Prologue #2
“Calm him,” Frigga ordered as if she weren’t talking to a fellow god but to a humble nursemaid. “It won’t do if the future king of the gods cried through the reading of his birth runes.”
Njord glared at her. The small boy seemed to weigh nothing in his arms, and he rocked him awkwardly as he realized Frigga wouldn’t take him back just yet.
“I have to make sure that Odin’s fool of a High Priestess doesn’t ruin everything,” Frigga explained, smirking at the clumsy way Njord handled her child.
“Make sure you don’t take too long.”
As if acknowledging Njord’s voice, the boy opened his eyes, which he had narrowed while screaming, and looked up at Njord curiously. The blood-curdling screaming stopped.
“Uhm, hej there.”
Blinking up at him with wide eyes, the little boy looked almost cute. Like this, the strong resemblance to his mother was obvious: shining amber eyes and a shock of blond hair. Despite himself, Njord grinned. Odin wouldn’t like the fact that his heir looked nothing like him.
Tiny hands grabbed Njord’s hair, trying to get a hold of the silver beads woven into the strands.
“Stop that, you little menace.”
But as soon as Njord moved his hair out of reach, the boy’s expression darkened. He would start wailing again at any moment. Norns, no! Hurriedly, Njord offered his hair for pulling again.
Giggling in delight, the little godling yanked at the offered strands.
Ow.
By the sea, the boy had a lot of strength for such a tiny thing. Njord kept rocking the godling, gentle like the waves, humming a song about a sailor fighting a sea monster to keep him entertained.
How much longer would Frigga take?
Careful to neither stop rocking the child nor move his hair out of reach, Njord walked over to the well. It didn’t take long until he spotted Frigga surrounded by her handmaids, most of them valkyries and goddesses in their own right.
“That’s your ritual, little one,” Njord mumbled. The boy seemed to perk up every time he heard his voice, so Njord kept talking. “Your mommy set up the ceremony just for you, so your fate will be blessed under the World Tree.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement between Yggdrasil’s branches.
At first, he thought that Ahti and Vellamo had returned, but then he noticed billowing fog and a shadow lurking behind it.
Had no one else sensed the change? Njord cradled the infant a little more securely in the crook of his left arm, ready to draw his ax with his right hand.
“Is something the matter?”
Frigga had appeared by his side. He hadn’t sensed her coming.
Again. Goddess of home and hearth she may be, but she was as stealthy as an owl in the night.
Njord’s focus shifted toward her for only a heartbeat, but when he looked into the undergrowth again, the fog was gone and only the shadows of the summer night remained.
“I thought I saw something,” Njord said hesitantly.
“Something or someone?”
He only shrugged.
“The High Priestess,” Njord changed the subject. “Who is she?”
Frigga chuckled and gestured to him that she was ready to take her little princeling back. Relieved, Njord handed him over, but the boy held on to Njord’s hair, pulling out a few strands.
His grunt of pain seemed to amuse Frigga.
“He likes you, Shipbreaker. And as you know, it’s a well-kept secret who the person behind the birch bark mask really is.”
Njord thought about the rune in his pouch.
“Be careful,” he said, although Frigga played the game of deception and intrigue better than he did.
She smiled at him slyly.
Njord would have loved to know what was going on in her head, but the Queen of Asgard had already turned around and headed back to the well, leaving Njord to stare after her.
The ceremony of the runes unfolded like a strange dream.
The moon hung low above Yggdrasil’s crown, bathing everything in its silver light and casting deep shadows.
As Frigga stepped into the water of the well, her son cradled in her arms, a shudder passed through the crowd.
Rumor had it that she derived her power from an even older goddess, that Asgard’s golden queen commanded the power of the earth itself.
Njord could believe it. No wonder ambitious Odin had been so keen to marry her, even though he usually liked to ridicule the power of fertility and abundance.
Asgard’s High Priestess splashed into the water next to Frigga. The pale white ceremonial garb and the birch bark mask lent her an ethereal and unsettling appearance.
“We come together tonight under the roof of Yggdrasil to celebrate a new life,” Frigga said. “Thori Odinsson. Prince of Asgard and my son. Cast the runes now, High Priestess, so we will know his fate, the great deeds he’s destined to do, and the glory he will earn.”
Inclining her head, the priestess began to chant.
Her voice was pleasant, melodic. Something about it irked Njord.
He narrowed his eyes, studying her more carefully as she moved through the ancient ritual.
There was a subtle hesitation in her gestures, barely perceptible but present nonetheless. Was she doubtful about the ritual?
Soon her seier flowed through the air like a sentient being.
It was powerful, although not as powerful as Njord would have expected from a High Priestess of Asgard.
He’d witnessed Perhonen chant, and her seier felt like it could move worlds, while this one felt like it could slither through your ear and smother your heart.
The sacred words echoed across the gathered assembly as the masked woman raised her staff. She sang her verses like a skald, beautiful and sweet, but with something bitter underneath. Like sugared poison.
