They found a ring of great boulders that rose from the leaf litter and undergrowth like a primitive fort from ages past. Slipping between the great rocks made shaggy with moss they found a narrow space within, like the gap between the palm and fingers of a loosely clenched fist.

Great trees towered around them, vainly trying to claim the empty space above the rocks with outstretched branches, but even so, Skadi could make out a ragged circle of night above them, resplendent with stars. She hugged herself and watched as Náttfari neatly scaled the tallest boulder to glance around the area even as her brother unshouldered his pack to pull out wrapped rations for them all.

Dálkr bounded her hands tightly behind her back, then roped her ankles together.

“Sit,” commanded Astrilda, doing just that and laying her huge axe across her lap. She was little more than a shadow in the gloom. “We’ll rest till before dawn, and then finish the last leg of the journey.”

Skadi lowered herself awkwardly and sat back against a boulder. “The last leg?”

“Our dragon ship is anchored at an inlet waiting for us. We’ll reach it by late afternoon tomorrow and sail the rest of the way to Kaldrborg.”

Skadi stared at Astrilda’s shadowed form. “See you soon, you said. You knew then that this would happen.”

Astrilda sighed. “Of course I did. Did you really think Afastr would simply return home like a whipped hound, tail between his legs?” For the first time, she sounded weary. “He’s as sharp as he is brutal.”

“How did you know I’d go to the waterfall?”

“I didn’t. It was a gamble. But I’ve always been lucky. Looks like it was our wyrd to meet there.”

Skadi sharpened her vision and the other woman’s fifteen threads blazed into view, swirling slowly in the night. Dálkr’s five did as well, and looking up she saw that Náttfari had quietly crossed to another boulder, her threads giving her position away.

Huh. Skadi had never thought of using her wyrd weaving sight as a means of detecting others in the dark.

Dawn was perhaps five hours away. They weren’t building a fire. Looked like Náttfari was going to keep watch from above. Dálkr settled down and she saw the glimmer of his sword across his lap. Soon soft snores came from where he sat.

Was Náttfari the only one staying awake? If so—

“I’m genuinely surprised,” said Astrilda softly. “I thought there was more fight in you. That you’d at least make a token effort to get away.”

Was that disappointment in her voice?

“This was neatly done. Catching me unarmed and naked where the roar of the waterfall made it nearly impossible for me to call for help? I’d wager it’s not your first time capturing slaves for your jarl.”

“I’m no slaver,” snapped Astrilda. “But yes. I do as my jarl commands. Didn’t you go to Djúprvik on Kvedulf’s orders?”

Skadi leaned back against the boulder. “Well. I’d say there’s a slight difference in going on a quest to slay a fordæða and liberate a town from stealing away a woman so she can be raped by a monster.”

Astrilda’s silence was hurt and angry.

“Why do you do it?” asked Skadi, genuinely curious. “You’re a powerful person in your own right. You could leave Kaldrborg, do something more honorable with your life. There’s all of Archea to fight. I’m sure King Harald would welcome a shieldmaiden of your caliber.”

Astrilda scoffed. “You know nothing of Afastr if you think that is an option for me. To suffice to say that I am as constrained as you are, if not more so.”

“You may tell yourself that, but it’s literally not true. I am trapped and cannot escape. You could walk away if you desired.”

There was a rustle of clothing as Astrilda leaned forward. “There are forces greater than us in this world that imprison us more than any iron shackle. But there’s no point in arguing with you. Given where you sit, you’d never understand.”

Skadi considered the other woman, nearly invisible in the dark. “Yet still you talk to me. Why? Do you feel guilt over what you do? Do you seek my understanding? My forgiveness?”

An aching silence was her only response.

Skadi pressed on. “The world is what we make of it. My uncle wished me to marry Afastr, but I helped kill a jotunn queen and cleansed Djúprvik to make sure such was not my fate. It wasn’t easy, but I was willing to die to remain in control of myself. Can you say the same?”

More silence, and then another rustle. Skadi thought the other woman wouldn’t respond, but finally, she heard a low whisper.

