Marty and his mom sat in silence, the weight of their surroundings pressing down on them. The medieval hall thrummed with the memory of slain heroes. The thatched roof stretched high above, and shields lined the walls—each one bearing the mark of a long-dead warrior. Marty had been here before - in dreams. But it was older now, worn, tired. The shields adorning the walls hadn’t been there before.

  One shield caught Marty’s eye. He had seen it fall from the ancient warrior’s hands the previous night. Now it hung in a place of honor, Thor’s hammer boldly etched in the center along with the runes ??. Firelight flickered, casting long, stretching shadows.

  Marty couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t belong. His mother had gone willingly with Roskva. She seemed to know her, trust her—which felt… fitting. He had to trust that. But reality had shattered; his world, his home, his life—gone. Destroyed by a giant… no, a Jotun. Questions rolled through his mind, too fast to answer, too bizarre to fathom.

  Ingrid sat beside him, face in her hands, shoulders shaking as she sobbed. It was more than the battle at their home, the loss of their house. The memory of this place was affecting her. Marty didn’t know how to comfort her—he didn’t know how to comfort himself.

  The crackling fire was the only sound, but it did little to ease Marty’s fears. Finally, a door at the far end of the hall creaked open. A man stepped through, his stride slow but deliberate.

  “Skal vi ta det p? norsk, eller…?” he asked, voice low and commanding.

  “Engelsk hadde v?rt best for Ole-Martin,” Ingrid replied quietly, her voice frayed by exhaustion.

  “Then English it is,” the man said, offering a smile that didn’t reach his eye. He was the one from the strange horse—the one who had saved them. His beard was long, his face weathered, but it was the single eye that held Marty’s gaze.

  No throne. No ceremony. Just presence—enough to make the room feel smaller.

  “Ingrid, accept my condolences at the loss of your home. Meeting here - again - today… it seems you and I are united when you experience loss.” He turned to Marty, “I imagine you have questions,” he said, settling into a chair across from them. “Ask them.”

  Marty looked at his mother. Ingrid was ashen. The memory of this place clearly haunting her. Unable to speak.

  “Okay…” Marty began slowly. “Who are you? And where are we?”

  The man scratched thoughtfully at his beard. “Let’s not waste time, then. I am Odin,” he said, letting the name sit in the air a moment. “Or rather—one of many who have carried that name.”

  Marty blinked. “Odin? Like… from mythology?”

  “From memory,” Odin said. “And legacy.”

  Ingrid stirred. “This is true,” she said. “I have met him before—when your father...” Her voice caught, and she didn’t finish.

  Odin nodded solemnly. “Yes, we all remember that night.”

  Marty frowned. “So… if you’re Odin, and that guy I met last night was Thor… how old are you?”

  “I am well beyond the age of three hundred,” Odin replied. “I stopped counting some time ago.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Marty said. “Shouldn’t you be, like, ancient? Thor and Odin are thousands of years old, right?”

  “That’s not quite how it works. I will attempt to explain,” Odin stood and began pacing around the room. “We, or better, those whose mantles we carry were not from the North. The North was a refuge to us. Odin, Thor, the others—came from what you’d now call Jerusalem.”

  “Jerusalem?” Marty echoed, unsure he’d heard right.

  “Yes,” He stopped in front of a shield that was clearly the oldest. He reached up and drew his finger around the iron ring that held it together. Same Thor’s hammer mark - different rune beneath it - ?. “We were part of a people driven from their land—scattered. Survivors. They traveled north. Seeking refuge.”

  Marty looked to Ingrid, who gave a subtle nod.

  Odin continued, “They crossed empires, the Black Sea, the forests of the Rus. And when they reached the north, they thought they had found peace. Who would covet a land of snow and ice? But in time, they discovered the land was not empty.”

  He paused, turned and walked back toward the fire.

  “There were beings there—trolls that looked and moved like stone. J?tnar who stepped over valleys. The Ljósálfar, pale as mist. And the M?rkálfar…”

  His voice trailed off for a He took a seat again, facing Marty and Ingrid.

