by Terry Graves
She shook her head.
“I found a way, Kai,” she whispered. “He told me how to. And this is my prize.”
Gerda made a gesture that probably was intended to point to the crown, but it seemed to encompass everything else: the fires, the corpses lying around them, the blood dyeing the snow. And Kai finally understood. Gerda had freed him for the promise of gold and had receive all these in return.
Kai had been wandering the streets of Veraheim, looking for Gerda. He had seen the extent of the disaster. Every life lost that night would haunt her forever. He lowered his head.
“I want to die.” Gerda grabbed his cloak and forced him to face her. The glitter in her pupils had faded. Kai wanted to be angry but, when he gazed at her and saw her eyes on the verge of tears, he found that he couldn’t.
“It is not over,” Kai said, gloomy. Better not to think much about it, he decided. They needed his hands and feet now, action instead of thought. “There may still be something we can do. And the gods may yet grant you that wish.”
They stood up and walked together, following the trail of destruction across Veraheim. An earthquake would not have created nearly so much havoc, thought Kai, avoiding the broken wooden boards, the jugs, and the cutlery dispersed everywhere. It was hard to think that Fyrnir, who had behaved so calmly and reasonably at first, had caused all this.
The screams led them to the market square, and they saw the brutal shape of the creature, with his shoulders clenched. In there, the yelling and the clashing of metal hinted at a fierce battle taking place. But before they could get there, a voice called them from one of the ruinous houses. Kai saw a bear’s head out of the corner of his eye, disappearing under a window.
As soon as they were under the broken roof, Solfrid grabbed Gerda and pushed her against the wall.
“Didn’t I warn you?” the woman yelled at Kai. “What did I tell you about trust?” At first, Gerda tried to shrug her off, but she had not enough strength to fight her back, so she gave up and just lingered, letting her shake her body until Kai intervened and pulled Solfrid away. “What did I tell you?”
Solfrid had warned him that giants were not to be trusted, that they were as sly as Loki and sometimes even more vicious than him. But she was referring to Gerda now. “The girl acts all tough,” she had once told him, “but she’s weak inside.” And then, just before their last travel up and down Yggdrasil, she had warned him: “Half of what she says is lies.”
Perhaps Solfrid had seen what was going to happen. Maybe the last gods left on the nine worlds had whispered to her about this.
“There is no point in blaming now,” Kai said. “Just tell us what we can do.”
“This is what he’s looking for.” Solfrid held the small sack with the cord she had around her neck. “This is what he smells. The girl stole the other one and gave it to him, and now he wants both.”
“Are you saying that all the giant wants is this sack?” Kai tried to grab hold of it, but the woman was faster and pulled it away, out of his reach. “Then why didn’t you just give it to him!”
“He cannot have it. No, no, no. That would be very bad for everyone. The less power the giants have, the better.”
“I don’t understand.” Gerda seemed to wake from her stupor. “Fyrnir was asking for his heart. Is it in there?” She seemed to remember something and said a word that Kai had never heard before. “Is this… the stone-heart?”
“A shard of it,” Solfrid said with a low voice. “All the frost giants in the world now share the same heart.”
Kai had heard that story many times, and Gerda must have heard it too. The Jötnar had always tried to conquer Ásgarð, but the Æsir and their human allies had managed to hold the farthest end of the Bifröst Bridge for many centuries. Furious, impatient to start Ragnarök, all frost giants lent their stone hearts to Surt, king of Múspelheim, who amalgamated them together and pushed them into his chest. Because of this, Surt grew so powerful that with each one of his hits he finished off one of the gods, disintegrated its body and sent its soul far away, defeated.
Then it was said that Thor raised his hammer and stroke Surt in the center of his ribcage. His heart broke into a thousand pieces that were carried away with the fierce winds and scattered all across the human world. That was how the Jötnar had lost Ásgarð, but defeated the gods. And that was why the frost giants did not have a heart anymore.
