The weeks passed. Skerpla became Sólmánuður, and the month was true to its name, with the sunlight bright and bold and bountiful.

The hird became restive. They followed Jarl Kvedulf to plunder and raid and earn glory, not to remain home rebuilding longhouses and licking their wounds. Fights broke out, and a holmgang challenge was issued after one man’s nose was broken in an ignominious manner; the two men rowed out to the tiny islet called Eyetooth Isle just beyond the docks, where they dueled as everyone watched from the shore.

The victor was celebrated that night, his arm tightly bound and useless for at least the rest of summer, and the corpse of the challenger was cremated up by the standing stones, attended by his family and a bitter-faced Kvedulf, who snarled and refused to join in the festivities.

The longhouse was finally repaired, though devoid of artwork, ornament, or paint, and the occasion was celebrated with another feast. Old Thorfin, the architect, was awarded a silver arm ring, and Kvedulf set a number of challenges to his men, to see who could carry a barrel filled with piss around the all quickest, who could out-arm wrestle the others, and other feats which earned as much laughter as praise and whose victors were rewarded with gold.

But always Skadi caught sight of her uncle’s face when others weren’t watching, and saw the simmering dissatisfaction burning beneath their heavy lids. Felt his palpable anger at being forced to remain quiet in Kráka, to wait and bide his time.

For her part, she continued to train with every ounce of her being. Ran every morning, wrestled at glima, lifted stones, and sought to master weapons under Marbjörn’s tutelage. She approached these exercises with the same cold intensity as Yri had once done, her pleasure gone, all of it but a means to an end.

And as the weeks turned, her strength increased. The long muscles of her legs thickened, her shoulders broadened, her grip became fierce and her stamina deep. More than one member of the hird mocked her by bemoaning the disappearance of the fair young maiden who’d appeared at winter’s end, and one even accused her of being a shapeshifter, having swapped her lithe, slender body for that of a hard warrior’s.

She’d challenged him to a holmgang, and he’d quickly backed down to the hird’s hooting delight.

Most evenings she spent with Ásfríðr. The more she learned of seiðr, the more she realized how much more there was to learn. Each sip of knowledge revealed new gulfs. The rituals and chants needed for augury and divination; the names of friendly spirits and their taxonomy; the importance of amulets, staves, charms, and ritual clothing; the appropriate payments for different services, and how to face down men who bridled at her female power; the nature of curses; the nature of the gods; a deeper knowledge of their cosmology—on and on it went, with no end in sight.

But every time Skadi expressed frustration, Ásfríðr only smiled.

“You will never cease to learn. The völva who believes herself truly learned is a fool.”

Which didn’t improve Skadi’s temper any.

What little free time she had she spent exploring the cliffs and ridges that ran along the fjord, delighting in the small marvels and wonders she discovered in nature, climbing inhospitable escarpments and finding the highest points to sit and gaze out over the waters and think.

To ponder which spell she wished to claim when the time came.

For a long time, her mind simply leaped from one idea to another, like a child moving from dinner treat to dinner treat, unable to decide which to bite first. She felt giddy with the potential power at her command. Should she learn to control the weather? To bestow luck? To heal the sick or wounded?

But she discovered that thinking while on truly high perches, the most perilous of high rocks, helped her narrow her focus.

What did she want?

To control her life. To have the power to live according to her desires.

What spell would help her achieve that?

In the end, only one spell suggested itself.

The ability to kill.

Not weaken, not wound, not confuse, nor instill fear.

Out of all the spells, the ability to slay another where they stood with her words alone seemed the most powerful and effective.

Of course the spell would be limited to those of sixteen threads or less, but that encompassed everyone but the greatest of heroes. To call out words of power, to sear the very air with her spell, and kill a foe from a distance?

What could compare?

But still she sat and thought, and slowly became dissatisfied with the notion.

After all, from her unique point of view as a wyrd weaver, the spell would simply allow her to remove as many threads from her foe as she had herself.

And how was that different from casting Thyrnir with all her intent?

Say she stood across a battlefield from an enemy völva whose wyrd was less than her own. She could cast her spell of death, and slay her—or simply hurl Thyrnir and slay her just as neatly.

For the greatest wyrd would always win.

She practiced throwing her half-spear. At first she simply stood at a distance of some ten yards from a living oak. She’d chosen a secluded glade not too far into the forest outside the Raven’s Gate, a place of sufficient privacy that she could experiment but not so wild that she’d get in trouble.

She’d studied the old spear, examined its pitted head, and then raised it high as she’d sighted at the distant oak.

Taken a moment to steady herself, and then hurled with all her might.

And laughed in surprise and shock and delight as Thyrnir had leaped from her hand, swift as a hawk eager for the sky, to fly with impossible swiftness and bury itself deep with a satisfying thokk into the trunk.

Despite having sunken inches deep into the old wood, she pulled it free with ease.

Backed away another five yards, and threw again.

To her amazement, she found that she could throw the spear with great accuracy from a distance of forty, almost fifty yards. Each time it leaped forth, eager and quivering, to fly true at her target.

Amazed, she regarded the old weapon with newfound respect.

“But how do I make you return to my hand?” she asked softly.

Throwing the weapon in practice did not diminish her wyrd. But if she were in battle, and Thyrnir cast at a foe and gone from her hand for the rest of the fight, would she lose the threads after all?

She decided to find out.

For a week she hunted the white boar that had nearly attacked her and Glámr when first they’d sought out Ásfríðr. Were it a normal boar she’d never have hoped to find it, but it had boasted four threads of its own, and wyrd called to wyrd, did it not?