  “The M?rkálfar took an interest in us. They lived in rivers, forests, mountaintops. They knew of powers, older than men.”

  “And they helped you?” Marty asked.

  “We approached as beggars, not conquerors. They saw something in us—grief, maybe, desperation—and they gave us fragments of knowledge. How names… hold weight.”

  Marty glanced down. “Is that what I’ve seen? The snow and the giant?”

  “In a way, yes,” Odin said. “In the forgotten past the M?rkálfar took us in and taught us to listen and to harness nature. That’s what they gave us.”

  “Why?” Marty asked.

  Odin shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve asked many times, but the M?rkálfar don’t answer questions directly.”

  “They gave us tools,” Odin continued. “Among the tools was a rite. A ceremony that allows us to pass knowledge, memory, even the souls of those who have borne the mantle, from one vessel to another.”

  “Is that what happened last night? At the pond?”

  Odin nodded. “Indeed, you have been anointed as Thor the Thirty-Sixth.”

  Marty’s breath caught. He looked again at Odin—really looked. Unsure what he was looking for.

  “I understand,” Odin added, “these transitions can be unsettling. But we’ve gone through this before and we will guide you.”

  “Guide me,” Marty shook his head, “on how to be Thor?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re the current Odin?” Marty asked, voice hushed.

  Odin inclined his head. “I am.”

  “How many before you?”

  “Seventeen have borne the burden before me,” he said, with a solemn kind of pride.

  Marty swallowed hard. “And Thor? The guy I met?”

  “That,” Odin said, “was Thor the Thirty-Fifth.”

  Marty let that sink in, then asked the question that begged an answer. “If there’s only been eighteen Odins, why have there been so many Thors?”

  Odin’s voice dropped, darker now. “Because Thor burns quickly. Thor is not a title of peace. It demands strength, yes—but also sacrifice. Thor’s end comes through violence, rarely by time.”

  Marty’s stomach tightened. “And last night, he died and gave me his powers?”

  Odin’s eye softened, just slightly. “It was not your first meeting, Marty. When you were a child, Thor came to your family. You don’t remember, but he saved you and your mother’s life that day. Your father died protecting you. Your mother fled with you—hidden away, out of Loki’s reach.”

  Marty stared at him. “My… dad?”

  “Yes. When you were a baby, Thor delayed Loki long enough to get you out. Your father was killed.” Odin nodded. “And last night, under the aurora, Thor and Loki met again. You saw it—the battle in the sky. The fire, the lightning, the ‘shooting stars.’ Thor was mortally wounded. But before he fell, he did, in fact, pass the mantle. The power.”

  Marty’s breath caught, the words landing heavy in his chest.

  Ingrid shifted in her seat, her gaze fixed on the fire as if she could see that night replaying there. “I have asked many times if I could explain things to you, Ole-Martin,” she said softly. “But they always said it would be better to wait.”

  “Wait? You’ve known this the whole time?” Marty was shaken.

  “The night he speaks of, long ago in Alta—you were just a baby.” She shook her head. “We didn’t know what was happening at first, but—Loki came for you. Our little farm was nearly destroyed. Thor arrived—he was my oldefar. He said you would be his heir. Your father and Thor tried to hold off Loki, to give me a chance to escape. They bought us time, but your father was killed. Roskva took care of me in the midst of the chaos. She knew where to take us. We left Norway that night and never went back. They told me it was the only way to keep you safe—that living far from all this, would be enough. It hasn’t been easy. It’s a small life. But it was the only way I could keep you hidden. Keep you alive.”

  Her voice thinned. “I never thought we’d be on the run again.”

  The room went still, the only sound the slow, deliberate crackle of the fire. Marty stared at his mom, seeing her in a way he hadn’t before—not just as the woman who raised him, but as someone who had been fighting a quiet, invisible war for his sake.

