The Song of Fafnir -- A Norse Mythology Novella

12. The Wrong Son

One day not long after, the King called me to his chamber.

As I entered, I glanced around expecting to see Regin looming in the shadows or leaning up against one of the walls, a self-satisfied smirk decorating his face.

He was nowhere to be seen. 

Except for the heavy intakes and wheezing expulsions of breath from the bed of the king that echoed more dangerously and much louder than they had in the Royal Hall, the chamber was silent and empty of everyone. Servants included. 

I realised I was alone with my father for the first time since my return. Completely alone.

Suspicion snapped at my heels as I moved towards the bed where the king lie, his features sunken and distressingly waxen in the flickering light of the lamps. The realisation of my new set of lessons had shaken me and I was not yet sure how well I would accept the challenges to come. 

I felt a renewed wave of dread wash through me at the thought of my father's death. I squeezed my eyes shut and wished he would live for only a few months more, if only to give me time to address the issue of Regin.

Time was the last thing either one of us would be granted. 

Approaching the king was like approaching a breathing corpse, but one who still held absolute power over my life and destiny. I told myself to be ready for anything – including renewed exile -- as I settled myself into the chair which had obviously been left at his bedside for me.

He held out a weak, bloodless hand to me, and I grasped it. Not without apprehension and laced with a deep unwillingness, but I was not about to show disrespect and make my lot worse.

Of all things, I did not expect what I heard next. 

"Forgive me, Fafnir. I suspected the wrong son," the king said, fighting to fit the words into the narrow spaces between gasps.

The wrong son?

Not knowing what he was referring to, and thinking he might have been in a light delirium, I made soothing noises, but he continued to speak, beads of sweat forming on his brow from the effort.

"The Mountain Palace is cursed. By Odin. Long before your birth. I was foolish. Thought I could fool the Aesir." The words came out nicked and cracked, but were spoken with harsh determination. "One of my sons . . . would kill me and take, and take the throne. Kill his brothers, so. . . so that he might have. . ."

He closed his eyes and drew in deep, whistling breaths for several minutes. Only that, and the rising and falling of the blankets, told me he had not already departed for the realm of Hel.

I waited, my thoughts in chaos.

That was the first time I heard how the All-Father was connected to the Mountain. The memory of the old traveller who had crossed my path so long ago ghosted up in my mind as I sat there waiting for my dying father to speak again. I heard again what the old man had said as we'd sized each other up. I only wanted see what you looked like, Fafnir.

Fear  wrapped its ice-cold fist around me, drying out my mouth and squeezing my chest until I choked.

One of his sons would kill the king. Was that me? Was I somehow destined to murder our father? Had Odin wanted to cast his eyes on the little kingslayer he had created and that's why he'd gone to the effort of passing me up along the road? Was I cursed?

It was a legitimate fear, and yet today it smacks to me of incredible arrogance. Why should I have immediately thought the curse referred to me? Had my father not said he'd suspected the wrong son? Was it due to my run-in with the All-Father or did I still think of myself as the true heir to the Mountain Palace?  Probably both.