Chapter 28
Dragonfire
Brynhildr unbraided Sigurd’s blond hair and beard, placing the lapis lazuli beads on the stone ledge of the waterfall pool.
She laid him back in her arms and gently poured spring water over his head with her cupped palm.
When his hair was soaked, she sat him up beside her and lathered his locks with edelweiss soap, working long fingers into his scalp and eliciting moans from the back of his throat.
She laid him down to rinse out the suds, then thoroughly washed every inch of his beloved body.
Once he was clean, she picked up the blue beads, along with her belt, boots, and clothing, leading him across the flowery field into their moonlit stone cottage.
Since it was midsummer, the night air was very warm, and there was no need to light a fire.
She placed her garments on the wooden trunk where she had found the blue silk wedding gown that she had worn when Kveld married them three moons past. When she opened the window overlooking the spring, the sweet floral scent of edelweiss wafted in on the soft summer breeze.
While he sat on the bed for her to comb out the tangles and rebraid the gems into his hair and beard, she told him of Grímhildr’s curse.
“When you, Gunnar, and Hogni came to Hlymdalir, you did not recognize me, nor were you wearing your wedding ring.” She reached for her belt on the wooden chest and withdrew the golden band from a small leather pouch.
The wolf, falcon, and dragon carved by Kveld glistened in the moonlight, and the trio of gems glittered like stars.
Sigurd slipped the ring back onto his finger. “I would never have removed it willingly.” He brushed a thumb across the etched images and sparkling gems and listened with repressed rage as she told him of the treachery of his bloodsworn Burgundian brothers and their malva móeir.
He took hold of her hand and pulled her close. “Thank the gods Kveld helped us escape…and brought us here.” Sigurd wrapped strong arms behind her back and rested his head against her still flat belly.
I will tell him about the babe after we rekindle the ouroboros and burn away all traces of the wretched spell.
Lifting his chin with a curved finger, she bent down to kiss his soft lips. “Just as you healed me from Odin’s frozen sleep…by making love to me here, near the sacred Lindsvier spring where we were wed in starlight and seier… I must now cleanse you of the malva’s evil curse.”
She covered his naked body with fervent kisses.
Her warm lips nuzzled his neck, the ouroboros blazing above his pounding heart, the glorious dark blond hair and tattoos inked across his broad chest. She followed the trail down his taut belly and took him in her mouth, eliciting guttural moans of pleasure.
“Not yet,” he whispered, quickly withdrawing from her eager mouth and laying her upon the bed.
He caressed her quivering skin and bent to suckle her breasts.
“By the gods, I have yearned for you.” Raspy voice ragged and rough, he spread her legs wide and feasted ravenous eyes on her tender folds.
“And hungered for your taste…” He knelt between her legs, caressing her moist flesh with long fingers and skilled tongue.
When he raised his head to gaze down at her, love, lust, and longing blazed in his hungry gaze.
“I must have you,” he groaned, nudging her thighs further apart with impatient knees.
He slipped his rough hands under her bottom, lifted her hips, and impaled her with a guttural growl.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his back.
The salty taste of his skin tingled on her tongue as she kissed his shoulder and neck.
The tension in her body drew tighter with each rhythmic thrust until waves flooded her with exquisite pleasure, her body contracting and clamping onto his.
Sigurd arrowed into her and erupted, filling her with seier and seed.
The ouroboros above her breast blazed anew, dragonfire searing and sealing their souls.
After a few moments of bliss, he lay down at her side and cradled her over his pounding heart.
As she ran tender fingertips through the dark blond hair, the mark of the dragon glowed like molten gold beneath her touch. With the tip of her tongue, she reverently traced the ouroboros which bound them together.
It sparked and sizzled in response.
“How did you bring me here?” Sigurd whispered, stroking her long locks as she lay in his arms.
“Kveld drugged Gunnar and Hogni—and the crews of their two snekkja—so that we could escape,” she murmured, her cheek resting on his broad chest. “He, Tryggvi, and Hálfdan carried you from úlfalkr, which is hidden along the riverbank, not far from here. The crew remains with the ship, and we depart at first light. Brother Pierre granted us these same cottages as when you brought me to the sacred spring three moons past.”
Sigurd tightened his arms around her and pressed his lips to her brow. “We sail for Norway at dawn. To Sjóborg,” he growled, his deep voice hard as iron. “My parents shall hear of this treachery. Gunnar and Hogni—my bloodsworn brothers….”
He bolted upright in bed, his jaw clenched in fury. “So Gunnar stood at Hlymdalir and mocked the sacred vows you and I swore here, beside this moonlit spring. He called our wedding pagan. Invalid.” Rage flared in his livid gaze. “Yet he knew. He knew you were my wife.
Wind rippled over the starlit spring and wafted through the open window, chilling the air within.
“And still he claimed you by the sword.” Sigurd’s scarred hand slid to the ouroboros mark above her breast. Dragonfire flared beneath his soulbound touch. “No man may sever our sacred bond.”
She rose onto her knees behind him on the bed, wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, and kissed his salty skin.
Extending her hand before him, she displayed the ouroboros wedding ring which glittered upon her finger, repeating the vows she had sworn in their moonlit wedding beside the sacred spring that had healed them both and witnessed their eternal bond.
“Sigurd… my beloved Sea Wolf… I vow to love you and only you, in this life and the next. I am yours, forevermore.”
He brought her hand to his lips and solemnly kissed her ring. Lifting his own hand, he showed her the band that Kveld had crafted, which glimmered in the moonglow, returned to his rightful finger.
She slipped from the bed and stood before him, nestling between his parted thighs as he sat on the edge of the mattress.
