Gullinkambi

Queen Jarngrimr outstretched her taloned hand in invitation, her red eyes settled to a lustful maroon, and she smiled lopsidedly, as if she were Scarlip's daughter. I drew back, drawing my ivory dagger.

Jarngrimr flinched, sighed, then sloshed the mead in her cup.

"You are still afraid of me." She licked some mead off the rim. I fixated on her cat rough tongue, then blushed, flummoxed.

"I'm not afraid of anyone." I lit the blade with Kenaz, fire.

"That wasn't a question, snowflower," the Troll Queen drawled, then yipped with laughter. Her furred breasts heaved and her mane sparkled in the blue light of the glowing fungus and Isa fire. "I can smell fear. It pulsates through your veins. Child, I am not here to harm you. I am here to drive infidel Latinate gods from Arcadia and the Northern Holds alike. King Hakkon betrayed his folk by burning his soul as offerings to Eleleth's fires, and now he is tyrant over the priests and Cunningfolk and huldre alike. Someone has set Loki and Sigyn free. They are dancing in Muspellheim as we speaking, building Rokkr armies, biding their time. I blessed you because Volva Heith prophesied when your mother was pregnant that you would be the one to drive a sword through the heart of infidel Eleleth. That you would restore the old faith and old ways to Arcadia. I intend to ensure you achieve the burden of your great, terrible destiny - if you shall only let me instruct you in Magick in ways that your mother could not."

I blanched. "My mother sought you out because of the volva's prophecy. That's why she married her enemy Hakkon. To conceive me?"

"Oh, she loved him in her own way, but that was her main stratagem, yes. You three sisters needed Arcadian royalty blood…" Queen Jarngrimr rose from her lindworm bone throne on powerful wolf feet, and offered me the mead cup. "You'll want a drink. Summoning a fetch is tiresome work, and you will need the blood of poetry flowing in those tar veins of yours before our workings can begin. You have much to learn of Magick, my snowflower."

I grabbed the cup in fury and downed the mead - and there was a lot of it - in one long chug. I remembered her eyes on me in the looking glass long ago, watching black clots come up. Queen Jarngrimr laughed like a cat-o-nine-tails.

"That's my bride. Like Fenrir's hunger." Jarngrimr ran a finger through her lion's mane. Her ram's horn shone bright in the long hall's rubies.

"I'm not your bride, I will be your nothing."

"I will settle for student. Heith! It is time."

The Isa chieftaness looked at me with wrinkled green eyes. She smiled like Frau Holle. "Oh, Aslaugh's girl, I see, I see, she has no fetch. Well, what's a silly old Volva like me got to do with this nonsense you're scheming, my old friend Jarnja?"

Jarngrimr smiled fondly. "Oh sacred Volva, it is you who opens the gates of the spirits. We are to summon my Queen's fetch. Only then can my instruction of her godsgiven talents begin. While Eleleth builds his army, I must build mine. And Loki will be an obstacle, we can be sure of it."

Heith hooted with laughter, sounding like a crow. "Alrighty then, I'll see what I can muster up with these frail old bones of mine." The volva narrowed her eyes at me. "Betrayer's daughter, do not take lightly to me opening the door to the gods. One never knows what may emerge from Mymyr's well, which I have looked into to prophesy oftentimes. Out of those runic depths, could come swimming Wotan himself, or perhaps even a Norn."

I sheathed my knife and smiled, not unkindly. "Mother spoke fondly of you, Lady Heith. You were her mentor."

Heith grinned ear to ear, her earthen face like cratered mountain crags. "Ah, Aslaugh. That spirited girl. What she was scheming for two decades is still unclear to all of us - the bargain with the huldre, and now our last of the Cunningfolk tribes are hauled up here in the Weird One's mountain stronghold, Isa tribe be damned. Weyland undid the old ways' bindings, and a new age is upon us, with Latinate gods not of my kenning. Wotan and Freida ride the Wild Hunt with their Valkyries, and Lady Skadhi is on the search for her mortal enemy, Loki Liesmith. The truth festers and rots, and no one is safe - not even in the mountains of Utgardr themselves. Yes, dear princess Turiel, it is time to summon you a fetch. I am sure it will be much needed in due time…"

Queen Jarngrimr applauded, almost mockingly - I was not quite sure. "Turiel, the boon of the gods."

I scowled. "You are a curse."

"I may loathe church bells and summon earthquakes, but I fancy myself more a force of nature," Jarngrimr said happily, her voice a low purr. "Come, snowflower, we have no time to waste."

Before I could protest, Jarngrimr in one fell swoop scooped me up into her strong arms, bride-over-the-stang style, and spirited me away behind the lindworm skeleton into a runic room, Heith hobbling along after us. "Call me Jarnja, won't you?" Jarngrimr - Jarnja, I thought begrudgingly - sang in beastly tones. I blushed as her grip was hot on my hips and waist, and I imagined what those strong hands could do.

Unlike humans, a bergresar would not die of my kiss.

A bergresar that seemed intent on protecting me, and restoring Queen Aslaugh's vision of the Northern Holds and Arcadia.

A bergresar queen with enticing burning eyes, and fur meant for petting.

My cheeks were the color of strawberries and I looked away, pulse racing. "Uh, yes, Queen Jarnja," I muttered, my breath hot.

What was I even thinking? My haunting dreams of her were not reality, never would be, and never had been, her enchantments over me damned to rot in Nastrond!

