Mímir — (MEE-meer) "The Rememberer" a shadowy being whose knowledge of all things was practically unparalleled among the inhabitants of the cosmos. He is a wise counselor of the gods. His home was a well called, Mímisbrunnr.

Hálfrblód — I made this word up (at least I think I did) or maybe it is a real word? (Icelandic friends? please advice). Anyway, for the purpose of my Lair Of Beasts series, it means half blood. A chimera. Half one thing and half another.

Urðarbrunnr — The Well Of Urd (The Well of Destiny). A well at at one of the roots of Yggdrasil where the Fates (The Nornir) live. Their names are Urd (What Was), Verdandi (What Is), and Skuld (What Will Be).

The snow drifts were now tall enough to swallow even the low lying trees, and the blizzard that had swept through in the small hours, as the people had slumbered, had only compounded the difficulty.

Brenna drew her furs closer to her body as the wind gouged at her cheeks the while she footslogged through the deep ice towards the jarl's hall. She had no need of torchlight this morning, and the inclemency would not have brooked a flame in any event, for the moon, though only halfway filled, was bright enough to infuse the ice with widespread luster. In fact, the woodland and the meadow seemed eerily steeped in its cold and quiet radiance.

She reached the hall betimes for supper, her mother having promised to come later, and deposited her mantle across an empty bench before huddling close to Heida.

She kissed her friend and linked their fingers so that Heida's ready warmth could thaw her frozen flesh. "How is your ankle?" she asked, softly withal. Few were the number who knew how Heida had sustained the injury.

"Perfectly healed."

That was not surprising, considering what she was — Hálfrblód. "And what news of war?"

Heida rested her head atop Brenna's, watching the fire through the dim and smokey room. "You know as much as I." She then pulled away slightly so that she could search Brenna's face more effectively. "Unless you know more than you have let on?"

"I have had no dreams of war." 

But that was not altogether true, for she had seen their great village, and Roth's hall specifically, burning in her dreams. That 'vision' had plagued her for many years. That brand of devastation, however, might be for any number of reasons, so until she could fathom those dreams, she would say nothing for the nonce. There was no reason for their people to live fearfully; moreover her vision might never come to pass.

Heida nodded dubiously.

In sooth,  Brenna had elucidated very little of her dreams. She no longer woke with a throbbing hand of a morning, and had not since Eirik had returned, all those years ago, without his. The meaning behind that phenomenon could well be ascertained now, but hindsight did her no good when 'twas already too late to do aught about it.

She looked up to see Roth watching from where he sat on his high-backed chair atop the dais, his son, Freki, sleeping in his father's lap. "I see he still watches you hungrily," she whispered, before glancing toward's Eirik who, as per usual, had also noticed and was now frowning darkly at the chieftain.

"Shh, he will hear you!" They were both mindful of the vast extent of Roth's preternatural senses.

"I know." Brenna gave a disgusted snort as Roth transferred his scrutiny to her, with the added effrontery of a knowing smirk and an arched brow. "Brute," she hissed quietly.

He gave an imperceptible inclination of his head, therewith accepting the appellation boldly, if a little stiffly. 

Finn appeared that moment to nudge his way between Heida's legs, falling into her lap as he would have done to his mother. Brenna felt the lump of sorrow well into her throat instantly and as easily as it was wont to do of late. She had loved Frida. Her death had not only struck renewed fear into the clan, but would likely now precipitate them into war. One of Thorgny's doing.

But that was only hearsay, for the time being; nothing more than spurious rumormongering doubtless spawned by Thorgny himself and carried here by tale bearers to unsettle their people further. She could not think of that now.

Perhaps her friend's demise effectuated and intensified the dolor she still bore over Renic's death. There was no nepenthe in the world that would dispel his memory from her mind.

With the return of Eirik, sans his nephew, and his hand, her own hand had stopped aching of a morning; but the ague within her heart, contrariwise, had thenceforth only been exacerbated. Time, she was coming to find, was not the panacea her mother had assured her it would be.

Heida had by now lifted the little, motherless creature all the way onto her lap and sat stroking his head as Ragnar began telling the story of how Odin lost his eye.