  As Marty stared at his mother, suddenly a memory awoke and he was looking at her through Thor’s eyes – nearly fourteen years ago. She was younger, out of place and time. Marty - no, Thor - was looking up at her, standing in the snow as someone pulled him from a frozen pond. He looked up at the man rescuing him and saw his own eyes - the ice-blue eyes of his father, staring back at him.

  The vision lurched and he was in a dim kitchen, baby Ole-Martin sitting beside her in a high chair, listening to a broad-shouldered stranger, listening to him, spin his tale of being Thor.

  “He’s telling the truth,” Marty heard her say.

  Then back in the cold, he could see her running uphill toward the barn, the child safe in her arms. Roskva protecting her, fending off Ljósálfar. He turned away to resume the fight.

  The scene lurched—”Burn it”—Loki said, cool, dispassionate.

  Flames ripped throughout the barn, smoke coiling thick, and beyond Loki, he could see his mother, cornered, holding a baby - holding him - pressed close to her chest. Against a wall of the barn lay the body of his father, blue eyes opening once and then closing, his rifle slipped from his hand. Broken, dying.

  Another lapse in time and Marty was looking up at his mother and the baby lifting into the night aboard a Viking longship, Roskva at her side, hand resting gently on the child’s head, drifting away into the dark sky, never to return.

  Marty turned and heaved Aksel’s broken body into the cart. His father’s weight was unbearable, even though it wasn’t really him carrying it.

  The vision lifted, leaving only the ache. These weren’t his memories. They belonged to someone else—someone who had died to save him.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He swallowed hard. His mother’s sacrifices. His father’s death. All of it converged here. He couldn’t pretend anymore. He faced Odin, throat tight.

  “So, I guess I’m ‘Him’ now – Thor… what do I do next?”

  “You are becoming Thor,” Odin corrected. “The Thirty-Sixth. He gave you more than strength, Marty. He gave you a lineage—thirty-five lives, thirty-five deaths, their scars, their triumphs. All of it, living inside you now.”

  Marty’s world shifted under him. “So I’m… Thor,” he repeated softly.

  Odin stood, gaze fixed on him. “Yes, my son. And this is only the beginning.”

  Marty stared at the fire for a moment, then looked up, his inner teenager finally catching up with the cosmic load. “So, uh… does that mean I can travel the nine realms? Cross the rainbow bridge?”

  Odin sighed, the weariness of centuries tugging at the edges of his face. “Ah, yes. The comics. The films. The myths.”

  He sat back down with a kind of controlled disappointment. “Those stories—they’ve reshaped us. Sanded us down. Turned history into fantasy.”

  Marty frowned. “The stories then, they aren’t true?”

  “We became myths because people needed us to be,” Odin said. “But gods?” He gave a dry, rueful chuckle. “We were never gods.”

  Marty looked up sharply. “Wait. You’re saying… you were just human?”

  Odin’s gaze turned distant. “Yes. Thor and I were once like you—men with fears, desires, limits. We fought our battles. And the ancient poets, comic book writers, and movie scripts went wild with the details.”

  Marty blinked in disbelief. “No. That doesn’t make sense. I saw the horse you rode, the spear you threw. You killed a giant. That’s not just human.”

  Odin’s expression hardened slightly. “It’s not. Not entirely. But it began that way. What we became—what we are—and there was a cost. Power is not granted without sacrifice.”

  Marty sat back, the room suddenly colder. “So the myths, the movies… it’s all just… made up?”

  “Not made up,” Odin said gently. “Misremembered. Embellished. The poets, the skalds, the modern screenwriters—they see the surface: the thunder, the hammer, the spectacle. But the real story was always quieter. It was about survival. About keeping hope alive when the world turned dark. About family. Sacrifice. Faith.”

  Marty stared into the fire. “What does this mean for me? You said I’m the new Thor. How do I fit into all this? I don’t even know where to begin.”

  Odin’s gaze softened. “You’re not the first to be chosen, Ole-Martin. And you won’t be the last. The mantle passes, but the burden remains. There is a work for you to do. You are here now to learn how to assume that burden and how to wield the might you have been gifted with for the benefit of all.”

