Chapter - 19. Loki - you'll die a coward's death.
FLASHBACK CONTINUES -
Deep in the mountains he vented everything into the rocky mountains. Each strike of the mace louder than the last, each blow carrying more anger than the one before. The mountain and empty vallies, echoed with it. Cracks spread through stone like the rock itself was trying to get away.
The sky above matched his mood exactly, dark and heavy, clouds pressing thick against each other, lightning cracking down the slopes from time to time and sending dust and debris sideways. He kept going, breathing harder, his swings losing their rhythm but none of their force. He was completely lost in it. But even rage has a floor. His arms slowed. His grip weakened. He had to stop for a breath.
He stood there with his chest heaving, sweat and dirt mixing on his face, his weight leaning into the mace. Then he punched the rock beside him. The crack was sharp and stone chips cut his knuckles. He didn't look at them. He just breathed, trying to find the bottom of whatever this was. Then his body jerked and he bent forward and vomited onto the ground. It came up harsh and painful and this time there was something darker in it. A thin line of blood. He froze and looked at it.
"What."
He stared at it for a second. Then his face changed.
"WHY?!"
His voice broke open across the mountains. He grabbed the mace and lifted it and pointed it straight at the sky like he was calling something down.
"WHY?!" Thunder answered immediately, loud enough to feel physical.
"WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? What have I done?!"
The question came out raw. His grip loosened slightly and the mace lowered and the exhaustion finally got through the anger and settled into his bones. He dropped himself onto a rock and hung his head.
Then a voice came. Not from around him. From above.
"Dhira."
He went completely still. Slowly he lifted his head. The clouds were moving differently now, gathering, shaping themselves into something enormous. A figure made entirely of thunderclouds stood in the sky above the mountain, lightning running through it like veins. His eyes widened slightly. "Zeus." The name came out quiet and automatic. Then louder. "ZEUS." He stood.
"Answer me. What has happened to me? Tell me who did this."
The sky said nothing. The figure dissolved slowly back into ordinary clouds. Dark and restless but shapeless again. "Zeus." He called it again. Nothing. "ZEUS." His voice was rough now, straining. Only the wind answered.
He stood there a moment longer, shoulders rising and falling, then his head dropped slightly as exhaustion pushed through the last of the anger. That was when he heard footsteps. Slow. Unhurried. Crunching over broken stone without any particular concern for what that might mean.
He looked up.
She was already there.
Walking through the rubble like it was a pleasant path, one hand holding a golden glass of wine, the other twirling a long strand of her hair around her finger with idle elegance. No tension anywhere in her. Loki. Thor's aunt. Her orange eyes found him and something that looked almost like pity moved briefly across her face.
"Dhira…" Her voice was smooth, the Swedish curl stretching certain words gently at the edges.
"Ah… look at you, ja…" She stepped closer and reached out and pulled him to his feet like he weighed nothing, then brushed imaginary dust from his shoulder with slow deliberate fingers. "Vat have they done to my friend…" She pressed the golden glass into his hand.
He didn't think. He drank it in one motion. The liquid burned just enough to confirm it was real.
"What has happened to me?" His voice was lower now, fingers tightening around the empty glass.
Loki tilted her head, those flame-colored eyes steady and unhurried.
"Nothing," she said, almost casually. "Just an effect of aged poison. Specially made for strong people like you." Dhira froze at her words.
She took the glass back from his stiff hands gently and began pacing a slow circle around him, voice staying light.
"My job is to dabble in fire and curses. But sometimes I make things like this. Subtle things. Things that are easier to use once triggered, like this poison." She tapped the rim of the glass with one finger.
"I can trigger them anytime I vant. The difficult part is always the same. How to make the victim swallow it without knowing." A small breath left her lips, almost amused.
"But in your case." She smiled faintly. "It vas very easy. Don't you think so?" She held up the golden glass.
Dhira didn't answer, he swung.
The air cracked sound waves rippled. His fist hit the ground and stone shattered beneath the impact. Loki was already gone. He didn't pause. His head swept around, the mace flew into his hand, and the sky darkened.
Her voice came from everywhere. "Dhira… Dhira… Dhira…" It echoed through the valley, layering over itself.
