Fragments of your Soul (The Mirror Worlds Book 1) (55 page)

“Loke wants to kill Odin while he sleeps,” Arvid said firmly. “He’s probably already on his way to him.”

Frigg froze. “What?” she asked in disbelief. “But why? Loke is…”

“I can’t explain now,” Arvid interrupted. “Loke is not in his right mind. Please, Frigg! Where is Odin?”

The pregnant woman only hesitated for a moment, then a look of determination came to her eyes. “Follow me,” she said, turned around and started running. Arvid followed her through the hall, down a long hallway, through a large, ornate dining room and another hallway. After a short time Frigg started panting heavily, but she tediously dragged herself further.

They crossed a large yard full of flowers and ran up to another building and through a door. Suddenly Frigg stopped so abruptly that Arvid nearly collided with her.

In the middle of the floor lay two dead men in a slowly spreading puddle of blood. Both wore dark clothing, light armor and swords, which were still in their sheaths. Frigg was staring down at them in horror, but Arvid grabbed her roughly by the arm. “Keep going!” she said sharply. Frigg obeyed.

As they were half through the corridor, the sound of distant, high-pitched screams broke the silence. “We’re too late,” Frigg came out, quietly sobbing, but Arvid implacably dragged her on. They climbed a wide staircase, and Frigg forced herself down another corridor, apparently mobilizing her last strength.

When they finally reached a magnificently lit, rectangular space at the bottom of another staircase, Frigg sank groaning against a pillar. At the last moment Arvid could grab her under her shoulders, as she suddenly started to tip to one side.

Another scream rang out, but Frigg seemed to be at the end. She staggered. “Please!” she gasped desperately, clutching tightly to Arvid’s arm. “You… you have to stop him. Odin is… up there.”

“I will save Odin,” vowed Arvid and squeezed Frigg’s hand. “Just promise me nothing will happen to Loke.”

Frigg nodded weakly, but it had to be enough. Arvid ran up the stairs as fast as her legs could carry her. She reached another landing, but instinctively knew that she had to reach the very top. She stormed up another flight of stairs, then another, then reached a short, wide corridor with a big, two-winged door. It was open. Arvid didn’t have to hear the moans and whimpers to know that this was her goal.

As she took the very last steps, she could hear Loke’s voice. It sounded so cold it drove a shiver down her spine.

“Out of the way, worm. Or you’re going to share the fate of these men.”

The sight that met Arvid when she stepped into the room was probably the most horrible she had ever seen. The wall opposite the door was covered in blood. Directly below lay two human bodies that had literally been torn apart. Scattered across the room were about another dozen men. Some lay in large pools of blood, most of them dead, some still moaning, whimpering and helplessly writhing on the ground.

In the middle of the room stood a huge bed, in front of which the seemingly last remaining mercenary had set up, armed only with a dagger. His face reflected a mixture of terror and desperate determination. Across from him, half turned away from Arvid, stood Loke. His posture was almost relaxed, and he was holding a dagger, too.

“Loke!” exclaimed Arvid, horrified, but the moment the sound left her lips, she knew that her sudden intervention was a fatal mistake. She could see Loke flinch. Although he didn’t turn around to her and almost immediately regained his composure, he was distracted for a moment.

One glance at the mercenary was enough. Even before the man could strain to attack, Arvid tore away from the current of time and rushed toward him.

She pushed the mercenary aside with all her strength, but he was a true man-mountain. He stumbled hard, but didn’t fall. In a desperate, wild sweeping motion he tore his dagger through the air and hit Arvid’s upper arm.

She felt a sharp, blazing pain, screamed and lurched to the side, but at the same time the violent burn in her arm let the darkness inside her boil up in one fell swoop. With another, this time wrathful, cry she pulled her own dagger and faced the heavily panting mercenary. He looked at her and hesitated. Arvid saw nothing but fear and confusion in his eyes. Perhaps she should have felt pity, but there was only darkness.

“I’m not on your side!” she managed to say, gasping. “So flee while you still can.”

Loke cut his throat, so quietly and quickly that not even Arvid had seen it coming. The man lifelessly fell down in front of her. Scared, Arvid took a step back, then another, until her legs pushed hard against the bed. She stared at Loke, who switched the dagger from his left to his right hand and then turned around to her.

“I had actually toyed with the idea of sparing his life,” he said in an icy voice, “but as always it was a mere waste of time.” He raised his hands and made a gesture that probably referred to the entire room. “Well, I hope you’re satisfied. You wanted to know all my secrets, didn’t you?”

Arvid swallowed. Loke exuded something she had only got to see fleetingly and superficially so far. It was dark and chaotic, but she couldn’t tell exactly what it was. It was not just hatred or anger, it was something ever-changing, something that was bubbling and boiling, volatile in a strange way, yet still raging and absolutely destructive.

“I suppose you’ve come to say goodbye,” Loke continued without any emotion. “I appreciate your effort. Now get out of my way!”

