Skadi dressed warmly in winter furs, with a great sheepskin mantle about her shoulders and fur-lined boots upon her feet. Her uncle gifted her a copper broach with which to pin her heavy cloak about her figure, and she pulled a heavy woolen cap down upon her freshly braided hair. Reindeer mittens encased her hands, and with a scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face, she stepped out into the frigid evening with Kvedulf by her side.

The smoky warmth and cheer of the great hall seemed to belong to another world. High above them the stars glittered, the night sky awash in their glory, while the moon bathed the raw and rising peaks in silvered light.

“Now is the right time to speak with the völva,” said Kvedulf, his voice low and certain. “Not at dawn, not at midday, but at dusk, when the door to Hel cracks open. If your wyrd is right, if it is strong, you shall have no difficulty finding Ásfríðr’s hut high up on the peaks.”

“How will I know the way?”

“Your wyrd will guide you, but look for signs. You will know them. Or not, and either admit defeat and return, or die upon the crags.”

Skadi rubbed her stiff mittens together. “Very well.”

“You have your slaughter seax? There are wolves and worse up there.”

In answer she placed her mitten upon the blade’s pommel.

“It is an hour’s climb. Not long, as these things go. Come dawn, I expect you by my fire with new life and certainty in your gaze. Climb well, Niece. May the gods watch over you.”

So saying, the jarl clapped her on the shoulder and re-entered his great hall.

Her breath plumed out before her, and the mead made her thoughts golden. An hour climb. Nothing she hadn’t done before in Kalbaek.

Rolling her shoulders, she strode forth, through the rest of the camp, past huts whose windows were draped with leather sheets and shuttered, past sounds of merriment or voices low in conversation. Up the sloping lane toward the rear of the settlement, the rough wooden palisade and the sole gate exiting into the snow covered slopes.

“To where do you go, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir, on a cold and lonely night such as this?”

Skadi spun, saw Glámr crouched in the deepest shadows of a stable, the horses within shying and moving restlessly.

“To a völva,” she replied, doing the best to keep the warmth from her voice. “Ásfríðr, she’s called, and she’ll tell me what I need to know about my wyrd.”

“Foolish, to seek such a witch in the long cold dark. Mayhaps I’ll walk with you, for a ways, to ensure you reach your destination.”

Was that wrong? Should she travel alone? Were the spirits watching? Would Ásfríðr know, and chastise her? Surely not. This was no proper quest. She merely went to introduce herself.

And if there were worse than wolves up there, then she’d welcome Glámr by her side.

“If you must.”

Glámr smiled, a flash of pale teeth, then rose and loped forth to walk by her side. “Your father had no interest in seiðr or the women who practiced it.”

“Mother thought him a fool for it.” Skadi checked herself, realizing she was being too frank with the half-troll, then decided it didn’t matter. “Perhaps we’d have avoided our fate if we’d had a wise-woman to warn us.”

“Perhaps.”

Four guards stood on duty, alert and with axes propped over the shoulders. At the mention of Ásfríðr’s name, they stepped aside and wished them well.

At first the trail simply cut back and forth up a short, snowy meadow, and then it steepened precipitously, slashing a deep path through densely grown firs. They strode in silence, breathing hard as they climbed and climbed, until the trail broke free of the forest to follow a rising ridge along a steep mountainside.

“Wait,” said Skadi. “That’s no longer the way.”

Glámr eyed the trail, then her. “It’s not?”

“No.” She paused, the sensation distinct. Looked back at the dark forest, at Kráka laid out just below it, twinkling with red lights. “I… I’m not sure why, but I think… this way.”

For the sound of distant singing came to her from the other direction. A goat path, rough and winding, barely visible in the silvered light and smothered in snow, cut a narrow trail up amongst the rocks.

“Do you hear that?”

Glámr tilted his head to one side, his long ears flickering like a horse’s. “Hear what?”

“Come.”