All except the Snow Queen, who was a frost giant too, but she lived with the Æsir and had refused to let go of hers.
When you need me, let it free and I will come once again. But you will have to pay the price.
Kai felt the cold of the shard of ice with the bee against his chest. Perhaps the time had come, but he had never felt so afraid.
“I have to stop this,” muttered Gerda. Her sword was in her hands, the one Alarr had forged for her. If Kai knew his friend as well as he thought, he would have been the first to wield its twin to jump right into battle. Damn him and all his kin. “Give the shard to me. I will take it out of Veraheim and lead the giant far from here.”
Solfrid cackled, and her luck-stones and amulets jangled as they hit one another. “I would never entrust this to you. You have caused enough harm.”
Gerda bit her lower lip and raised her weapon menacingly.
“I’m not asking.”
“Enough, both of you! There is another way.” Kai took out his own necklace and threw it to the floor.
The glass broke and shattered and a single tiny wisp of blue smoke faded into the air. And that was all.
“What did you do?” said Solfrid. She jumped onto all fours and crawled, smelling the air where the smoke had vanished, then picked up a fragment of glass and rubbed it between her thumb and index finger until it turned into water.
It was ice, not glass.
Kai had been carrying a piece of ice with him all these years and it had never melted. How was that even possible, he wondered, and what kind of magic was capable of performing such a marvelous and durable effect?
“What did you do?” Solfrid repeated.
Among the fragments Kai saw the bee, so delicate it looked like a fine statue. But it did not move and its legs were facing up, as if it was dead. Solfrid picked it up and examined it under the faint light. Then Kai heard a light buzz and the wings of the bee beat. Solfrid was so surprised that she dropped it again. The animal turned, shook itself, and took flight. It went around in circles, its wings sending powdery snow all around the room, before going through the window and disappearing into the night.
“So the story was true,” said Gerda, aghast. “The Snow Queen visited you.”
“You called her,” Solfrid’s eyes opened wide. “You have brought death upon yourself!”
Outside, the screams of terror were over. All voices had faded into silence. But then there was a swoosh. Gerda’s sword fell upon Solfrid. Kai thought she had harmed her, but then he noticed how the cord was cut and the sack with the heart’s shard was flying through the air.
Gerda grabbed it and, before any of them could move, dodged and ran through the door. Kai followed her into the street, calling her name, and he reached her as she was about to enter the market square. The great hall had been destroyed and there were bodies everywhere. He caught the glint of the armor and saw the spears dropped, the shields broken. Kai jumped on Gerda’s back and forced her down. The sword flew from her hand.
And they fought.
A mistake is not solved with another mistake, that’s what Kai wanted to tell her. He wanted to say to Gerda that she could not have known what the giant was going to do, and that, no matter what, he would be by her side. But he did not have the chance. They rolled together, kicking and punching each other, until Kai felt a gust of frozen wind blowing through his hair.
He turned his head up and saw Fyrnir’s face only three or four paces away. His long beard fell over the snow, dirty with blood. His eyes gleamed blue.
Kai had the sack in his hand. He had
captured it a moment before. He raised his arm and held it.
Barely noticed, a couple of snowflakes fell down from the sky, shiny as scraps of silver.
“Give it to me,” said the giant.
We will die, but you will never have it, thought Kai. And with this thought, he opened the sack and let its contents free, to be carried away by the strong wind, the dirt and the black sand Solfrid had claimed to have mixed with the real shard. The giant roared and raised his fist, but he never had the chance to deliver the fatal blow.
The Snow Queen was there.
She had not aged a day since the first time he saw her, as if time itself had been trapped in ice. She stood between Gerda, Kai, and the creature, and whispered something into the wind; not words but the old tongue of Vindsval, the language of winter. Each syllable lingered as the temperature dropped at once. A blizzard formed in the void that separated them and seemed to explode in the face of the giant, who moaned and retreated.
