“Wake up,” someone commanded and kicked Skadi’s boot.

She blinked and palmed her eye, restraining a groan. She wanted nothing more than to remain lost in the depths of sleep. Her head span and her stomach was a mass of greasy eels.

Her uncle must have known but didn’t care. He kicked her boot again. “Up. We’ve business to attend to. Unless you wish me to give your prize to another?”

That got her attention. Skadi sat forward. She’d fallen asleep against the wall, her shoulder against a column, an empty horn in her lap. Her hand moved instinctively to Natthrafn, and finding the seax in its scabbard she wiped at her lips and finally focused her gaze.

It was just past dawn. Cold, lucid light entered the hall through the wrecked end, bathing all in grays. The firepits were little more than coals. Everywhere lay men as if after a terrible battle, snoring where they’d fallen. On benches and under them, laid out on the floor or propped up against the walls. Some had women in their arms, some other men. All were insensate to the world.

Skadi groaned and stood. Put a hand on the wall as her head swam, then stared at her uncle through one eye. He seemed entirely unaffected by the night’s feasting, as sober and grim as ever.

“One moment.” She pushed off the wall and walked carefully to the hall’s main doors. Stepped over legs, avoided puddles of vomit, and navigated the obstacles until at last she stepped out into the chill morning air.

It felt good. For a long moment she simply raised her face to the sun, hands on her hips, then sighed and twisted from side to side, working the kinks out of her spine and hips.

The clearing before the great hall was as chaotic as the scene within; the pyres had burned down to coals and ashes, tables looked forlorn with the remnants of the dinner on them, and here and there men and women lay asleep, curled up against the cold under cloaks and blankets.

Most had had the sense to return to their homes.

Skadi stepped over to the rain barrel, shattered the thin skin of ice with her fist, then dunked her head straight in. The cold speared a knife right into her brain, the pain startling and clarifying, and she forced herself to remain so immersed for ten beats of her heart before yanking her head out with a gasp.

She cupped water in her palms, drank greedily, and then raked her hair and braids out of her face. Wiped her sleeve over her cheeks and stepped back into the hall, herself once more.

Kvedulf stood impatiently with his hands on his hips. He wasn’t accustomed to waiting. A gruff nod, and he led her to a narrow door set close to the entrance. A warrior stood there, expression heavy with exhaustion, but he straightened as the jarl approached and stepped aside.

Kvedulf pulled a heavy key from his belt and unlocked the door, then shoved it open with his shoulder and stepped inside, a burning taper in one hand.

Skadi followed him into a small room.

The jarl raised the taper so that the gentle light could lap against the weapons and treasures hung upon the walls and heaped in mighty chests.

“The gold and jewels are not for you, but as promised, you can choose any one weapon.”

Skadi’s eyes widened as she took in the collection. There were enough weapons here to outfit the hird, and each drew the eye. Here a bearded axe whose head was inlaid with cunningly worked gold knotwork over silver, its blade black, its edge bright white. There a hammer whose haft was covered in interwoven leather strips, its head massive, forged of black iron with spikes emerging from each pounding face, its side chased in gold with green jewels set into the working like eyes. There a spear, four feet tall and curiously old in appearance, its head that of a harpoon, edges nicked and notched, yet somehow still drawing the eye.

A beautiful sword, the hilt long enough for two hands, the cross guard of steel with gold wire inlaid, its blade broad at the base then tapering to a fine point, easily as long as Dawn Reaver. A second blade, crude in comparison with a wide fuller, the hilt and pommel of plain steel, but the metal was most curious, marbled with dark lines, as if a thousand spiders had woven webs over the raw metal as it cooled.

A brutal club whose head was tipped with spikes that looked like teeth. A bone axe, its head inscribed with runes, feathers hung from where it joined the stout haft, its hilt of wolf fur wrapped in sinew. A large axe of brutal appearance, its blade rising in an oblique line from the haft and etched with subtle lines, all in black and radiating an eerie menace.

Skadi’s eyes drifted over the collection.

Natthrafn seemed a needle in comparison, negligible, slight.

“Take your time,” said Kvedulf softly. “These are the choices that define a life. I can tell you the tale of any weapon that catches your eye, but do not ask lightly.”

Skadi nodded, then, for the first time since Grýla’s death, sharpened her vision. She’d developed an aversion to her wyrd, to all wyrds, since Yri’s death, and had grown reluctant to engage with her own.

But there was no way to choose a weapon now without knowing the weight of its destiny.

Her threads blazed forth.

Her wyrd had strengthened.

She took her time counting, counted twice to be sure. Eleven threads now rose from her heart.

Skadi took a ragged breath.

Eleven.

Three from Natthrafn. Would she lose those if she chose another weapon here to replace it? Or would carrying her slaughter seax still suffice?

She turned her gaze upon the weapons on the wall.

Only a few were without power. Most had a couple of threads at best, but three were of note.

The old spear. The iron sword with marbled blade. The black axe with its fearsome aspect.

“This one,” she said, pointing to the four-foot-long spear. “What can you tell me of it?”

Kvedulf frowned at her, and she could tell he was impressed. “You’re not distracted by gold and jewels, I see. This is Thyrnir.” Her uncle took the spear down from the wall and turned it over, considering its ancient haft and pitted iron head. “It’s older than it looks. I took it from a draugr sea captain who haunted a drifting wreck off the Jotunn’s Teeth. I would never have looked at it twice had the draugr not hurled it through one of my men’s shield and mail.”

“It pierced both?”

“And the man. And sank deep into the side of the wreck’s hull in turn. I thought it the strength of the draugr, but out of curiosity hurled it myself after the fight. It flew straight from my hand and pierced the hull altogether, to sink into the ocean and disappear. Later that night I found it lying beside my berth, still wet from the sea. It always returns to its owner, eventually.”

