Chapter 36 Freya
It was cold.
Colder than the depths of winter, my breath blooming in great gusting clouds and my hands already aching as I climbed to my feet. I pulled my hood over my head and shoved my hands in my armpits, but it made no difference.
Because this was the coldness of death.
All around me were mist and darkness, the former swirling as I lifted my left hand and covered it with Hlin’s magic, the silver light revealing a tunnel. Seeing the soul I’d followed, I hurried after her, my shield bouncing on my back. She was old and gray, but when I touched her shoulder, she didn’t seem to feel it. “Hello,” I said. “Do you hear me?”
She gave no reaction, only carried on walking with a blank expression on her face.
“This might have been a mistake,” I muttered, then broke into a run, winding my way through the endless tunnels. I passed dozens of souls, young and old, and none paid me any mind.
I raced onward, the cold piercing deeper with each passing moment, and it occurred to me that I might be dying. That by coming within the hall of the dead, I’d not only secured a new fate but an inglorious one that achieved none of what I’d hoped for. That Harald would rule over all the north while I walked the dark and misty halls of Helheim until the end of days.
Faster, I ordered myself. Run faster.
My boots made no noise as I careened through the tunnel, dodging souls, but then my eyes latched onto the broad shoulders of a man ahead. He wore furs and mail, a sword belted at his waist and a shield gripped in his hand, nothing about him like the others that I’d passed.
A warrior.
And judging from the green and black paint on his shield, a Skalander at that.
Putting on a burst of speed, I caught hold of his arm. “Can you hear me?” I demanded, trying to drag him to a stop. “Listen!”
But he kept walking, dragging me onward as though I weighed no more than a feather.
Cursing, I hurried on to the next warrior and then the next, trying to get one of them to see me, but they all kept onward. Lost in a dream. Or in nothingness. I did not know which.
Tears froze on my cheeks, the agony of the cold turning my body sluggish. Though my shield was as light as a feather thanks to Gyda’s magic, it suddenly felt as heavy as an anvil on my back.
I’d gambled, and I’d lost.
Everyone had lost.
Desperate, I flung myself at one last warrior only for Hlin’s light to illuminate a familiar bearded face.
My brother’s face.
He’d been in the battle on the strait.
My own flesh and blood.
And I’d killed him.
Every part of me wanted to fall to my knees and beg his forgiveness, but instead I said, “Geir? Brother, can you hear me?”
He kept walking, stepping on me without care as he carried on down the tunnel.
Fury bubbled up in my veins, Hel’s magic seeming to rise with it, and I screamed, “Geir, look at me!”
My brother stopped in his tracks. Slowly, he blinked, and then his eyes focused on me. “Freya?”
“Yes, it’s me!” Gripping his shoulders, I looked into his familiar amber eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Where are we?” He took in our surroundings, alarm rising on his face. “What is this place?”
“Helheim.”
Alarm turned to horror. “Helheim? Then I’m…we’re…”
“Dead. At least you are. I will be soon as well, if I don’t get out.”
“We were fighting,” he whispered. “I had my sword in my hand. What did I do to earn this fate?”
“Nothing.” My chin trembled. “It’s my fault. I…I sent you here, along with everyone else in Snorri’s fleet. I have Hel’s magic in my veins.”
His gaze hardened. “Why? Why would you condemn your own people to this fate?”
My grip on consciousness was starting to fade, my hands and feet entirely numb. “It is a long story, brother. This is my fault, but I believe I can make things right.”
“By bringing us all back to life?”
“By giving you another chance at Valhalla.” I swayed, my strength starting to fail. “I think I can bring you out of Helheim. All of you. Give you a chance to fight to save Skaland and earn a place with the Allfather. But I need you to help me wake all your warriors from the dreams that hold them.”
Geir’s eyes narrowed as he took in the long column of warriors. Then his hands gripped mine. Hard and cold, yet I felt the connection between us. I’d sent his soul here. Which meant his soul was mine, not hers. As were the souls of every Skalander warrior I’d cursed to this place. “Halt.”
They kept walking. Holding his hand tightly, I focused inward, drawing on the power in my blood as I murmured Hel’s name, then I shouted, “Halt!”
All around us, the warriors drew to a halt. They blinked as though they had been woken from a dream, confusion swiftly turning to horror.
