The Winter

Chapter 17

I tried not to react as the two spear wielding women shared a smirk, the one with the golden band muffling a giggle behind her hand.

My nose scrunched.

Hati's rough-spoken charm was as beguiling as ever. The throned goddess herself cracked a smile, and her entire being glowed all the brighter, radiating warmth just as the sun outside did. It wouldn’t surprise me if Hati felt a measure of attraction towards the goddess; I myself couldn’t stop staring.

The light streaming through the massive stained windows caught tones of copper in her blonde hair, and reflected off golden skin, smooth and unblemished by time. Cerulean eyes were luminescent and sharp, with a depth of knowledge that was unnerving, and her dress too was like nothing I’d seen from home. It flowed like water, thin and draping, cinched tight at the waist by a golden belt with a loop where I knew a sword would hang. Because despite her beauty, the elegant way she sat, and the crown glittering in her hair, she was a warrior. Her arms were toned, fingers dainty but sure in the way they curled around the arms of her throne. She sat straight and ready to move, and I knew her two guards while muscled in their own rights, would fall long before their Alpha would in battle. Their Queen, I amended the thought.

This was Freyja, wife of Odin, daughter of the Vanir, seeress, witch, goddess of fertility and harvest, love and war; her titles were endless, her authority and power undeniable. It was she who chose first from those slain in battle before Odin could take his pick for Valhalla, and she who had seen the coming of Ragnarök. Magic flickered around her, though I wasn’t anyone but she and I could see the rippling, threadlike energy winding around her limbs.

Her smile widened when the polite conversation I’d missed in my study of her ended and her gaze fell on me. I stiffened under the weight of it. The expectation, brimming hope, surprise and even dread that all passed over her face as she looked me slowly up and down.

“Look how she has grown, Gná, Fulla.” She looked at her two handmaidens in turn. “Does she not look much like the she-wolf we trusted to carry her?”

Why did these gods seem loathe to address me directly?

“My mother would be pleased to hear you say so,” I said, not liking the comparison even though it did please me to hear her say it. No matter how I was brought into being, Laoghaire had carried me for nearly six long months, had birthed me, fed me from her breast, and raised me. She was my mother, as much as she was to any of my siblings.

Gná smirked over her shoulder, and Freyja began to laugh, blue eyes glittering with amusement.

"You understand us? My, this I did not expect at all. Dear Hati, have you been teaching her?”

“I have not,” he replied, his gaze too falling to me, his with something akin to smug pride. “I doubt she even realises what language it is she is speaks now. She changes from using one with her family to speaking another to Astrid without so much as a stutter.”

I blinked, then turned a frown towards my mate. I did? Was I not speaking the tongue of Nirribhidh right now? That and The Gàidhlig were the only ones I knew.

“You are speaking with the fluent tongue of one born here in Ásgarðr,” Freyja explained, a grin still stretching full pink lips. “Your accent is flawless.”

I blinked again.

No. I couldn’t be.

“You have spoken it to me before, Little Alpha,” Hati insisted. “While other times I have spoken it and you have looked at me with no recognition. Being here has perhaps unlocked a part of you that knows it from before you were born into Midgard.”