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Father always said, trust the hounds, that they smelled when aught was amiss—that’s when you brought out the iron. Iron to ward, iron to slay.
For the jarl’s oldest daughter to be a vӧlva—she must have had some natural gift to be chosen for such a calling. Vӧlvur didn’t marry, not often, so the jarl sacrificed a valuable political asset. But some women were born with unnatural insight. You couldn’t trust them. They were always messing with strange plants, speaking to ghosts. And they could bespell a man’s mind with their beguiling seid. Let a vӧlva get her legs around you, and she’d ensorcel you. A vӧlva’s trench was as dangerous as a troll’s fist.
Men are indeed capable of the vilest of deeds, of terrible savagery, but there are forces of chaos in the wild possessed of far greater strength than men.”
“Anger is apt to cloud perception, and ignorance to narrow the possibilities you can conceive of. So burdened, a man blinds himself quite easily. Forgets, perhaps, one might take independent pieces of information and from them cobble together a clearer whole.”
“This man seeks to lure you with honeyed words. Like a skald. I cannot say what he wants, and for that alone, I say we leave him be.
You had to trust the gods. They were all that stood between man and chaos.
Tyr was always careful. Kept you alive longer, at least on a good day.
“Some wounds never quite heal,” Loki said. “They scab over, perhaps, and we become so accustomed to the pain we may forget it’s there. And the reminder of it does not cause the pain, just forces us to acknowledge it once more.”
“Gods above and below, grant us victory.”
The wind howled at him, like something calling out from Niflheim.
Pain was good. Pain meant he had life. It meant he hadn’t gone numb from the cold. It meant there was still time.
Valkyries could very well have their souls before sunrise. If so, Odin sure as Hel was not going to be the only one dying on this mountain.
“Hel’s frozen tits,” Odin mumbled.
Odin drew the knife along his palm, opening a shallow cut. “We shall be brothers in blood, my friend, until the end of our days.” He held up his dripping palm for Loki to see, then passed the knife. The other man took it without hesitation, though he did watch Odin’s eyes a moment before opening his own palm. “Some things cannot be undone.” He set the knife by the fire, then offered his hand. Odin clasped it, mingling their blood. “Nor should they.” A sudden warmth passed through him, and then dizziness. Hunger and fatigue, no doubt. His eyes swam. “We will be united, always, now. I will never
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But a heart can only be broken so many times before a woman stops noticing an extra crack or two.
The world was what it was: cold and bloody. A good death was the best one could hope for—that and lots of fighting and fucking before one got there. Odin planned to make a fair account for himself before valkyries came for his soul—and he couldn’t do that running scared of what might lurk in the night.
“A drunk child, eager to share her warmth with any who would have her, just so she wouldn’t have to feel alone in this world.” “That’s pretty much what everyone wants, right?” “After a fashion,” Loki said.
Wisdom is for elders and witches. Men have to take action. Wait too long, and opportunity burns away.”
His fingers tingled, crisp like a winter storm. Always like that before violence. Battle had an energy that drew Tyr the way sex drew most men. When you were born to hold a blade, you felt it. Deep in the gut.
honor is the one thing no one can take from you.”
“There are those who can answer any question, should they be so inclined. They can speak of all who walk on Midgard and even those who dwell beyond, for they watch from outside the bounds of time as we see it. You call them Norns. And they will have your answers, if you can ask the right questions.” Norns. Weavers of urd, mistresses of fate.
Odin presented his ancestral sword to Frigg, a finger ring resting on its hilt. Sigyn’s sister hesitated only a moment before taking the sword and putting the ring on her finger. A maid in turn came and gave Frigg a ring and sword, which Frigg handed to Odin. The jarl took both, slipping on the ring and sliding the sword into a scabbard already prepared for it. He’d wield that for the rest of his life, using it to defend his family—or so the tradition went. In turn, Frigg was meant to hold the ancestral sword in trust for their first son. Sigyn was no sap, but she liked the custom. The tribes
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“Trouble follows all things worth having and many worth less. It is the way of mankind to fight over scarce resources. And when there is naught scarce enough to fight over, they invent conflicts of philosophy, ideals worth killing and dying over.”
