‘What’s so amusing?’ Ylva asked, a frown knitting her brow as she took a bite of the apple.
‘Your name.’
‘And what’s so funny about it?’
Freya bit into her own apple, her smile stretching with quiet mischief. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Alma at the far end of the garden, walking in step with a cluster of Council valkyrians. And yet, even amidst conversation, those golden eyes never left Freya. Ever watchful and ever knowing.
‘It’s not funny,’ Freya said, wiping juice from her lip. ‘Just...fitting.’
Ylva tilted her head, curious. ‘What does it mean?’
Freya turned fully to face her, studying the pale warrior beside her, this reborn soul with fragments of another life buried beneath her skin. For a fleeting moment, Freya saw her, truly saw her, as she had once been. Wren Wynter, full of fire and laughter and impossible light.
‘It means female wolf,’ Freya whispered.
…
‘Freya, this is a closed meeting,’ Alma said, her voice echoing through the stillness of the temple as Freya strode inside with deliberate ease.
The valkyrian temple was a structure of understated beauty, modest in scale and simple in design. Its stone walls, softened by creeping vines, bore ancient runes carved beside the entrance, sigils of protection, etched by hand and time. Like all valkyrian architecture, the temple had no roof, open to the sky above, so that light and air might always bear witness to the truth spoken within.
The interior mirrored the outside, austere and unadorned. At its centre sat a shallow circular pool filled with milky-white water, its surface calm as glass. Around it, stone seats rose like a silent amphitheatre, each reserved for a member of the Council.
Freya paid Alma’s protest no heed. With her usual feline grace, she sauntered inside and claimed one of the vacant seats, her blue eyes sweeping across the councillors with calculated poise.
It always amused her, this theatre of reverence, mortals bowing their heads in prayer, murmuring words of worship to gods they believed far removed. And yet here she sat, a goddess in flesh, unacknowledged, unthanked. It was, of course, her owndoing. Only a handful of valkyrians knew the truth. Alma among them. And more often than not these days, Freya found herself questioning the wisdom of that decision.
‘I come with a petition,’ she said plainly, stretching her legs with the casual elegance of a lounging cat. Her eyes drifted to the water at her feet, that strange white pool into which councillors would slice open their palms and let their blood fall to cast a vote. A peculiar, arcane ritual. But then again, who was she to judge?
Alma, resplendent in her flowing white robes, stood tall before the assembled Council. Her golden eyes, always sharp, narrowed with silent appraisal.
‘Very well then,’ she said. ‘Speak.’
Freya leaned back into her seat, exuding the languid confidence of a creature entirely at ease in its own skin. ‘War is upon us.’
‘War is always upon us,’ Alma replied, unflinching.
‘For the past century, it hasn’t been.’ Freya flicked her tongue along the edge of her teeth, a gesture more of irritation than amusement. ‘The witches have seized control of the kingdom forged in flame and dragons. The valkyrians cannot keep turning a blind eye.’
‘If we intervene, we may incite another Great War.’
Freya snorted, a sound full of scorn. ‘If wedon’t, there will be nothing left to save. It won’t be a war. It will be a massacre.’
Alma turned to face her more directly, her posture unyielding. ‘It is not indifference that stays our hand, Freya. But caution. You know well what the last Great War cost us. Six kingdoms destroyed a seventh while we tried to stop it. We cannot act out of impulse. Not again. Before we ride to battle, we must assess every angle. There is still a chance the witches may be contained.’
‘They cannot,’ Freya said flatly, tilting her head with calculated deliberation. ‘Because we are not only facing witches.’ At that, a low murmur rippled through the Council chamber. Freya could feel Alma’s displeasure rise like heat from stone, but she pressed on, undeterred. ‘There are gods involved.’
The fury in Alma’s golden eyes was like a sunrise burning through storm clouds. Freya would be chastised later, she knew. A stern rebuke behind closed doors, no doubt. But she didn’t care. The time for quiet deliberation was long past. The world was tearing at its seams, and the valkyrians could not sit idle, polishing their honour while chaos devoured everything else.
‘The gods—’
‘Were kept from us by Tabitha Wysteria’s curse,’ Freya interrupted smoothly. ‘But Mal Blackburn broke that spell, and now they are free. Free to walk among us, to meddle, to scheme. And many already do.’
Freya couldn’t help the mischievous curve of her lips as the Council erupted into discord, voices raised in alarm and speculation. She caught Alma’s gaze across the room. Sharp, questioning, and not a little weary. Alma was no stranger to Freya’s provocations and likely suspected the goddess was, as ever, scheming.
And indeed, Freya was.
Her cause, to her mind, was noble, justified. She wanted the gods banished, stripped of their power and exiled from mortal affairs. But more than that, she wanted her children restored, her husband dead, and the gates of the Underworld crowned with his severed, rotting head.
