"What sort of attack?" she asked Heida, stepping over a decaying log as Renic removed his mantle and spread it over her shoulders to hide the torn overdress. It would not do to have her mother see the damage or the blood stains.

"They think it an animal attack." Heida bit her lip, watching over her shoulder as Brenna's wound disappeared behind the wool. "Perhaps a wolf or a bear? I cannot say, I was not allowed to see the man's body for myself and instead sought you out at Aila's behest."

"The body? He is dead then?" Renic halted abruptly, causing both girls to stop and look back at him. "Who died?"

"Please, Renic, ask your mother. I only came to fetch you thither." Heida's eyes gleamed with unshed tears.

"Who was he?" His voice became glacial and unyielding.

"Old Gunnar. He was found on the beach above an hour ago."

There was nothing more to say. With a curt nod from Renic, all three of them thereat began sprinting northward between the dense trees and nettles, Renic taking up the rear again and Heida in the lead. At length they cleared the woods, and its grasping fingers, and jogged along the incline, amidst the fragrant heather, towards the giant longhouse looming atop the hill where the long streams of gossamer smoke poured from the vent. 

Although most were like as not still abed, Aila was waiting beneath the gable, watching their steady approach with foreboding stillness.

Brenna reached an inconspicuous hand out and slipped it into Renic's, giving it a gentle squeeze to gain his attention. Almost instantly his light blue eyes met hers askance and, seeing that she wished to say something, he bent his ear to her lips.

"Do not tell my mother," she whispered, flicking her eyes to the concealed wound, and hoping, in the process, that her words did not reach Heida whose hearing was that of an owl.

He gave an imperceptive shake of his head, reciprocating her gesture with the reassuring pressure of his fingers before he withdrew from her. She was satisfied he would say nothing. She smiled her thanks and looked ahead to see that Heida's back was yet turned forward.

Aila's arms were folded over her chest and, as they neared, Brenna could see that each of her lineaments were pulled to grim effect, thereby further dampening Brenna's spirits.

When the three of them halted before the chieftain, she squeezed her eyes shut a tense moment afore she opened them and suspired loudly. "Where is your brother?" She had fixed her cold eyes to Renic, her voice modulated, but chilly withal.

"I have not seen him since sunset, Mother." He kissed her good morning and she angled her cheek to accept the greeting as was her maternal due.

Brenna was struck anew by how utterly incongruous the pair were — how disparate their relationship was compared to Eydís and Søren's. Had Brenna not watched Renic grow from a boy, she would have sworn that he and Roth were merely Aila's brothers and not the fruits of her womb.

They looked of an age with Eirik; not Søren, who was in fact the elder of the three. And Aila herself was curiously timeless and as immutable as a goddess. The passage of the years had seemed not to affect her in the least. 'Twas all so odd. But then so had her night been... Normalcy, or so she thought, was in short supply these days.

Aila transferred her gaze to Brenna. "And you, my dear, had better seek out your mother. I fear she is-"

"Brenna!" Four pairs of eyes turned towards the shrill sound of Epona's enraged call as she approached them.

There was no need for Aila to complete whatever warning or dire assessment she had been about to offer for Brenna's mother was already running up the hill towards them, her face awash in fury and her arms waving violently in the air as she muttered a thousand different maledictions whilst she stampeded her way through the grass.

"By the gods! Where have you been?!" she shrieked, grabbing her daughter and shaking her soundly. "I have been sick with worry, girl!"

"Mother, I..." There was naught she could say that would placate her mother.

"She was with me, Epona." Renic immediately stepped to Brenna's side, thereby gaining himself two narrowed beams of disgust, Epona's russet eyes suddenly darker. It was the very worst thing he could have said to her.

"Do not interfere, Renic," she spat, her fists balled and trembling with ire as they pressed to her little waist. "This does not concern you."

"Calm yourself, woman." His voice was gruff, but patient enough. "You see for yourself she is unharmed." Though it obviously rankled, his mouth pulling down at the corners and weighted by the lie, he had silently promised Brenna that Epona would be kept ignorant of the injury — of which he was the causation.