Sigyn leaned forward, hands on her cheeks. “And are you a villain or a hero?” Loki shrugged. “That probably depends on who is telling the story, does it not? Most of us try our best to seem heroes to our allies and villains to others. The best you can hope for is to look back on your actions and the intentions behind them and know you did what you did for the right reasons.” “And can you?” “Mostly.” Sigyn tapped her finger against her lip. “Naught … selfish? Naught you would take for yourself, and damn the consequences?” “Is that selfish, or mere self-interest? Should we not claim something of
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she fell into the sky, watching the world change and change again beneath the eternal cosmos. Comets crashed through those skies and pummeled the world. Fires burned, and tides surged, until at last she stood beneath the greatest tree she had ever seen. Its trunk stretched up toward the heavens, seemingly connecting all the worlds of creation. Along its boughs ran a silver squirrel that watched her with knowing eyes. And from the branches grew a golden apple. She could see within it, not with her eyes, but with something deeper. That apple glowed like sunlight, shimmering with the light of
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“Perhaps I just met you,” he said. “Perhaps I knew you in another lifetime. Maybe, just maybe, I have always known you, and I’ve waited so long just to find you again.”
we cannot trust men who rely on clever words to avoid keeping faith.”
The weak would back down, broken by their own nature, while the strong rose above themselves.
a bowl of water sat on the table. Not for drinking. Water had numerous other uses—it was liminal, fluid both literally and spiritually, and thus served as an excellent medium for focusing the Art.
All sorcery came with a price. You drew power from the Otherworlds, and the Otherworld took back from you tenfold.
A warrior ought to meet threats with a sword in hand. A song in his heart. Instead, to make a king, Tyr worked in shadows and lies. Betrayals.
A man’s soul would shriek from it, at least until it withered into a useless remnant. Such was the price for the godlike power of true sorcerers.
To name a thing was to evoke it. Even common men knew that much, or thought they did. Still they invoked the name of Hel in feeble curses, not realizing the goddess—there is none greater—might actually catch it. She was not always listening, but she might be, and only a fool would invite the eye of the Queen of Mist to fall upon him.
A son. His own child. Frigg was right. This child would hear tales of all Odin had done in his life, the good and the bad. And his son would know the world through those deeds even as he would learn right from wrong by lessons Odin never intentionally set out to teach. The boy would learn honor, as Odin’s father had tried to teach
Odin might not have Guthorm’s skill or speed, but he had the strength and stamina to outlast the trollfucker. The thought must have shown on his face, because Guthorm, now streaming sweat, snarled again and began another series of attacks. This one Odin recognized. Guthorm had that speed because he had probably practiced a handful of forms ten thousand times.
“Go back to your king!” Odin shouted at them. “Tell them a new king rules mankind! Tell them a new god rises!”
but anger, held long enough, became a poison one mistook for a shield.
“Take comfort in knowing your mere presence eases all burdens.”
He stared into the flames, watching the dance, the pattern. Such an excellent medium for the Sight and all the terrible weight that accompanied it. The flames could speak to those who would listen, could reveal the past and future to those willing to suffer blindness and agony for it.
The space between gods and men is perception and arrogance, pride and foolishness. Naught lasts forever. All empires fall; all eras burn down to cinders.”
As always, one faced the choice to shelter one’s loved ones and earn their ire, or weigh them down with knowledge they fooled themselves into thinking they desired. And as always, the middle path offered at least the illusion of asylum from either extreme, if only a temporary one. A half truth, to spare her the depths of despondency.
“It means the past cannot stay buried forever. It means the future will haunt our every step. We are, all of us, set on a path that has only just begun. A spark ignites embers in the darkness that, tended well, become a flame. The flame spreads like a living being, writhing and feasting, engorging itself into a conflagration that sweeps across the land and swallows all in its path until only ashes remain.”
“The fire is lit. Now we tend it. And we wait, for the inevitable inferno.”