“It’s late. We should rest before tomorrow’s march. Sleep.”

The air was cold and pure and heavily scented by the damp earth hidden here between the boulders and the pine forest beyond. She breathed slowly and deeply, but didn’t feel sleepy in the least.

She waited till she was sure Astrilda was asleep. Glanced up to see Náttfari’s threads blazing from a dark shadow poised just above her on the huge rocks.

“I can see you quite clearly,” said the half-troll. “Don’t imagine you can creep away. Tomorrow’s march will be all the more difficult if you have to make it with an arrow wound in your leg.”

Skadi forced herself to relax and lay her head back against the rock. Breathed slowly and audibly as if asleep. The urge to act was an overwhelming imperative, but she fought for patience. Time unspooled. Náttfari shifted her weight, moved near silently in a circuit of the rocks above, found herself another vantage point.

The darkness swarmed. Had her friends noticed her absence? Regardless, the time had come to act.

Skadi extended her thoughts to Thyrnir. It was bundled in the center of her towel along with Natthrafn and her clothes, set right beside Dálkr’s thigh. Reached for it with her will, expended a fraction of her wyrd, and then it was there, its rough haft in her clasp behind her back.

Skadi stayed still. The half-troll above hadn’t noticed.

Slowly she shifted her grip up the weapon till at last, she had the wicked harpoon head between her fingers. Slowly, carefully, she shifted her weight so that she sat on the haft and began to work the ropes back and forth over the edge.

They split easily on the ensorcelled blade.

When they fell away, Skadi’s heart leaped and she froze. Waited. Listened.

Nothing.

Cutting the bonds that held her ankles would require too much movement.

Skadi knew what she had to do. Her stomach clenched, her pulse roared in her ears, and it became difficult to breathe steadily. Before her heightened state of anticipation could give her away, she clasped the halfspear, came up smoothly onto her knees, and flung Thyrnir at where Náttfari crouched high above her.

The spear flew hungrily from her hands. There was a wet cutting sound, and all of Náttfari’s threads went dark, taking five of Skadi’s with them.

Dálkr grunted and sat up.

Skadi called Thyrnir back to her, hand outstretched, expending another thread to do so. The halfspear appeared once more in her hand.

Without hesitating Skadi hurled the spear again, nearly falling forward as she did so.

Thyrnir flew from her hand. Dálkr let out a strangled cry. Skadi heard his head crack back against the boulder, and his five threads went dark.

Astrilda leaped to her feet.

Skadi summoned Thyrnir back to her fist. “Stop,” she cried. “One step and I’ll slay you as I did Náttfari and Dálkr.”

A bald lie. Skadi’s seventeen threads had dropped to two, while Astrilda yet had her fifteen.

If they fought now, the other shieldmaiden would cut her down in moments.

“Náttfari?” Astrilda’s voice was alarmed but calm. “Dálkr?”

“I hold in my hand Thyrnir, which Halfdan Snakehair wielded against the Palió Oneiro army centuries ago during the Age of Dreams. It returns to my hand on my command, and will take your life as gladly as it did your companions.” Skadi sought to make her words commanding, her tone confident. “If you think your axe can find me before my spear enters your eye, then come at me, Astrilda. Come see what a token effort of resistance looks like.”

The other woman was breathing heavily. Thank Freyja she couldn’t read the threads, didn’t understand how wyrd truly worked.

“Lay down your axe and knife,” said Skadi softly. “Please. I’ve no desire to kill you.”

The moment stretched out. Skadi rippled her fingers on Thyrnir’s haft. She’d throw and dive for Natthrafn. That would gift her more threads if she could draw it from the bundle, putting her at three against Astrilda’s remaining thirteen, allowing her to summon Thyrnir back—

The sound of the axe being tossed onto the dirt between them with a thud made Skadi’s knees go weak with relief, followed a moment later by the lighter thump of the knife.

“What now?” asked the other woman, tone gruff, furious.

Skadi slid Thyrnir’s blade between her ankles, slashed through the ropes, and then stepped forward cautiously to feel the ground before them. Her finger closed over the axe’s great blade, then over the knife. This she tossed behind her, then grasped the ace by its haft and pulled it up.

