For just a moment, Gry thought the sight had taken her again. She woke in the arms of a man. Her, a Völva, so it must be the past not glimpsed for the first time in her sleep. It was the only reason she still knew her parent’s faces but not of how they died.

The sight was not so agreeable as to show her exactly what wanted to be seen. But then she turned, meeting Halvar's eyes, his face brimming with a smile and her own burning, no doubt with crimson painting her cheeks.

The Jarl had been like a man starved, most shifters were like that when it came to lovemaking. It left her body sore and sated, so much more than usual having been so long without company.

In fact, Gry assumed she'd never find anyone willing to share her bed, not as a Völva. But to have Halvar, her own Jarl, and more than once. Well, that brought a sense of pride few could know as hollow as it might be.

There was the chance… no, Gry was certain the troll vaettir bound to the Jarl had urged him to take her. He would have taken any woman most like, but still, he would have gone feral, becoming more beast than man. Not having a lifetime to temper his own nature left him more vulnerable than most, but no longer, not after tasting her power.

Gry still felt it, her magin inside the Jarl swirling with his own. And inside her was Halvar’s seeped in the strength of a troll.

Whenever she found release magin would explode in a wave of pleasure entering her lover as his entered hers. Soon after, Gry could hardly feel the cold. Her eyes cut through the darkness as if it were day. And her strength felt something grand like she could wrestle a snow bear. Her skin had not turned from its soft complexion but the change would not be unwelcome. But Halvar had taken in some of her magin and that lay in his salvation.

With a mere thought, Gry had surprised the troll beneath her Jarl's skin. It wasn't too unlike how she commanded her dagger. Could she control the man too? Maybe, but should she, proving all the men right in their fears of Völva.

Gry sighed and rose from the bed of furs. Halvar’s arm took her own as she dressed.

“Stay,” he said. Not an order but a plea, one she had to refuse as there was work to be done.

“I have to go,” Gry said, keeping her voice soothing as she pushed her will onto the man.

She envisioned sleep, his eyes closing, head falling back to the furs. A heaviness came over Halvar’s eyes. His grip loosened as he leaned back.

Fuck! It was working or it had been for a moment, until what felt like a mountain crashed into Gry's mind, nearly taking her feet from under her.

“The sun has not even fully risen yet,” Halvar said his wakefulness returned. "Whatever Völva nonsense needs doing can wait a few hours."

Had he not even noticed? Or was Gry's own will so poultry to his own. Either way, this was for the best. To have such power over a man seemed a thing of vaettir.

Gry cupped Halvar’s face and kissed him but did not join him. “The tribe needs me, lord.”

Halvar grunted. “And what of my needs?”

“You could take a slave for now.”

Halvar grunted again, his displeasure plain. Made Gry want to fuck him even more but there were things that needed her attention.

As Gry left the tent she ignored the eyes cast her way. More than a handful had to of heard their lovemaking so by now it had to be known by all. Surely there was talk of how she must be poisoning the Jarl’s mind. True in a way but one poison could ward off another, but explaining such things wouldn’t help.

In days past, Thanes might have called a ting, sitting in a circle of nobles to judge the Jarl unfit, cast him out for being bewitched. Now a cracked skull is all they'd receive for the insult.

Rather than linger among the onlookers, Gry trusted her prescience to guide her to where she was most needed. This aspect of her sight she could trust for it gave her a sense of those in need, when vaettir drew close, and an understanding of where those she cared for where.

These feelings and intuitions only grew stronger as the moons went by. Gry surmised soon she'd uncover secrets from simply wanting to know of them. No wonder men thought Völva knew too much.

Like walking with her eyes closed, Gry found herself at the edge of camp, her sight screaming at her or at the man keeping far away from the fire his fellows nested around.

The world shifted to one of churning shadows as Gry peered into the astral realm. Around the man a black near formless shade presses in on him forcing its way down his throat. But the man's soul fought back looking as much a shade as the ghost tearing it asunder, save the light emanating from it.

Like trying to strangle a cloud of smoke, he raged while his body remained still. Soon he would falter, bits of a soul, his memories already tearing free, the light within him already dimming.

Gry freed a bushel of weeds from her satchel, lightning them in one hand and a torch in the other as she passed by the man. Instantly the shade's attention shifted leaving the man instead following Gry as she whispered in supernal.

On she went for hours letting her sight bring her about the camp, urging vaettir to her side. To be without flame now would have her possessed for sure but one by one the ghost vanished, banished by the words that echoed as they were spoken, lingering for several minutes and sending a chill of wrongness through all who heard it.

There were still those she could not save, those that had breathed too deeply of the mist. But culling those went to Aslaug who sat alone eating her night meal as Gry approached.

Gry took a seat in front of the older woman staring at her with all the power of the sight she could muster and saw nothing.

“You knew,” she said after a long moment.

Aslaug took a bite of elk flesh. “I know many things, girl.”

Gry groaned. “Will you stop trying to be so fucking mysterious! I already know how much you don't know!”

“To know what I don't know you must know what I know first.”

Well, the old bitch had her there but now at least being half-trained Gry could see through the troll shit Aslaug spoke with absolute authority. They both only saw a piece of the whole and even less of what came next. The sight just wasn't that precise but Aslaug knew enough to flaunt like she knew it all.

Gry forked a piece of meat with her dagger, taking a bite even as it continued to burn. “You knew Halvar would go feral and sent me to sate him.”

Aslaug nodded. “I knew he'd kill the men sent with him so I only sent you.”

Gry scoffed. Aslaug had said men would die during the vargr wolf raid but not by Halvar's own hands. But it was still the truth of a sort, so was that the Jarl would not fall to the pack of shifters.

“A Völva trench holds power,” Gry said but she couldn't bring forth any hint of the pettiness she wanted to.

“Did you not enjoy yourself?”

Gry smile. “I did, and did again, and again, but you didn't tell me because you weren't sure.”

“I wasn't,” she admitted. “But I saw what would befall us had I not intervened.”

“And this marriage you propose? Is any of that a true foretelling of the future?”

Aslaug sighed. She always seemed tired when revealing a truth like the web of half-truths gave her strength, which of course it did.

“The future is always changing and is shadowed by all those paring into it. You only see your immediate future which is far more clear. But I am more skilled with the present and even more with the past.” Asluag quirked a rare smile. “And Arvid's daughter Syn. Prescient insight lets me know she is unmarried and we are in need of sucker.”

“The men think it's fate that guides us.”

Aslaug shrugged. “Let the men think what they want.”