Brokkr entered the house limping on his failure of an ax. The smell of stinking weeds filled the room, ingredients for a spell he guessed. The walls were painted with runes and the floor cluttered with stone etched with more arcane designs.

Brokkr's feet crunched on the stones as he neared the bundle of fur further inside. “Völva,” he called and the furs moved, a hand poking out, Sigyn’s. She rolled over exposing her breast with eyes blinking away sleep.

“Which one is this?” she asked, looking confused. “Are you here for magic, Ivaldi?” She looked about her own home taking it in like for the first time. “How long have I been here? A while, so you.” She looked at Brokkr but not with the sly grin she always wore and gestured to a playing board. “Is this the time we play tafl? I’ll win.” Her eyes drifted to his leg and widened with understanding. “Brokkr, so that’s when this is.”

“What are you on about?”

Sigyn sat up not so much as placing a hand across her chest. “I wasn't sure when I was. But this is the time you stop being a fool and bed me. You are here to bed me, or do we have to run?”

She didn't know when she was? What the fuck did that mean. Did she?

A chill ran up Brokkr’s spine. How long had the Völva known of this day, and of his failure? Her kind saw things, knew what had and would happen, but to such an extent.

“Am I going to be Jarl?” Brokkr asked.

Sigyn chuckled. “You think I see everything, but I only get glimpses and hints. I saw you thrusting into me years ago without knowing why just that it would happen.”

“And you think that time is now like with my father before me.”

“Oh yes. I can tell by that sad look on your face.” She lifted the fur covering her exposing herself. “I can only hope you’re as good a lover as your father.”

Brokkr grinded his teeth. He wanted to strangle the woman but not as much as he needed whatever she’d given his brothers. Eitri and Sindri were still at work, every few days emerging with new weapons and this very morning with a golden arm ring that banished pain like father’s did. The little support Brokkr had vanished as they were handed out, adding to the Dudini's already considerable strength.

He didn't have time for honor. As soon as one brother achieved a work greater than the other that one would be Jarl, and as of right now, that brother wouldn't be Brokkr even given a lifetime to hone his craft.

Brokkr reached for the straps of his tunic. Fuck, his hands were trembling. Trousers bulged with his desire and he was still scared.

Sigyn quirked an eyebrow. “Having second thoughts.”

“Will… wilI I still be me?”

“You will look back at the man you are now as a child. So much more but so much less.”

Sigyn waved a hand and Brokkr shot forward, pulled off his feet by an unseen force. His clothes exploded in a shower of fabric as he fell on Sigyn. She laughed, turning him over and raining kisses down on his neck, his chest and lips. Her hand wrapped around his cock and she took it in her mouth. By the gods, she knew how to work a man better than most.

Sigyn ran her tongue across his shaft, the look in her eye pleased at how he shuddered. “Not yet.” She crawled up his body until he could feel her wetness against him. “Not until I find my release.”

Sigyn plunged Brokkr into her, the warmth at her core wrapping around him in what had to be some Völva’s trick. Flesh slammed against flesh, faster, breaths coming in gasps, draining Brokkr more than any woman he’d taken while drowning him in pleasure.

He needed to slow himself, but Sigyn was like a boulder on his chest, holding him with her magic. Pain shot up his leg, but she only thrust into him harder, moaning with pleasure, the sound of her voice bringing him closer.

The Völva's hands took hold of his head, forcing their eyes to meet. “It’s time to open your eyes!” And then she screamed in climax.

A wave of pleasure crashed into Brokkr forcing his own climax and stealing the floor out from under him.

Screaming somewhere between pleasure and abject terror as Sigyn still ground into him, Brokkr fell through darkness, the only light shining far above in rainbows stretching across the sky. Something within shifted and a kingdom of stone and iron sprawled out before him.

He knew this place, its name coming to him like a half-remembered dream. And those that lived within, skin like moonless night with glowing golden eyes, his father’s eye, and his own.

Brokkr wailed as another climax struck him. Symbols came to him, hundreds of runes he'd never seen and all so familiar like he'd known them all the days of his life. Whispers pierced his mind filled with secrets, telling lies on his father and his sons.

Sigyn’s voice cut through the cacophony. “Name the other world’s!”

The Völvas was talking nonsense even now when so many truths were laid bare. The other worlds were countless, most without names and all holding their own terrors. But Sigyn’s nails bit into him like needles forcing an answer.

“Muspelheim!” he shouted. “World of fire!”

Sigyn dug in deeper, the pain and her warmth sending his mind swimming. “Give me more!”

“Jötunheimr of the jotnar. A cold land but a paradise compared to... Niflheim, land of death, decay and-”

Brokkr gasped. The mist, it had come from Niflheim, saturated with the world’s cold and thick with vaettir calling the realm home. How had they come to Midgard? How did he now know without a hint of misgiving?

“Asgard, Vanaheim, realm of the Aesir and Vanir!”

This Brokkr had already known, but it was like he had seen the home of the gods for himself. Sprawling cities of gold and silver in both lands as if to mirror each other.

“More!” Sigyn demanded.

Brokkr bit down, drawing blood from his lip. He didn't want to say more. Doing so would make what he’d seen and felt real. The truth of Ivaldi would be laid bare and his sons were just as corrupted as he was.

“Álfheim!” he shouted, spitting the name in anger, brought to rage at the mention of the world of light, his enemy, the eternal foe to his father and all those like him.

Sigyn rang her tongue across his face then forced his eyes open. They’d been closed the entire time but did naught to ward off the visions.

The darkness of the room pulsed in Brokkr’s vision. Shadows crept into his eyes as if to blind but they revealed so much. There were ghosts floating about, all turning to him as he saw them, each like mist, existing but not where Brokkr was, somewhere distant but close like trying to hold a breath in one's hand.

The light beaming in through cracks was blinding, scorching his eyes and the shadows still growing within. With a thought, the light vanished, fleeing as wisp when tendrils of darkness enveloped all but Sigyn.

“There is one more world you know,” the Völva said, but Brokkr didn't want to answer. He wouldn't speak of it, the world that called to him now, offering sucker, power, his birthright. “Say it!”

Brokkr roared, the sound of something shattered reverberating as he forced Sigyn off of him. He reached for his ax, the shadows speaking, telling him where it had fallen.

Sigyn raised her arms like that would stop the weapon from taking her head. The witch had poisoned his mind, telling him lies through her trench! But his hands were now obsidian black and the yellow glow of his eyes reflected in a mirror resting against the wall.

Tears raced down Brokkr’s face and his grip loosened, dropping the ax. “Svartalfheim, land of eternal night, where Father was born, or at least the vaettir that possessed him.” Brokkr let himself fall to the ground as he clutched his head. “I’m a vaettir! A fucking svartálfr!”

No! This had to be a lie! Svartálfr visited horrors on mankind from beneath the earth where shadows never found light. How could father be one? How could he, and not be some twisted thing?

“Ivaldi was never your father in body, but in spirit,” Sigyn said. “He’s not even dead, just banished back to Svartalfheim. But you Brokkr, he poured his strength into you, igniting the ember already there from being born from a vaettir.”

“Shut up!”

Sigyn only grew closer until speaking into his ear. “You need no host because you are your host.”

“I said shut your fucking mouth!”

Tendrils of shadows erupted from Brokkr’s feet coiling around Sigyn, and lifting her into the air. She only smiled wider, but the look she gave had him swelling with need. The shadows spread her thighs apart, knowing what he wanted.

“Take me, Ivaldi Son,” Sigyn said in a breathy whisper. “Take your birthright.”

Brokkr was in her again thrusting while she hung, leg wrapped around him as the shadow swallowed the both.