Chapter Thirty-Five
Aric
I cough and shove a pile of ice away from my face. My eyes burn as I stare straight ahead. Rey’s in my arms, unconscious. The cave collapsed around us, but in front of me is pure light. I reach out to touch it, but a wave of nausea hits me and I feel my eyes roll to the back of my head.
“You’re not worthy!” the man standing in front of me shouts. “You’ll destroy the world and bring about Ragnarok! It was never yours!”
I’m holding a hammer straight above my head as lightning streaks through the sky and splits into the hammer—and into me.
“Do you really think you deserve to live?” I growl as a second man appears. “After everyone you’ve killed? Either of you?”
“We are Gods!” The sound rains down on my ears like thunder, like truth, but I reject it, I reject them as Mjolnir groans in my icy hands.
“You are weak!” I roar, sending the lightning directly at the Gods.
“You’ll end us all!” The man with a broken hammer etched into his golden armor and a helmet sliced half off his head takes a step closer. His eyes are blazing white as he points at me and collapses to the ground, silver blood spewing from his mouth.
I turn to a woman standing next to me, bloodied, bruised—it’s Rey.
What the hell is she doing here?
She reaches for me only to pitch forward, eyes open wide, like she’s just been hit by something. It’s too dark to see. Dammit, why can’t I see?
A knife sticks out of her stomach. “Aric!”
“With the perfect sacrifice,” a rough voice whispers, “Ragnarok…has already begun.”
My body buzzes with an electrified rush, and I can feel the power gathering in the hammer. The sky lights up with another flash of lightning, and suddenly I can see we’re on a battlefield. It’s bloody, everyone is fighting—we’re losing the war even with the hammer on our side.
We can’t lose.
We can’t.
We need it, the hammer needs it.
Frost. It needs frost.
What?
It’s a hushed whisper, but from where? The wind? The hammer?
“Do it now!” someone shouts.
Do what?
What am I supposed to be doing?
“No!” the man with the hammer on his armor shouts. “Don’t do it, you fucking abomination!”
I stare him down while another voice whispers behind me. “You know exactly who you are.”
I let out a roar and jolt awake.
I’m alive. I’m in the cave.
And my entire back burns as if the fires of hell are licking at it. My skin has a pulse, my blood rushes, and even though I see Rey next to me, all I hear in my head for a few brief seconds is…
“Frost.”