Odin stood tall and proud at the well’s edge, his single eye gleaming with anticipation. In front of him, Frigga watched with careful scrutiny, her gaze never leaving the priestess.
The climax of the ceremony was near.
Hesitating only for a heartbeat, the priestess put her staff back on her belt and pulled a ceremonial dagger and a wooden stick from her pouch.
The stick was made of the finest oak wood, symbolizing strength, and the priestess carved three runes into it.
She carved quickly, almost frantically, but Njord couldn’t make out the runes she had chosen from a distance.
Seier charged the air as the High Priestess held the oaken stick above the little Odinsson’s head.
Her hands trembled.
Something was wrong, and Frigga seemed to notice it too. Her brow furrowed in momentary concern.
But the priestess pressed on despite the disturbance Njord could sense in her sloppily woven spell. Chanting the words of blessing, she sounded both convinced of herself and halting like a mummer impersonating a king.
“I see the prince’s fate clearly,” the High Priestess announced. “Thori Odinsson shall be blessed! He shall find a worthy bride, rule a great kingdom, and bring further glory to the house of Odin!”
She dipped the oaken stick into the water of the well.
The crowd held its breath.
Soon, everyone would see which fate awaited Thori Odinsson. Whether a prince to a lineage of gods or a mere mortal, the Norns favored no one.
Raising the stick high above her head, the High Priestess painted Thori’s birth runes into the air, now huge and bold, glowing gold for everyone to see.
Sowilo. The sun. Light and lightning.
Tiwaz. Victory. Leadership. Courage.
Thurisaz. Defense. Protection. Raw power.
Odin beamed with pride, raising his spear Gungnir in salute as the gathered nobles cheered. But Frigga’s smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“The child’s fate is sealed,” the High Priestess declared, looking down at the infant. “The Norns have woven his destiny into the fabric of the worlds.”
She trailed off, her body going rigid. The stick in her hand began to tremble, and her breathing grew ragged. The crowd murmured in confusion. Was this still part of the ritual?
“Skuld!” she gasped the name of the Norn of the Future. “Master! Master of wave and wind… Destiny!”
A chill ran down Njord’s spine. Master of wave and wind? Was she talking about him, or about another deity of the sea? There were a handful of them after all. Or was she talking about something else entirely?
“What’s going on?” Odin demanded, stepping forward, his spear clenched tight in his fist.
The priestess’ head was tilted back at a painful-looking angle, her body swaying as if caught in a storm only she could feel. “Destiny…can’t be escaped…”
Collapsing onto her knees, the priestess drew in gasping breaths. She shook her head as if clearing it, then quickly tried to compose herself.
“Forgive me, Lord Odin,” she mumbled, her voice not quite controlled; she sounded slurred, almost distorted.
“Sometimes the visions come unbidden. But this one only reinforced what the runes already told me, and isn’t that a powerful sign?
Thori Odinsson is destined for greatness. A master of gods and men!”
Njord scowled. What kind of nonsense was the priestess spouting? Master of gods and men? That wasn’t what she said.
But Odin seemed mollified by her words, the proud bastard. Frigga, however, studied the woman with new intensity.
“The ceremony is complete,” the High Priestess announced. “The fate of Thori Odinsson is blessed under Yggdrasil. Let us celebrate!”
The crowd erupted in cheers.
Njord remained silent, his hand clutching the Nauthiz rune in his pouch.
The strange priestess stepped out of the well, and just for a moment when everyone was turning away from her to congratulate Odin and Frigga, her posture sagged.
She seemed drained like an old woman. Taking an involuntary step forward, Njord was dying to know what was going on.
There was a ripple, like looking down through moving water, and then, as if her weakness had never been there, the priestess’ shoulders squared with new resolve.
Her gaze snapped up as if she’d sensed that Njord was staring at her, her eyes shining, cold and calculating.
Who was she? Thorbjorg, maybe? Katla or Hulda?
All of them were powerful priestesses of Asgard, but ceremonial garb or not, Njord would recognize them.
He held the priestess’ gaze for a few tense moments, an unspoken battle raging between them. She turned away first, leaving to exchange pleasantries with Odin and Frigga.
The encounter left a bad taste in Njord’s mouth.
He felt like Odin’s High Priestess had set dangerous events in motion tonight.
And the rune of need and hardship that burned against his palm seemed like proof that the real prophecy she’d received was far different from the glorious future she had proclaimed for Thori Odinsson.
In the shadows beneath Yggdrasil, as drunk gods and giants caroused around the Well of Fate, little Thori finally slept in the arms of his mother, unaware that his destiny had become a twisted and uncertain affair.
Njord turned away into the night. The Nauthiz rune seemed to pulse with prophetic heat in his palm.
Need.
Hardship.
Fate.
Had the Nornir intertwined the threads of their fate, his and little Odinsson’s? Njord couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling that this might be the case.
So he would keep the rune close. And he would watch and wait, as he’d done for centuries.