Taking his hand, she placed it low upon her belly and smiled softly, meeting his fierce lupine gaze.
“I carry your child,” she whispered. “A dóttir, to be born on the winter solstice.”
Sigurd gently placed his blond bristled lips to her belly, bestowing a reverent kiss upon their unborn babe. “Let us name her áslaug,” he murmured, as she smiled at him through unshed tears. “A gift of the gods.”
While he rested his bearded cheek against her belly, cradling both Brynhildr and their babe in his loving arms, a radiant golden glow floated into the stone cottage through the open moonlit window.
The ouroboros above Brynhildr’s heart flared with sudden fire.
Withdrawing from Sigurd’s embrace, she dashed to the window and gazed out at the waterfall pool.
The sacred spring shimmered beneath the moonlight— a pale, liquid silver that rippled in the summer breeze.
Mist rose from the pool, curling like ethereal fingers, carrying the scent of edelweiss and alpine herbs.
The glimmering surface sparkled with the golden glow of seier, as if the dragonfire of the ouroboros summoned her and Sigurd.
“It is my móeir,” she gasped to Sigurd, quickly pulling the emerald gown over her head. “Freyja comes to us!”
Sigurd leapt from the bed and stepped into his breeches, tying them in haste and following her out the cottage door.
Black wolfskin cloak gleaming in the moonlight, Kveld emerged from the adjacent cottage. His amber eyes glowed with the golden light of seier.
From the droplets of sparkling mist, a female figure emerged, radiant as the sun. Freyja’s form glimmered like starlight, her long tresses flowing like molten gold, her eyes deep amber like honeyed mead. She floated just above the surface of the bubbling pool, wrapped in a halo of moonlight.
Above Brynhildr’s pounding heart, the ouroboros pulsed with searing seier.
As Sigurd squeezed her hand, and Kveld joined them beside the spring, the ethereal radiant light assumed human form.
Golden tresses cascading to her slim waist, amber eyes sparkling like otherworldly gems, Freyja’s falcon feather cloak fluttered over her amethyst velvet gown.
A radiant smile lit her ephemeral face as she beheld Brynhildr. “My beloved dóttir,” Freyja crooned, gliding across the edelweiss-strewn meadow to grasp her cold hands.
“The surge of seier from the ouroboros has summoned me.
I must speak to you of the Dwarven curse which binds your fate and your babe.
Freyja brushed a glimmering finger over Brynhildr’s dragon coil wedding band.
“This is the Andvaranaut ring, once the treasure of the dwarf Andvari. It was precious to him, for it produced new gold every ninth night. When Lóki stole it, Andvari cursed the ring and its gold, so that death and doom would follow all it touched—until nine lives had been claimed.” Anguish glimmered in Freyja’s amber gaze.
“Three deaths have been paid thus far: Hreiemarr, a Dwarven king, and his two sons, Regin and Fáfnir—whose greed transformed him into the emerald dragon you slew at Gnítaheier,” she said to Sigurd.
“Six more deaths are yet owed before the curse of the ouroboros closes.”
Freyja released her hand and tenderly brushed a lock of hair from Brynhildr’s face.
“I cannot alter the Dwarven curse until the nine deaths have been claimed. But once that fateful debt is paid, the coil of the ouroboros closes, as the dragon swallows its tail. And the eternal return of life and love—the mark of the dragon which binds your two souls—shall transform the curse of death and doom into powerful wards of protection, defending the Dragonslayer’s Daughter with the seidr flames of dragonfire. ”
Sigurd took hold of Brynhildr’s left hand.
The emerald eyes of the dragon in the wedding band on her finger glowed beneath their joined touch.
“Gunnar, Hogni, and Gjúki will come, seeking revenge,” he whispered, raising her hand to his lips.
Resolve and rage blazed in his fierce lupine gaze.
“We will sail to Norway, wed at Hrafnfjall, and gather allies. The Burgundians’ vengeance will face the might of our united kingdoms.”
“When your enemies set sail, I shall send Gyllin from Fólkvangr to alert you.” Freyja smiled warmly at Sigurd.
“With the gift bestowed by the dragon’s blood, you will once again understand her message.
” The Goddess of Seier turned to Kveld Nightwolf, whose amber eyes glowed with the same otherworldly light as her own.
“When the time comes, you must take the child and the volva Yrsa to safety. Meet Heimir in the village where the eastern and western seas converge in the Land of the Midnight Sun.”
When Kveld inclined his wolf-cloaked head, Freyja kissed Brynhildr’s cheek in fond farewell.
“I shall watch your royal wedding from Fólkvangr, through the Mirrored Sea,” she whispered, her human form dissolving into golden divine light.
“Remember this, dóttir min… you and your beloved Sea Wolf shall be forever entwined… beyond the web of wyrd and the reach of the gods.” With a whoosh of wind, she was gone.
In the morning, as the first pale light spread across the alpine meadow and the sacred Lindsvier spring, Brother Pierre knocked softly upon their wooden door.
“For your journey,” he said quietly, placing a basket of barley bread, goat cheese, and smoked salmon into Sigurd’s hands. “May Saint Bernard guide your path.”
After thanking the generous monk, they rejoined the crew of úlfalkr.
As the morning mist rose from the river, Brynhildr gazed at the triple bindrune Kveld had carved into the oaken deck.
The Nightwolf’s prophecy floated into her mind from the summer past. “úlfalkr shall bear the Sea Wolf and the Sun Falcon to safety across the sea.”
Turning the falcon prow from the coast of eastern Francia, Sigurd sailed úlfalkr across the North Sea toward Norway.