The ritual took hours, though by the end of it Skadi had lost the ability to track time. Incense burned from countless sticks set in clay cups about the temple, and beeswax candles gave off such a steady, clear light that she felt as if she were illuminated by the moon. She wore a black cloak about her shoulders, part of the raiment of a völva, and at her belt hung a charm in the shape of a small silver chair.

But it was the bitter drink steeped in mysterious herbs that sent her head spinning, so that her attempts to chant the right words became a fruitless endeavor; Ásfríðr circled her, batting at her shoulders with a splayed eagle’s wing, her staff held in her other hand, muttering her own words of power even as Skadi sought to remember her own charm.

“The longer you’re able to resist the drug and chant the words pure and true, the deeper you shall go, and the more power you shall collect,” Ásfríðr had told her, so Skadi fought on, fighting the drowsiness, the looping thoughts, her thick tongue, her drooping eyelids, the way the candle flames seemed to stream and dance, the figures leering at her from the edges of her vision.

On and on she chanted, kneeling before the great statue of Freyja, gazing up at her stern carved face, seeking to manifest her awe and reverence.

Her goddess.

The being who had saved her from death when Patroclus had struck her down. The goddess of love and sex, fertility and death, beauty and battle, seiðr and gold. The cats about her wooden feet seemed to writhe, arch their backs, to gleam at her with amber eyes, but each time she allowed her vision to drop they were naught but statues once more.

Sweat prickled her brow. The herbs soured her stomach. Her words tripped, danced, interwove themselves of her own accord. The air became thick as if she knelt underwater. The candle flames rose higher and interwove themselves as if upon a great loom, so that the walls became flame, the heat growing ever more intense, till sweat began to run down her spine, to cause her white ceremonial tunic to stick to her skin, her scalp to itch, her breath to become labored.

On she chanted. She was sinking now, into the floor, the world growing vague, doubled, undoubling only when she forced herself to focus, her heart pounding, racing though she but knelt, and she swayed as if in a storm.

Ásfríðr’s voice faded away, and Skadi realized she was alone, encased within a cocoon whose every thread was a candle flame, and which encompassed her where she knelt, and the great statue that reared before her.

The words of the charm fled her mind.

Freyja was alive, huge, poised, amused, disdainful, her eyes gleaming with fire, her blonde hair streaming like flames, her every line speaking of regal power and divine authority.

Skadi couldn’t breathe, couldn’t tear her eyes away from the goddess. The cats were alive now, slinking about her ankles, over the strewn helms and severed hands, the broken blades and arrow-pricked shields.

“Goddess,” she managed to whisper.

Freyja’s robe parted, and Skadi saw that she wore no tunic, no undergarments. She saw the swell of the goddess’s full breasts, saw the oblique line of her abdomen, the taut stomach, a body at once sensual yet that of a warrior, firm and soft in equal measure, enough to beguile and madden a mortal.

The flames receded, died down, and then snuffed out, so that a veil of smoke wafted about them both, blowing away across a battlefield, streaming like mist over fresh corpses. Wolves prowled amongst the dead, and ravens flew down to alight on faces and chests. The moon rose vast behind Freyja, blood red, and by its light, Skadi saw valkyries leading men and women to their white mounts, slain mortals who moved as if in a dream, blinking with stupefaction, their movements hesitant.

The valkyries gleamed in their suits of divine armor, gold and silver, cerulean blue cloaks and chainmail of perfect white steel. Raised the mortals to the saddles, leaped with ease to sit before them, and then let out fierce cries, cries of fury, of exaltation, of ecstasy and delirious joy.

Their horses leaped into the air, hooves finding traction in the ethereal nothingness of the sky, and surged up toward the moon, a dozen galloping toward that smoldering crimson beacon.

“Why are you here, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir?”

The goddess’s words rang through her like the tolling of a bell, and Skadi blinked, some measure of her wits returning. Dared to gaze up and meet the goddess’s imperious stare, heavy-lidded and weighing the very quality of her being.

“To learn the art of seiðr, Honorable Lady.” Her mouth was dry, her words hoarse. “To take up my staff and walk the path of a völva.”

Freyja’s smile was cruel. “You believe yourself qualified?”

