With minutes to live, she transforms into a goddess. Legs and hooves become womanly limbs while stark-white fur becomes long, braided hair, stained with oozing crimson blood.
“This moment is yours alone, Rasha. A promise kept will bring our worlds back into balance,” Skadi declares, gazing up at me with crystal clear blue eyes. I stroke her white hair even though my hands are coated in her blood. The punctured vein in her neck gushes in a horrendous and unstoppable way.
“What promise?” I ask, trying to staunch the bleeding anyway I can. “What do I do to make this right? He never wanted your death,” I assure the dying huntress. Her long fingers wrap around my wrist where Shaw’s chain is tightly resting against my skin.
“You must take my place or our gods will be lost. I couldn’t fulfillmy promise, but you took up my bow.” Her mouth fills with blood, preventing her from continuing. I don’t understand. Rubbing her chest to try to keep her alive, I pull her into my arms and hug her so that she doesn’t feel alone.
“How?”
She grips my wrist tighter, pressing the chain between our skin, and tears gather in my heavy eyelashes. I hold her as her heartbeat slows, and her lungs stop expanding in her broken chest. Rubbing her back in slow circles, I cry, my emotions spilling out in messy tears and running down her soft skin. Gradually, Skadi’s soul leaves her body.
Another hand presses into my shoulder. I expect it to be Shaw, but it isn’t. Strikingly similar to Vidarr, this man must be the brother I haven’t met. By the look in his dark eyes, I am not sure I want to.
“It is time for you to leave the edge.”
“Where are Shaw and Vidarr? You’re the twin?” I answer, collecting myself and stringing the chain around my neck in long loops. I am covered in her blood, but it doesn’t matter.
“My name is Vali. Yes, I am the older twin. Vidarr shouldn’t have helped you. Shaw lost his seat as King, and that is how it will stay. Skadi’s soul showed you a false hope.”
“You sent the Fenrir after me so that I couldn’t finish his chain. Her death was by man, not by Shaw.” My teeth clatter together as I accuse him. Forcing myself to be stronger than I am, taller even than I am, I search that place deep inside my soul for my own brand of magic.
“He should have never brought her there. Marrying her and bonding their souls was his purpose to keep our realm alive. But they couldn’t have cared less about us.”
“I don’t believe that Shaw didn’t care for you. They were young and foolish. She wanted the freedom to choose,” I cry out, flailing my arms over Skadi’s lifeless body.
“Freedom comes at a price, which he is paying. So I will keep the both of you where you belong. The Vanheim is mine, and your wasteful world will soon have a new set of rules.”
“I can feel your magic. You have no one bonded to you, which puts you equally at risk.”
“Don’t worry about me. This is a lesson for you, Rasha. Take heed.”
“I am done with lessons from men. We will be returning together.” I don’t know where the words came from, but I find them all the same. He watches me like a hawk, waiting for me to fail most likely. But if I want to keep my promise to Skadi so her soul isn’t trapped in this pocket the same as the bow was trapped, I cannot fail. Pressing my hands together, I look past the imposing Vali and focus on the many reindeer feeding in the tall grass.
Hunters keep the balance. The forest is a loop of life ensuring the survival of all.
My mother’s voice, soft and graceful, sings in my thoughts. Our worlds, the mortal and immortal, revolve around the balance found between gods, humans, and a land that is teeming with creatures. I made a promise to Skadi, but more than that, I made a promise to myself. At that thought, my heart lurches, sending my own brand of magic through my soul.
Vali’s mouth falls open, and I stare back at him. Between my hands, I have opened my own channel of swirling, shimmering red and pink. I almost smile, but I don’t want to break my concentration, and I sure as fuck don’t want to look like a fool in front of a man who is trying to push me away. The chain pulses with delicate heat as my body radiates magic.
“Tell him our mother misses him,” he whispers. In a seismic flash of god-like power, he disappears. I close my hands in absence of the threat and gather flowers to bury Skadi.
Clouds tilt the field in shadows, and the reindeer who have eaten their fill find safe places to sleep among the thick trees. Every so often, I gaze into the forest to see if Shaw will come back. I felt his grief the first time we mixed our blood in the amulet. I know he cared for her, but did he love her?
Finding a sturdy reindeer who hasn’t fallen asleep yet, I bring Skadi’s body to its back and walk my one woman funeral procession out into the fjord. Her white hair falls from her braids. I try tosmooth it out over her shoulders, but the white strands are sticky with blood. The color almost matches my own hair.
The fjords warm water seeps up my pants and over my hips as I walk into it, followed by the reindeer. It backs away, and Skadi’s body floats into my arms. As the water washes her wounds, I gaze down at her, wondering why I don’t feel any jealousy?
Surely he cared for her if she was to be his bonded partner? But I don’t feel inadequate in comparison or remotely inferior. Thinking back to the nights of Yule and how I hated all the women who looked at Shaw, I know I can be jealous. Something about Skadi’s blue eyes and soft words make me feel more like I am looking in a pool of reflection.
I swim her body to where I remember her tomb lying. Diving to the sea bed, I haul up rocks to weigh down her corpse. Her precious form sinks into the deep silt, and I cover the rocks with flowers picked from the fields. No doubt, the current will wash them away or the bottom feeding fish will eat the pretty petals, but it doesn’t seem right to let her body disintegrate without some lovely reminder of the place she always longed for.
Back on the soft black sand, I lay down and stare at the clouds overhead. My thoughts drift to Shaw and how he should be the King of the Vanheim. I am in love with a man, no, an immortal god who is returning home to become a King. The idea isn’t as frightening as it should be. Before long, the blue sky is gone, and night is beginning to permeate the strange edge of the Vanheim.
“Fire will light your darkest nights.” I remember the words my mother used to tell Jorvik when he complained about cutting firewood for the long winter nights in our small outpost cabin. Finding logs big enough to make a fire is easy. In no time at all, I have a nice bundle sitting on the black sand.
Pressing my hands together, I feel the magic come easier now as my hands burst into flames. Similar to how Vidarr did in our cabin, I set my palms over the wood to keep my new magic flowing like a river running down stream. Suddenly, the logs crack into tall, fiery flames.
Rewrapping the chain around my wrist, I watch the flames growto an enormous height, sending sparks and burning chips of wood flying into the fjord.
