My eyes are wide, my teeth are bared. They have always known. They will know. They know now. I’m like a fucking animal. I am Kilda. Kilda the Wild.
“What’s the fucking point?” I repeat, my voice hitting shrill high notes I didn’t know I could produce. “Tell me!”
Urd opens her mouth to speak, but I beat her to it.
“Not yesterday!” I howl.
Skuld breathes in to speak, but I beat her to it.
“Not tomorrow,” I shriek.
I turn to Verthandi. Her eyes are still on me. Not once has she looked away. She has never even blinked. She is constant. She never stops. Her hypnotizing gaze calms me down.
“Tell me now,” I whisper.
Verthandi slams her knife into the stick, leaving it standing. It destroys her planned pattern. She stands and raises her arms to her sides.
“She arrives!” she shouts. “She speaks! We witness your choices shaping your fate. You try to break the chain. You are not the first, nor are you the last.”
Anger boils in my chest. Flames of fury sear my tongue as I speak.
“What’s the fucking point!” I scream at her.
“Red blood flows!” screams Verthandi, so loud that I fall backward. She levitates in the air, like a raven riding a still, nonexistent wind.
“Red blood flows! Blue waves crash! Green mountains topple!”
She breathes deeply. Her eyes release chaotic sparks of an ancient magic no man has witnessed. Verthandi slings her hand forward and I rise into the air, unable to resist the forces unleashed on my body.
“Odin tries. Futility. You try the same. You fail. It is your choice. No one decides.”
She flips her hand. I am turned upside down, helplessly suspended in the air like some slaughtered deer hanging from a tree, waiting to be skinned. Urd and Skuld both grin at me. They know secrets I will never understand. Secrets only known by the dead and the unborn. I am of the living.
Verthandi clenches her fist. Pressure builds up within me. Pain rips through every inch of my being. My body might explode. My skin will tear. My bloodied innards will pour out over my face. Everything is red.
“You. Have. Chosen.” Verthandi’s voice darkens as it rings through my head. I’m not sure I have ears anymore. “You have chosen.”
The pressure subsides. My body is gone. I must be dead. A whisper cuts through my mind, or rather, my mind cuts through a whisper.
“The giants walk again.”
All black.
CHAPTER 33
Idraw a shocking breath. I return. Return from the dead. Reborn.
“What the fuck…” I whisper hoarsely as I rub my throbbing head. It feels like no moisture exists within my body. A dried husk, like an insect after a spider has had its meal. I stand, swaying. Still in Ylvin’s lavvu. What a crazy bitch.
A cup of water, on the table. It smells clear, no bitterness. I don’t need another dose of whatever the mad Volva gave me.
“You’re up.” I hear from a pile of furs. “How was it?”
I try to speak, but only a raspy sound escapes my body. Emptying the cup allows me to lubricate my throat.
“What the fuck did you do to me?”
Ylvin laughs.