Arvid looked at him, petrified and unable to move from the spot. Although he had his well-known, Asgardian shape, Arvid knew with terrible certainty that what she was seeing right now was part of what people were so afraid of. They called it his dark side, but Arvid knew that was wrong. Loke’s soul was not split in two; it was split into hundreds of parts. Which ones made themselves noticeable, was subject to a change so rapid and unpredictable, it was deeply frightening to most. Arvid, too, was confused, but she knew she didn’t have to fear the chaos.

“I won’t,” she said firmly. “What you’re planning to do is a mistake.”

“Stop tampering with my affairs!” he thundered. “I’ve waited centuries for this day. I won’t let anyone stand in my way!” He came closer threateningly, still holding the sullied dagger. His hands and sleeves were covered in blood, but Arvid kept looking at him firmly.

“Odin’s death might trigger a catastrophe,” she said forcefully. “The consequences would be unforeseeable. We will find another way.”

“We?” Loke asked scornfully. “This doesn’t concern you at all.”

“Yes, it does!” said Arvid. “The consequences of your heedless actions would affect all of us.” She took a deep breath, but her wildly racing heart couldn’t be calmed. “I’m your wife, Loke,” she said imploringly. “I want to help you, but this is wrong!”

Loke made a contemptuous noise. “My wife,” he blurted out roughly, but in the seething darkness in his eyes now mingled pain. “You have no idea who I am. I don’t even know what you ever wanted from me.”

His words hurt Arvid. “I only ever wanted one thing, Loke,” she said in a trembling voice, “to be with you and to be happy.”

“What nonsense! Step aside already!”

“No!” Arvid exclaimed. “If you want me to go, you’ll have to use force.” She grabbed her dagger more tightly, but inside her there was a wild mass of emotions. What if Loke simply did it? Loke knew he couldn’t kill her without dying himself, and he also knew that she was just as fast as him. Nevertheless, he stood head and shoulders above her. It would be easy for him to badly injure and incapacitate her, but Arvid was determined to make it as hard for him as possible.

Loke raised his hand to rub a drop of blood off his temple, but only smeared it further down his cheek. His hesitation sparked a small glimmer of hope in Arvid.

“Please, Loke,” she said pleadingly. “You must not kill Odin. This is not worth it… Even if you can’t forgive him… His death will neither heal your wounds, nor bring back your son. What about your plan to reclaim the lost land in the south of Isvirndjellen? Has that suddenly become meaningless?”

He didn’t respond. It wasn’t just that he didn’t show any emotion, his eyes were so empty it was as if his soul had ceased, as if Loke himself was no longer present.

Then Arvid realized with horror that this was exactly the case. What she looked at was nothing but an illusion that at this moment began to dissolve, like mist in the morning sun.

“This plan has only been a backup plan ever since.”

Arvid jerked around so violently that she painfully hit the bed and gasped. Loke sat at the head, next to Odin, whom Arvid could see properly for the first time now. She had expected an old man with snow-white beard, but the man sleeping in this bed looked hardly older than a fifty-year-old in the Light World.

“Loke, no!” Arvid shouted desperately. “You must not kill him! You don’t know what will happen.”

“Yes, I do.” Loke turned the dagger in his hands almost gently, looking at Odin impassively. “The world transitions also lead to the world of demons. If the boundaries between the worlds break, this country will be overrun by them.”

Arvid stared at him in horror. “You can’t possibly want that!”

“It’s inevitable,” Loke said flatly. “The strong will survive. The gods, the giants and all who learn to defend or entrench themselves.”

“And you want to live in such a world?” Arvid asked in a trembling voice. “A world in which you can no longer live, but only survive? You want to avenge your son, but what about your other children? You want to satisfy your hatred, but what about all the others out there?”

“The strong will survive…” Loke said again, but his voice was changed. It was not as cold and hard as before. Arvid saw that his hands were shaking as he continued staring at Odin. “Does the rest still matter?” he continued quietly. “All I ever wanted was a little happiness after Odin had taken away everything. His death… is the only bit of happiness he shall return to me.”

“No, Loke, no! What Odin destroyed back then is lost. Can’t you see that you can find new happiness? It’s not in the past; it is not buried under three centuries… Your happiness is right in front of you, you just have to look the other way.”

Loke weakly shook his head. “There’s nothing,” he whispered and clenched the dagger tighter. “Odin has wiped out everything, down to the last seed…”

With a helpless sob Arvid sank against the edge of the bed. Loke wouldn’t listen to her. The cut on her arm burned unbearably, and warm blood was soaking her sleeve. “That’s why you want to wipe out the happiness of everyone else?” she blurted. “Maybe you don’t care about humans… but what about your brothers, your parents? What about your people? What… what about me, Loke?”