“Skaði,” he muttered — as this was her name — with a mixture of surprise and reverence. And then: “Traitor.”
“I’ll tell you only once,” said the Queen. “Go back to Jötunheim. I’ll grant you safe passage through the mountains.”
Fyrnir shook his head. “I smell my heart, and the heart of my brothers. I won’t leave without them.”
“It’s gone! Don’t you see?” Kai exclaimed. The shard had disappeared with the wind and he was sure that it would be impossible to find it again.
“There’s more. Much more. Near.” Fyrnir closed his eyes, as if he could feel it inside. Kai did not know what he was talking about.
“You’ll die,” the Snow Queen warned him.
“Then I’ll die.”
Skaði lowered her head, as if that prospect caused her a deep pain. She drew a shape in the air and a weapon that resembled a spear materialized in her hands. It was translucent and curved, made of ice, and shone with the glow of the moon.
The giant took a number of steps back into the open space of the square, but he was not fleeing, just gaining impulse. He turned his head to face the clouded sky and bellowed, and the roar echoed throughout the valley and into the mountains and shook the earth, and even the rain stopped falling for a brief moment, as if his scream had shaken the air so much it had changed the way of things. Kai felt his heart shrink into his chest and he looked for Gerda’s hand to find some solace in her.
They ran toward one another, but did not clash. The Queen knelt and slid through his legs as if she was on skis, then she raised her arms and cut the tendons on his right foot, and the giant fell over what was left of the great hall.
The world shuddered.
Now the Queen jumped on him, rushed all over his body while the monster tried to turn back, and reached his head. She slashed his neck from side to side with a single movement. There was a splash of dark blood, like a geyser coming out, almost black.
There was no struggle, no screams. With a glint of surprise, the light behind Fyrnir’s eyes faded out, then the creature closed them and died. Blood swelled toward Gerda and Kai and reached their feet, like water on the shore of a beach. Kai grabbed Gerda and stepped back.
The Snow Queen threw the spear away and walked toward them.
Gerda raised her sword. “You won’t take him,” she said, in a faint voice. But the Snow Queen slid one finger through the blade. Frost cobwebs grew on the metal’s surface and, with a scream, Gerda dropped it.
Rain had gradually turned to snow without Kai noticing.
“It’s time to go,” the Snow Queen said to him.
Kai looked behind her and saw a sleigh, the size of a war chariot, its runners built of pure ice, drawn by what resembled reindeers but were not. The beasts were grander than the biggest horse Kai had ever seen, with antlers so large and strong that it seemed difficult for those heads to support their weight. The fur of the animals was pure white and only went dark around their muzzles.
“Where?” Kai asked, trying to gain some time to think. But the Queen shook her head and did not reply. She made a gesture to the chariot, where the reindeer were awaiting, neighing nervously and shaking their hooves. “Someone told me that, by calling you, I was sealing my destiny.”
“And someone was right,” said the Queen with a cold voice, “for where we’re going, there’s no way back for you.”
“Can I at least say goodbye?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Make it quick.”
Kai nodded and turned around. Gerda waited for him, too tired, to perplexed to offer more resistance. The arm that had held the sword felt numb and cold and dead, and she seemed unable to move it.
“You did not let me die,” she muttered, on the verge of tears. “And now I’ve killed you too.”
“This is not on you,” said Kai. “You were not wrong, Gerda; Fyrnir was. You did the right thing.”
Gerda closed her eyes and sighed. They kissed again, and Kai was not sure if he had been the one who started it or if it had been Gerda. It was the gentlest of kisses, different from the ones they had shared that very evening. But it was heartfelt and comforting and so it did not matter to him.
“I will look for you,” Gerda said, in such a low voice that Kai thought he had imagined it. “I will go to the end of the world if I have to.” Kai was going to reply, but she put a finger on his lips, for she probably wanted the Snow Queen to ignore this. Then Gerda took off her mantle. It was one of her more precious possessions. She put it around his shoulders. It still had some of her heat, of her warmth. “Wherever you go, you will need this.”