"A mortal who thinks so highly of himself. The man who denies the God King Zeus. The greatest human varrior, ja? Do you really think you are vorthy of that?"
"Come out and we'll find out," Dhira snapped, locking onto a flicker of movement. He threw the mace. It tore through the air and destroyed the rock it hit. "Missed," her voice hummed. "I vas not even there." The mace snapped back to his hand. He spun and threw again. "Missed again."
"Stop hiding like a coward," he roared.
"Come out if you have any courage left."
A soft laugh. Right at his ear. "Like this." Her breath was close enough to feel. He swung immediately. Empty air. Her laughter moved away, light and sharp.
"You couldn't even hit a small mage like me. How did you ever become ze greatest varrior, hmm?"
He brought the mace down with everything he had. The ground exploded. Stone cracked, the mountain shook, fractures shot outward in every direction. Dust surged up around him. Blood taste hit the back of his throat. Loki's voice drifted through the dust cloud. "Such raw power. Such anger. Truth hurts, ja?"
"LOKI. Stop playing. Come out."
"Here."
She was standing a few feet away. Still. Present. Watching him. "Vhat are you going to do, mortal?"
He threw the mace directly at her. She didn't move. Didn't blink. The weapon slowed in the air, stopped, and dropped to the ground with a heavy thud. Dhira's eyes widened. He reached for it mentally calling it back . Nothing. He rushed forward and grabbed the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. He pulled harder, muscles straining, veins darkening under his skin, teeth pressed together, the ground beneath him cracking from the force he was generating. The mace didn't move at all.
"Vhat happened," Loki said, tilting her head with a faint smirk. "Your tricks don't work anymore?"
He pulled harder until his hands were trembling. Then everything stopped at once. His body locked. His breath caught. He went down on one knee, teeth clenched, refusing to make a sound.
Loki's voice shifted. Colder. Sharper. "You forget your place, mortal." The world twisted around him, broke apart, and rebuilt itself into something else. "Do you truly believe you are vorthy of that weapon? Do you truly believe you are a true varrior?"
The mountain was gone. In its place came himself. Dhira staggered as scenes unfolded around him without warning or pause. Himself standing over fallen enemies wearing that same easy grin. Faces looking up at him, pleading, angry, disappointed, faces he had walked past without slowing. Voices calling after him. Promises made without intention of keeping. None of it looked like the path of a warrior. None of it felt earned. Pain pressed deeper behind his eyes like something structural was cracking.
"Stop." His fingers dug into his hair.
"You really think you were ever a true warrior?"
The voice came again, smooth and soft and accented. The world shifted again. A burning lake spread before him, flames rolling slow and purple at their edges, corrupted and wrong. Loki stood over it like solid ground. She stepped forward and reached him and grabbed his face with one hand, firm enough to control, not enough to hurt. She tilted his head up.
"Did you really ever think you were worthy of that mace? It wasn't yours. It vas never yours." Her Swedish lilt made each word land almost pleasantly. "It vas Zeus. He gave it to you. Not as a gift. As a leash. He made you dependent on it. Every victory, every cheer, every little praise you received, it vas all tied to that." Her voice dropped.
"To remind you that you were never special."
Dhira swung. She was gone before his hand arrived. He lurched forward and his body hit the ground hard. Her foot pressed down on his back and pinned him.
"How dare you, mortal. Defy the God King. What gave you that audacity?" He pushed himself up and his arms shook. The ground beneath him seemed to sink
. "Is it because you are powerful? Or because people liked you?" A soft cruel laugh .
"Where is that now? You are here. Alone. Dying from a mild cold." She crouched slightly.
"Isn't it funny. A mighty warrior brought down by a mild cold." She let the words settle.
"Isn't that what you said to that young woman? Guess he wasn't strong enough to survive a mild cold." Her voice didn't hurry.
"That's what you said in your pride. How ironic. Your fate and his. Both extraordinary warriors. Only difference, you were called a hero and he was just a no name soldier." She tilted her head.
"That is poetic, no?"
Dhira's fists tightened against the ground.
" She wanted you to suffer, so I made you suffer. You vill suffer as much as her husband did," she continued quietly.
"Every pain. Every breath. You vill be scorned. Ostracized. Despised. The more you use your power the faster it spreads." She looked toward the sky.
