Chapter 32 #2
With Myrah’s face fixed in my mind, I fought against the pressure of the celebration, pushing onward and onward and onward for what felt like an impossible stretch of time.
Myrah may have become an elderly woman, shriveled and near death by the time I reached Odin.
She may have already passed on and gone to Folkvangr to exist alongside Freya.
And yet, she may have found a way to leave Folkvangr.
Myrah had always been determined. No matter where she was now, or the moment I was reborn in Midgard, I’d grow up and scour Vylheim for her, even the memory of her.
Maybe I, too, would age and die before I found her, or before I found a way to Folkvangr, but then I would simply do it again.
Again.
And again.
For my wife.
Days passed on, years, maybe hundreds of thousands of years or hours or countless beats of my spirit-heart, but I did not reach the end of the table. I could not even glimpse Odin.
Delectable smells beckoned me to reach for the plate of roast boar. Thirst for ale parched me, like a fruit sucked dry and withering. But I did not stop. I never stopped.
Odin had what I wanted, and I would find a way. I’d promised her, which meant I’d burn this whole fucking place down if I had to.
My gaze shot to a flickering candle perched between two roasted boar’s heads. Valhalla would turn to ashes. Everyone here sacrificed if I could just. Get. To. Her.
“I’ll follow you,” I said, seeing Myrah’s face painted with runes behind my eyes. “Into hundreds of lifetimes, no matter how long it takes and no matter what it takes, I will find you.”
Though I never made it to Odin, never even laying a single eye on him, the endless stretch of time brought new awareness. Forging a path through countless warriors cleared my inner sight. Wisdom dawned from the journey itself.
I didn’t need Odin.
Without stopping, I examined the faces of the men and women. I observed their source of joy: a fight won, a feast earned, a battle well-fought. Valhalla was glory, and glory was Valhalla.
To leave this place was to be humbled. Leaving was loss. I had to lose a battle, to let my opponent’s blade strike me as it had during the battle that brought me here.
I didn’t stop moving, but instead of forging forward, I turned and raised my sword. Slamming the hilt against the shoulder of a man, I challenged him to a duel.
The man spun around, wielding a massive axe, one that seemed impossible for any human to have lifted, but he was large, muscular, and the perfect person to best me. A cleft left his upper lip open, split from the lip to the base of his nose.
“Father,” I said. Looking at his short facial hair, chiseled jaw, and hard eyes, my awareness expanded, transcending the present and past into the future.
“Rune,” my father finally responded. “Rune, my boy.” A sense of coming home swelled within me. My father, this was my father. The man who named me. The man who once loved my mother, and the only other person in my family.
“It is a pleasure to be in the presence of my only son,” he said, grin widening, reflecting a smile I would see in the mirror once I returned to Midgard. I looked so much like him.
This was the future, my destiny, and I’d found a way back to her. My family would help me; I had no doubt.
“You loved my mother?” I asked, though I didn’t know why.
“I love Ingrid.”
At the sound of her name, my mind froze.
“But you do not return to Mother.” My brow furrowed, suddenly knowing that going back to Midgard was possible. Or maybe I just wanted it to be. I needed it to be so that I could get back to Myrah, as I’d promised.
“I clawed my way out of Hel twice already for rebirth in Midgard, and your mother did the same, but leaving Valhalla is impossible.” Hearing my father say this made rebirth feel so much closer, so much more possible. Energy pulsed through my veins, anticipating the opportunity.
“No, I know the way.”
“You would leave me, my son?”
“For my wife.” I didn’t need to say more. He nodded, seeming to understand. Whether the conviction inspired this understanding in my voice or something else, I wasn’t sure. My father just knew.
And maybe it was me he knew.
“Rune.” His palm landed on my shoulder. After a moment of shared gaze, his fingers sank deeper, and he pulled me into him.
His embrace broke something in me. Something long buried.
No, it wasn’t his embrace but his recognition.
When we parted and he leaned back, eyes searching me, I was seen.
I wasn’t just Rune; I was a man slaughtered and flayed open on an altar before my wife.
I was a farmer turned warrior. A simple man who wanted a quiet life.
“Fight me to my end,” I said.
“This is what you want,” he said, without question. He knew me well enough, though how he knew, I could not fathom. Like my wife, he simply understood me. He saw the man under the body. A familiar sting pricked my eyes, and tears welled up .
I raised my sword and planted my feet, ready to strike at my father, and he mirrored my stance. The duel began, and I poured everything into each move, the primal drive to win surging through my veins.
With every beat of this spirit-heart, I longed for victory—but I craved my wife.
And finally, I let go of glory and all that came with winning, with control, with security, and allowed my father’s axe to land a final blow against my skull.
Conscious, though unable to lift my eyelids, I heard my wife’s voice. Lux’s cool skin pressed to my forehead, and in that instant, I knew—I would die for her again. I’d let my father gut me and rip my soul out of Valhalla.
Erik had done it for Ingrid and she had done it for him. My parents had paved the way for reincarnation, and I would follow in their footsteps, except this time I would go armed with the knowledge of how to leave Valhalla.
I’d return to Midgard and to Vylheim. To Myrah, or Lux, as many times as it took.