Queen of Hel

Prologue

Deep in the prisons of Asgard, Valkyrie Eir lay in her cot. Eir was only bound by her wings. She had been sentenced there for accidentally leading an enemy into the realm. She thought back to the night it happened.

She was flying down to the battlefield. It was her first time on a major battlefield. Before that, for the most part, she had been on smaller battlefields. Eir could see all the dying warriors lying on the field. Some only had the faint glow of the Death Glow around them. They would survive.

Then, she saw him. His glow was different. While the others had gold glows, he had a light blue one. But, it was the Death Glow. Maybe it meant something. Eir flew down, hovering above him. He looked up, and caught her eyes. He slowly, painstakingly, raised his arm. Eir landed beside him, careful not to land on any bombs.

Eir had never seen a wound like this one. Now that she was closer, she could see that he was dying from a bullet wound. But that wasn't the odd part. The odd part was when Eir looked closer, she could see a trace of the same blue as his Death Glow. Maybe the bullet was laced with poison, Eir could not tell.

The man's head rolled over to look at her. His eyes. They were icy blue and seemed to catch the light, like a snow bank in the sun. Eir looked around to make sure that there were no lights to make his eyes like this. She put her focus back on the man. He gasped, then Yes coughed up blood. Eir jumped back. Suddenly, her foot landed on something cold. She turned around. There lay a patch of snow. 'How peculiar' Eir though. She leaned over to look at it. It was snow alright. But when she touched it, a shiver ran through her. It was as cold as the mountain peaks of Nifelheim. Eir had been there once, as an ambassador.

She was about to drift off, her mind in a different place, but then, the man coughed again. It was like nothing Eir had heard before. It was like his soul was being forced out. Eir ran to him, before he was sentenced to Helheim. She touched his shoulder lightly, and he coughed again. When he did, a gold spirit flew out his mouth and landed next to Eir, now a full body. His military clothes still on, he looked at her and opened his mouth as if to speak. No sound came out. Eir offered her hand, and he took it, gladly.

Eir rose, along with several others. The man looked shocked. Eir guessed that if he could, he would have yelped. As Eir rose, he looked around in a way that suggested that he wasn't used to flight. As Eir steadied herself. The man was still dangled in the air. Eir caught the other Valkyries giving them the strange looks. Eir thought that that was because of the man's Death Glow. They may have noticed him before. The Death Glow was gone, except for one spot, around his eyes. The wounds of all the soldiers were gone, so they could not tell if it was because of the wound. But Eir did not think so, because in her many years of study and preparation, she had never encountered a thing like this.

Eir did remember that each one of the nine realms had a different Death Glow so that when Valkyries like herself came across an inter-realm battle, they could tell the species apart. This man's death glow was different though. Similar to the frost giants of Nifelheim, but different. It held a hint of gold like a humans. That was the part that confused her. Giants stayed to themselves and rarely left their own realm. And humans were oblivious to the other realms around them.

So, as Eir glided towards the glow of the rainbow bridge, she pondered this. The man's eyes went wide as he and Eir slowed to a stop in front of the Bifrost, entrance to Asgard, also known as the rainbow bridge. Eir's gold wings folded to her back the moment her feet touched the bridge. The man landed gently beside her. Around them, others did the same. Most of the soldiers wore the same look of curiosity and fear. "Wow," the man breathed.
Eir looked at him and said, "What is your name."