"And where exactly have the pair of you been whilst a man was having his throat ripped out?!" Epona pulled her into a fierce embrace, her mother's fingers white as they dug into her injured shoulder, but she only gritted her teeth and hid her grimace. "That might have been you, my child! I should certainly die if you were taken from me!" 

With that said, Epona's anger gave way to sobbing and Brenna thus bore her parent's generous tears as they soaked her dress and the mantle Renic had cloaked her in.

"You must know I would protect her with my own life." Though his words were for her mother, Renic's eyes collided with Brenna's. 

"You?" Epona's head snapped up in horror. "You and your bestial twin are the worst of those I would keep her from!"

"Epona!" Aila stepped threateningly toward's her friend as Heida's eyes popped even wider at what was playing out before her. "That is enough!"

Renic placed his large bulk between his mother and Brenna's, scowling at Epona with more choleric than she had ever seen him do. "Tread lightly, Epona," he warned. "You may say what you wish about me, but have a care how you address my brother. He will be chief soon; and there are those among us that would not overlook your thoughtless insults, as I have just done."

"Mother, please!" Brenna endeavored to becalm Epona's feral glare as Renic faced off with the little woman; and she barely reached his chest in height, unlike her daughter who was near enough as tall as Heida.

She did not worry that Renic would harm her mother, but she knew that he had spoken with wisdom. Those of Eydís' and Ragnar's ilk did not look upon the former thrall with any amount of goodwill and would surely love nothing more than to punish her mother for even the most trivial misdemeanors. And the unveiled slander she had just dealt, to a thane no less, would be the perfect justification to apportion whatever severe retribution they doubtless already harbored with relish.

"Heida, my love," Aila said, running her hand over her adoptive daughter's pale cheek. "Go find Roth, if you will, and find out what is keeping him from us." She seemed so tired of a sudden. "He will be expected to accompany me to Gunnar's house as soon as may be. We must console his wife and son as best we can."

"Yes, Mother," said she, and with a last look at the tense little party, she hurried off to do Aila's bidding.

Once Heida was out of earshot, Aila bore down on Epona. "You go too far. I have been naught but good to you since you came here despite that you were enforced to do so."

Epona shook her head resentfully. "And I would leave here tomorrow if I was assured that my daughter would not dig her obstinate feet into this goddess forsaken ground in protest. This is not my home!"

"What will you go back to?" Aila's voice assumed a ruthless edge. "You have nothing! That village has long since burnt to ash and bone. But I am here, and like a sister to you. Surely that is worth something? Or would you have your daughter wandering the wilderness unprotected and homeless. Be sensible, my friend!"

"Tis moot," Brenna said quietly when her mother made no answer. She peeked up at Renic diffidently. "I will not leave my home." I cannot leave Renic or Heida.

Aila nodded approvingly to Brenna and then resumed addressing her mother. "And what will you do when Brenna is married? Your daughter is a woman now..." And your smothering nature will not long be tolerated by a husband. No one had said as much outright, but all were thinking it, Brenna knew. It was what she herself was thinking.

Epona's eyes practically rolled out of her head as she angled them suspiciously at Renic. "When?! To whom?"

"The question was a speculative one, Epona." Aila was becoming increasingly impatient. "But there will come a time when she will be offered for."

"No!" However, there was a hint of doubt in Epona's eyes as they darted anxiously between Aila and Brenna.

Renic regarded both mother and daughter keenly. "Have not you seen the way Eirik watches her? He will ask soon enough, make no mistake."

Brenna closed her eyes a moment in dejection, for she had dared to hope that it might have been he, Renic, that... But no, it was useless to think such thoughts. She would not be deemed worthy enough for a chieftain's son. Not a mere slip of a girl who had been born a slave.

"He would not dare!" Epona rejoined. "She is only a bondswoman, and Ívarr would never allow it."

"I think you underestimate her worth, Epona." Renic's countenance was forbidding, his hands clenching in irritation. It was time to drag her mother away, lest she do more damage here than she already had.

"We will leave you now, Aila." She nodded respectfully to the chief and then offered the same to Renic ere she pulled her mother along with a last parting question to Aila. "You will let us know if you require our assistance?"