  “All?” Marty shook his head. “That’s a lot. I didn’t want to be Thor. I didn’t volunteer.” His voice cracked. “I can’t do this, I’m not ready.”

  Odin rose, the firelight casting shadows across his weathered face. “There is no such thing as ‘someone who’s ready.’ You have been chosen. The only question now is if you are willing.”

  At that moment, Thialfi and Roskva emerged from the dim edges of the hall. They moved without surprise, as if they’d been listening all along.

  Thialfi stepped forward, quiet but assured. “You won’t be alone in this, Ole-Martin,” he said. “Roskva and I have mentored all the others before you. You’ll learn what it means to carry a name like Thor.”

  Roskva gave a subtle nod.

  Marty’s gaze shifted between Roskva, Thialfi, and Odin—each offering something he hadn’t known he needed. He had no idea what kind of trials he was facing or how he would even begin to process it. But this was his reality now. Ready or not.

  “For example, look outside,” Roskva added, steady and sure. “You are now Thor, and with that, you must learn to control what’s inside you.” She nodded toward the window, where dark storm clouds gathered, swirling ominously as if the world itself reacted to Marty’s emotions. Thunder rumbled softly—a sound that was somehow comforting now, a reminder of the storm that churned inside him. “The clouds are responding. The sky senses your unrest.”

  Marty stood, uneasy, his body tense. “Control… how?”

  Odin leaned back, his piercing gaze never leaving Marty. “You’ve already felt the power inside you,” he said, voice low but commanding. “Roskva told me you inadvertently jump-started your car the other night. That’s just a taste. One of the gifts the M?rkálfar endowed the line of Thors with is Thunder. Thor is the Norse word for thunder, and thunder is the sound of lightning. That power—lightning, storm, wind, water—will respond to you and do as you wish. The question is: will you become worthy to wield it?”

  Marty frowned, trying to grasp the weight of Odin’s words. Become worthy. The same words Thor had told him with his dying breath. How could he be worthy to control the very powers of nature? He didn’t know where to start.

  Thialfi took a step closer, his eyes warm but serious. “It will take time. You’ll make mistakes. You might destroy a few things along the way.” A brief, half-smile flickered, then faded. “But we’ll guide you. Every step.”

  Marty swallowed hard. The task ahead was almost unbearable. But there was no turning back. One way or another, he would have to face what was coming.

  Just then, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Marty was confused—he had reception in this place, wherever it was. Roskva chuckled. “You’d be surprised how many bars you can get this high in the mountains.” His fingers trembled as he pulled it out, heart racing.

  It was a text from Seffie with a link. “Are you okay?” she asked. The headline read:

  Explosion Destroys Home in Oakdale, ID; Cause Unknown.

  He clicked the link and waited. The video showed an evening newscast about a suspected gas-leak explosion. Experts said that’s all they could imagine, but some facts remained inexplicable.

  Marty’s heart sank. His stomach churned. Odin saw their concern and spoke. “The people can’t know about us. They can’t understand what we do, and they may be threatened by our power. There are those in our world that will ensure that the events at your house are explained away. People will believe whatever is most convenient.”

  His gaze flicked to Ingrid. Her face had drained of color, her hands trembling slightly as she stared at the ground. “Is our house gone forever?”

  Ingrid’s voice was quieter than usual. She shifted her weight, eyes still down. “No,” she said softly, more to herself than anyone. “I’m certain of it.”

  Roskva stepped forward, voice strong and steady, cutting through the fragile tension. “The husnisse will rebuild. And if you’re lucky, the two of you may be able to return rather soon.”

  Marty quickly typed a message to his friends, fingers shaking as he tried to maintain a facade of calm:

  [Marty]: “Hey, guys, don’t worry. I wasn’t at the house. Mom and I are on the road, on our way up to a summer job at a farm up north, a summer camp. Must have left the stove on. I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. I’ll explain later.”