"And one day when you are too tired, too weak to lift a finger, you vill die." A pause.
"Alone."
" You'll die a coward's death."
The world cracked like glass. The flames shattered. The illusion broke apart and he was back on the mountain. Cold air. The storm was gone. No lightning. No fire. Nothing, just his mace and broken mountain.
Dhira gasped on his knees, sweat dripping, breathing broken. His eyes found the mace lying in front of him. He scrambled toward it and grabbed it and pulled. Nothing. He adjusted and pulled harder. Nothing. His muscles strained, veins rising, the ground cracking beneath him from the force. The mace didn't move. He roared and pulled again. And again. Nothing changed. The weapon that had always come when he called lay there silent and heavy and completely indifferent to him.
His hands trembled on the handle. His breathing slowed. His head lowered. For a long moment he said nothing.
His grip tightened again. Not to lift it. Just to hold onto something.
And somewhere inside him, for the first time, the doubt settled in and did not leave.
Days passed. Then weeks. Dhira stayed near the fallen mace like a man waiting for something he already knew wasn't coming back. Every morning he woke up stiff, bones aching, breath uneven, and reached for it. "Come," he muttered once, fingers trembling around the handle. Nothing. He tightened his grip. "Don't play with me." He pulled. The mace didn't move. Not even slightly. It sat there quiet and heavy and entirely uninterested.
He let go slowly and stared at his own hand. "You moved for me before. You came when I called." The wind moved dust across his feet. He tried again. And again. Each time slower, each time weaker, until one day he simply didn't try. He sat with his back against a cold stone, looked at the mace like it belonged to a different man and said after a long time, "Fine. Stay there." He stood on unsteady legs and walked away without looking back.
The years that followed didn't pass cleanly. They dragged. Dhira wandered through villages, forests, broken paths and borderlands, moving like a shadow people chose not to look at directly. His body changed slowly then all at once. The strength that had always felt endless now came in short bursts and every time he used it something was taken from him in return.
A fight at a roadside camp. Three bandits. He ended it quickly, one strike for each, and stood there after breathing too hard for what it had been. He pressed a hand to his chest. His heartbeat felt wrong. A villager stepped forward hesitantly. "You helped us." Dhira looked up expecting something. Respect. Gratitude. The man covered his nose. "What's that smell?" A woman pulled her child back. "Don't go near him." Dhira froze. The wind shifted and he caught it too. Faint but unmistakably coming from him. He stepped back. "It's nothing. Just blood."
Nobody moved closer. Nobody said thank you. They watched him carefully, the way people watch something they aren't sure about. He laughed once, dry and short.
"Right. Fine." He turned and walked before anyone else could speak.
It kept happening. Every fight. Every use of strength. Something left him each time. His arms felt less steady. His legs recovered more slowly. Cuts healed at half the pace. Bruises stayed. And the smell got worse. People stopped approaching him, even the ones he had just pulled out of trouble. Conversations stopped when he entered a road. Doors closed a little faster. Children were moved away. "Stay away from him."
"I heard he's sick."
"No. Cursed."
Same thing, he heard all of it and stopped reacting. He stopped helping unless he absolutely had to. Then he stopped stepping in at all.
One night near a broken shrine on an empty road he sat down heavily against a cracked pillar. His hands were shaking. Not from the cold. Not from fear. Just the weaknesses. He looked at them for a long time. He tried to make a fist. It didn't close the way it used to. He let it drop. A group of travelers passed at a distance, slowed, whispered. One of them said without lowering his voice, "Don't go near. Look at him." Another answered, "He smells like death." Dhira closed his eyes and didn't move and didn't speak. They left. He got a name somewhere along those roads. A dead man walking.
He leaned his head back against the stone and looked up at a sky without stars. For the first time in a very long time he didn't feel like standing. Didn't feel like walking. Didn't feel like fighting. He just sat there breathing and listening to nothing.
And in that quiet something inside him shifted.
He had lost. For the first time in his life. Not to anyone. Not loudly. Not in a way anyone would write down. Just enough. Just quietly enough that he felt it move through him and settle. The kind of change you don't notice when it happens. But you feel it after. And it doesn't leave.
Flashback ends.