Astrilda’s threads dropped from fifteen to ten.

“Sit,” said Skadi.

A moment of hesitation, and then the other woman did as she was bid.

Skadi tossed the axe into one of the narrow gaps that led out from this tight natural fortress and skirted around to her clothing bundle from which she drew Natthrafn.

Her threads blossomed from two to five.

Still terrible odds against Astrilda’s ten, but better than before.

“My failure won’t dissuade Afastr,” said Astrilda calmly. “As much as I hate to say it, you only delay the inevitable. Now, because of this, hundreds will die.”

“My wyrd is not to be his wife,” said Skadi softly, moving away from Dálkr’s corpse to stand across the small space from the other woman. “This is but a step on the path that leads me away from him.”

Astrilda stretched, seeming to grow more relaxed. “Well, for what it’s worth, this is the Skadi I was expecting to deal with.”

“You don’t grieve for your companions?”

“Náttfari and Dálkr? No. We were comrades by necessity. They belonged heart and soul to my—to Afastr. He made them his tools, raised them from birth to worship him. It’s… strange to think of them as gone, but perhaps I shall see them again one day in Valhöll or Sessrúmnir.”

“Afastr raised them from birth?” Skadi tried to calculate. “But they were older than I am. Thirty summers? How old is Afastr if he had the ambition and purpose to adopt twin half-trolls so young?”

Astrilda laughed lowly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.”

I am older than I look, and have traveled far and wide.

“He has to be at least… fifty summers?” Skadi tried to imagine twin half-troll babes and raising them herself. Couldn’t imagine. “Sixty summers?”

“There is so much you don’t know about this wide and wicked world of ours,” said Astrilda softly. “Part of me wishes I could keep such knowledge from you, Skadi. Innocence, once lost, is never regained.”

Skadi tightened her grip on Thyrnir. This might be a ploy on the other woman’s part to lower her guard. “I am no innocent. I saw my younger brother murdered before me, my home burned to ashes. I have slain giants and seen a terrible blót hanging from the branches of an ancient oak. I’ve slain salt hags and been inducted into the ranks of völvas, have spoken with the gods and been singled out for their blessings. Don’t think me an innocent.”

“Oh, but you are. Delightfully, terribly so.” The other woman sounded amused now. “You think I didn’t see how embarrassed you were when I forced you to run naked beside me?” Skadi was glad for the darkness, and how it hid her suddenly burning face. And I’m not saying you haven’t lived, but rather…” She trailed off, and the amusement sluiced out of her words. “Innocence lies in not having seen or experienced that which forces you to disappoint your own self. Not having your understanding of the world warped and violated. Not realizing how useless it is to set ourselves against the true powers of this world.”

The bleakness in the older woman’s voice shocked Skadi. “What… what has happened to you?”

Silence.

Skadi tried to make out the other woman, to make her more than a shadow against the deeper dark.

“I am at your mercy, but that doesn’t mean I shall unburden my soul like a child returned to her mother’s arms. What do you mean to do with me, Skadi Styrbjörnsdóttir? Now that you have me within your power? I tell you true, you’d be best off killing me. You wouldn’t want me as a complication in your life.”

But Skadi couldn’t. Couldn’t imagine hurling Thyrnir at the other woman, regardless of whether she had the wyrd to do so. The half-trolls had been impediments to her freedom, and never treated her as more than an onerous duty. Killing them had been a necessity, as she’d known they’d never accept her getting away.

But Astrilda?

She could see the other woman’s stern visage in her mind’s eye. Her slate blue eyes, filled with melancholy and resignation, bitter amusement and wry detachment. Her harsh cheekbones, her hair gathered in its topknot to fall about her shoulders halfway down her back. There was a mystery to her that resonated with Skadi, an allure, strength and sense of self-abnegation that made it impossible for her to desire her death.

“I don’t know,” said Skadi at last. “I don’t know what I’ll do with you. But I have till dawn to figure it out.”