  He hit send before his thoughts could spiral. It was the best lie he could give them. For now.

  Ingrid caught his eye, lips pressed tight, but her gaze full of understanding. They didn’t need words. They had to protect the truth—for their safety, for their survival.

  The room seemed to hold its breath, the storm outside darkening the sky, answering the gravity of the moment.

  Thialfi’s voice broke through the stillness, steady and resolute. “The world doesn’t know what happened, Ole-Martin. And they never will. We protect the secret. You’ll have to live with it.” His eyes never left Marty’s. “But you—your training begins now. You’ll learn to control what is inside you. You’ll learn to harness it, to use it. Only then will we see about the relics.”

  Marty’s mind raced. Control the lightning. Find the relics. What relics? What would they unlock?

  Ingrid stepped closer, brushing his arm—a quiet reassurance. “I’ve seen parts of this,” she said softly, calm despite the storm. “I don’t understand everything, Marty. But you’ll make it through. I know you will.”

  Still, something gnawed at him. “What do you mean by the relics?” he asked before he could stop himself.

  Odin’s gaze softened, though his voice stayed steady. “The relics are ancient, powerful items tied to your legacy. They hold knowledge, power, and protection. You’ll need them to face what’s coming. But for now, your focus is the lightning. It will be your greatest weapon—and your greatest challenge.”

  Marty’s head spun. The relics, the lightning, the role he was meant to play. The truth about Thor, about Odin, about the ancient world. It was all too much to absorb in one sitting. He was just a teenager—a teenager who had somehow become the next incarnation of a god. Well, not a god exactly, but definitely not merely a boy on the first day of summer vacation.

  Ingrid’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. “You don’t have to do it alone,” she said, simple but steady. “Remember, I’ve been where you are now. Well, not exactly, but I know it can be overwhelming. You don’t have to carry it all at once. We’ll figure this out together, like we always do.”

  Marty glanced at her; something unspoken passed between them. Comfort, and something else—something she wasn’t saying. She had been here, in her way. She knew Odin, Thialfi, Roskva. She had survived the unknown once already.

  The weight of everything crashed down again: the relics, the lightning, Odin’s expectations, the burden of a legacy he never asked for. He looked up at Odin, Thialfi, and Roskva, his resolve hardening. He had no choice now. He had to learn—to survive, to fight, to protect whatever was left of his world.

  “Okay,” Marty said, his voice more confident than his nerves. “Where do we begin?”

  Chapter 12

  Pain

  Marty woke to pain.

  It had only been a few days since he arrived, but every muscle in his body pulsed like it had been torn out and reattached by blunt force. He shifted with a grunt, peeling himself off the thin mattress that barely passed for a bed.

  “Good,” came Roskva’s voice from the doorway. Arms folded, eyes steady. “Means it’s starting to work.”

  The oil lamp flickered, casting orange shadows against timber stained with age and soot. This was Valhalla, one sagging hall and some additional ramshackle dugouts and cabins that passed for living quarters spread about the small mountain valley. Smoke, sweat, pine sap, and the low thrum of something ancient moving beneath the surface.

  Roskva tossed a bundle of clean clothes onto his chest. “Get dressed. Training starts in five.”

  Outside, the mountain air slapped him awake. The training yard wasn’t much—just a clearing near the battered cabins, dirt worn flat from training, blood and sweat. Thialfi was already there, sitting cross-legged on a stump, dragging a whetstone across a knife with slow, meditative precision.

  “You’re late,” he said, not looking up.

  “I—”

  “Pick it up.” He nodded toward a heavy wooden staff lying on the hard-packed dirt.

  What followed was two hours of bruises masquerading as technique: strikes, footwork, breathing drills. When he got sloppy, Thialfi swept his legs. When he moved too slow, he took a hit. His muscles burned. His ribs sang.

  By the end, he dropped onto a stump, chest heaving, the staff slipping from his blistered palms.

  “Well done,” Thialfi said.