"I shall." The Blackmane matriarch seemed eager for them to go, though her smile was gracious there was a flintiness to it that seemed to become keener as she watched Epona's rigid back. 

Halfway down the tor that would take them to their little cottage home, she happened to glance back and saw that Aila had a hand on either side of her son's face and was speaking quietly to him whilst he listened intently, that ever-present frown visible from even this distance. However, the peak of the hill soon swallowed them up as she continued her descent thoughtfully.

She and her mother spoke not at all, the tension as thick as the deadly sucking mud that lay in pools throughout the moors that Epona had told her so much about as a child. She often thought about her sire, that faceless druadh, and the moorlands that had conceived her.

These meditations were set aside as they reached the cottage's quaint pathway. It was nothing out of the ordinary — just a narrow path devoid of grass. But along the edge of it her mother had planted rows of stout-looking aconites, their tall stems crowned with racemes of large purple flowers and their leaves palmated with little claws. They were curious-looking flower. Each one was so like a cockerel's head, or so she had always thought, with its veined, hooded comb and violet wattles.

Their home itself was a very small, spartan building with timbered hardwood walls like that of Aila's lodge, but unlike hers, and the large mead hall, their roof was covered in turf. It was unheard of that lowbrows, such as they were, should have their own accommodations, but the house was on Aila's property and technically belonged to her. Even though it had been once used by old Elfa, the witch.  

It was by her benevolence that they, the disesteemed völvur, were relegated to the edge of the wood as per Epona's preference. Brenna wondered if she had always been so misanthropic or if it was just the result of her hardships at the hands of those that took her from her home and people.

Once they had entered the home, Epona lit a fire and pulled a kettle over the incipient flames as Brenna huddled nearby, suddenly bone-weary and eager for the warmth of her bed. She pulled Renic's mantle closer about herself, inhaling the spice of his enticing musk. When she looked up her mother was watching her closely; she knew full well to whom the cloak belonged.

"Did you lay with him," Epona demanded abruptly.

Brenna made a moue of disgust, embittered by her mother's bellicose manner. "I did not."

"Then tell me what it was you did in the darkness; at his side."

"He was ill and needed my help."

"He needs no aid from the likes of us," she scoffed. "And you would do well to stay away from both he and his brother! I have told you this before!"

"Why are you so threatened by him?" Brenna stood so that she towered over her mother.

"They are ... unnatural abominations. We worship nature and eschew all that defy it."

"No, you worship nature! I do not believe in your gods and I am no ovate!"

"You are exactly like me." Epona shook her head, aggravated by her daughter's perceived willfulness. "You see spirit colors; and your dreams tell of what will come. This I know for certain."

Brenna ground her teeth together, unable to deny the truth of what she was hearing. "In what way is Renic unnatural?" How could Epona possibly know that much.

"Because of who sired them..."

"Harald?" Harald might have been a giant among men — the famed Blooddrinker — but he was still a man.

"Harald's seed never took to Aila's womb."

Brenna sank back to the floor in shock and stared into the fire, almost too fearful of continuing this conversation, for though her mother was indeed an intense individual, she was no liar. Epona poured the tea and handed her a wooden mug before pouring her own.

"Who then, Mother. Who was their father."

"Arawn."

The Ruler of the Shadowlands. The Lord of the dead. Brenna knew enough about her mother's religion to know of whom she spoke, but whether or not she believed Epona's maddening words was another matter entirely. Yet how could she not. She should discredit all that she just heard, and might have, despite that they were her mother's words, if not for the scene in the weald when Renic's body had altered grotesquely before transfiguring back to normal.

"You are sure?"

"Yes. You see for yourself that their auras are not of mortal men."

"I always thought..." Well, she had never known what to make of their colors.

Epona sat down beside her daughter and patted her leg. "You wish only to see the good in people, and I love you for it, but you must learn to be more suspicious; and of men especially. Even your friends may one day become your enemies."

"Not Heida! She is too good and her soul too pure for that nonsense."

"Perhaps," Epona said with a sigh, staring into her cup, "but her mother was quite a different creature altogether — cunning and amoral."

