Did they become the voices of the earth, or the echoes in the mountains, or the twisting strips of green and pink that streaked the sky?
Did they take the dried lupine, the muslin cloth, the branded weapons, all the offerings at their pyres with them into the next life?
Heat from the white-hot flames melted the layer of frost covering the ground. A slosh of mud and snow splashed the bottom of my dress. My hands twisted in the diamond-flecked sapphire fabric.
I’d have shown up in my crusty leathers and unbrushed hair, but Hildur was always one for tradition. So, when Gaia and I returned, I reluctantly took a bath then let Helga curl, cut, clothe, and scold me—No weapons at a funeral, River!—so I could honor the Queen of the Huldufólk one last time.
I righted the thin strap that’d slipped off my shoulder, the tiniest movement stabbing and aching.
My breaths felt like they’d never catch up, each exhale a punch to my rib cage.
The smoke probably didn’t help.
But I wouldn’t move. I couldn’t, despite the service being done and over and the majority of guests now gathered inside the Great Hall, picking at a feast for a Harvest Festival that’d never come—one thing Flóki hadn’t lied to me about.
He hadn’t gotten a pyre, and I didn’t dare ask what the alternative was.
Wind ran its hands through the soft waves of my hair.
A shadow flickered over a broken battlement, the fire casting the lean silhouette of a grieving straggler behind me—beside me.
Emerald-satin fabric brushed against my arm.
My gaze floated to the mountain that towered over the castle, the snow casting its rugged canvas in a shimmer of white. Two striking blue specks flickered along the ridgeline. My breath caught in my throat.
“Grýla,” Freyja growled.
Those curious glacial eyes wavered.
Then they grew smaller, into pinpricks, until they disappeared completely, and I was left wondering if the ogress had really been there at all.
“What will happen to her?” I asked.
“The bargain’s done. She’s free. And if she knows what’s good for her…” Freyja continued, pitching her voice up, “she’ll mind her own damn business!”
The words echoed off the mountain face.
Spine straight, shoulders still, angel senses prickling, I waited for Grýla’s answer—an avalanche, a snarl in the night. When those didn’t come, I said, “Aren’t you worried about your castle? Without her magic, it’s no longer hidden from your enemies.”
“We can’t hide forever.” Freyja curled her hands into fists. “With our Galdur restored, we are more than capable of protecting Ískastali without her help. I will make sure of it.”
“Do you think she’ll just…” Goosebumps dressed my arms like a second set of sleeves. “Let everything go?”
“My mom is dead,” she said, but this time, she didn’t fight the grief that’d been sneaking into her tone. “Grýla would be wise to let this feud die with the queen instead of taking it out on her subjects. Regardless… We’ll be monitoring her movements.”
“Freyja.” Her name ripped out of my throat with a cry. “I’m so sorry.”
The princess—the queen—nodded.
“Me too,” she whispered.
Embers popped, stray tinder igniting in a fiery blaze. For a while, it was only the fire that spoke, spitting and whistling in a rhythmic crackle.
“My mother used to tell me when an elf dies, their spirit becomes part of the realm. That we’d be able to hear them on the breeze, feel them in the soil, see them in the stars.”
Lungs aching, I held a sob tight in my chest.
“But,” Freyja continued, her voice breaking, “I don’t hear her, River. I don’t feel her. The sky looks the same.” She turned to me then, cheeks smattered with tears. “Where did she go?”