  He stepped toward a tree, rested a hand against the bark. A moment passed. Then water, clear and cold, seeped from a crack in the trunk. It trickled into a skin, which he tossed to Marty, “Now the real training begins.”

  Marty groaned. “Real training?”

  Roskva, still leaning in the shade nearby, arched an eyebrow.

  Two weeks had passed in Valhalla. Marty was getting stronger.

  Endurance training every afternoon consisted had gotten progressively more difficult. What had started with simple laps around the settlement and up steep mountain trails, was now augmented with repeats up the incline behind the main hall—a winding, brutal path of loose shale and snaring roots. To make it harder, today Thialfi outfitted him with a yoke and two large wooden buckets of water on either side, sloshing back and forth with each step. Up the path, then back down. Then repeat, repeat, repeat…

  “Quit spilling the water,” Thialfi called out, “it doesn’t grow on trees you know.”

  At the end of the tenth repeat, he was seeing stars.

  “Thor has always been strong, but strength is nothing without endurance,” Thialfi said, walking beside Marty like he wasn’t even winded. “You want to wield lightning? You need to be able to stand in the storm.”

  Marty nearly tripped. “I feel like I got hit by a storm.”

  Thialfi offered a rare grin. “Good. Then maybe you'll survive the next one.”

  After the last run, Marty collapsed in the dirt, arms flung wide. Every muscle screamed. His lungs burned. Gym class back home was like preschool by comparison.

  Roskva nudged him with her boot. “You’re not done.”

  Marty groaned into the ground. “You're actually trying to kill me.”

  “If we wanted you dead,” she said, deadpan, “we could just let Loki do you in. Time for real training.”

  He peeled himself off the ground, legs trembling. Thialfi handed him a waterskin, and he drank greedily, wiping sweat from his eyes.

  Marty hadn’t quite recovered before they led him to the edge of the settlement, where the trees thickened and the scent of distant rain hung in the air. Overhead, the sky was darkening. A storm gathered

  “Thor time.” Thialfi said, “Lightning isn’t something you command. You need to have a relationship with it.”

  Marty frowned. “A relationship?”

  Roskva smirked. “Thialfi has a flair for the dramatic.”

  Thialfi didn’t bite. He pointed to a large boulder in the clearing, time-worn and silent. “Focus on that.”

  “You want me to throw lightning at a rock?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “Feel it. The storm’s already inside you. You touched it when you jump-started your car. That was… ambient power. No control, no intent. It just happened. Now you must direct it.”

  Marty looked at the rock. This was insane. He wasn’t Thor—not really. Still, he closed his eyes. Breathed. Reached.

  The air thickened, charged. Hairs on his arms stood up. He clenched his fists, searching for the current inside him.

  Nothing.

  He exhaled sharply. “It’s not working.”

  “Because you’re thinking too much,” Roskva said. “This isn’t math. It’s not even science, really. It’s instinct. You don’t tell fire to burn. You don’t ask the wind to blow.”

  “Then how do I…summon it?”

  “You don’t,” Thialfi said—and shoved him.

  Marty yelped, lost his footing, hit the dirt hard. Before he could even curse, Thialfi was on him, yanking him upright by the front of his shirt.

  “What was that for—”

  Another shove. Harder. Marty staggered.

  “Fight back,” Thialfi said.

  “I thought we were doing lightning, not more sparring—”

  Too slow. Thialfi struck again—an open-handed blow that spun Marty sideways into the mud.

  “Get up.”

  Fury flashed through Marty’s exhaustion. His whole body protested, but he got to his feet. Thialfi lunged. This time, Marty didn’t fall.

  “Good,” Thialfi said. “Again.”

  On the next pass, Marty didn’t just brace—he swung. His fist landed against Thialfi’s ribs. Not hard. But it was something.

  The sky rumbled.

  Marty looked down. His veins pulsed with something more than blood. Something hot. Something electric.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Good"

  The training has begun.

  And the storm is starting to answer.