My elation that I’d woken them was short-lived. Hel had felt the stir of power in her realm, and in the distance, I heard the thud of giant feet.
“We need to go,” I whispered. “Need to get back to the gates.”
“You are all in Helheim,” Geir roared. “If you wish another chance at Valhalla, you will follow me now!”
My knees buckled, but my brother caught me up and started running, my shield slung over his shoulder. He wove through the blank-eyed souls still walking through the tunnel, mist swirling.
My heart was faltering. Each breath was a struggle. This was a place of death, and even with Hel’s blood in my veins, my mortal body could not survive here. “Hurry,” I gasped. “You must hurry, Geir!”
Ahead, the golden gates gleamed through the mist.
But they were closed.
Open, I willed them, my heart leaping as a gap appeared, growing wider.
We were going to makeit.
No sooner did the thought cross my mind did my heart stutter. Then cease beating entirely.
“Geir,” I gasped with my last breath of air, and then my vision began to spiral into gloom as my life slipped through my grasp.
Geir leaped at the opening—
And the next thing I knew, I was sucking in desperate breaths of air next to Garmr’s paws, my heart stuttering back to life in my chest.
I groaned, trying to find the strength to get to my feet. I was alive, but everything ached.
“Freya!”
I lifted my head to find Geir staring at me from beyond the gates, the rest of the Skalanders amassed behind him. “We can’t get through.” He flung my shield toward me, the clatter of metal against stone loud. “The gates are closing!”
And my divine mother was coming.
Staggering upright, I shouted, “I call upon the power of Hel!”
Heat roared through my veins, magic flooding my core. Hel’s steps quickened as she sensed me calling on her power, but I ignored the rising sense of dread and screamed, “I am Freya Born-in-Fire, daughter of Hel and lady of death! Your souls were sent to Helheim with my magic and it is my magic that will set you free! Agree to fight with me against King Harald, child of Loki, who won the battle with trickery not honor. Fight with me for the sake of Skaland, which was brought low by Snorri’s pride. Fight with me for your families, who now stand alone. Fight for me, and I will offer your souls to the Allfather to claim once we are victorious. Fight for a chance at Valhalla!”
There was no hesitation, only a deafening roar of “Born-in-Fire!” and they were flowing through the gates of Helheim in a tide of muscle and steel.
Hel’s scream of wrath at my trickery was vicious and terrible. But she’d given me a drop of her blood and the magic that came with it, and short of killing me, she could not take it back.
“Run!” I screamed at the warriors. Scooping up my shield, I joined their ranks as we flowed across the bridge and down the winding path through darkness. “Climb the roots!”
The Skalanders flung themselves at Yggdrasil’s black roots, many of their faces familiar, all of them dead because of me. But I’d given them another chance at glory, and all of them had takenit.
I leaped as high as I could, catching hold of one of the roots and heaving myself into the tangled web. Textured like wood and yet hard as steel, the roots were unyielding, catching and pulling at my hair and clothes as I climbed, but to pause meant death. Because beneath me, Hel was reaching into the roots.
Screams tore the air as she snatched warriors from their perches, flinging them violently into the river where they disappeared beneath the surface. I had no idea of what would become of them, and no time to question, because my mother’s now-red eyes were fixed on me. “Wicked child,” she screamed. “Hlin has stolen your heart from me!”
“My heart is my own,” I shouted. “As is my fate.”
Her massive hand reached for me, nails like talons. Taking a firm hold of a root, I unhooked my shield and, without a word, drew the power Hlin had given to me. Light burst bright across the silver metal of my shield, and Hel’s corpse-blue flesh struckit.
The impact was like thunder, making Yggdrasil shudder, but Hel fell back. Fell through the roots to land with a deafening crash before the gates to her hall. I lost my grip and would have joined her, but Geir caught my arm. I dangled from his grasp, staring down at Hel, and through the roots, our eyes met, hers full of cold fury. “Nidhogg,” she screamed. “Claim them!”
A hiss wove its way through the roots, the sound tickling my ears like the tongue of a viper. “Traitorous girl,” it seemed to whisper. “I would taste your flesh.”
I looked at my brother. “Climb, Freya,” he whispered, heaving me up. “Climb!”
