(Find previous chapters and a description of the project here.)

               Freya drove the ram for most of the day, moving slowly through the accumulating snow along the decrepit roadway. Out the window of the ram, Edda watched the river gliding, and the trees swaying. The spirits talked over one another. She tuned them out.

“You will need to stay calm, Edda,” Sif instructed. “It takes a great amount of wild magic to turn the Waters.”

Edda nodded. “I can hold a great amount,” she replied, feeling nervous. The warnings from the spirits grew loud for a moment before they quieted each other.

“Maybe so,” Sif answered, as if that didn’t matter. “So could Mjoll. But holding the wild magic isn’t the same as using it.”

“I have used the wild magic before, Sif,” Edda countered. “And I will have you, and Freya, with me,” she said sweetly. She smiled almost shyly at her sister, knowing she would like the gesture. She felt the pull of Sif’s attraction to her. It made her want to lean her face against Sif’s neck.

Sif’s eyes sparkled for a moment. “I could be better to you than Hrothgar was,” Sif whispered, taking her hand.

Edda gently pulled her hand away. “But I don’t want you, Sif,” she said tenderly. “I want Hrothgar.”

Sif frowned, and Freya cleared her throat. “You can’t have Hrothgar,” Freya explained evenly. “We’ve told you that. You must give him up.”

               “I know,” Edda said, although inside her own mind she disagreed. She wondered if her sisters knew she was lying.  

When the sun started to sink low, Edda saw in the distance an enormous wall, gray and unnaturally huge against the landscape. Freya slowed the ram as they approached. The snow was not thick on the ground here. Edda could see only a dusting of white flakes across the grass.

               Freya pulled off the road into an open field. A large building sat between the lot and the large wall. The sound of the river seemed almost too quiet. The Bairns exited the ram, Ama clamoring out of the back of the wagon without waiting for one of her sisters to open the wagon’s end. Edda pulsed with energy, anticipation, anxiety. She felt the currents of wild magic here. Wild magic had kept the Waters running smoothly since the Freezing. There were traces of it everywhere.

               “What does it do?” she asked, wondering if any of them knew how the Waters worked. “How does it make the power?”

               Ama shrugged and Freya shook her head. Sif licked her lips before answering. “Tame magic,” was all she said.

               Sif took the lead, moving with purpose towards the structure before them. Freya and Ama followed her. Edda brought up the rear. Her sisters called the wild magic. Edda watched as the color melted from their hair, leaving their locks eerily white. She called the wild magic too and imagined what Hrothgar would say about her white hair and white eyes. The spirits chided her. Forget him!…Edda, leave him…You will never be his now…Hrothgar will not have you! She ignored them, and her hand drifted to the white stone with her true name. She grasped it as she moved, feeling the weight of it in her hand, running her thumb over the runes burned into it. Hrothgar would never know this name. The thought bothered her, though she didn’t have words to explain why.

                Inside the structure it was dark, and a high-pitched whining filled the air, along with the sound of rushing water. Ama sent the wild magic upwards, to light fires inside the glasses above them. The light drew Edda’s eyes. She scanned the ceiling, broken and crumbling, and yet alive with the tame magic. The tame magic always inspired such awe in her. She often wondered how the people before the Freezing had discovered it. How did they make these huge metal buildings? What was plastic? How did they capture light inside a glass? Edda pulled her gaze away from the lights.

On the floor before them, lined up in a long row, were cylinders, each topped with a glass. They hummed. Edda looked to Sif and Freya. They were holding the wild magic, glowing. Sif looked like she would burst from the light within her. Edda called the wild magic to her, letting it fill her to bursting. It moved along her limbs. She felt its power and its warmth. She wanted to fall into its stream, but she remembered Sif’s tears when they had mentioned Ulfrun. She let go of her longing.

               Sif moved forward, towards a metal box several paces apart from the line of cylinders. Freya moved behind her. Edda watched as the two of them placed their hands on the box, releasing the wild magic. A grinding, clanking noise emanated from the box. Ama looked over her shoulder at Edda, then nodded her head in the direction of the box. Edda moved forward slowly. The wild magic danced through her. She placed her hands on the box too. She felt it humming with life, filled with the power of the wild magic. She emptied herself, drained by the flow of power leaving her body. Freya’s hair darkened as she slumped against the box. Sif was still a conduit. Something inside the box started to move. It sounded almost like the ram. Edda could feel the last of the wild magic leaving her. She pushed it forward, downward, inward. The sounds from inside the box heightened. She lost her thoughts for a moment, her eyes swimming with dark dots. She laid her head against Freya’s back.

               Finally, Sif dropped her hands from the box. Edda peered at her. Freya stirred underneath her head, and she lifted it slowly. Sif was panting as she stepped back from the box. She wore a satisfied smile, though her brow was beaded with sweat. Her eyes went across the room, and she raised a hand, pointing in the direction of the cylinders.

               Edda turned, feeling sluggish. All the glasses atop the cylinders were blinking steadily. She turned back to Sif holding onto Freya’s arm as she finally rose from where she had laid against the box. “How long will it last?” Edda asked, itching to cast her stones again.

               Freya shrugged, gasping. “Pray it is long enough to learn to live without it.”

               Ama came forward, drawing Freya into her arms. Freya moved tenderly, the way a woman did after giving birth. Edda followed them, reaching out for Sif’s hand to steady her. Sif snaked an arm around her waist, and hoisted Edda’s arm over her shoulders. Edda’s feet felt leaden. She could barely lift them from the floor. The sound of her dragging her boots filled her ears.