Which is why she wasn’t surprised when, on her third evening searching the forest, she saw it drinking from a rivulet, hooves planted wide, massive head with its great, curling tusks lowered to the stream.

“Ah,” she had sighed, easing out of the bushes. The banks of the river were of naked dirt, and all around them, the undergrowth was thick and vibrant. Only here in this island of sunlight was there space for them both, and stopped on the stream’s far side.

The boar lifted its head. The sunlight made its white bristles shine, its pink skin burn through. It blinked its piggish eyes, twitched one huge ear, and then snorted, the sound deep and savage from the depths of its huge chest.

“Yes, I see you too, old one.” She drew Thyrnir from her belt. “And give you much praise for your long and glorious life. I can only imagine the battles and deeds that you have done.”

For its hide was crisscrossed with old scars, and one tusk, she saw, was broken.

With great deliberation, the boar crossed the stream, the water splashing about its hooves as it climbed up neatly to the far bank and faced her.

“Whichever god is your patron, I thank it for your life.”

The boar lowered its head and pawed at the dirt. Made deep, rooting, grunting sounds of terrible power, and despite the legendary weapon that she held in her fist, Skadi realized with a thrill that she was terrified.

“Come!” she cried, and the boar charged, tusks flashing in the sunlight.

Skadi hurled Thyrnir.

The old spear flew true as ever, and somehow found the boar’s left eye, sinking deep into its head.

The boar’s grunting became a shocked squeal, and then the strength went out of its legs; it crashed to the ground, and sheer momentum carried it forward, sliding and crashing over ferns and rocks to finally come to a stop at Skadi’s feet.

Who stood, panting for breath, and gazed with wonder and the mountain of white-furred flesh before her.

Four threads she had severed with that one throw, yet five she had lost when she’d thrown Thyrnir.

Was she always destined to lose the weapon’s full weight of destiny when she cast it?

She reached down to pull the old spear free, then paused, considered, and retracted her hand.

Stepped back, taking in the enormity of her kill, and bowed her head.

Then, with that gesture of respect, she turned on her heel and returned to Kráka, leaving her half-spear buried deep in the boar’s skull.

For the rest of the evening she was distracted, not hearing anybody properly, unable to eat, to think. She let mocking insults go unchallenged, which befuddled the other warriors, and retired early from the great hall to sleep.

Having washed and combed her hair, changed her clothing, and whispered a prayer to Freyja, she lay down on her bench to rest—and froze when her fingers touched a worn shaft beneath the folded blanket of her pillow.

In the gloom of their house and by the dying firelight of their pit she drew Thyrnir forth. No blood was dried on its blade, and it seemed otherwise unmarked for its adventures.

“How?” she whispered, but was unable to conceal her delight; setting it on the bed beside her, she sharpened her gaze and saw that her wyrd was restored to its sixteen threads.

“What wonder,” she whispered to herself again.

And realized that with Thyrnir in her possession, she need not learn the spell of killing. True, she might need to slaughter several foes at once, but that would mean trying to doom enemies whose wyrd amounted to her sixteen; two men of eight, say, or one of ten and another of six. In which case she’d always slay the strongest with Thyrnir, then draw Natthrafn with which to finish off the other.

No.

There had to be more useful spells to her than the song of death.

Then what?

Long into the night, she wondered, fingers interlaced beneath her head, staring up at the dark rafters as Aurnir snored his sonorous sleep song.

To instill fear and confusion in their enemies? Strong. That would greatly weaken their foes in any battle. But it fell into the same camp as cursing them with physical weakness, hindering their movements, or breaking their weapons and weakening their armor.

All potent spells, but were they best?

Her thoughts circled back to providing invulnerability to her friends, but there her own weakness dissuaded her. She would never wish to divest herself of her full sixteen threads, to, say, give each of her companions four. Nor would she choose to exalt one over the others. So what were her options? To always give her friends two threads before battle, and enter into combat with half her wyrd?

What was a spell that would always be useful? To herself, to her friends, in almost any situation? What would allow her to take control of her life, to safeguard her allies, and increase the odds of her long-term victories?

Lying there in the dark, listening to the different snores and breathing of her companions, she realized that the greatest truth that had guided her thus far was her concern for them all.

Her own abilities and weapons would see her through combats. But she couldn’t stand the thought of losing her friends as she went. To end up alone, years from now, like her uncle, bitter and strong and selfish.

A spell that would help her keep her friends by her side, but not weaken her before each and every combat.

The first rays of dawn were stealing through the window when the answer came to her: a song of healing.

In some fights, it might never be needed, but in others, it would allow her to keep her friends with her if they fell.

Better yet, if they were wounded, like Glámr had been while assaulting Grýla, she could heal their injuries so that they could continue fighting at their full strength.

She could heal herself. She could heal strangers in need. She could earn coin through healing, if needed, and no völva was ever reviled for knowing the healing craft.

Skadi smiled in the dark.

She would let Thyrnir and Natthrafn and her own potent wyrd take care of battle. With her seiðr, she would take care of her friends, and ensure that they had the greatest chance of walking the long road of her life with her toward its distant end.

“Cattle die,

Kinsmen die,

So, too, must you die.

But golden fame

Never dies

For those that earn it.

“Cattle die,

Kinsmen die,

So, too, must you die.

I know

That which never dies:

Judgment of a dead man's life.”

When she finished her whispered prayer, she turned over onto her side, and sank into a deep and dreamless sleep.