It was too fucking cold. Gry could hardly open her eyes fearing they'd freeze over. If she had stones, they would have fallen off by now. Halvar, at the head of the group, had to be stuffing his trousers. Gry certainly was, but it was never enough.

Two days had passed since the Vargr Tribe's betrayal and there would be two more before reaching Dalir, their home and the only true warmth nearby.

Gry shook herself like a wet hound sending ice flying. She'd thought the ritual barbaric. Now, walking through a blizzard, she'd put as many as needed to the sword if it meant bringing summer to this cursed land.

As if hearing her thoughts, the wind picked up, bringing vaettir she couldn't see, warded off by the torch she held. The blizzard grew worse still, lashing at her flame until it was but mere embers.

“I-I, need.”

Gry could hardly speak, she was so frozen. Thankfully, Halvar heard her and reached into his satchel. A moment later, he was rubbing animal fat over her torch.

“Light it,” the Jarl said.

Gry nodded, placing her still glowing knife to the torch. It blossomed with fire on contact with the blade.

Halvar stared at the weapon like he had many times before. It held the heat of a smith's forge warming Gry's hand so well she need not protect it from the cold. It was sharper too, with runes staining its surface that hadn't been there before, runes of course that she couldn't read and Aslaug wouldn't speak on.

Halvar stuck his torch in the snow and wrapped his hands around Gry's. He stayed there for a long while, taking in the heat. Man might have lost a finger by now if not for the flame blessed weapon.

“We make camp,” Aslaug said but all the while looking unaffected by the hateful cold.

Halvar grunted. “If we don't make it to Dalir in time-”

“If we keep going, we won't make it there at all. I have seen it.”

Gry tried to see the truth in her teacher's words but her sight gave no signs. Völva nonsense then. Most of what Aslaug said was such, like Midgard ever being warm enough to walk the wood shirtless. Nonsense, all of it, unless her sight showed her otherwise, which it rarely ever did.

“There,” Halvar said, gesturing with his head to a mighty tree twice again large enough to shield them from the wind. They could dig pulling the snow enough to preserve some warmth. Still, He held Gry's hand for warmth and eyed the dagger one more time before letting go.

Aslaug and the Jarl made for the tree first. Gry followed, stopping after a single step.

“Fuck,” she groaned.

“What now?” Aslaug asked, grinding her teeth. Maybe the cold was getting to her?

“I'll catch-death chill if we stay there.”

In a comfortable nook in the tree curled up in the pit they had yet to dig, Gry saw herself, eyes white and skin blue like a frost jötunn.

“Just you, or all of us,” Aslaug asked without a hint of shame.

Halvar turned, marching past the tree. “Then we move on.”

“Lord!” Aslaug exclaimed, but the Jarl refused to stop.

“We! Move! On!” Halvar shouted back, making each word a command.

Another hour passed and even Aslaug looked ready to let the night take her. It would be so easy. All Gry needed was a moment and something in the howling wind promised her such peace, the whispers.

Gry had heard them before, on her way to the ritual. Always teasing. Always taunting. The whispers said she’d never find a husband, that she’d end up a crone like Aslaug and that her parents died in the mist because they were weak. But the voices were louder now and all the more inviting, promising warmth if she’d just let them in.

A vision crashed into Gry like a fist. She was dead, frozen solid as she gave in.

Suddenly, she found new strength as the image filled her with terror. Gry moved past Aslaug and Halvar taking the lead, gaining a surprised look from both. The mist only gave sucker to the dead, trolls, and vaettir. She had to remember that.

A half-hour later and Gry was struck by another vision. She was standing this time with a fell green light flickering behind her eye. She'd let one in, a vaettir, or she would have if not for the sight.

“By Freyr’s flaming sword, I will not die in this wood!” Gry bellowed.

Halvar looked at her bemused. The Jarl’s eyes were half-closed. The death chill nearly had him, Gry too by how fast her visions were coming.

Well, she did swear on Freyr and already had a flaming weapon like the god himself.

Gry palmed her red hot dagger by the blade biting down a scream, but mostly failing. She dropped it a heartbeat later melting snow as it wedged itself in the ground.

Right handshaking with the pain, she was good and ready to match on now. There was a heat in her, almost too much, like her face was flushed as a man was pounding into her. But Halvar, he hadn't been moved by her whaling.

No! No! No! No!

Grabbing the dagger, Gry tore at Halvar's shirt, pressing it against the first bare skin she saw.

