after soul rose from the smoke and slowly but surely the flames burned low.

When there was barely more than a simmering ember left and no more beings rose from the ashes, my stomach dropped.

I dipped my head, hating myself for hoping and bringing this pain on myself for a second time.

I ached for a resolution to this nightmare which didn’t end in a death so final as that which had been dealt to my love. But Callie was gone. Lost in every sense of the word and I had to accept it even though my heart refused to do so with every desperate beat it took. It didn’t matter that I was dead already. It only mattered that she was gone. My true love. My destiny. My end.

I reached for my sword again, ready to finish this suffering once and for all, when a strange light rose from the ashes of the frame as the final ember extinguished.

It was at once silver and golden, light and dark, night and day.

It rose from the depths of the soot which had once been Andvari and twisted itself into a shape.

My breath caught in my throat as a woman appeared before us. She was both familiar and unknown. A friend and a stranger. I knew her with every inch of my heart and yet I was sure I’d never met her before.

She was clad in a gown which flickered in a wind I couldn’t feel and it seemed to be crafted from the light of the stars. Golden and silver and everything in between.

Her eyes fell on me and Erik as we knelt before her and a strangled noise left the throat of my friend.

“Is it you?” he breathed and I frowned because it wasn’t her but it was at the same time.

She stepped forward and her lips were the ones I hungered for but her eyes were alight for Erik.

I shook my head in confusion, like I was looking at a riddle I couldn’t understand.

“I love you,” she breathed, reaching for me while looking at Erik. She stilled like she could feel that that wasn’t right and her brown eyes swung to me. Eyes I knew but didn’t love.

“Callie always said they were two halves of one whole,” I murmured as I looked at this creature who was mine and wasn’t all at once.

My blood heated with the realisation of who she was. The joining of two souls who had shared everything, starting with a womb. Their lives were linked, tied together in ways which defied all logic and yet was always so true to the essence of who they were. And in death they’d clung to each other, refusing to part ways when Andvari had stolen them from the lives they should have had.

I raised my arm to meet the hand she still held extended to me, unsure what this transformation meant but knowing I had to find out. If this was Callie. In even the slightest way. Then I had to know. I had to be sure.

Her fingers brushed mine and I was transported through every moment I’d ever spent in her company.

I saw myself through her eyes, fierce, determined, strong. She was watching me when she should have been sleeping. Loving me when I drove her to rage. Fighting for me when my mind had been stolen and aching for me when I wasn’t by her side.

With a deep breath which carved the air in two, Callie tumbled into my arms, the soul fracturing in half to release her and leaving Montana gasping for breath before Erik.

My heart stopped beating. The world stopped spinning. The sun stopped blazing. None of it mattered but the woman in my arms.

She was trembling, her eyes brimming with fear and confusion as her nails dug into my arms and she looked at me like I was the answer to every question she’d ever asked.

“Magnar?” she whispered and my name on her lips was my undoing like always.

“It’s you,” I breathed, needing to confirm it out loud to convince myself that it was true.

My world filled with light as I held her again and my chest seized almost painfully as my love for her overwhelmed me.

A thousand thoughts filled my mind at once but none of them mattered as I fisted my hand in her dress and dragged her against me with a passion which was so fierce I was sure it was going to burn us to dust.

She melted against me, her arms wrapping around my neck as she pressed her body to mine and the world fell away from us.

We may have been in the darkest pits of the underworld but none of it mattered. Only the scent of her skin, and the touch of her lips, the caress of her body and the utter beauty of the fact that she was here mattered to me now.

I’d wanted to burn when I knew she was lost but now I was burning with her as we were reunited. And if the fire of our love was enough to consume us then so be it. This moment was all I had begged for and all that I needed. If the flames took me now then I would leave this place happy for one final moment. But selfishly I wanted more. And as I gripped her tightly, feeling every inch of her here in this moment with me, I swore to myself that this wasn’t it.

The gods had never wanted us to be together and we’d shown them what we thought of their plans.

So if they’d decided that our time was up then I refused to accept it. Everything with them was a negotiation and I refused to take no for an answer.