Skadi dropped upon the captain without a sound. Her seax flashed silver as she stabbed it where his neck met his shoulder, two fisted, her falling weight behind the strike to drive the point all the way down into his black, beating heart.

But the captain jerked aside at the last moment, his laughter cutting off, to twist and stare at where she’d fallen into a crouch, his face pale, his one good eye blazing with incredulity and then amusement.

Skadi could only stare up at him, unable to understand how she’d missed. For a moment she’d seen double, the tip of her seax sinking into thick muscle, that image ghostly and laid over that of the man twisting away, so that she didn’t understand, couldn’t fathom what had happened.

The other soldiers let out cries of alarm, moved forward to attack, but the captain stretched out his hand and barked a command in Archean.

The circle of gleaming steel halted.

Her mother’s cry carried in it a world of pain. “Skadi.”

“What do we have here?” The captain’s massive blade remained on his shoulder, and his grin was playful, cruel. “A young woman with a very big knife. Too bad you don’t know how to wield it.”

Skadi rose to her feet. She wanted to protest. She had stabbed him, she knew she had, but the man stood before her, hale and unwounded.

“A would-be assassin,” continued the captain. “Alas that you are not more skilled. But such is the way of the world. Such is your wyrd. And for daring to wield steel against me, you must die.”

The soldiers grinned, their anticipation hot and vicious.

Skadi lowered herself into a battle crouch. “Come on then, Archean pig. Better to die with blade in hand than have to look at your face a moment longer.”

The captain’s expression soured, and he hefted his sword. “Bold words, I’ll give you that.”

And then he darted at her, quick like an adder striking, the tip of his blade spearing into her chest before she could react.

A death blow, sure and true.

The sword pierced her, right beside her golden amulet, and burst out her back, sliding clean through her ribs and skewering her heart.

For a moment there was nothing, and Skadi entertained the wild idea of lunging forward, impaling herself deeper on his blade so that she could slash his throat - but her strength fled and fire burned her lungs. She heard the caw of ravens and felt the flutter of their wings about her face.

Her mother was screaming. Skadi fell to her knees. She tried to speak, to comfort her, but only blood came forth.

Voices, laughter.

The captain placed his boot on her chest. He loomed large, big as a giant, his words distorted as if she were hearing him from underwater. And then he shoved, unsheathed his sword from her body, and she fell.

But did not hit the floor.

She fell clear through it, into darkness, as if she had plunged once more into the fjord’s icy waters. Down she fell, the torchlight of the great hall and its faces receding, her hands outstretched before her, braids interweaving in the darkness, until she landed softly on her feet in a dark forest glade.

For a moment she couldn’t think, couldn’t react, but she felt her slaughter seax still in her grip and raised its inlaid blade to her face. Its edge burned with silvery blue fire, and the runes spoke to her, seemed to swell and ebb with power.

She was cold but did not shiver. With a gasp she placed a palm to her chest, and there felt the bloody wound, as wide as her hand. But there was no pain.

But she had died with a blade in her hand, fighting the enemy to the best of her ability. Surely the gods would vouchsafe her safe passage to Valhöll or Sessrúmnir?

Silence. She lifted her gaze to study the dark and dense forest around her, the pines clustered close and rising into shadows all around.

Was she in Hel, then? To subsist on ashes and wait in darkness till Ragnarok?

A snarl sounded from the depths of the forest. Thick and bestial, that of a massive beast. Primal fear sluiced through her, and she raised her silvery seax, unsure as to which way to face.

A drum began to beat. Large and sonorous, pounded rhythmically, echoing dully across the world, beating in place of her stilled heart.

The snarl again.

Despite being dead she realized that she was breathing quickly, but no breath clouds formed in this chilled air. Her body was cold. She warmed nothing in her lungs.

Catching herself, she ceased breathing, and felt no need to continue doing so.

The snarl again, closer, louder, more menacing. A great beast, lips writhing back from diseased gums, fangs larger than her hands. She could almost see it, so vividly did the sound conjure its form.

“Naglufr shall rend your apart,” whispered an old woman’s voice. “In its maw you shall find true oblivion. But for you it need not be this way.”

And a single golden thread appeared, one end emerging from the wound over her severed heart, the other extending like an impossible strand from an aureate web into the forest.

Skadi blinked at the golden cord and plucked it with a forefinger. Again she heard that golden note, sister to that which had sounded when she'd caught Glámr’s seax.

The snarl sounded from behind her, close now, close enough that this Naglufr might charge her at any moment, bursting out from between the trees.

So Skadi walked forward instead, following the golden thread between the thick sweeps of the pine branches. The air was so cold that the needles crackled. She wondered if the thread wound itself about her heart, her pierced organ turned into a spindle, but felt nothing.

She emerged into a clearing at the base of a massive ash tree, a tree so vast it encompassed her vision, a wall of shivered bark that rose into the sky. The world tree, branches like roads extending overhead, its every curve limned in pale, green fire, so that it seemed half ghost despite its obvious solidity.