A tortured look came in Loke’s eyes. “You came to me just to leave me again,” he said. His voice was trembling now. “You have awoken all these feelings in me, just to leave me behind with them and rip my heart apart even more. You made me believe I would mean something to you. I allowed it, this weakness… I allowed it… because I had begun to forget what it was like… this pain… this unbearable pain…” He shook his head as if the sheer memory would cause him anguish. “I should never have forgotten… I should never have allowed… your happiness to mean so much to me.” Loke stared at the violently trembling dagger he convulsively clasped, then he whispered, “But it’s too late. You have… all of me. It’s too late…”

He raised his hand with the dagger and looked down at Odin. Suddenly his face showed an expression of such rage and such abysmal hatred that Arvid was gripped by ice-cold horror. “No!” she desperately cried and jumped up, but her reaction came too late.

Loke let out an angry roar and rammed the dagger into the wood above Odin’s head so violently, the blade burst with a loud bang, throwing the handle rattling across the stone floor.

“I hate you, you worthless piece of shit!” he yelled. “You’re nothing but the scum of this world, an accursed tyrant, a traitor, a monster! Death is still too good for you, do you hear me?” Loke’s voice suddenly cracked and turned into a loud sob. Trembling, he slumped down on the edge of the bed, where he buried his face in his bloodstained hands. “I will have my revenge,” he blurted out, whimpering. “I’ll find something that… is worse than death. I swear. Someday… you’ll wish I had killed you.”

Arvid felt unable to move. There was no relief. She looked at Loke and was filled with a dull, numbing pain, so severe and cruel that her legs began to tremble. Loke just sat there, his head firmly buried in his hands, with shaking shoulders and softly weeping.

“Just go already!” he sobbed. “You won, isn’t that enough? Do you have to stand there, gloating over my weakness?”

“Where should I go?” Arvid asked softly.

“Leave Asgard, while you still can. Go find your happiness… I can’t help you anymore.”

The pain his words caused her was unbearable. It took all her strength to swallow the bitter lump in her throat and bring forth the next words. “Loke… my happiness… is you.”

At first Loke didn’t respond, but after a moment he slowly raised his head and looked at her. His dark hair was a mess, his face smeared with blood and tears. His eyes were reddened from crying, filled with nothing but pain and suffering.

“I’m no one’s happiness, Arvid,” he whispered bitterly, “and I will never be. Look around you.” He raised a hand and pointed across the room. “Look around you!” he shouted desperately.

Arvid did. She had barely paid attention to their surroundings anymore, but the picture was still as terrible as before. None of the men on the floor were still alive. The few who had still been moving when she arrived now lay motionless in their own blood. Blood was also on the white walls, the floor, the pillars. Around them was nothing but death, the gruesome traces of merciless destruction of life. Arvid had to force herself to look at the dead and to bear the sight of cut throats, gaping wounds and torn limbs. As the rising feeling of nausea became too strong, she looked back at Loke.

“I… have seen it,” she said. “What you did was wrong, Loke. It’s… it’s terrible. You will have to face the consequences yourself, but I still won’t go.”

“Don’t you see that you destroy me? I can’t bear to see how you are looking for ways to leave me! I don’t know how to bear it, so please go! Please… please, just go.”

“Loke, I… I don’t want to leave you,” Arvid said helplessly and wiped the tears off her cheeks with a trembling hand. “You fool, didn’t you understand anything? My plan to return to my world has become irrelevant!”

“I don’t believe you!” sobbed Loke and hid his face in his hands again.

“After all that has happened, do you really think I would just go and leave you behind?” Arvid said. “I love you, Loke. As long as you want me… I’ll be with you.”

“I don’t believe you,” Loke whimpered and writhed as if in pain. “I can’t be… loved.”

“She’s telling the truth, Loke,” suddenly came a woman’s voice.

Arvid winced. When she turned around, she saw Frigg, who clung to the door frame with one hand, holding her belly with the other. It was obvious that she was shocked, too, but she seemed to admirably keep her feelings under control.

“You know that I have the gift to see through any lie,” she said in a firm voice. “Every word your wife said was honest and sincere.” She came closer with labored steps and finally stopped next to Arvid.

“Loke, I… I’m bearing a child,” Arvid said hesitantly, “your child. And I’m happy. I want this child… and you.”

At first Loke didn’t respond, but then he raised his head and looked at Arvid. In all the pain in his eyes suddenly mingled disbelief and something that Arvid couldn’t quite place, but gave her a glimmer of hope. Loke looked at Frigg, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

For a moment there was absolute silence between them. Then Loke slowly rose from the bed. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but remained silent. He stared at Arvid and obviously didn’t know what to say or do.

Arvid suddenly felt Frigg’s hand on her arm. She knew what she wanted to tell her. Reluctantly Arvid went around the corner of the bed. She stepped over the dead body of one of the mercenaries and slowly walked up to Loke. He just stood there and looked at her. In his eyes Arvid read a wild mass of emotions. She recognized sorrow, confusion and doubt, but somewhere hidden among them shone a touch of warmth, of affection and hope.