Valdrik cast one last glance at Liv and Einar, their faces etched with worry as they prepared to return the women and children back to Ragnar’s ship. He gave them a firm nod before slipping away into the shadows of the forest, moving toward the asklund.

  Fear made him move through the village like a wraith, his breath shallow, his every step deliberate. Valdrik could feel the weight of the sword at his hip—it gave him an odd sense of comfort but it also felt unfamiliar and out of place. Every instinct that Valdrik had urged him to stick to the shadows between the smoldering remains of homes.

  His senses were on the verge of being overwhelmed—the air thick with the scent of charred wood, spilled ale, and something far worse—blood, iron-rich and cloying, mixed with the acrid stench of burned flesh. The noise and commotion of the attack had descended from its initial pitched intensity, but if he allowed his mind to drift toward the sounds, he was assaulted with sounds of burning, death, and destruction.

  Valdrik paused instantly at the echoey sound of a distant crack. Once again, his instincts overrode his overwhelmed mind, and he pressed himself against the blackened beams of a collapsed house. Through the broken slats, a hulking figure soundlessly ambled into Valdrik’s field of vision.

  At first, the creature moved on all fours, sniffing the air like a beast. Its skin is slick and gray, stretched tight over an emaciated frame, its mouth a ruin of jagged, wet teeth. Valdrik watched in terrified silence as it reached out to grasp a corpse—an older man named Freyr, throat torn out, limp—and after taking several short sniffs, he watched as the horrible strength of the beast cast the body aside, like a discarded rag.

  Only while watching the beast search through the bodies of his ill-fated countrymen, did Valdrik realize he had been holding his breath. His lungs burned, and his panicked mind began to scream at him to breathe, but he dared not exhale. Fortunately and abruptly, it stood on its hind legs, its head snapping toward the darkness as if sensing something unseen.

  The creature emitted a low, guttural growl which had a strange clicking rhythm to it, landed upon its hands, and skulked away on all fours once again. Finally, he released the breath he had been holding followed by a sharp intake of breath. After a few moments, his heart had stopped racing and his breathing had slowed to a normal pace. He carefully and cautiously extricated himself from the blackened timbers, resuming the journey toward the asklund to find his mother.

  The final stretch of the village before reaching the asklund was like a scene from a nightmare. Bodies, many he knew and recognized as well as other strange people that had their faces painted black. The bodies lay strewn across the ground, some torn apart beyond recognition. Flames flickered over the shattered remains of homes.

  The thick canopy of the asklund loomed like an impenetrable darkness hovering thirty or forty lengths above the ground, its towering trees swallowing the light of the stars. It felt as though the night pressed in on him, colder and heavier than before. “This is madness. I must be dreaming,” Valdrik thought to himself. He paused. Dead still. The stillness heavy.

  Then he felt it.

  The same unnatural cold that had gripped him in the Hrafnsvithr. He could feel it crawling over his skin, a sickly, numbing presence that settled deep into his bones. His breath formed a white fog immediately upon leaving his mouth. Suddenly, Valdrik felt as though his limbs have turned to stone, the air itself resisting his movement.

  Cursing at himself, Valdrik tried to steel himself. This was more than cold—it was a presence. Something unseen, watching.

  Then a torch flickered through the trees—a frantic, waving glow in the distance.

  Amara.

  Valdrik’s heart screamed at him to run to her, but another voice—the voice of every instinct of self-preservation—hisses at him to turn back. You cannot fight this. You should not be here.

  Despite the warning, Valdrik moved forward. One trembling step. Then another.

  Valdrik felt it was impossible to explain, but the cold and despair were like unseen hands clawing at his ankles, trying to drag him down. He concentrated all his will and energy, forcing his limbs to obey him.

  He thought of his mother. What if she needed him? He forced himself forward.

  The torchlight continued its desperate signal. He reached for his sword, gripping the hilt, and immediately, warmth spread through him. It cut through the fear and steadied his racing heart. Confused but grateful, he broke into a run.

  Once again, Valdrik could hardly believe what his eyes were seeing plainly before him. It was the same black figure from the woods. He hadn’t imagined the dread or the cold. What he was seeing now matched perfectly with his memory of that terrifying night. The monster was taller than any man, its form wrapped in the tattered remains of something once regal—deep black robes, frayed and ancient, hanging in strips from its skeletal frame. Its skin is a corpse’s pallor, stretched thin over jutting bones.

