Jarl Kvedulf and his three dragon ships left Kráka on a fine and blustery morning three days later. The occasion was marked by Ásfríðr descending from her temple to bless the venture, and a grand speech by the jarl that Skadi mostly ignored. Instead, she gazed hungrily at the three ships, freshly painted, long-planked, with shields along the racks and men in their finest war gear sitting on war chests.

She marked Marbjörn on the jarl’s own ship, the Sea Wolf, and the other great heroes of the hird with him: Hwideberg, massive and bald, ancient and perilous, his north bear cape stowed in his chest, no doubt; Nǫkkvi, the blond warrior with a blue tattoo about his left temple, intricate lines curling and intertwining about his eye; Auðun, whose reputation for brutal killings had earned him an aura of fear and respect, the tattoo down the center of his brow being the mark of his eternal revenge against the world.

Here and there, threads of fate burst forth from chests, but none so thickly as those four men, and they paled beside Kvedulf, whose glory was such that Skadi simply couldn’t count them all. Forty threads, at least, all spinning and twisting as if attached to some great, ever-shifting loom.

Finally, the jarl finished his speech. A great cry of approval went up from all those gathered along the shore, and the ships pushed off, ropes were tossed on deck, oar plugs removed so that oars could slide free, and a rhythm began to sound from the Sea Wolf, struck with a knotted rope on a barrel, every oar dipping in time to its beat.

The cheers continued as the ships pulled out into the fjord.

Then the strangest thing happened. The golden threads that arced out from her uncle to drop amongst the buildings and streets of Kráka tore free. They pulled away from the village, and rose to spear out into the sky.

The crowd subsided to watch the ships dwindle and disappear around the curvature of mountain.

What did it mean for his threads to have been pulled away from the village? That his destiny was no longer tied with Kráka?

She couldn’t fathom the meaning.

There was silence as the last ship slipped from view, then a heavy beat of nothing, then a sigh as the crowd began to break up, turning into conversational knots, people returning to their business, their lives for the summer.

Skadi stood with her crew.

She should have been on one of those ships. Should be pulling even now on an oar, seated on a chest filled with war gear, ready for glory, ready for battle.

Instead, she had several months to look forward to in the now half-empty Kráka, in the company of the warriors too old to earn a spot on a ship, with boys trying desperately to convince everybody, including themselves, that they were men.

Her own ship was inverted to one side of the docks, being recaulked and fixed by carpenters and ship wrights. She’d heard how the jarl had considered waiting another month to have it seaworthy, to sail forth with another twenty warriors, but then decided it was too risky, and that Kráka could not be left so undefended.

It would seem he had learned something from her tale of Kalbaek, then.

“Come on,” said Damian, his smile rueful. “I’ve not vomited on the Thor Stone yet. Want to do our run?”

For a moment she was tempted to say no. To follow Glámr out hunting, to spend the next month or six weeks waiting for Kvedulf to arrive, to sink into self-indulgent pity.

Instead, she nodded, and led the way back to the great hall to collect the shields and a little offering for the forest spirit.

Yri, Tiarvi, and Ingolfr were doing stone work when they finally arrived behind the stables, breathing heavily but no longer as winded as they’d once have been.

“Why are you here?” asked Tiarvi, dropping his stones with thuds upon the muddy ground to wipe at his brow. “Aren’t we done pretending?”

“I was never pretending,” said Skadi.

“That’s what made it so sad.” Tiarvi rifled his hair out of his eyes. He’d been growing it long so as to bind it back into a warrior’s braid. “But you know the truth of it, now. You should go back to looming.”

“It’s weaving,” said Yri.

Tiarvi was unfazed. “Exactly.”

Skadi stepped right into the larger boy’s face. They’d not seen much of each other since that first day of glima, as Marbjörn had kept them apart. She understood why, now.

“Are you going to stop me from doing my stone work?” she asked, voice low.

Tiarvi rolled his shoulders. “Long as you don’t get in my way, I don’t care what you do.”

“Good.”

She was about to begin her exercises when she heard Tiarvi chuckle to Ingolfr, “Pathetic, really.”

“Let it go,” whispered Damian.

Skadi charged Tiarvi from behind, the bigger boy too slow to react, and slammed her shoulder into the small of his back, forcing him to stagger forward a half-dozen steps. She wrapped her arms around his waist, locked her hands together, then even as he yelled in anger and tried to twist about, half-crouched to pull him back and off-balance and then heaved.

She’d been doing stone work for almost five weeks at this point. Had seen her strength grow, a might that felt volcanic at times, a ferocity that came from all the pain she’d been forced to bury deep since she’d seen Kalbaek put to torch.

By all rights, she shouldn’t have been able to heave Tiarvi off the ground, but she strained, thighs rigid, and felt more than saw a strand of her golden threads disappear.

Tiarvi rose up off the ground with a cry of confusion. She bent backwards so that they both toppled, and his head and shoulders slammed into the hard dirt and mud with all her force and his weight behind it.

She immediately released him and scrambled to her feet. Tiarvi lay still, blinking up at the sky, Yri, Ingolfr, and Damian gaping at them both.

“Ow,” said Tiarvi after a moment, and began climbing to his feet.

Skadi rushed forward and buried the toe of her boot in his gut. The air whooshed out of him and he almost crumpled, but he was a big lad, layered in muscle, and he kept trying to rise to his feet.

She kicked him again in the stomach, then stomped the side of his head as if kicking in a door. Tiarvi crashed to the ground again, lay still, then growled and tried to get up again.

Skadi stomped the side of his head one more time, kicked out the arm with which he was propping himself up, drew Natthrafn from its scabbard, and pressed a knee between Tiarvi’s shoulders, her blade to the side of his neck.