"There is nothing the Alfather would not do in his search for knowledge," said Ragnar. "Even sacrifice an eye, for no oblation is too great in the quest for wisdom."

"How did he lose it?" asked Finn excitedly from his his aunt's lap. How content the boy looked.

One would not have guessed that he'd lost his mother just before the winter snows had come. Brenna wiped a tear surreptitiously from where it settled on her cheek, wholly envious of the resilience of children. Would that her pain was just as easily overcome; would that she too had lost Renic by her fourth winter instead of her eighteenth.

"Tis known that Odin hung himself from Yggdrasil for nine days and nine nights, wounded by a spear-"

"Who speared him?" Finn looked askance at Heida.

"Shh, it was self-inflicted." She kissed his brow.

"Weak from fasting," Ragnar went on, "he stared down into the mysterious depths of Urðarbrunnr in the hopes that he might be deemed worthy of knowing its secrets."

The Well Of Urd, over which Odin hung staring into the waters of destiny, was the pool out of which grew one of the roots of the Great Ash Tree. And at her base was where the most powerful of all the beings in the cosmos dwelt, like Mímir himself, at his own well, Mímisbrunnr.

Amongst those beings were the Nornir, Past, Present, and Future, the most omniscient and preeminent of all creatures, and it was they that lived in the Well Of Destiny. It was they that carved the sacred runes into Yggdrasil. 

It was those very symbols that travelled throughout the World Tree into each of the nine realms to influence all life; even the lives of the gods.

"On another occasion, Odin met Mímir at Mímisbrunnr and requested of him a drink from his well so that he too might know the secrets of the universe. The gift of knowledge, howbeit, came at the cost of Odin's eye, and the price was fair, was it not?  To relinquish the use of a depthless sight in favor of that which could stretch across the microcosms — to be all-knowing — is priceless.

"At all events, he gouged his own eye out and did so gladly, dropping it into the well. Henceforward was he able to decipher the mysteries of the runes that shaped the world. He could chant the magicks that healed all wounds — those of the body and those of the spirit."

Here Brenna felt her stomach twist with yet more misery, for she would have given anything to free herself of the wounds that afflicted the heart.

"And what is more, he could raise the dead," Ragnar went on, "and woo any lover." Ragnar's lips curled wickedly. "Had I the choice of any of these gifts, I would fain take the latter." He, along with the rest of the men, began to laugh heartily.

Eydís rolled her eyes therewith which only sparked more guffaws.

"And that," said Aila, winking conspiratorially at her eldest grandson as she address Ragnar, "is why Mímir has never allowed you to drink from his well."

Amidst the hoots of laughter that followed Aila's comment, Ragnar voiced a clever rejoinder, and so it went, on and on, between them.

But Brenna's attention no longer dwelled with those that sat laughing about the fire, for a movement at the door caught her eyes and she turned to see Loki in the shadows, observing Heida with far more interest than even his son was wont to do, albeit without the craving that Roth evinced, fortunately.

With a flash of sharp teeth, and a challenging smile, he withdrew into the darkness of the midnight morning. Brenna stood from the bench and gave chase. When she emerged into the bleak morning, she could see no footprints in the snow save her own, but Loki stood waiting for her just beyond the hill.

"I know who you are!" She whispered angrily as she finally reached him.

"How fortunate for you." His face was blank, yet there was an ineffable glint in his pale eyes the likes of which Mímir himself might have worn. A look of profundity, despite that it dwelt in the peremptory visage of this wicked god.

What in Freyja's name was he thinking? There was nothing Brenna wanted more than to wipe that stupid smirk from his hateful face. "How could you have allowed it to happen!"

"Frida?" He seemed momentarily bemused ere his face relaxed once more into a facade of boredom. "Let me be clear, little völva. I do not control the actions of others. Though I may influence whomever I choose, I had no interest in her further than that she is the dam that will bear a portion of my descendants. What happened to Frida is Frida's own doing."

"I do not speak of her!" Though his claim on that score was questionable at best. "How could you permit Renic to die!" Her accusation diminuendoed into a half sob.

His jaw tightened. "I am not the almighty Odin! I am not he that takes life on a whim, and I am not a Norn. It is not I that decides who shall live and who shall die!"