  There was his mother, the only family he had in the world, the woman who was squeamish about any kind of violence, barely standing, one arm clutched against her side. He could see the blood soaking her dress—her face taut with pain, but her grip on the torch firm.

  And the thing from the woods was upon her.

  “Moeir!” Valdrik called, forgetting the peril.

  The thing froze. The ancient horror seemed to hesitate as if registering Valdrik’s presence. Valdrik had accomplished his goal of gaining the monster’s attention, but now he had the problem of dealing with that attention. He felt an immediate pang of sharp regret as the unnaturally tall thing began to stalk its way toward him, almost as if it were moving at half its normal speed.

  ***

  Amara’s breath came raggedly now. She had been foolish to try and fight a khal’shadim alone, and without hayat’zir. Any other Na’faarim would have said to do so was to invite death to your door and welcome him in. She didn’t have any other choice.

  The cold had already begun to seep into her bones.

  Amara staggered, barely keeping her feet, one hand pressed tightly against the wound in her side. Blood leaked through her fingers, warm and wet, but she knew it would not remain so for long. A khal’shadim’s blade did not merely wound in the way that a man’s steel did. It poisoned, blackened, and spread tendrils of death through the veins. There was no coming back from such a wound—not unless a Na’faarim was near, one skilled enough to draw the corruption from her flesh.

  But she had known this when she stood her ground.

  She had known this would be the end.

  With numb fingers, she waved the torch weakly, watching as the khal’shadim flinched back—not in fear, no, these creatures did not know fear, but in irritation. An open flame was an inconvenience to them, a fleeting sting, nothing more. But it was enough. Enough to keep it at bay for a few more moments.

  Enough to buy time for him.

  Vazir.

  He was safe. He had to be safe. By now, Ragnar would have him, would keep him far from this place. Ragnar… She exhaled through gritted teeth. How strange that of all men, it was Ragnar who had stepped into the void left by Valdrik’s father. He was an unlikely guardian, a rough, iron-tempered man of war, but the Qav’larim had seen fit to place him in Valdrik’s path. Their wisdom was beyond mortal comprehension.

  Her grip on the torch faltered, and the khal’shadim took a step forward. A breath. A whisper of movement, the edges of its black robes drifting like shadows untethered from the night itself.

  The cold deepened.

  She felt her knees weaken. A shudder racked her body, and she nearly collapsed. Not yet.

  Then—a voice.

  Faint at first, like something drifting through the fog of her consciousness. But she knew it. Knew it like she knew the sound of the waves against the shore, like she knew the scent of rain before a storm.

  “No.”

  Her mind clawed against the abyss.

  “No, no, please. He can’t be here. Not now.”

  With a desperate turn of her head, her eyes found him.

  Valdrik stood just beyond the reach of the torch’s glow, his chest heaving, eyes wide with fear and fury. He was here. Here.

  Terror unlike any she had ever known gripped her heart.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Run!” she wanted to scream, but her voice failed her.

  She saw it unfold in helpless horror.

  The khal’shadim turned its sunken face toward Valdrik, its black sword shifting, the night itself seeming to coil around the steel. Amara felt the weight of the moment—every sacrifice, every hope, every plan that had been carefully laid over the years—about to be undone.

  But then—

  Valdrik shouted with all the strength of his youthful voice: “Hey! Leave her alone!”

  Valdrik’s hand went to the sword hilt at his waist.

  Her breath caught as he drew the sword from his scabbard. It was too large for him, its length forcing him to rest the point of the blade on the icy ground. She could see the glinting light play off the polished steel—

  Qa’dir’s blade. The blessed steel, a song-blade, hayat’zir—a gift of the Qav’larim.

  The hell-wraith froze.

  For the first time, the creature hesitated, its body rigid, its dark blade lowering ever so slightly. It turned away from Amara to face Valdrik. With great urgency, it took long, loping strides to close the distance with the boy. As it approached, it reached forward—not in attack, but in something else.

  Amara watched in horror as Valdrik stood frozen to the ground. He almost seemed entranced. Valdrik was like a marionette, his movements controlled by someone—or something else.