Terror gave me strength. Hooking the strap of my shield over my shoulder, I scrambled through the maze of roots, squeezing between gaps and shoving my way higher.
But I could hear something coming.
Something large.
Something that slithered through the dark.
Someone screamed, the sound cutting off with a tremendous crunch of teeth closing on bone. Then another scream cut off. Then another.
If I didn’t do something, all the warriors I’d saved from an inglorious afterlife would be lost to something worse, and I couldn’t fight what I couldn’t see.
Pressing my hand to a thick root, I willed my magic onto it, sending it threading out in a web to shatter the darkness with its silver light.
Part of me wished I had not, for coiled around us was a giant serpent. Its scales were a blue so dark it seemed to swallow the light of my magic, and as it shifted its bulk, the claws on its two limbs tore away chunks of Yggdrasil’s roots and sent them falling into the darkness below.
“Traitorous woman,” it hissed, turning a head as large as a wagon to look at me with virulent yellow eyes, a mouth capable of swallowing me whole opening to reveal rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth. “Thieving woman.”
“I am no thief,” I shouted at it. “I claimed their souls. They are mine to do with what I will.”
Nidhogg tilted his head, seeming to consider, then hissed, “Lies, for there is but one lady of death. Hel names you thief.”
“She’s the liar.” I motioned at the warriors to keep climbing while I kept Nidhogg’s attention. “She gifted me her blood, which means her power is mine to claim.”
“Child of two bloods,” he answered. “I would chew your flesh. Honorless, traitorous woman.”
“You are welcome to try,” I said. “Though the list of those who have tried to kill me is long and all have failed.”
“I said nothing about killing,” he replied, and I swore his serpentine mouth curved into a smile.
Only instinct warned me, and I managed to get my shield in my grip right before Nidhogg spat black venom. Most of it rebounded off my magic, but it sizzled and burned through the roots of Yggdrasil where it struck.
The tree groaned, and I screamed, for a few droplets had struck my leg and eaten through my trousers, my flesh burning beneath.
The serpent spat venom again, and I nearly fell trying to get my whole body behind my shield, my leg in agony. The warriors above me shouted that they’d reached the top, urging me to climb, but Nidhogg gave me no respite, circling and spraying the noxious black substance, the roots crumbling aroundme.
“Go!” I screamed. “Get free of this place!”
The serpent laughed, coiling tighter, breaking off pieces of root that struck me as they fell.
Think, Freya, I screamed at myself. You have to fight!
But what could I do against such a creature? He was a thousand times my size, a thing not of the mortal realm, and I wasn’t even certain if he could be killed. Not even his own venom seemed to harm him, the black fluid dripping off his scales.
“I shall keep you until the end of days,” the serpent hissed, coiling around me. “I shall make you scream and scream and scream!”
He spat again, and as I ducked behind my shield, I noticed his eyes were closed.
A weakness.
Hooking my shield over my shoulder, I scrambled into a thick tangle of roots, then pretended as though I could not get through and started to edge downward.
Nidhogg cackled. “Caught in a web, little traitor.”
Gasps of terror escaped my lips that were not feigned as I watched him slither beneathme.
“Perhaps I will eat you after all,” he hissed. “Consume the flesh and keep the soul.”
Maneuvering my shield beneath me, I called Hlin’s magic and then drew my sword, Gyda’s runes glowing on the blade. Nidhogg spat, his venom burning through the roots of the tree and raining back down upon him. Peering around my shield, I found his eyes closed to protect them from the black rain.
Which meant he didn’t see me as I dropped.
I fell through the ruin of roots toward his massive head, holding my breath to keep from screaming.
And with a meaty thunk, my sword, strengthened by Gyda’s magic, plunged through his eyelid and into his skull.
Nidhogg shrieked in agony, flinging his head from side to side and sending me flying. I screamed, starting to fall, but hands caught me under my arms.
“I’ve got you,” Geir shouted. “Climb!”
I desperately obeyed, my magic illuminating where the tree roots reached the earth of the mortal realm. Geir clawed his way into the earth and disappeared. But for me, it was not so easy. My fingers dug into the moist earth, rocks and debris falling around me as I climbed, digging higher.
There was no air.
I was buried alive, digging my way out of a grave, but my strength was failing. I clawed at dirt and rock and sand, trying to reach higher. Trying to find the surface and the mortal world.