"But you did nothing to prevent it! Why?"

He took a step closer and leaned down to whisper, "My stratagems are no business of yours."

"I loathe you!" She spat at his feet.

"Careful, woman; I am not above violence," he growled, bearing his fangs as he leant over her. "You are nothing to me, remember that."

"I am not afraid of you!" But she backed away warily nonetheless.

As of lightning, his demeanor changed and he shot her an incongruous and satisfied smile that perplexed and vexed her. "Then you will make him a fine wife, Brenna."

Him? There was no 'him' in her future! "I will never marry!"

"I see your foresight is a capricious gift at best." He stroked his chin.

"Explain!"

"It is a game of gods and monsters now, seeress." The epithet held far too much derision for her to mistake it as anything other than his doubting her divining abilities. "Are you prepared for what comes next?"

"I might prepare myself if I knew what to expect."

"You may expect only this...!" His eyes blazed with demonic brilliancy. "That I will kill you myself if ever you administer poison to a son of mine. Your mother lives by Aila's grace, but understand that I make no more exceptions. Not even for my wife, and I have told her so myself." His eyes dimmed then, but only slightly. "That is as far as my mercy extends."

What mercy?! He had forsook mercy when he let his son die! "It was Renic's choice to accept it!" The fates had been cruel when they'd hurled him from the mountainside. As contrary as the notion was, if Renic had only taken the poison he might have lived.

"That your intent was not devious is the only reason you still live."

"I thought you said you do not take life," she muttered, feeling the sting of trepidation in her belly.

"No, I said it is not whimsy that actuates me."

And, in any event, whatever life he chose to snuff, as everyone knew, would have long ago been foreordained by the Nornir. As she mulled that over, his eyes narrowed a fraction, and then he turned to leave.

"Wait!" she cried, running after him.

He halted to watch her struggle through the snow with something akin to amusement, but when she reached him he looked up and snapped a sturdy limb from the tree beside him before holding it like a staff. "It amused me to speak to you before, but no longer. And I feel no obligation to yield intelligence to Odin's spies."

Thereat he swung the branch at the tree and watched, with queer satisfaction, as it splinted with a resounding crack against the bole, the sound as that of Thor's own thunder. Two large ravens instantly leapt from the boughs and cawed angrily as they shot off into the inky, morning sky.

"Good evening, seeress." That said, and with one quirk of a mordant brow, Loki left her.

She was still reeling from the fact that he hadn't swung at her, as she, for a small moment, had feared he would. Releasing a ragged breath, she became aware that she was midway to her mother's cabin, so it was, therefore, not so surprising when her mother appeared suddenly from where she had been hiding behind a rocky formation. What was surprising was that Loki had given no sign of having been aware of Epona's presence.

"How did you conceal yourself from him?" she asked her mother.

"I didn't," came the answer. "He knew I was here, and he meant for me to hear him."

"Why do you suppose that?"

"Because his warning was for me, not you." Epona's sigh was heavy with worriment. "It was after all I that discovered the wolfsbane's influence over them."

Brenna bit her underlip pensively. "What do you make of it? All that he said, I mean. He is mad to think I shall marry anyone."

"No, he isn't." Epona removed her mantle and wrapped it around her daughter's shoulders with a tasking sound and then began retracing Brenna's deep footprints back towards the hall.

"Mother?" Brenna prompted when Epona became silent with thought.

"I had a dream that I thought nothing of initially because ... well, because Renic had died. Now I am not so sure what to think."

"Tell me!"

"I saw you on the beach, daughter. And by your side a bear of a man watching as your belly swelled with child. That man was Renic."

"Why did you not tell me?"

"You mourned his death; you mourn it still. I could not bear to speak of him, lest your face be struck with dole again."

"Are you sure! Perhaps you mistook him for Roth!" 

Although, that thought was terrifying in and of itself, for she avoided Roth at all costs. She was glad of his scar because it made his face far less like Renic's. There was no love lost between the jarl and her, though she tolerated him far better now that he had proven himself a competent leader and an adequate father.

"No. It was not the scarred one."