Up they climbed. The singing was distant and beautiful, ethereal and feminine, wordless but sure. It drew Skadi along the goat trail, switching back and forth, then out along another steep mountain meadow, their legs scything through the deep snow, then to another narrow trail that wound its way ever higher into the mountains.

“Shh,” whispered Glámr, holding out his hand.

Skadi froze.

“There.” And he pointed toward a copse of firs.

Nothing. Shadows. Impenetrable.

Then a great shape stirred, shook itself, stepped forward.

A boar.

Bristled and black, large as a bear, tusks to put Glámr’s to shame. It snorted, shook its head.

Skadi focused. Four golden threads emerged from the beast. Glámr boasted two, while she had only recovered one following her fight with Kvedulf’s warriors, so that with Natthrafn’s blessings she had four.

Four against four, and Glámr with two.

He could die in such a contest.

“Mighty jofurr,” she whispered. “We wish you no ill, and apologize for trespassing on your realm. Let us pass, in the name of Freyja, so that no blood need be spilt.”

The massive boar snorted again. Snow covered its head and flanks, and it stared at them with its small, liquid eyes.

Skadi forced her hand away from Natthrafn. Breathed slowly. Willed the beast to turn from them.

Which, finally, after agonizingly long seconds, it did. A grunt and it stepped back into the shadowed copse, disappearing like the mermaids had into the depths of the black sea.

“Quickly now,” whispered Glámr, and together they hurried off the small plateau, to scramble up raw rocks, guided only by the singing that never ceased.

Climbing over the rise, they saw a tall wooden building at the back of a small clearing. A wooden gods’ gate was erected before them, twin bull skulls complete with broad twisting horns affixed to each post, with pots and bones hanging from leather cords from the crossbeam. To one side of the clearing was a bloodied table, or altar, upon which animal hides and frozen piles of entrails stood, the snow melted and crimson all about it. Wooden statues of the gods, monolithic and carved from massive trunks, were placed on either side of the path that led to the building’s door.

The singing had stopped.

The building itself was three tiered, each new level half the size of the previous, the eaves ornate, the cornices carved to resemble serpent heads, with latticeworks placed over the windows, behind which ruddy light shone through heavy crimson curtains.

“Do you think this is it?” asked Glámr quietly, his tone mocking.

Skadi walked under the gods’ gate and down the path. Snow and ice crunched under her boots. The dark forest pressed all around, and though she saw no movement she felt hundreds of eyes upon her.

Glámr was a shadow by her side.

The völva’s front door was open, revealing a lengthy corridor that opened into a dimly lit chamber within.

Skadi took a deep breath. Despite not having grown up with a wise-woman in her village, she’d heard the tales, knew enough to be afraid.

“Go on,” said Glámr, stepping aside and turning to place his back against the wall beside the door and slide down into a crouch. “I’ll wait for you here.”

“Coward,” she said, but her tone was fond.

He didn’t deign to respond.

Hand on Natthrafn’s hilt, Skadi entered. The air within the passageway was musty and warm, rich the scent of spices and dried herbs, with pungent, oily smoke, the coppery tang of blood, the soothing scent of candle wax.

She walked its length, pulse pounding, and emerged into a high-ceilinged room, nearly the match of the great hall, but far smaller, constrained by hanging curtains on both sides, beyond which she glimpsed darkened rooms.

The room was overwhelming. All was hues of crimson and brown, umber and gold. A hundred small candles burned upon a tiered altar, while another table groaned under the weight of jars and bottles, knives and cleavers, bones and antlers. The floor was covered in dried rushes, and the columns that held up the ceiling were wrapped in gold foil, so that they gleamed like dreams of fire and wealth.

A woman stood before a large statue of Freyja, the depiction beautifully wrought in stone, the goddess clad in the raiment of war, a blade in one hand, a staff in the other. Cats wreathed her feet, while a glittering necklace of crystals hung over her chest.

Skadi inhaled sharply at the sight of the goddess. For a moment she’d seen instead the living vision that had saved her life, beautiful and cruel, otherworldly and perilous.

The völva turned.