“And its past?”

“Long. I believe it to be the Thyrnir that Halfdan Snakehair wielded against the Palió Oneiro army centuries ago.”

“Halfdan Snakehair?” Skadi exhaled in wonder. She’d grown up hearing about his deeds. How for a time he had kept the legions of Palió Oneiro from the shores of the North until he was betrayed by his lover. He’d been captured by the Palió Oneiropóloi and bound to a rock, where a great seabeast had come to feast on him. But at the last Thyrnir had appeared in his hand, and he’d been pulled into the waves battling the many-tentacled beast.

“That is my belief,” said Kvedulf thoughtfully, turning the ancient spear over in his hands once more. “And it is yours if you ask for it.”

“That one,” said Skadi, pointing out the marbled blade. “What can you tell me?”

Kvedulf raised his eyebrows as he replaced the spear. “Rauch, it is called. I took it from the horde of a Skaberi witch in my youth. I must have been… your age, I suppose. I was separated from our raiding party. Or perhaps was lured away by the witch’s enchantments. Wandered for days, ever deeper into the forest, until I found her hut. Bones hung from trees. The ground crawled with worms and beetles. I was in a stupor. She invited me into her dwelling. Caressed me as I sat still as a statue, then drew a knife with which to slit my throat. But I had a knife of my own, gifted to me by my grandmother when I was a child. It pricked me of its own accord, and I awoke. Drew it and plunged it into the witch’s eye.”

Kvedulf smiled wistfully. “That was the beginning of the battle. When all was done, I found Rauch wrapped in leather at the bottom of a chest. My knife was melted, and I had no wish for her twisted blade, so I took it. I escaped, but a Skaberi hunting party found me. Would have slain me, but their chieftain recognized Rauch in my fist, and instead offered me bad wine and better food. We sat through the night. He told me that the blade had belonged to a great chieftain of theirs who had defeated a Palió Oneiro army and turned them back, a feat near unheard of in those days.”

“Another Palió Oneiro army?” Skadi frowned. “Were they everywhere?”

“For a while it seemed like it.” Kvedulf took Rauch from the wall and sighted down its length. “Tristesse, Unigedd, Isern, Wuduholt, much of the land of the Skaberi, all was part of their empire. It was only when Nearós Ílios rebelled and broke away that their great empire began to collapse.”

Skadi tried to imagine it, but those were all just names to her. It made no sense.

“What else did he tell you of Rauch? What makes it special?”

“If its wielder holds it in his—or her—fist, and whispers its name with intent, like thus: ‘Rauch…’”

The blade shimmered as if suddenly sheathed in ice, and then dark gray smoke began to boil off it, odorless yet as thick as wool, filling the room in moments. The air grew colder. The blade remained visible, however, limned in white fire.

“Rauch,” said her uncle once more, and the smoke disappeared, inhaled with incredible rapidity back into the sword. “The wielder can see through the smoke, though the blade itself remains visible.”

“That would cause chaos on a battlefield,” whispered Skadi. “But your allies…?”

“Equally affected.”

“Huh.” Skadi studied the dark marbling, then turned at last to the black axe. “My last question. This one?”

Kvedulf replaced Rauch but did not touch the axe. “You would do well to not choose this weapon. It is potent, yes, but cursed. Dauðakoss, it is named. None may parry or block its blows. It cleaves through swords, shields, chain, flesh, and bone. All will fall before you, but its curse is that you, too, shall fall, betrayed by the one you love dearest. Its past is a litany of broken oaths, horror, massacres, and betrayal. It made warlords out of common men, but their reigns are brief. One by one they fell, their hearts shattered when their loved ones murdered them.”

Skadi shuddered and stepped back. “Why do you not destroy it?”

Kvedulf’s smile was humorless. “Who says I haven’t tried?”

“It is yours? That is to be your fate?”

“I have never wielded it in battle. I took it in the hopes of hiding it away from the world.”

“Toss it into the deepest part of the sea?”

“I have. But a year later I heard of its being wielded by a new terror. An old man had become an engine of destruction on the Skaberi Cloud Coast. I felt responsible. I took a ship and spent a summer seeking a way to defeat the man. This I did, though at cost. Now it hangs here. I pray that it be buried with me when the time comes, and forgotten to man.”

Skadi considered the axe with horror and finally tore her eyes away. Rauch or Thyrnir?

There was no choice. She wouldn’t wield a weapon that bewildered her own friends. For a moment she studied the other weapons, the swords and hammers, clubs and axes, but finally, she gestured to the short spear. “That is my choice.”

“And it is well made.” Kvedulf took Thyrnir from the wall. “In time I am sure you shall hear more of its past. It has drunk more blood than any other weapon here. But now you are its owner, and I pray it serves you well.”

Skadi closed her fingers about the worn haft and felt a jolt rush through her. Her mouth briefly tasted metallic, and her breath caught.

Then the moment was past.

It was but an old and battered spear once more, its harpoon head as large as her hand. The metal tip was affixed to the haft by tightly wrapped black wire that spiraled down to a metal ring through which a bolt had been riven. Its butt was of shattered wood, fresh and clear as if newly broken.

Nobody would look at it twice, and then, perhaps, only to wonder why she carried it at all.

Skadi inhaled deeply and sharpened her vision.

Her eleven threads burned bright, and even as she watched were joined by five more which grew from her chest like plants searching for the sun, rising and twisting and lengthening until they suddenly burst forth and took their place alongside the others.

Skadi’s smile was grim.

Sixteen threads.

“Now I am ready for Blakkr,” she whispered.