A terrible shill took Gry, one that misted her breath and had her teeth chattering. The urge to press her flaming dagger to her skin was like being starved while roasted meat was just within arm’s reach, but it had been the fucking dagger that had her so cold in the first place.

“You let it take from you,” Aslaug said, the bitch wearing a smug smile as Gry shivers despite the fire warming the tent they shared.

“I didn’t let it take shit,” Gry said between gasps. “The little fucker tried to kill me.”

“Most vaettir do, if not to feed then for amusement. Mispilkin are no different. The one in your dagger did as compelled, lit the candle and nothing else. It is you that failed to close yourself off from its influence.”

Gry almost wished she’d never convinced Aslaug to teach her magic. The influence she spoke of felt like diving into a frozen lake. Oh, but it could have been worse.

A snow maiden, spirits of cold dwelling in the mist, would have her dead with daggers of frozen blood jetting from her chest. A wraith, in its hatred of all that lived, would feast on her soul, devouring memories years at a time and usually the most precious ones it could find. And these otherworldly beings could all possess her, using her body to spread death and pain, sometimes going undiscovered for years. But without vaettir, there could be no magic.

Only a god could hold power on one’s own. For mortals, they relied on ghosts and shades, the very forces they fought against for strength. No wonder Aslaug said she wasn't ready. Moons ago, Gry would have refused such a lesson without thought or consequence, but now they were steeped in war and a Völva had her duty as much as any warrior.

Gry gripped her dagger, its luster and prestige lost with the truth. Hadn’t been a boon from the gods or her own magic that warmed it so. It had been its maker, forging a weapon with some strange metal that eagerly waited for the day it cut into a vaettir and trapped the spirit inside.

“Close your eyes and feel it,” Aslaug said. “Your magin, the power within and push it through the mispilkin.”

Magin, a stupid name for what Gry had always know was there. Had more when she wasn't tired and less when she was. Could hardly think of it as magic, but she pushed the unseen force into and out of the dagger focusing her sight on a bundle of twigs.

The twigs began smoking then came alive with fire just like the Vargr Tribe's Thane in the last battle.

The spell saved Halvar a good many injuries as the werewolf would have clawed into him had its fur not been aflame. Three more met their end the same way as leather and furs caught fire. A devastating magic indeed unless a man went into war shirtless.

Aslaug nodded. “You can practice your fire on your own now. What truly needs to be mastered now is your sight.”

Oh great, the fucking sight. Already the fluttering images at the back of Gry’s mind came to the forefront, blinding her for a moment from just the thought of them.

A wolf stared her down, white-furred and massive as if to fel a mammoth alone. At its side were the green eyes of a draugr wrapped in shadow, like heat rippling the air.

The smell of battle came to her and the barking of hounds. A field of red snow drowning in death and the blood on Gry's own hands. And then came a made armed with a spear, covered in runes and aimed at her own heart, only now she saw he was wounded, a blood-stained rag covering his eye.

“The same visions?” Aslaug asked. Gry nodded. “A metaphor then, an approximation of things to come.”

“That’s stupid,” Gry said.

She’d had such visions before. Saw bugs flying from her mouth during a dream once. Turns out her breath was foul and was in need of brushing.

“You need to focus your sight,” Aslaug continued and tossed a bundle of weeds into the fire.

The smoke hit Gry like a blow, rocking her back as she took a breath. She blinked as her eyes watered, revealing the world of dulled colors and vibrant shadow.

Gry looked away from the shadows. There were things in them, things she didn't want seeing her. “What does the astral realm have to do with focusing my sight?”

“Just think on the visions and-”

Aslaug, the tent, the entire world bled away like a painting in the rain. In their place was a room in what had to be a great hall with a bear of a man holding a newborn, the child’s mother laying still on blood-covered furs.

“You have to save him!” the man shouted, drawing his sword and pointing at a woman whose garb was that of a Völva's. In fact, Gry had seen this woman before, but not looking so young and vibrant. “Aslaug, I swear to Odin I will cut you down if you don't heal my fucking son!”

“There is naught to be done, Lord,” Aslaug said, backing away with terror from Halvar’s father, the past Jarl Alfdan. Girl looked to be on the verge of tears and Aslaug was just a girl, no more than 15 winters.

The room melted away again to one of stone and cast in darkness. The babe, Halvar, lay on the ground, his form withered and pale, ought to be sent back to Yggdrasil at being born with such weakness.

Aslaug, her face bruised and nose broken by the past Jarl, sat cross-legged a few paces away screaming words that echoed. It was supernal, the language of spirits, but from what Gry knew of it, she was calling to vaettir, bargaining with the other worlds to save her future Jarl.

What was the Völva thinking? From the few months of learning Gry had she knew what was happening was apt to suicide or worse, possession. But Alsaug’s words only grew louder until she gasped.

Gry saw it, a vaettir, as a stream of mist pass into the Völva. She fell onto her knees emptying her stomach onto the ground, but still found the strength to crawl her way to the babe. Aslaug’s hair grayed as she did, wrinkles spreading from her eyes, her lips, her entire face aged by decades in an instant.

Her hand landed on the babe and she screamed. Intricate designs and runes appeared on her skin. They moved across her, shifting to the babe, covering his flesh and vanishing a moment later.

Gry found herself back in the present, with tears in her eyes. She’d wanted to make more troll shifters like Halvar, but Aslaug would have no word of it. The price was too high and the process racked with too much risk. She had to see it for herself even after being told. What a child she had been, still was.

“What did you see?” Aslaug asked, looking ancient once again.

Gry wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry he made you do that.”

The Völva’s eyes widened and then sorrow crept onto her face. “And that’s why men should know naught of what we can do.”