               “You did well,” Sif whispered, her lips brushing against her ear. “You are powerful,” she continued. “You frighten me.”

               Edda smiled. This was high praise from a Bairn. “And you frighten me, sister,” she croaked, feeling the swell of pride in her chest.

               When they reached the ram, Freya looked like she had recovered her strength, though she was beaded with sweat. “I’ll ride in the wagon,” she offered. “Ama will drive.” Sif lowered the gate of the wagon, and Ama helped Freya climb inside. She closed her eyes almost immediately. Ama scooted along the bench in the front compartment. Sif took the middle and Edda slid in beside her. The ram rolled down the broken roadway. Edda rested her head against Sif’s shoulder and closed her eyes.    

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               Hrothgar blinked when the tame magic came alive. His piece of tame magic, a glass for light, held high on a pole, flickered once, twice, then stayed lit. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He had left it on the night before, thinking ahead for if Edda had not let him stay with her. It was not lit when he returned from the smithy, and he had neglected to turn it off. He rose from his pallet and rotated the plastic stick to extinguish the light in the glass. He stretched and went to the window, pulling back the curtain. There was a pristine blanket of snow on the ground. He dropped the curtain, yawning again as he laid down on the pallet once more.

               Tired as he was, his mind wandered. He thought of Edda and the other Bairns, stuffed onto the bench of the ram, driving through the dark and the snow from the Waters to Soledge. He wondered if they slept at all. He wondered what they would eat. He wondered what it would be like to use the wild magic as they did.

               The thought made him go cold and fear slithered through him. He wondered if the spirits heard his thoughts. It seemed silly, though, after he took a moment to think it through. The spirits were not interested in men. He couldn’t see any reason the spirits would be listening to him.

               There was a soft scraping noise coming from outside his window. Frowning in confusion, he rose from the pallet, and pulled back the curtain again. He watched the ram slide up the road, crunching the snow as it moved. Its lights were visible long after it passed, two red eyes in the night. He watched until he couldn’t see them anymore.

               He dropped the curtain, leaning against the window, his mind full of nothing.

               The sound of footfalls in the snow drew his attention. He listened as whoever it was approached the house. They were at his threshold. Slowly, the doorknob turned. He held his breath, too unnerved to move. The door opened and he saw the white cloak of a Bairn. A blast of cold air hit him as he sucked in his breath, backing away from the figure. She pulled the hood back from her face. Edda shook her hair, and her eyes drifted towards him, finding him in the darkness.

               “Edda,” he whispered, fear climbing his throat, heart beating wildly. He stared at her, wanting her, wanting her to go away, wondering what she was doing here. “I should send you away,” he said thickly.

               She untied the laces at her neck, letting the white cloak melt from her shoulders. She came towards him, the sound of her unsteady breathing raising his hair on end. Hrothgar held his ground, refusing to retreat from her, though she rippled and glowed with the wild magic. When she was upon him, her nose nearly touching his own, she closed her eyes and turned her mouth upwards. Hrothgar couldn’t resist her. He bent his head, kissing her mouth. She was soft, but he tingled as he kissed her. He wondered if that’s how the wild magic felt inside her. His limbs were pulsing with something foreign, and he didn’t know if it was simply his adrenaline or the power Edda was holding.

               He released her, and she opened her eyes slowly, sighing in contentment. “They tell me I can’t have you. They tell me I belong to the spirits now.”

               Hrothgar wasn’t sure how he should reply. Edda had doubts, even on the morning before she became a Bairn. The fact that she was here now was proof that she was still uncertain. “Is that what you think?” he asked slowly. Leif’s and Ofbradh’s warnings were fresh in his mind, but he couldn’t deny his desire to find a way to hold onto Edda. If there was any way at all, he would try. He couldn’t stomach seeing her become like Sif. He knew she would be as powerful as Sif one day, and maybe just as wild as Ulfrun had been. She might one day even be the Skuld.

               Edda didn’t answer his question with words. She kissed him again and this time, she reached her arms around his shoulders. Hrothgar put his hands on her, knowing he shouldn’t, knowing this was dangerous for her. The magic inside her slowly crept into him, until he felt that he would burst. Suddenly, he understood. No Bairn could belong to a man and the spirits without letting the man get a taste of the wild magic. And if the spirits were keeping men from using it, to the point where they were somehow keeping men from being born, then allowing them to access it through their woman made their exclusion complicated.

               He pulled away from her. Her hair and her eyes had gone white. She smiled at him and reached for her rune stones. She seemed to hesitate, before she cast them. He glanced down at the stones, strewn across his pallet, watching as the wild magic burned them one by one. He didn’t know the runes. He couldn’t see them in the dark after the glow of red cooled to a soft black. He looked at Edda. In the darkness he could see her white eyes, wide with wonder. Her mouth hung open, and she seemed to shudder as she exhaled.

               “I must see the Skuld,” she whispered hoarsely. She stooped to his pallet, hastily gathering up the rune stones, stuffing them hurriedly into the pouch at her belt.

               “Edda,” he called to her as she returned to the place she had discarded her cloak. She didn’t reply. She hefted the cloak across her shoulders and tied the laces at her neck. Without looking at him, she rushed from his house. The sound of the door slamming pierced the stillness of the night. He went to the door, yanked it open and called after her. “Edda!” His voice carried across the emptiness. He could barely make out her form running down the road. The snow, her clothes, her white hair masked her. He shivered, returning to the darkness of the house.

               He laid down on the pallet, but he couldn’t sleep. All he could think about was the fear he had seen in her eyes, wondering what she had read in the runes.