Without waiting for protest, Freya pressed forward through the snow, the cold biting at her boots. Behind her, Ylva faltered for only a heartbeat before following, leading the two winged horses with silent reluctance.
They moved through the snow-laden forest in wordless silence, every step placed with the care of hunters stalking prey. Their valkyrian cloaks were drawn tightly around their bodies, the thick wool catching the wind’s bite, and their boots—fur-lined and sturdy—crunched softly on the frozen earth. Even the winged horses were cloaked in heavy blankets, their breaths rising like phantom clouds in the chill.
For hours they pressed on, driven by the faint acrid scent of distant fire clinging to the wind. Freya knew what waited beyond the trees: ruin, blackened and hollow, yet her heart felt nothing for it. The world could burn for all she cared, so long as she could cradle her family again.
But when her gaze slipped to Ylva whose brow was furrowed, lips pale with worry, something twisted deep within Freya’s chest, a faint echo of care she had long thought dead.
‘We should stop and eat,’ she said at last, her voice barely more than a breath.
Ylva shook her head, jaw set with quiet resolve.
‘You must be tired,’ Freya pressed softly.
‘No,’ Ylva replied, iron in her tone. ‘We keep moving.’
And so they did.
The forest embraced them in its muted hush, the snow here sparse beneath the canopy’s reach, though flakes still drifted lazily from above. Yet it wasn’t the silence of the woods that gnawed at Freya’s mind, it was Ylva’s silence. Wren had never been quiet; Wren had been wild laughter and defiance wrapped in skin. But this wasn’t Wren. This was someone else. Someone Freya needed to start accepting.
A sudden hand gripped her arm, halting her mid-step.
Freya turned, confusion etching her features, only for her veins to run cold at the sight of Ylva’s face, ashen and wide-eyed, carved with a dread so raw it silenced even the forest around them.
Slowly, Freya pivoted to face forward.
They had reached the forest’s edge, where the last line of skeletal trees stood like mourners bearing witness to a silent atrocity. From their blackened boughs hung bodies, swaying gently in the winter breeze, their glassy eyes wide and unseeing, yet seeming to warn them to turn back. Beyond, in the small clearing, the village burnt. Flames devoured rooftops and walls, their orange tongues licking the heavens, spitting smoke into the cold sky.
Ylva quickly tethered the winged horses to a nearby trunk, her movements sharp with urgency, while both women drewtheir weapons. Freya’s hand curled tight around the hilt of her sword as she stepped forward, each footfall heavy with resolve. Ylva followed at her back, bow strung and arrow poised, her sharp eyes scanning the shadows between the flames.
They halted at the first body, craning their necks to take in the sight of an elderly woman, her lifeless frame swaying softly, silver hair tangled with frost.
‘We should cut them down,’ Ylva whispered, her voice raw.
Freya gave a curt nod, and together they lowered the seven lifeless forms one by one, laying them gently in the snow as if returning dignity to their broken souls. She longed to dig graves, to give them peace beneath the frozen earth, but time was a luxury they did not have.
‘We need to check the village for survivors,’ Freya said, her voice carrying the weight of command.
Moving cautiously, every step deliberate, they approached the burning settlement. Freya’s blue eyes swept the charred husks of huts, each one collapsing under the hunger of flame. Then her gaze snagged on something at the forefront of the village, something arranged deliberately, welcoming them.
Heads.
Dozens of them, severed and mounted upon wooden poles, silent sentinels of horror.
Freya let her sword-hand fall limp at her side, her shoulders bowing beneath the weight of the horror before her. Her grip on the hilt tightened until her knuckles whitened, the cold metal biting into her palm as she stared at each severed head, each frozen face. Their blue eyes stared skyward, glassy and unblinking, as though in their final moments they had turned heavenward, whispering silent prayers that had gone unanswered.
A curse slipped past Freya’s lips, low and bitter.
Ylva rushed ahead, bow drawn and ready, weaving between the burning huts as she shouted for survivors. Her voice echoed hollow against the crackle of fire and the groan of collapsing timber. But Freya already knew there would be none. There was a stillness in this place that only death could bring.
‘Not even the children were spared,’ Ylva whispered when she returned, her voice trembling as she stood beside Freya, eyes wide and bright with fury.
‘Come,’ Freya said, her voice low, heavy with restrained grief. ‘We need to return for the horses.’
‘Do we not bury them?’ Ylva’s words caught in her throat, disbelief flaring in her tear-bright eyes.
‘We do not have time.’
‘But—’