Skadi raised her chin. “I do. I have received your blessing once, and my wyrd has only grown since then. I wield Natthrafn the slaughter seax, and now possess Thyrnir, who once belonged to Halfdan Snakehair. I would learn seiðr so that I may continue to serve you, to honor you, and bring glory to my name.”

Freyja stepped forth, her cats scattering, and step by graceful step approached, moving over corpse and armor, blood and heath.

She grew smaller as she approached so that when she finally stepped past where Skadi knelt, she was but a tall woman, elegant and statuesque.

“You wish to serve me,” whispered the goddess. “You wish to learn the art of seiðr, as Odin once asked? You believe yourself worthy, and that you shall bring me honor?”

“I do,” rasped Skadi, staring straight ahead over the harrowing field of the dead. She felt the lightest of touches then, a fingertip tracing the length of her jaw, then a hand stirred her hair, which had fallen loose of its every braid. Fingers sank deep into her mane, and nails lightly scored her scalp.

The sensation was almost more than she could bear. Skadi gasped, her body shuddering, and it took the entirety of her will to remain upright.

“There are other ways you could serve me,” whispered the goddess directly into Skadi’s ear, her breath warm and tickling. Other destinies you could claim.

The hand in her hair clenched suddenly into a fist, pulling Skadi’s head back roughly, exposing the taut length of her throat, around which the goddess curled her other hand, fingers tightening cruelly. “You could join me in Sessrúmnir instead. But say the word, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir, and I shall carry you there, and lay you upon a bier covered in clothe of gold. Where I shall slowly strip you of your vestments, and show you what it means to be immortalized by pleasure…”

Skadi’s body was convulsing, her muscles spasming, her throat clenched so tight that she could barely breathe. The pleasure that she felt from the goddess’s touch was overwhelming. She felt her resolve weakening, her focus breaking.

Why had she come here? To accomplish what? What else could there be but time spent in Freyja’s company?

“And we need not be alone,” whispered the goddess. “There are others who could join us.”

And from the mist emerged Yri, ennobled, clad in royal garb of emerald that offset her golden hair and striking blue eyes magnificently.

Skadi’s breath caught and a knot of pain and desire and horror clenched in her chest.

“Yes…” whispered Freyja, her lips never leaving Skadi’s ear. “Would that not be sweeter than pursuing your mortal toils?”

Yri approached, and it was deeply unsettling to see her once more, pale and with skin so clean it shone, without her leathers and weapons, but clad in silk, the cloth that was like the wind.

Skadi looked up at her friend, helpless and terrified, and saw in the depths of Yri’s gaze a longing, melancholic and sweet, but also a sadness that caused Skadi to blink.

Yri.

Yri Alfwerdottir. Who had given her life to save her father. Who had lived for her wyrd, her fate, and had faltered at nothing to fulfill it.

Skadi summoned her strength and rose to her feet, pulling free of the goddess’s hands, her whole body fluttering, alive with flame and desire, but her mind, it cleared, her thoughts growing lucid.

She stepped up to Yri and reached out with one marveling hand. “Your memory burns in my heart still. But I am not ready.”

And to her surprise and relief and everlasting joy, Yri smiled. Caught her hand, raised her bloodied and rough knuckles to her pallid lips, and kissed them.

Then fell away into the mist, and was gone.

Heart hammering, Skadi wheeled about, to see Freyja towering over her once more, forbidding and divine, remote as an unapproachable cliff, her expression bleak and imperious.

“Very well, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir. You have chosen to remain in the Middle Ream for a while longer, and so I shall gift you with the knowledge of seiðr. What spell would you cast?”

Skadi swallowed with difficulty and waited till she was confident she’d speak true. “A spell to instill courage and mental clarity in the minds of my friends and allies.”

“A worthy spell. By what words will you invoke it?”

The words came to her of their own accord:

“With iron are our minds bound

Our bulwarks are unbroken.

Your power finds no purchase.

Cruel corruption crumbles

Before our inviolate crowns.

We fight on free of all fear

We fight on free of all doubt.”

“A worthy spell,” said Freyja, “and one that I am pleased to bless. Use it wisely, Skadi. Your wyrd grows apace, but there are still far, far greater powers arrayed against you. Brute force shall see you slain and harvested by Hjörþrimul.”