Brenna set her cup away and turned to glare at her irksome mother, the insidious teeth of premonition biting at her nape. "You know who her..." She then stopped herself and snorted disparagingly. "Of course you do. You seem to know everything of a sudden. What else are you not telling me?"

"I will tell you all, but you must promise to stay away from Renic."

"No! I will not!"

Epona's lower lids straitened her heated glower into beady, brown orbs. "You care for that creature, after what I have just told you?"

"No," Brenna said though clenched teeth, "I love him!" There now.

Even if she had struck her mother's face, Epona could not have looked more shocked. The silence weighted the room as the two women seethed quietly.

"Then you are doomed."

"I do not care!"

"Do something for me, if not for yourself." The water filled in Epona's eyes and her bottom lip trembled with anguish, but Brenna was untouched by her mother's display, sincere though it was.

"What will you have from me, Mother? If it does not oppose my own beliefs then I will gladly grant whatever you wish."

"Learn to protect yourself. Let me teach you how to take advantage of your goddess-given endowments. Let me help you."

"Very well, but you must begin explaining all you know of Renic and Heida."

Epona nodded. "I know that Arawn still continues to watch them. I see him and his familiars often, watching from the shadows."

"His familiars?"

"His wolves."

Váli. But she had only ever noticed the one wolf.

"Aila calls him Loki."

"Loki?!" That name she knew well. It was the northern gods that she worshiped after all. "Are they truly the sons of Loki?" Gods, no!

"They are," Epona affirmed.

This was all too much to take in for one night. Only a few hours ago her world was prosaic and predictable. But no longer. She still felt as though she was dreaming and when she awoke it would be to find that Renic was not the aberrant creature she had seen him become, nor the child of He that was destined to bring about Ragnarök — the demise of the gods. Brenna was not sure if she was humoring her mother or if she did in sooth believe.

Her mother took her empty mug and refilled it before continuing. "I have watched them closely since the day they came into this world. I began to see signs that they would be dangerous to the rest of us." She then seemed to become uncomfortable as her watery eyes averted from Brenna's direct and tawny gaze. "It was for that reason that I wanted to know what ... how they might be weakened; or what could kill them."

"Mother!" Brenna's belly constricted uncomfortably. "What are you inferring exactly?"

Epona's face colored, but her mouth became mutinous as she said, "I promised Aila I would never cause her children harm nor talk ill of them again. The first promise I kept in part ... and the second I broke today."

Brenna covered her face in her hands. "What have you done? Tell me."

"I tried various herbs and poisons, but nothing worked. They were unaffected by that which would have lain a man low in the earth."

Brenna uncovered her face and lifted her eyes, horrified. But her words were too laden with dread to leave her tongue, so she took a sip of tea to fortify it. And then suddenly, inspecting the contents skeptically, she set it down again.

Epona rolled her eyes. "You know I would never hurt you."

"But you may have hurt two innocent young boys with your experimenting."

"I was careful. And you and I both know that they are innocents no longer. Look what was done at the Klanerting..."

"That was Roth's doing; and heartily deserved," Brenna remonstrated firmly.

"Perhaps. But that one reminds me far too much of his cunning sire." Epona's eyes dwelt thoughtfully over their little fire. "It was never my intention to cause needless mischief; or to permanently harm either of them. You must know that I only seek to do what I must to protect you, daughter."

"I know, Mother."

"And I do not regret my actions, howsoever it has affected your opinion of me. I love Aila, and despite that my temper ofttimes gets the better of me, I love her still and would do anything to safeguard her as well." She sighed. "Renic, I know, is not bad exactly, but he cannot help what he is — and we do not even know what they are exactly. So you see, I cannot go through life without knowing how to protect those I love, no matter how they abhor my methods."

Brenna, steeling herself to be calm, gestured patiently for her mother to continue. "So all that you discovered was that they are impervious to mortal dangers." That is good, then. If Epona had been caught administering her nefarious poisons, she would have been instantly put to death, regardless of whether or not the chieftain's sons were harmed in their infancy.

"Not quite." Epona's expression hardened instantly. "They did react adversely to one particular poison. So you see, there is something that can kill them..."

⭐️🌟Oh Epona! Treading on thin ice here, my girl. Thoughts?⭐️🌟