Gry inched closer to the flame despite the sweat cresting her skin. Any closer and the furs draped over her threatened to catch fire. But still, the urge to creep forward just one more time tore at her.

The closer to the flame she was, the farther away the mist retreated. There was something more than deathly cold waiting at the edge of camp in the darkness of the wood when the sun had fallen below the mountains. Even now, Gry could feel them watching, waiting for men fool enough to venture into the night without flame.

Völva nonsense some call it. Witchcraft and superstition. But as a Völva, cursed and blessed with magic and the sight, Gry knew the truth, or could feel it at the very least every time her torch grew dim. Things without shape always grew close, slithering over her, looking for a way in.

She wouldn't go mad when some hateful vaettir took her body and devoured her soul, because fire was life.

Smoke with the stench of burning hair swam up Gry's nose. Coughing, she backed away from the flame, but it chased her, having already found purchase on her furs. She swotted at the growing fire only for it to leap onto her sleeve and climb until scalding her face. Skin bubbled and popped until the flame's betrayal was complete, consuming her.

Gry screamed as her arse slid across the snow, feet kicking at the ground in a panic to get away from the flame.

A hand grabbed hold of Gry, hefting her off the ground. "Is the girl possessed?" a man asked with his other hand holding a sword aimed to run her through.

“The fire!” Gry shouted. Why the fuck was he so calm when she was on-.

Gry’s struggles ended when she saw her arms, her furs, her entire body was unharmed. In fact, having stepped away from the flame, a layer of rime already coated her. Her fool brain had been playing tricks on her again, or the sight.

“A vision,” a woman said.

Gry turned and saw her wrinkled teacher, Aslaug. The crone was the true Völva of the Hastingy, Gry’s own tribe, and looked like a mist-cursed draugr with the faintest flicker of life. But her boney finger snatched Gry away from the man holding her like he was a child.

“The flames!” Gry said but Aslaug gave a hateful hiss silencing her.

“What we see is not for the likes of men,” the Völva warned.

She turned, meeting the eyes of every man in the camp, each looking away as to not be cursed by her magics, magics that Gry herself would one day possess if Aslaug ever decided to teach anything more than how to mix leaves into a poultice.

Aslaug looked to Halvar, the Hastingy tribe’s Jarl. "The girl is untrained. The other worlds still plague her."

Halvar grunted a response, more than Gry would have gotten. The Jarl like all men were unconcerned if not frightened of the other worlds. Halvar and his most trusted men, his Thanes, just being here for this casting of magics felt wrong.

It was women's work, all magics were, but the fel powers they called on demanded sacrifice and such horror couldn't be brought into the villages. So the Jarl and a single Thane from every tribe attended as guards. To not would mean war, at least that is what Aslaug had told Gry as it was her first time taking part in such things.

Before now, she hadn't known what power kept the mist at bay. Torchlight, Gry thought, and the bonfire at her village’s center, but such mundane methods had been failing, letting the mist grow thick as the months marched by. Winter had come and gone and yet the cold, the snow, the mist, had not abated. But summer would return after this night and hopefully, the tribes of Germa would never know the price to be paid.

Aslaug pulled Gry farther away from the flame, behind the gathered men and Völva.

“You will be silent and watch,” the crone said in a hissing voice like a throat desperate for water. "This will be your duty one day." Aslaug squeezed Gry's shoulder with her sharpened nails eliciting a yelp of pain. "And calm your sight."

“But what did it mean, the flame?” Gry asked.

“It doesn't matter. If it was important, I would have seen it myself.”

“You didn’t see the troll that attacked a fortnight ago.”

The slap came so fast Gry felt the burning in her cheek after her head arched back and she stumbled. She'd seen it coming too. An instant of prescient insight but coming too slowly to react in time. Felt like being struck twice.

“Fool girl,” Aslaug said in a voice filled with pity. "A taste of the sight and you think yourself an oracle."

Gry rubbed her cheek wanting to curse Odin. The god of fate had made her beautiful. Her arse was shapely, lips full and hair dark as the moonless night sky. At 20 winters, she should have had a husband and fat babies, and already have tasted battle. Instead, her hair had been cut shorter than even a man’s. Runes dotted her skin and face marking her as a Völva all thanks to Odin’s cursed sight.

Fuck Odin, and his Aesir, the old Vanir and the new. They were cruel. Probably brought the mist just to force sacrifices be made in their name. But what god were they calling on now?