My chest was in agony, eclipsing the pain of my venom-burned legs, and if I’d had the air in my lungs I would have screamed. Screamed and screamed in frustration at having gotten so close only to die in a grave of my own making.
Then skeletal fingers closed over my wrist and heaved.
My head exploded through wet sand, seaweed clinging to my hair and face, and I had a heartbeat to look upon Saga’s burned face before she disappeared, leaving only embers and ash on the wind.
Rolling on my back, I spat out sand and gasped in breath after breath, staring at the sun overhead. Vaguely I was aware of cold seawater lapping at my fingers, which meant I was free of Ylva’s prison, but my legs still burned from the venom.
As I pushed up onto one elbow, dismay stole away my elation at being alive, because I was still on the same fucking island.
Still trapped.
Still alone.
I rolled into the water so that the venom would be washed away, wincing as the salt water stung my wounds. I snatched up handfuls of sand and hurled them at the waves, screaming in rage that nearly eclipsed my pain.
I’d accomplished nothing.
Changed nothing.
Then a drumbeat reached my ears.
My head snapped up so hard my neck clicked, and I stared out over the strait, searching. Ships were sailing toward me, three large drakkar with oars plunging in and out of the waves to the beat of the drum, and their sails were green and black.
I took a step back, certain that Ylva was on one of those ships. That she’d sensed I’d escaped her wards and had returned to finish me off.
Retrieving my shield, I called my magic to it and drew my sand-crusted sword. I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Yet as the ships drew closer, I spotted motion in the waves ahead of them. Something in the water, though I could not see what through the foam and churning sand.
Then heads emerged from the water. Some helmeted, some not, seaweed clinging to armor and shields and weapons as they marched out of the sea toward me. They bore the marks of death, all a ghastly greenish-gray, many missing pieces either from the violence of war or the scavengers of the deep, but I still knew them. Recognized their faces as the souls I’d liberated from Hel, risen to reclaim their bodies to fight for one last chance at Valhalla.
They strode toward me, the drakkar closing fast manned by more of the dead, their faces grim. And their eyes glowing the virulent green of…
Draug.
“Shit,” I whispered, knowing exactly what the undead consumed, and I was the only living human for miles around.
The Skalander draug encircled me, the men in the ships leaping out and securing their vessels before joining the masses of the dead surrounding me. Hundreds of men, most dead because of my magic, because of my curse, and fear turned my heartbeat staccato.
They began to pound weapons against shields, fists against chests, their inhuman shouts wordlessly filling the air. Then their ranks parted, a face as familiar as my own walking through them to stop before me. My brother, skin ashen, cheeks bloodless and torn, and eyes no longer amber but the virulent green of the undead.
“Freya.” Geir’s voice was like nails scratching over stone. “Sister.”
“Geir.” A sob rose in my throat, because seeing him like this made his death so very real. My niece or nephew would never know their father, Ingrid would have to struggle alone, and no amount of magic could undo that. “I’m so—”
He lifted a hand, cutting me off. “We all went into battle knowing death might be our fate, Freya, and so it has come to pass. You have offered us another chance to fight the trickster’s army so that we might protect the families we left behind and earn our place in the Allfather’s hall. Will you hold to the promise you made in Helheim?”
“I will hold to it.” My chest was tight. “Will you fight alongside me in battle, brother?”
“No,” he answered, and my heart skipped. “But I will follow you.”
“I don’t deserve your allegiance.” I looked over all the men and women who’d died because I’d been fooled by Harald. “I’m not worthy of the honor of leading you.”
“You escaped the trickster. You outwitted Hel. You defeated the serpent Nidhogg!” Geir shouted. “You have earned our respect, shield maiden, so we choose to follow you for you will weave our fates with glory and Valhalla!”
The Skalander draug pounded weapons against shields, fists against armored chests, their unnatural voices all chanting the same name.
Freya.
Skalander warriors from a dozen different clans stood dead before me, yet united as they had never been before. This was not the future I’d imagined when I’d heard Saga’s prophecy, not the glory I’d envisioned, but it was a moment that had been achieved by taking my fate into my own hands. A moment that I’d woven.
Lifting my shield, which glowed fiercely with my magic, I shouted, “For all of Skaland, let us to war!”