She was dressed all in white, the finest calf leather, supple and beautifully stitched. Across her brow she wore a white patterned headband, from which a fringe of leather strips fell to the bridge of her nose, perfectly obscuring her eyes. Black slashes were painted down the length of her cheeks, originating from under the fringe, and black her lips, quirked now into a wry smile. Slender antlers rose from her headdress, and her hair fell in thick ropes down her shoulders from beneath it.

She was a ghostly vision, white of skin, white of clothing, with only her crimson hair clashing with her pallor, and the black of the lines vivid down her cheeks and on her lips.

“Völva Ásfríðr,” said Skadi, her voice breathless in her own ears. “I am Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir, come this day from Kalbaek, which was raided and burned by the Archeans. My wyrd has grown strong ever since I escaped. Jarl Kvedulf, my uncle, bid me visit you, and learn what wisdom you have to share.”

“You have traveled far, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir.” The völva’s voice was rich and mellifluous. “Be welcome in my home. You need not glare at me so; I will not bite.”

Had she been glaring? Skadi forced her shoulders to relax and unclenched her fists. “My apologies. It has been a… fraught… ten days since I was taken from Kalbaek.”

“Yes. But you have reached a safe harbor. Your uncle has granted you guest right, and there are none, not the troll folk nor Northman who would contest him in Kráka.”

“And the Archean Empire?”

The völva smiled, that wry twisting of her black lips once more. She had to be in her thirties, Skadi guessed, and was striking, was beautiful in a vulpine manner.

“The Archean Empire forges its own wyrd, and in time it may swallow Kráka. But that day is not yet come.” Ásfríðr gestured at a number of cushions tossed into a pile to one side of the room. “Be comfortable.”

Skadi sat but found it hard to relax. The völva drew forth a simple stool, and sat upon it with poised elegance, as if she did so merely to comfort Skadi with the illusion of common human needs.

“Tell me your tale,” commanded the völva, and Skadi did so. When she reached the moment when Patroclus stabbed her through the heart, however, she hesitated.

Ásfríðr canted her head to one side. “You died.”

“I - yes. I did.”

“And left the middle realm. Tell me what you saw.”

Haltingly, Skadi did so. The giant wolf Naglufr. The three norns. Freyja descending from the World Tree to grant her blessing.

“Ah,” breathed the völva. “Yours is indeed a mighty wyrd. Freyja is the mother of the Valkyries, the goddess of death and sex, fertility and war, gold and seiðr. Her blessings are rare and for women alone, those who shall leave a wake of blood and ashes in their passing. I sense her about you, thick as incense, that sweet and rotten air of divinity. You reek of wyrd, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir.”

“I… I can see my wyrd, völva.” Skadi took a deep breath, her whole body shivering. “Like the golden threads that the three norns wove. Three threads are mine and mine alone, while Natthrafn, my slaughter seax, grants me three more.”

Ásfríðr froze. “You can see the threads of fate?”

“I can, völva. And that of others. Glámr, at the door, has two; the boar we startled in the woods below, four. My uncle, Jarl Kvedulf, too many for me to count.”

“Oh child,” breathed Ásfríðr, sinking back, her shock obvious. “Oh, this is passing rare. I have heard tell of this gift, but only in awed whispers by völvas long dead, spirits whom I summoned from Hel so as to learn their wisdom. I thought it a myth. And myself? Can you see my wyrd?”

Skadi had been so overwhelmed that she’d not tried.

She sharpened her gaze.

From Ásfríðr’s breast burst forth a dozen threads, spinning and weaving about her, glorious and golden, melding with the foiled columns.

“I can,” breathed Skadi. “A dozen - no - fourteen such threads. Völva - please - what does this mean? What is this gift that I have been given?”

Ásfríðr sighed and sat up straight once more. “It is a gift, child. A terrible gift, awesome and nearly unique. It means that you shall rise to undreamed heights. Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir, Freyja has marked you like no other. If you have the strength to carry the weight of this wyrd, you shall refashion this world in your image, or drown it in blood and sorrow.”