The Troll Queen's Bride

Thick ebon blood boiled in the veins of the Troll Queen, black as congealed tar.The Beast's curse was bearing fruit.Queen Jarngrimr of the Sorrows waited on the frosty tip of Utgardr's tallest mountain, her steed - a blue roan marked with a white death mask, the gallows itself incarnate - whinnying as the Troll Queen's awaited visitor hiked past the mountain laurel and fir, the girl's stang helping with her belabored, fitful steps."I am here, dearest Jarnja. I brought you Lady Freida's most sacred treasure, stolen from the sanctum of her hall Folkvangr in Valhalla for a terrible price. It is all for you, in return for protection for my three children. This cursed rose is my only possession after this godsdamned truce, sweet Jarnja of the Sorrows, daughter of Wotan the Raven and Sithgunt the Seeress, guardian of the Isa tribe of my land of the midnight sun. Please. I have nothing left to give but the petals of this godsvow."The princess

That was the night - the first rosy night that my Beast began to call on me, and never, ever, ever did my monstress queen cease drawing me down submerged in to her unholy, trollish web.Now, I am never alone.By the candlelight after Skadhi had carried me to my room, me unable to stand, I slit my wrists that gloaming, my prayers to dead mama, Queen Aslaugh, unanswered.I could not give up the ghost. No, I was the Troll Queen's draugr – an undead scion, cursed. Now, I was of the zombie armies that had eaten father's berserkers alive.A grave of a girl. Belonging to none other than Jarngrimr of the Sorrows from mother's ill-fated curse, last of the Cunningfolk witches.The Beast peered back at me in my looking glass, the Troll Queen's red dead eyes cold and lustful. She smirked, a yellow fang agleam as she watched me with wicked delight and decrepit fascination.I picked at the black, black clots of blood, ignorin

I was in a blue huntswoman's dress with red and white trim, the traditional Isa attire coupled with brown snowshoes, standing atop an icy fjord as winter snow piled high and impenetrable onto the mountain's blue gray peak.My patroness stood before me, ells tall like the wall around Asgard, as icy as the snow itself.The As goddess Skadhi, lady of the hunt, winter and skis, with her white wolves stood sentinel over me, and I knew it a familiar dream. Skadhi was the ancient patroness of my mama Aslaugh's Northern Cunningfolk tribe, the Isa. Known for her icy demeanor, wry humor, and frosty dominion, she was unparalleled among huntresses, and always made sure I knew it, too. She grew up saying she had hunted my soul from the Maroon Sea, and claimed me as her mead dark priestess, just as she had mama years before.Skahdi came to me in dreams often to teach me of my Magick, and as I stood in Northern Cunningfolk garb atop the glacial terrain, my breath s

Rosy clung close to my skirts as Fylja opened the long ebony doors to Jarngrimr's feast hall. Inside was a crystalline long hall lit by celestial blue Isa fire and otherworldly elfin plants that gave off strange, translucent glows. Nixies, fossegrim, wili, mara, dwarves, alfar, duergar, dokkalfar, and trolls danced among the huldrefolk and luxuriously dressed Northern Cunningfolk. A fossegrim fiddled on a golden violin, and there was a great frenzy of mead in horns as berserkers celebrated the capture of the princesses with their shieldmaidens in a tarantic reel, stomping the ground, feasting like the fire god Logi devouring an entire boar in Loki's eating contest.Jarngrimr of the Sorrows loomed over the long hall atop a lindworm bone throne, the great dragon skull carved at the snout to sit her beastly form. She smirked, her eyes collier fire, and watched me languorously, predatorily tracing the slight, delicate curves of my gown with her slit pupils like iron claws. Sh

"Your Magick is stronger than my frost duckling Aslaugh's own peerless powers..." Heith murmured, meeting Jarnja's eyes with a knowing look. She crossed herself with Othala. "It is true, what the Watermen say: Loki roams free, and Skadhi has seen fit to grant her disciple Gullinkambi, the Cockerel of Ragnarok. This can only mean pain lies ahead for Midgardr, Utgardr, and all the nine realms." Heith's antlered, beaded headdress swayed as if in sorrow, and Jarnja looked upon her in sympathy, squeezing the Isa chieftainess' hand delicately in her powerful bergresar paws."We are prepared this time, dearest Isa chieftainess. We have the covenant between Utgardr and Midgadr here - Aslaugh's promise, enfleshed in the body of my Bride," Jarnja burbled like a wolf, her sparkling red eyes drinking me down in pleasure.Jarnja pet Gullinkambi, and my fetch crowed in approval, my soul fond - more than fond - of the intimidating Bergresar Queen. "Gullinkambi could be seen a