Jarnja smiled. "Just Jarnja, I am not your Queen, only the huldrefolk bow to me. But oh, how I bow to you in your dreams… willingly and gladly, I may add."

I made a sound like crackling fire. "You Beast! I-

"Done flirting, you two wildlings?" Heith said, laughing jovially.

"We are not - not flirting!" I said, squirming out of Jarnja's arms and glaring daggers at my captor.

Jarnja simply smiled, hands behind her back as if in surrender. Her talons shone black as coal.

Heith fished from her skirt pockets a leather bag of carved stone runes - amethyst, by the looks of them - and placed them in a circle around us. I suddenly flashed back to the amethyst I had given Yola and kept in my pockets always, and my face fell as I reached for the rough jewel, squeezing it tight in her memory.

"If only you could see the travail I am in now, my sweetling," I murmured. Jarnja's ears pricked, but she said nothing. Heith continued.

In the runic room, fabled for Volva and witches' workings in the Northern Holds, dried spices, herbs, potion ingredients, tallows, and maps and grimories studded the candlelit walls. The room was hewn from lava rock, obsidian, and quartz. I gasped at the beauty of the tapestries on the wall, and something in the corner caught my eye.

"An artist's atelier?" I stuttered, looking at the beautiful pigments and canvas in progress of the Maroon Sea.

Jarnja nearly cooed, striding powerfully over to the art studio and caressing the brush with a gentleness underlying the nature of a Beast. "We may share, it is well known amongst the mara that you dream of being the greatest painter in all nine realms."

I blushed again, damned complexion I had. "I... did not realize the mara were so all-knowing."

Jarnja set the damp brush down to dry and walked back over as Heith set aflame lavender and began to call in the four dwarves - Dvalin foremost among them, representing the four corners of Midgardr. "Mara help me keep a pulse on mortals, my spies as it were. It seems Fylja is quite fond of you, would not stop kissing you on the way here, said you tasted of apples and wine."

I looked down at my feet, grimacing. "Stealing kisses is foul."

"Would you protest, then..." Jarnja drawled, then suddenly flushed her black lips against mine and softly kissed me as Heith's back was turned to me. Just as quickly as she had kissed me, she broke our mouth's embrace, and licked her muzzle.

I shuddered in muscle memory, a kiss that had haunted me for three years in my darkest imaginings: "Wha- what?"

"Yes, apples and wine, but also... snow. You are Skadhi's, as was your fabled ruffian witch of a mother." Jarnja gave a great, deep laugh like a gorge, winked merrily, flexed her bat wings, ram horns gleaming, her mane suddenly sparkling gold under the candelight, and pulled a stang out of the shelves carved with bindrunes. Vegvisir shone in blood at the top. "Lindworm blood, don't fret, I source all my kills ethically, including my throne," Jarnja - was she joking? - attempted humor, but I was too flummoxed to respond, scared -

and wanting more of her lips on mine.

"You, you, you are... are... uh, well. A fetch?" I mumbled. "Damnit."

Heith turned around, humming, then invoked the quarters. Jarnja beat her bindrune stang on the ground, at the center of the runic circle, and bright red light of the wayfinder's rune flushed the magic circle.

"As, Van! It is I, the Bergresar Queen! The Volva Heith, Lady of Prophecy, Chieftainess of the Isa, has opened the gates of Asgard, and we present to you Lady Skadhi's chosen, Princess Turiel. At the gate of the gods, children never go hungry. Under Wotan's wing, one never feels rain. At Freida's breast, no man weeps. At Thur's laughter, all are merry. The gifts of the gods are many, but I, Queen Jarngrimr of the Sorrows, Rider of the Gallows, ask yet one more gift the Aesir, Vanir, Jotun, and Disir: a fetch for my beautiful bride."

Jarnja's eyes lit like sparks, pure white flame. Her whole body was luminescent, like polar bear fur, mane crackling. She beat her bindrune stang on the floor and the witching bindrune appeared to replace the wayfinder's rune.

"Step into the circle, daughter of Aslaugh!" Heith intoned, under the Volva headdress deep in a Seidhr trance.

I did so, fierce, bracing myself for whatever may come.

"I-" I began, then grew louder. "I ask of my patroness Skadhi a fetch!"

Ice crystals formed on the floor and Skadhi's rune, Isa, froze my feet through the very soles of my boots.

"Ask, daughter, and it is granted - Gullinkambi the cock, herald of the end, rooster of Ragnarok!" came Skadhi's crystalline voice, and then she whispered so only I could hear. "You are safe in Jarngrimr's halls, but watch for those jealous of you sisters three. Loki rides, Sigyn spins, and things are not safe beyond the fortress of Utgardr. Something stirs in the East – I fear it is Lord Eleleth himself…"

Suddenly, Freida's Fehu rune appeared, and out of the Vanic flame burned a bright golden fetch - Gullinkambi, the cockerel of the Apocalypse.

The Magick fled the three of us, coalescing on my fetch, and I laughed in joy.

"A fetch, a real fetch, finally!" I exclaimed, forgetting all my confusion and sorrows and lifting my dear, beloved fetch up to the Light. Gullinkambi nuzzled my hands with his flaming beak. His feathers were gold, red, and forest green, and his great crown and wattle a fleshy red.

Jarnja dropped her stang, her ruddy eyes dinner plate wide - and for the first time, in all my recollections, my Beast was afraid.

Deathly so.

Heith crossed herself with Algiz.

"The cockerel of Ragnarok," Jarnja breathed, looking at me in a mix of admiration and terror. "My sweet Turiel, what have you done?"