"A bear of a man, you say?" It was now Brenna's turn to become quiet. Her mother had chosen the comparison purposefully. Epona was shrewd like that.

"I know that look! What have you seen?" The excitement in Epona's voice was palpable. "Another dream?!"

"Some nights ago I dreamt again of a bear walking towards me out of the mist; it bore its weight on two legs like a man." She shook her head, thinking that it had been some time since it had first come to her. Years, in fact. "What does that mean, Mother!" She was frustrated by these dreams that persisted in making no sense whatever.

"Well, bears are most like men and share similar qualities: man's intelligence for one, such as it is." She rolled her eyes with distaste, for she disliked men in general and thought very little of them. All except the men of her own extirpated village. "They are also insatiably curious, tenacious, and bold."

The snow grated harshly beneath their boots as they made their way to the hall. After a silence, Epona spoke again. "Perhaps it represents someone close to you?"

To the clan folk, the bear represented the spirit of fairness, nobility and honor and was held sacred by Thor. She knew of only one man that epitomized those things to her, a man worthy to call himself a bear; and that man was dead.

"Ay, perhaps," was all she said, feeling no less the wiser.

They became aware suddenly of raised voices that seemed to rattle the very rafters as they drew near the entrance. Glancing only briefly at one another, they instantly sprinted into the hall to see Roth and Eirik glaring at each other. Between them stood a phlegmatic Aila, one hand at her brother's chest and the other at her son's.

"If you wish to batter heads like rutting goats then take yourselves outside! And you!" The narrowed glare she now shot Ragnar, who was chortling merrily, finally belied her calm exterior. "Cease fanning the flames, man!"

Still chuckling, Ragnar said, "I merely asked when we would be celebrating a wedding."

Eirik took that cue to address Roth as though the others had not spoken. "You have had months to deliberate over this union. With Frida's death I held the matter in abeyance." He pointed his wooden hand in Heida's direction. "But we have waited long enough for an answer."

Heida, meanwhile, looked calm where she stood with Finn, but the hand that rested on the boy's nape was anything but. It shook imperceptibly, though, she endeavored to hide her trembling by moving it across the child's back occasionally.

"I cannot give my blessing, Eirik." Although Roth's mouth was compressed with ire, Brenna detected, by the twist of his brow, that there was regret there too.

She knew he respected his young uncle above any man, now that he had no brother, and so it would trouble him to antagonize his Eirik, whom he loved as he loved few others.

"Why not?" Eirik folded his arms over his chest and waited.

"Because she belongs to another."

"Who, by Thor?!"

"To me!" he boomed. The room grew hushed, save for the susurration of the fire in the hearth. "Moreover, she has been mine from my fifteenth summer ... ere I was first told I could never have her!" He then leveled his earnest gaze to Heida. "And you know I have always belonged to you."

"Yes," she said, folding her hands in front of her as both men beheld her keenly. 

Finn's gazed shifted between Heida and his father, askance, and Brenna wondered at what the little boy truly understood of this matter.

"Then let her choose." With a hearty slap on each man's chest, Aila made her way to Heida's side and disengaged Finn from his aunt's grasp before giving the boy a pat on the rump and sending him off to Ívarr. "I say it is her right to choose, do not you both agree?" Aila turned to face her daughter and tucked a lock of silver hair behind the girl's ear. "Do not keep us in suspense, my girl. We have had more than enough tragedy for one year; give us something to celebrate. Who shall it be?"

Summer or Winter? The revelation was like a slamming wave. Heida had shared Brynja's prophesy some years past, but it had not made sense till now. She met her mother's sharp smile only briefly and then, like every other inmate of the hall, regarded Heida expectantly. 

"I ... I want ..." Her face was wrought with acute distress, and well it might be, seeing as she was about to to gratify one man's hope ... by crushing the other's.

The corners of Brenna's mouth quirked as she watched Roth's brow beetle with uncertainty, for she had never seen the man so anxious ... and vulnerable. Was he that unsure of his place in Heida's heart? Brenna was not.

🌟Have I treated the matter of Frida's death too casually? Trust me this book is going a very differently than what I had first plotted. Strange how your characters, as you get to know them, decide their own fates and make decisions that surprise even the scribe.🌟