“What did you call me?” she hissed.

“I…” Tiarvi’s wits had fled. He lay still, hands hovering just off the dirt. “I…”

He didn’t even remember.

“The next time you insult me,” she whispered, pressing the seax’s edge closer, “do it to my face. Turn your back on me again and I’ll end you.”

“Yes,” he said, voice thick with pain and confusion. “I… I will.”

She jerked herself off him and slid the seax home. Turned to stare at the others. Yri, she thought, was trying very hard to hide her approval.

“I may be a jarl’s daughter, and Jarl Kvedulf may have plans for me, but while I still breathe, I’ll train how and where I like. If any of you have trouble with it, just let me know. I’m more than happy to convince you otherwise.”

Nobody spoke.

Fuming, Skadi selected a pair of oval rocks, picked them up, and began her exercises.

* * *

Three weeks passed.

Life became a routine.

Skadi increased her morning runs to six laps, then seven.

Devoured a massive breakfast.

Did her stone work, pushing herself hard, trying to find the limits of her strength, that agonizing point where her body wanted to give out, was straining to its utmost, and her mind had just enough resolve to push herself a little further.

Ate a prodigious lunch.

In the afternoons she trained with Damian at axe and spear work. The stump was nearly demolished now, surrounded by fresh chips of wood, and nothing felt so sweet as to wind a hand-axe back and hurl it with all her body, sometimes lifting right off the ball of her leading foot as she bent nearly in half, the axe flying from her grip at the target, its thud viscerally satisfying.

Every day she tried to hurl from a little farther back. To not lose any precision. To hit just as hard.

Her hands grew callused. She trimmed her dark hair and shaved the right side of her head up to her temple to stubble, braiding the rest and wearing it in a warrior’s pattern.

Yri no longer protested when she found Skadi at the icy pool, which the summer month of Skerpla had thawed to a merely cold experience instead of bone-throbbingly frigid. They never talked much, and Yri remained reticent about her past, but something shifted between them after Skadi’s demolishing of Tiarvi, and their silence became almost companionable.

The merchants who sailed into the fjord from the south brought no word of either Kvedulf’s battles or her own father’s whereabouts. The Archeans, it seemed, had consolidated their hold on Hregg, turning Búðir with its deeper waters into their settlement. No word came of Kalbaek.

King Harald, rumor went, was mustering a large army of ships with which to challenge the Archean hold on the Shattered Isles. All were ordered to send warriors to assist.

Those commands didn’t hold much weight on the Draugr Coast, however.

Routine. Run, eat, lift, eat, throw, then help around the village. Dinner, time spent with her friends who were starting to feel like family, and then sleep.

She visited Ásfríðr once during that time.

Climbed high along the trail, but turned off as before with Glámr before reaching the Thor Stone, and wound their way up through the trees and small meadows till at last, she reached the ancient building.

Ásfríðr wasn’t surprised at her arrival; she seemed to have expected her.

Skadi’s visit was short. She asked for some sign that her fate was not bound with Jarl Afastr and Kaldrborg, but Ásfríðr could give her none.

Asked how she could avoid her fate, but the völva said the only way she could help would be to cast a mighty ritual to peer into the future, and this Jarl Kvedulf had made her swear she would not do.

“So you are his creature?” Skadi had demanded, throwing all caution to the winds. “You will not help me because he has forbidden you?”

“Your wyrd is strong,” said Ásfríðr, her smile sad. “But his is stronger, and I exist because he allows the people of Kráka to come to me with their problems and desires. I will not cross him, Skadi. Not even for you.”

Their visit had ended shortly after that.

The days grew warmer. The spring flowers gave way to verdant slopes, and even this far north the warmth was palpable. The sheep and goats gave birth to lambs and kids, who grew quickly into adorable, knock-kneed little creatures who gambled and explored and leaped about the green grass.

There was much work to be done. Goats to be milked, cream to be skimmed, butter to be made, honey to be gathered, cheeses to be wrapped, cloth and patterns to be woven, thatch roofs to be mended, and on and on.

Skadi trained as fiercely as the very first day, trained hard when even Yri began to lose fire. She knew the villagers laughed at her. That they thought her a fool, dreaming of being a warrior when in a month or two she’d be a wife.

But none dared gainsay her, and Tiarvi never insulted her again.

One evening, weary and sore, morose and starving, she sat with her crew in their cozy home, listening as Begga teased Kofri about his latest attempts to seduce Widow Oda, when shouts came distantly from the north of the village.

Skadi sat up alertly, then turned to Glámr, whose hearing was far better than her own.

His long ears twitched.

“An attack,” he whispered. “I’d wager the Raven’s Gate.”

“An attack?” Begga’s shock was matched only by her surprise. “By land? Could it be Djúprvik?”

Skadi set down her bowl and took up Natthrafn. “It’s possible.”

“One way to find out,” said Glámr, moving to take up the bow he’d fashioned himself from yew wood. “Shall we?”

“I’ll come.” Damian rose to his feet, his manner far calmer than Skadi would have expected. But in truth that wasn’t fair—he’d changed nearly as much as she had these past two or so months, growing in both strength and composure.

“Aurnir,” said the half-giant, also rising ponderously to his feet.

Skadi almost protested, but then heard again the scream of the sailor whose leg Aurnir had shattered with both fists, and how he’d then swung the man about like a scythe.

Skadi moved to the door and peered out. It was dusk. The shouts were louder now, the sound of distant battle melding with closer cries of those demanding to know what was going on.

“Stay close,” she called back to the others, seizing her throwing axe. “Stay together.”

And with that, she slipped out the door.