Halvar screamed and Gry with him until she laughed, seeing the warmth spread and return color to the Jarl.

“Odin’s fucking beard, girl!” Halvar roared but Gry ignored him, walking over to Aslaug, smiling despite her own pain, and more than happy to share it.

Aslaug’s screams had been like music, as brief as they had been. Couldn't anger her master too much after all, but now warm and flush with some otherworldly heat, they went on.

Hours passed with another round of burnings when Aslaug ordered they change their path. She’d seen a raven, how within such darkness Gry didn't know, but clearly a sign from Odin so they’d trust in the Hanged One. Although, Halvar wasn't convinced.

“What do you think?” the Jarl asked Gry of all people.

She didn't know the gods from troll shit, but her Jarl wanted an answer for some reason.

“Trust in the gods,” she offered.

Gry placed the back of her dagger to her flesh, burning a line onto her forearm. She had no need of it, but the warmth was intoxicating. She’d done it twice more by the time Aslaug found the shelter she’d promised.

It was a cave, a small one. Any larger would invite trolls and a dozen Hastingy warriors had little chance of clearing a troll cave. But there could still be beasts within, vaettir too if the gods were not with them.

Entering the cave, Halvar at the front hefting his shield, Gry found she or at least one of her party had the god’s favor. They offered a boon in fact, the best kind, one you had to fight for.

At the back of the cave, so deep within its bowels, the howling wind was merely a whisper, was a snow bear.

It was not the like to wait for summer and hungered for man-flesh always. Twice the size of any man and near-invisible with its white fur, the beast was formidable. But Gry stood with Halvar and the man was the farthest thing from prey.

Before the snow bear could charge, the Jarl did, abandoning his shield to thrust with both arms. The spear punched through the bear's mouth and out the back of its head. A Jarl's blood held power indeed.

The beast dead, Gry went to work cooking flesh as she carved with her red dagger. Aslaug started a fire soon after and the three encircled it, eating like nobles at a banquet.

Gry cut another slab of meat letting it rest on her dagger to cook. "I want another one," she said.

“What?” Halvar asked, and of course, looking at the dagger and then Gry.

There was something in the Jarl’s eye. Nothing fel in nature and certainly not greed. He could have taken the weapon as was his right as Jarl. Gry had even offered, but Halvar had insisted she keep it.

Gry bit into the cooked meat and twirled the dagger in the air lightning the cave's roof for an instant. "Think of it. One dagger gains me reputation. Two makes me a fucking Valkyrie."

“You know nothing, Girl,” Aslaug said.

“I know I killed a Muspel kin and was rewarded. Or was it magic that made this? If so, I'll make more and cut this damned winter a new arse hole.”

Halvar laughed at that but Aslaug grew pale like the chill had her again. “Do not speak of such things!”

Gry spat into the fire. “What? Will talk of magics make our Jarl’s stones fall off?”

Halvar went pale at that while Aslaug’s voice rose in anger. “Our Jarl will keep his stones, but you'll draw the Fimbulwinter’s wrath.”

“Völva nonsense," both Gry and Halvar said.

“You are a fucking Völva, Girl, as much as you try not to be.”

Gry grunted having heard this nonsense before. “This is just winter, Aslaug. A winter too stubborn to end, but winter all the same. It can't get angry.”

Halvar squirmed where he sat. Words for women were being said and Jarl or not, no man had the right to silence a Völva when speaking of the other worlds. Poor man couldn't even leave as the mist was waiting outside.

“So you think this blizzard just appeared from nowhere?” Aslaug asked.

“I think we're unlucky. Or maybe an ice jötunn farted up north and we were downwind.”

“The ritual,” Aslaug said like it was obvious. “Fimbulwinter knows we brought Muspel kin into Midgard. Not enough to hold it back but plenty enough to anger it.”

“If this winter lives, can we not kill it?” Halvar asked, his usually rough and confident voice low, as though terrified to speak on such things.

Gry looked on him with surprise and Aslaug joined her. Men didn't speak of magic or otherworldly things. Aslaug was about to remind him of just that but he’d struck a chord with Gry.

“Why can't we kill it?” she asked.

Aslaug huffed. “Sounds as simple as cutting the roots of a mountain. Leave such matters to the gods.”

“And those favored by them,” Halvar added.

Gry laughed. "Claiming to be the son of a god? Certainly strong enough."

“Lord, forgive her impermanence.”

“I don't mind,” Halvar said with a smile. “Not one bit.”