“Thank you, Honorable Lady,” breathed Skadi, her heart yet pounding, her thoughts whirling. “I shall heed your advice always.”

“How sweet of you to say so. Time shall tell if you speak true. Go with my blessings, your mortal. I shall continue to watch you with interest.”

Skadi blinked, and the battlefield was gone, the cats, the mutilated bodies.

The goddess.

She lay on her side, curled up with her knees to her chest, and in her hand, she clutched a staff of iron.

Somewhere Ásfríðr yet chanted, the sound a dull drone.

Skadi blinked to clear her vision and studied her staff. It was shorter than Thyrnir, perhaps the length of a common sword, slender and beautifully wrought. Beneath the black stone at its top swelled a basket of iron reeds, as long as a handspan, a dozen slender bars swelling out and then back in, like a seed-shaped cage.

Within, nothing, but it was in that empty space that Skadi sensed her new power.

She sharpened her vision, and saw that two new threads emerged from her chest, slender and gleaming, bringing her total now to eighteen.

She rolled onto her back, placed the rod upon her chest, and closed her eyes.

Saw Yri emerging from the mist once more, felt Freyja’s lips upon her ear. Recalled how her body had melted like butter placed on a hot pan, how her will had slipped between her fingers.

It was Yri that had saved her.

What her friend had reminded her of.

Without her, Skadi didn’t know to what she might have agreed.

“It is done,” said Ásfríðr, her voice rich with victory and satisfaction. “You’ve done it! And there is your staff, as I knew it would be.”

Skadi turned her head as the völva knelt beside her, finally setting aside her eagle’s wing to beam joyously.

“Welcome, sister,” said the völva, and leaned down to embrace her.

Skadi hugged her back, then sat up, a hand to her brow.

“What is it?” asked Ásfríðr. “Did it not go well?”

“It did. I have my staff, and my spell, it was approved…”

“But…?”

“The goddess.” And with that, Skadi twisted to look up at the statue, which for all its beauty looked crude and lumpen in comparison to the living glory of the goddess herself. “She… she was not as I had imagined. Or…”

“Freyja is a complex goddess,” agreed Ásfríðr, sitting sidelong out of her kneeling posture. “She is the goddess of battle and seiðr, yes, but she is also the goddess of death. Of sex. Of power.”

“Yes.” Skadi frowned down at her steel rod. It was banded in deepest blue below and above the seed-shaped basket, and the stone at its tip gleamed with hidden depths. “Yes. I just… I didn’t expect…”

Ásfríðr smiled sorrowfully. “The interest of the gods is a perilous thing, Skadi. They are beings with their own desires and agendas. They act upon a greater stage, but in many ways, they are intelligible to us, fallible, crude, even. Think of Thor’s misadventures or Odin’s rape of Rindr. We völvas learn our seiðr from Freyja, we revere her, we thank her for her blessings, but we must never think of her as an impartial benefactress. She is a power to be courted most warily, and in time you shall form your own relationship with her, for better or ill.”

Skadi nodded mutely, and thought of how her uncle had spoken with Odin. His harsh demands, his indifference to the god’s majesty, his anger and bitterness.

Would she, too, deal with Freyja in such a manner one day?

“But you survived the encounter, and have wrested wisdom from the gods,” smiled Ásfríðr. “Come! We must celebrate. Tell me all that happened, but oh—one thing first. This you must never forget: your staff is both your symbol of power and conduit to Freyja. We are called völur for a reason, for we are staff carriers in truth: never allow another to handle your staff. It can be used against you by those who practice the wicked arts, and you cannot cast your spells without it. Never, ever allow another seiðrkona to touch it, not even me. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” whispered Skadi, tightening her grip on her staff. “That makes it sound like a terrible weakness.”

“It can be, if you are not careful. But remember that you are protected by your wyrd. Your staff shall always be safe as long as your wyrd remains strong.”

Skadi nodded and studied her new implement. Turned it about in her hands. It did not bring her joy as she had thought. Power, yes. But it was fraught with meaning, and connected her to a goddess most dire.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I will guard this with my life, I swear it.”