  Valdrik’s voice rang out through the haze and smoke, a raw and defiant cry that echoed against the blackened trunks of the asklund. The trees themselves seemed to recoil at the sound, their twisted branches groaning like old bones in the wind.

  And then, the forest went still.

  The monster turned.

  It emerged from the shadows as if it had always been there, a silhouette pulled from a night terror—unnaturally tall, wrapped in dark robes that clung like wet grave shrouds. Its long limbs moved with an elegance that mocked its grotesque form. Beneath the heavy cowl, no light reflected in its eyes. There were no eyes—only two voids, twin abysses that drank the firelight and gave nothing back.

  It began to move toward Valdrik, slow and sure, like a predator already confident in its kill. And then it hissed.

  The sound wasn’t made by breath or tongue—it was language, a blighted tongue forged in ancient blasphemies. Each word slithered through the air and coiled around

  Valdrik’s mind like chains, tightening with every syllable.

  Valdrik staggered. The world seemed to pitch sideways. He blinked hard, trying to focus, but the forest spun and warped. The voice of the khal’shadim was inside his skull now—no, not one voice. Voices. Whispering, snarling, commanding.

  “Kneel.”

  “Obey.”

  “You are ours.”

  Valdrik clenched his teeth, shaking his head. He tried to shout back, to move, to resist—but his limbs betrayed him.

  He could feel something crawling through his veins, like cold smoke, creeping down his spine.

  His right hand still held the blade, though it trembled now. His left arm moved without his bidding, rising slowly, as if drawn by invisible strings.

  “No…” he growled through clenched teeth.

  “Raise your arm.”

  The voices pounded now, hammer on anvil, louder and louder until he felt he would split apart under the pressure.

  And then, the creature was before him.

  The nightmare-born creature extended its arm—long, pale, mottled—and with impossible precision, it grasped Valdrik’s exposed left wrist.

  The cold was instant and absolute.

  It wasn’t like winter’s chill or even the frozen banks of the Silfrflod. This was the cold of death before time, a void that gnawed straight through flesh, through sinew, through bone. Valdrik cried out, the pain white-hot in its purity, unbearable—and then something snapped.

  “THE BLADE!”

  Amara’s voice rang out like thunder.

  And suddenly, the pain dulled. Still present, but distant, like a memory.

  In the silence that followed, another voice spoke.

  Not from outside, but once again from within. Despite its alienness to Valdrik’s mind, the voice couldn’t have been more different from the earlier voices. It was neither shouted nor whispered—it was simply there, a stillness at the center of the storm. It spoke not with command, but with invitation.

  “Choose.”

  Valdrik’s heart steadied. The hammering voices of the monstrous figure faltered.

  The still, small voice spoke again.

  “Sever the bond.”

  He tightened his grip on the sword.

  It felt different now—not a relic, not a question, but an answer. His. His mother’s. A symbol not of darkness, but of love forged in service and sacrifice.

  The figure of shadow snapped its head toward the blade, sensing something it did not expect.

  Valdrik moved.

  Faster than he thought possible, he brought the blade down in a fluid arc of silver light. The strike was not wild or desperate—it was clean, precise, final.

  The sword bit through the wrist of the creature like flame through parchment.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

  Then the severed hand crumbled to dust, scattering on the air like ash.

  The hideous figure screamed—a sound so unnatural, so wretched, that it seemed to peel the bark from nearby trees. A sound of rage and pain and fear.

  It reeled back, clutching the stump of its arm, its formless face twisting skyward in wordless agony. Then, like smoke caught in a gust, it turned and vanished into the darkness, its shriek echoing long after its form had gone.

  Valdrik fell to one knee, gasping, the blade still in his hand. A mark of deepest black etched on his left wrist and forearm. The pain of the frostburn was like white-hot steel pressed against his skin. But the creature was gone.

  ***

  Amara could not move. She could barely breathe.

  Her gaze drifted back to Valdrik, still standing, still clutching the sword of miraculous origin, his chest rising and falling with rapid, uneven breaths. He was alive. He had stood against it.

  She wanted to go to him, to take his face in her hands, to tell him how proud she was, how strong he had become.

  But her strength was gone.

  She called out to Valdrik weakly, no longer able to stand.

  She collapsed, the pain in her side flaring hot, then cold.

  Valdrik was beside her in an instant.

  “No—no, no, please—” His voice was breaking. He was reaching for her, his hands desperate, frantic.