Gry was about to ask when Aslaug spoke. “Logi. He rules over Muspelheim and fire itself.”

Did the Völva see her question through the sight? If so, why not stop Gry's earlier outbursts. Or did Aslaug play out events as she saw them, keeping on fate’s path if it was favorable?

Gry hated the few insights she gazed with her untrained sight. Felt like living through someone else, to watch one's life, never truly taking part unless to deviate from fate.

Well, there was no point in pondering such things. Aslaug would teach her in time if the crone didn't die first. The more pressing matter was of the sacrifices or who's tribe was to offer them.

Halvar crunched the icy ground with his spear. “Nyarn, you offerings?” he asked the Jarl of the Vargr Tribe, but it was oh so close to a command.

The tribes of Germa had no king, but if they did, it would be Halvar of the Hastingy. The Jarl would already be king some said, if not for the Vargr tribe.

More shifters in that tribe than in the rest of Germa, and everyone knew it. A bunch of sister fucking savages if anyone asks Gry. But they were strong and never feared the mist as they were already possessed by vaettir, the otherworldly being creeping in the mist. Though some always went feral losing themselves to the moon spirit within.

Nyarn didn't speak for a long while. His eyes already reflected yellow off the fire light strewn about, wolf’s eyes. The man held no weapons or even proper clothing to ward off the cold. But Nyarn had teeth and claws that could grow in an instant, so did his Thane standing nearby, holding two whimpering slaves, a rope tied around their necks.

Nyarn released a long breath sounding not like anything a man ought to produce. It was a growl, bestial, like that of a wolf. So, not too far from the truth.

“My offerings,” Nyarn finally said. “My son and daughter for the good of all Germa.”

“What!” Gry shouted in a whisper. “They aren't slaves? Why not just use slaves? And why his own children?”

Aslaug spat in the snow. “We've tried slaves, Girl, scores of them and free men, and the blood of our enemies, but there is power in a Jarl’s blood. Power, and meaning.” A sad smile crept onto Aslaug’s face. “Vaettir hate the living. Maybe they feed on our pain or maybe they are just cruel beyond mortal understanding, but only a Jarl's own children will break this winter.”

Gry wanted to wretch. This was wrong, a perversion of the magics she'd been promised. She stepped forward, legs moving all on their own but she froze, feeling a weight crushing her, like a hand slithered its way around her heart daring her to move. A spell, one of Aslaug’s creation.

“You will watch,” Aslaug said. “The Hastingy are next in line. Best you learn now.”

“No!” Gry tried to scream but no sound came.

The world spun, tearing her mind, squeezing it, stretching, she didn't know but then she was back, the Jarls different, so too were the sacrifices. Two free men, practically still boys and Gry saw how they died knowing it happened years before.

Fuck!

Aslaug placed a hand on Gry's shoulder, the contact somehow bringing her back to the present.

“I know, Girl,” the Völva said. “It's a terrible thing we do, but it must be done. This winter needs to end, no matter the price.”

The Vargr Tribe's Völva, a woman a handful of winters older than Gry herself, knelt in front of the camp's bonfire, speaking words that echoed. Each sound lingered as more were added bringing forth a cacophony and a feeling of wrongness. It was supernal, a language of vaettir calling to Logi. And he answered.

No! No! No!

It was happening again. Gry's sight crawled into the future. The flames exploded in her mind then again moments later when it happened in the now. Everything happened twice as if her own sight mocked her. Nyarn plunged his children into the pire and turned as they flailed in torment, their screams only reaching Gry as they began in the present.

Gry shut her eyes. She didn't want to see this but the sight showed her more. Like she was in the flames herself, she saw skin char and blacken. She heard the pleas for help as they were snuffed out by the roaring fire. And then came the barking of hounds and an old man, tall and shirtless with taut muscles holding a spear as he charged her. The scent of blood, and shit, the smell of battle hit her like a wave forcing her eyes open.

The Jarl’s children stopped moving, but they had yet to fall. Each stood, limbs bent and fingers curled.

“What do you see, Gry?” Aslaug said, actually using her name. A truer sign than any that this night was cursed.

“I see,” Gry hesitated. The world fell away leaving only the flames and the sacrifices, but something else was there, a hundred somethings, a thousand. “What are they?” she asked, whimpering, wanting to run and would have if not for Aslaug’s grip on her.