Amongst the huge roots that snarled and plunged into the ground like whales diving into the sea were three women, one young, one matronly, one wizened like a crone. They were clad in gray wool so fine it shone smooth like linen, and never did they cease moving, working thread and weaving, weaving, the old lady occasionally reaching forth with a pair of heavy iron shears to snip a thread and thus end a life.

Skadi’s golden thread flew straight as an arrow to the thickly wound distaff that the matron held, curled its way into that pearlescent mass and there disappeared. And from the small clearing in which they stood a thousand more threads extended into the darkness, between the trees or up into the shadowed air, to fade from view, gently stirring and interweaving all the while as if a vast pattern were being woven that Skadi could not hope to encompass. Each thread glowed golden in the gloom, and about them hovered runes of power.

As she drew closer, wonder and loss suffused her, a melancholy so great that she could barely force herself to speak.

“Why is my thread not severed?”

“It was,” said the youngest, a beautiful maiden whose golden hair shone like wheat beneath her hood, eyes alive with humor and mischief, lips red as carnelians. “But your wyrd has been supplanted by the will of another.”

Then did a radiance descend from up on high, as if a star were deigning to visit the middle realm, falling slowly between the branches and lighting up all around it as it did so. Skadi peered up and felt fear and awe wash over her: a woman clad in metal armor was floating down, her form lit with divine radiance, twin golden wings flanking her silvered helm, her white feathered cloak rippling with glory like a golden pool reflecting dancing ribbons of light upon a cavern wall.

“Freyja.” Skadi fell to her knees from an excess of emotion.

The goddess alighted upon a vast, bulging root that bent like a rough knee, and in doing so turned that rude perch into a throne. In one hand she held a glorious spear, its head of glowing gold, its haft of ivory, and in the other a great steel shield upon whose face was embossed an endlessly beguiling pattern.

“Mortal woman, you have drawn my eye.” The goddess’s words startled Skadi, for the figure's lips remained still even as she devoured Skadi with her silver gaze. “Your bravery and desperate need, your bold plunge from the cliff and your fight to your mother’s side. More, you wield Natthrafn, and so have been woven into its storied wyrd.”

All the while the three norns spun and snipped and wove.

“Natthrafn?” She raised the seax to study it anew. Yearned to be able to read the runes that were carved down its center.

“An ancient blade,” agreed the goddess, “that has served great heroes and base villains alike. And now it shall cut at your behest, and you shall choose whose threads to slash. I return you to your middle realm, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir, with a slight excess of fate to shepherd you through your trials. Nurture it, weave brightly with your deeds, and your wyrd shall grow. Press too hard, however, and even your golden thread shall snap, returning you here forevermore.”

Skadi lowered the seax and gazed in wonder at the goddess. She appeared in human guise, but there was no humanity in her cruel and haughty stare. A dozen questions leaped to her lips: where was Father, how could she defeat the Archeans, what did she mean by an excess of fate, how could one’s wyrd grow if it was fixed by the very norns themselves - but all died on her tongue as she gazed up at that perilous visage.

This was no time or place for questions.

“Thank you, divine goddess.” But Skadi did not bow her head. She’d not asked for this. It was a gift freely given. “Do you ask for anything in return?”

A smile then, beautiful and predatory. “That you weave a wyrd worthy of the greatest of sagas, Styrbjörnsdóttir. Only that and nothing more.”

Skadi blinked and the goddess was gone, the great root dark and barren without her presence to bless it.

The norns wove on, measuring and snipping, reaching out into the air to clasp a glowing thread and pull it into their patterns. All the while the golden filaments slowly gyrated about them, dancing their enigmatic dance.

“An excess of fate,” said Skadi. “My apologies, revered norns, if this offends you.”

The crone chuckled. “Think that you are the only such? The Middle Realm fair crawls with the wyrd blessed, some great, some small, some storied, most forgotten.”

The matron reached out behind her to snag a golden thread and pull it in. “You are blessed by Freyja and wield Natthrafn. Your tale now begins in truth, and already you hoard more wyrd than most. Use it sparingly, brave warrior. You are blessed, not immortal. Those with greater wyrds shall crush you beneath their heels as if you were no more than an empty eggshell.”

The youngest norn smiled without warmth. “Few are given a second chance, Styrbjörnsdóttir. Enjoy your time beneath the sun. Drink deep of the night air, strive boldly, love wildly, and enjoy the endless delights of the waking world. For one day, if you do not ascend to Sessrúmnir, you shall return here, and Naglufr is always hungry.”

Skadi wanted to speak on, but the rushing of wings sounded about her ears and the great, burning tree fell away, the golden threads spiraling madly, the laughter of the norns piercing the roar, and then she blinked.

She lay on the floor of the great hall. Liquid voices, Archeans, sounded around her, but none paid her any mind.

Five golden threads emerged from her heart to extend into the ceiling and walls and there pass out of sight, and about them floated those runes of power, each turgid gold and slowly spinning.

And in her palm lay the worn hilt of Natthrafn.

Her chest ached where she’d been stabbed, but reaching up she felt her ruined amulet, bent nearly double where it had taken the blow.

Smoothly, silently, and with fell intent, Skadi closed her fingers about her seax’s hilt and sat up.