  She lifted a hand—barely—touching his cheek, her fingers leaving a smear of blood against his skin.

  “It is too late, my son. The khal’shadim’s blade… it has sealed my fate,” she said. It was coming fast now.

  “You have so many questions. I wish I had more time to answer them.” Each word now was increasingly difficult. Each breath shallower, the cold of her wound closing in on her heart. “Your father will find you…when you are ready.”

  Amara gathered, for the last time, the remaining strength she had. “You must stay with Ragnar. I believe the Kin have appointed him your guardian. You must trust him.”

  “I love you, Valdrik. And I will always be with you.”

  And as she gazed up at him, at her brave, sweet boy, she felt no fear.

  Only peace.

  ***

  Tears blurred his vision. “Don’t leave me,” he begged.

  Valdrik knelt beside his mother’s still form, his breath ragged, his chest hollowed by the weight of something vast and unbearable. The world had grown silent as if all of nature held its breath. The trees loomed over him, black and skeletal against the gray sky, their branches rattling like brittle bones in the wind.

  “She’s gone.”

  The words didn’t make sense. They didn’t feel real.

  “If I had been faster. If I had been braver. If I had drawn my sword without hesitation—”

  His stomach twisted. He clenched his fists against his legs, feeling his nails bite into his palm, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough to take away the gnawing, festering pit inside him. He could still see her eyes in those last moments—full of love, full of sorrow, but emptying. He could still hear her voice, a whisper against the roar of his own grief.

  “It is too late, my son.”

  A sob ripped from his throat. His shoulders shook as the tears came, hard and fast, carving hot paths down his face. He didn’t care about the cold anymore, didn’t care that he was kneeling in the snow, his legs numb, his hands trembling. The weight of everything pressed down on him, heavier than the sky itself.

  “Why? Why did it have to be like this?”

  He gasped for breath between sobs, but the air felt thin, useless. Guilt wrapped itself around his heart, squeezing tighter with every thought. If he had not been so afraid. If he had only fought sooner, struck harder, done something—

  But none of it mattered now.

  His mother was dead.

  The tears slowed. He wept until his body had no more tears to give. Until the night stretched long and silent around him. His breath came in shuddering gasps, then even those faded into silence. He had cried everything out of him, leaving only the hollow ache of exhaustion.

  “I can’t leave her like this.”

  His movements were stiff, mechanical, as he unfastened his cloak and draped it carefully over her body. He tucked it around her, ensuring she was covered as best as he could manage. It was a poor excuse for a proper burial.

  He should have been able to dig a grave.

  He should have been able to build a pyre.

  He should have been able to do something.

  His hands clenched in the fabric of his cloak as he whispered, “I’m sorry, moeir.”

  The wind carried his words away, and for a long moment, he sat there, hands gripping the folds of the cloak as though he could somehow hold onto her. But she was already gone.

  And he had to go too.

  “Ragnar. I have to find Ragnar.”

  She had given him an order—her final command. Stay with Ragnar. There was no time to hesitate. No time to question. He had to move.

  His eyes fell to the sword lying in the snow beside him.

  He hesitated.

  The blade was dark, its surface marked by intricate, twisting patterns in the metal. It should have been a simple sword—just steel, nothing more. And yet…

  The sword spoke to me. It told me to choose.

  Even thinking the words made Valdrik feel like a terrible madness had overtaken him. Normal people didn’t hear their swords speak to them. Then again, normal people didn’t confront creatures from old tales or even the depths of Hel themselves.

  Valdrik was exhausted. His mind had been working at a frenzied pace for so long, he wasn’t thinking clearly

  “It’s just a sword. Nothing more.”

  His mother’s killer was gone. He would never see that creature again. He refused to think of that creature again. The nightmare of this day would remain here, buried

  in the snow alongside the mother he could not properly lay to rest.

  Grim-faced, Valdrik took up the sword and sheathed it.

  Then he stood, his body aching, his limbs like lead, and turned toward the shore.

  “Run.”

  He could not afford to fail her final wish. Ragnar would be leaving soon, and if Valdrik did not make it to the boats before then—

  He clenched his jaw and started moving.

  The ground blurred beneath his feet as he ran, snow crunching under his boots, breath forming ragged clouds in the frozen air. He did not look back.

  There was no time for looking back.