“They are flame vaettir,” the old woman said in answer, but it felt like a warning. “Muspel kin.”

The victims suddenly jerked, both pointing a finger at Jarl Nyarn and bellowing. “Bastards!”

Aslaug’s breath caught in her throat while the Jarls and Thanes present all reach for swords, spears and axes.

Halvar pointed his spear. “Nyarn, you didn't!”

Before another word was said, the burned bodies lept from the flame, charging. They moved in a blur, faster than a man ought to, one crashing into Nyarn and the other-.

Oh fuck!

Halvar raised his shield, catching a flaming fist that took him off his feet. He rolled as he landed, thrusting his spear up as the Muspel kin lunged, impaling itself through the stomach. The creature still refused to die, its charred arms smashing against Halvar’s shield, cracking it and turning its metal red with heat.

“Do something!” Gry demanded but her teacher held firm as the other Jarls and Thanes came to Halvar’s rescue. “Throw a damned curse!”

Aslaug still held firm, no, shaking. The oh so terrifying Völva was scared along with the others of their kind, hiding behind the men. But Gry hadn't been a Völva for even a winter. If magics wouldn't work, she’d pick up a fucking weapon and start stabbing.

Gry raced towards her Jarl freeing a dagger from her waist. It was no sword, but it was something, but the Muspel kin jerked to the side, sending Halvar into the air. The spear’s shaft crashed into another Thane with the crunching of bone and a burning hand slammed into another Jarl, catching the man alight.

The Vaettir turned again, this time facing Gry as she roared a battle cry. Head or the heart Aslaug had said, a lesson she was finally put to use. But then her vision shifted, stretching an instant between breaths.

The Muspel kin twisted hand shot out releasing a tendril of flame, or it would. Two footfalls, one heartbeat, a breath and a half, and the fire would have her, burn like in her vision that had tried to warn her before. Well, now Gry listened.

Gry dove to the ground, snow filling her mouth as she screamed and lunged on all fours like some kind of shifter. The lance of fire came faster than any man could dodge sailing overhead with a heat so intense it turned the frost and rime coating her to vapor.

Still moving forward, Gry slammed her shoulder into the Vaettir, taking it off its feet. She fell with the burning corpse ignoring the heat coming off the thing and rammed her dagger into its head. At once, the flames extinguished as the possessed died, its body turning to ash a moment later.

Panting, Gry rose, her dagger glowing red hot and shoulder throbbing. She’d been burned, knew she would be too, but by Fraya’s tits, it hurt like a brand.

A howl reminded her there was another Vaettir to kill, but the Vargr Tribe Jarl faced it alone.

Nyarn’s bones shifted under his burned flesh, fur growing over his wounds and mouth elongating, becoming a snout. The man grew a head taller, muscles bulging as clawed fingers prying the Vaettir’s head from its shoulders. With a final roar, he ripped the creature apart, spilling ash about the camp.

“What the fuck are you all looking at?” Nyarn said as his bone popped back into place while fur fell from his skin. The burns were already healing somehow making Gry’s all the more painful.

All axes, spears, and Gry’s red dagger were now aimed at the vargr wolf. The man’s Thane shifted, growing larger than even Nyarn had been, becoming a berserker, a true snow bear and not an amalgamation, unlike the Jarl. Their Völva followed suit becoming a grey vargr wolf twice the size of any hound found in the wood.

“You’ve betrayed us!” Halvar shouted inching closer, like he meant to run the man through.

“I've betrayed no one.”

Gods, Nyarn’s voice was grating and so loud. He alone could kill half their number while his Thane and Völva could finish the rest even if they'd fall in the attempt. Gry didn't need a vision to know that and neither did Halvar who’s spear tip dipped the slightest bit.

“We shifters don’t fear the mist,” Nyarn continued. “Why should my heirs have to die to some vaettir for you lot?”

“To bring summer!” Aslaug shouted.

“I shit on summer! Vargr wolves and berserkers have no need of it.”

“War then,” Halvar said.

The other Jarl slammed their shields in agreement. Three in all, the Hastingy, Wodenar, and Vandali tribes, all save for the Diduni whose Jarl lay burned and dead on the frozen ground.

Gry limped over to Aslaug whispering into her air. “So what happens next?”

“I don’t know, Girl. I Just don’t know.”