Kai was sure he could not be followed. Nobody knew for certain what happened to the children the Snow Queen had taken over the years, but none of them had ever returned. So far, Kai was the first who had been able to resist her call, or so he thought. Now, he would be dead and gone soon.
He could not say this to Gerda, though. Her eyes burned again with purpose and she had regained some of her past fierceness. He wanted her to have meaning in her life, even if it proved useless in the end. If not, Kai knew her friend would let herself die, jumping against the sword Alarr had made for her as old warriors did when death was near and their days of battle were gone. Perhaps that lie would make her live through the pain long enough, until it eased. And so, Kai decided that this ultimate lie, in the shape of his silence, would be his present to her.
He knew he would never see her again. Nor Runa, nor Alarr.
Kai made peace with the thought, then turned around and walked to the sleigh. A transformation was starting to happen to Fyrnir’s body. The skin was hardened as if he was slowly turning into stone, and he seemed placid, as it he was finally going to be reunited with the place he had missed for so long. Skaði threw a last look at the corpse of the giant, but her face was an emotionless mask and Kai could not read remorse or joy in it.
The Queen climbed into the sleigh, and Kai sat next to her and wrapped himself up in Gerda’s cloak. Steam rose from the reindeer’s back and from their dark nares, and he started to feel the cold he remembered from the first time, as if needles of ice were twitching all his muscles. That day, the Queen had kissed him on the forehead and the pain had become bearable afterwards, even perhaps something he craved. But this time she did not touch Kai, and the discomfort remained.
“If you’re a goddess,” he said, looking at Gerda and making an effort so his teeth did not chatter, “you know everything that is going to happen. Please, tell me, will she be alright?”
She shook the reins, and the sleigh started to slide through the square. “I’m not a seeress,” she said, and there was resentment in her voice, as if Kai had forced her to do something she did not want to, “but a Jötunn. And Fyrnir was my brother.”
The reindeers increased their speed and, suddenly, their hooves lost contact with the ground. Kai’s hands tightened on the bar in front of him as they glided into the air, over the town’s buildings. The storm had extinguished all the fires and everything w
as dark again.
Kai wanted to see Gerda one last time, but the world was getting smaller and smaller, and he started to feel dizzy and had to stop looking. This feeling was very different from when he was dreaming that he was a sparrow. All this was real and no longer in his mind. He raised his head and looked up instead. The sleigh traversed the fiery clouds, with lightning breaking their path on the black canvas behind, and onto the other side.
Kai saw the stars and the moon, the edge of a scimitar with a reddish halo surrounding it. He felt the fear huddling in the pit of his stomach and, for the first time in his short life, he realized that he had to die very soon.
THIRTEEN
They waited, hidden in the barn, until the noises stopped. They barely talked to each other. Runa thought much about their friends, but she did not leave the building to look for them. The struggling noises, the shrieking, and the cries of the battle horns sent her back to that fateful morning when she had lost it all. The images of that day came to her mind. Father carrying her on his back, the dew that glittered on the leaves, mother with her mouth full of lingonberries, the dark red sauce smeared all over her chin. The laughs. Then a rustle through the frozen leaves. The barking of a dog, too eager and hungry to fear the whip anymore. And madness.
And so, Runa did not find the courage to leave the shelter and look for Alarr, or Gerda, or Kai. She bit her lip and fiddled with the laces of her shirt and closed her eyes instead.
The girl named Sigrún waited beside her, no longer scared. She had stripped the woman warrior of her belongings. She had tried her boots — which were too big for her — picked up her weapons and covered her with her cloak. Now she played with something she had carried in a leather bag, a translucent stone with sharp edges the size of a fist, probably wondering how much it could be worth.
For a long time, Runa did not dare to speak to her. But the night was slowly retreating and, giant or not, she had come to her in search of answers.
