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               The forest was dark, but it didn’t hinder her. Edda knew the way. She was impervious to the cold. The warmth of the wild magic swirled in her limbs, propelled her onward through the darkness. She crashed through the woods, snapping twigs and rustling foliage, kicking up last year’s debris. She rushed down into the gully, to the Grove, to the circle of white trees standing as sentinels. She entered the Grove with her breath ragged, her heart bare. The Grove was empty. She did not know where she could find the Skuld if not here. She sank to her knees, gasping, her heart pumping too hard in her chest. The spirits were laughing, wailing, whispering, gossiping. “Where are you?” she cried aloud, her face towards the sky. “I need you!”

               The Skuld appeared, kneeling next to her on the ground. Edda had not seen how she had emerged. One moment she had not been there, and the next she was. Edda leaned forward, wanting comfort, wanting someone to anchor her to the world. She felt herself being called away and she did not want to go. She fought with the spirits, ignoring them, pushing away their calls.

               The Skuld lifted Edda’s chin, forcing her to meet her eyes. “You have been with Hrothgar again,” the Skuld said. She smiled eerily, her white eyes like crystal. She was more a spirit than a woman and she didn’t seem to belong to the world where they sat.

               Edda nodded. “I love him,” she explained, though she knew the Skuld would not care.

               The Skuld stroked her hair, and Edda watched from the corner of her eyes how the color poured back into it. She felt at peace. The Skuld pressed her palm to Edda’s cheek. “I loved a man once, too,” she admitted softly. “I still love him.”

               This is not what Edda had expected her to say. She pulled back from the Skuld, an inch, but enough to cause the Skuld to drop her hand. “What?” she whispered in confusion.

“The blacksmith,” the Skuld said, smiling widely. Her eyes were soft, remembering. She looked like she was laughing to herself. “Leif.” She whispered his name as if it was holy. Her eyes came back to Edda’s. “They will tell you that you can’t have both,” the Skuld said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “But they are liars.” The last word was nearly a hiss.

               “What are you saying?” Edda asked, her heart swelling. The hope inside her made her chest hurt. “How?”

               The Skuld was looking at Edda, but she was seeing past her, her eyes unfocused. “They want you for their own.”

               “Why?” Edda asked. “Why would they lie to us?”

               “Fickle, fickle women,” the Skuld hissed. Edda waited for more explanation, her eyes widening. “They make more of us, so they can carry us off.”

Edda thought back to the runes she had read on Hrothgar’s pallet. The darkness. The cloud. The ring. The woman. “I read it in the runes,” she confided. “The women—the spirit women—they keep us from having boys. This is their doing.”

The Skuld nodded. “I read this in the runes too,” she said, “before I chose the spirits. Leif asked me…” she stopped abruptly, and it seemed to Edda that she was choking on her words. The Skuld swallowed loudly. “Leif asked me if it was true,” she continued, her voice low and husky.

“He knows?” Edda asked. She wondered what Leif had told Hrothgar as they worked over the forge.

The Skuld shook her head in denial, then paused, and reconsidered. She then proceeded to nod her head up and down, affirming what Edda suspected. “He knows,” she said. “And so does Hrothgar.”

“Can we put an end to this?” Edda asked, thinking of her true name. “Can we undo what has been done?”

“It’s their doing,” the Skuld said, and it seemed to Edda that she turned an accusatory glare upon her. “But we help them,” she whispered, “because the wild magic is irresistible.”

               “But why? What do they have against men?” Edda asked, still confused. “Why can’t they let us have the men we want?”

               The Skuld raised her eyebrow, looking almost human for a moment. “Isn’t it nice, sometimes, to be with you sisters?” the Skuld asked.

               Edda nodded. “Of course,” she agreed enthusiastically. “I love being with my sisters. But not all the time. Sometimes, I want to be with Hrothgar.”

               The Skuld nodded. “The spirits—the most powerful ones—only want to be with their sisters,” she explained.

               “But why?” Edda pressed. “There has to be a reason!” Her frustration was building. She felt the wild magic swirling, trying to call her away from her body again. The spirits chattered so loudly she could not distinguish their words.

               The Skuld shrugged. “They don’t like men.”

               “So, they keep us from men? They keep us from having boys?” Edda grew more horrified the longer she considered it. “They keep us seeking after them, giving us the wild magic so we can…use it to determine who can make boys?!” Edda’s anger was rising. She felt the pull of the spirits. She knows!… Edda…Take her! Take her! She resisted. She filled herself with resolve, focusing on the Skuld’s face, ignoring the pull of the spirits. It felt like swimming upriver, but she managed to hold steady. The spirits quieted.

               “You are strong,” the Skuld assessed, smiling.  

               The spirits were warning her, but she pushed all their complaints away. “What would happen if I remained Hrothgar’s woman?” she asked. The spirits hissed at her. She ignored them. It was easy now. She used her anger to armor herself against them.

               The Skuld stood, pulling Edda up from the ground with her. The Skuld reached for her rune stones, and Edda couldn’t resist the pull her own stones had on her. She took the rocks in her palm, watching as the Skuld cast her stones across the grass. The wild magic burned them, and Edda cast her own stones on the ground among them. A double casting was rare. It was only done in the Grove. It was only done with the Skuld. Edda looked at the runes. The rock. The eagle. The circle. The river. The womb. The sky. The fire. The tree. The Skuld met her eyes. The words of the casting were on her lips, and she was amazed when they came from the Skuld’s mouth as well as her own. “There will be a change. The birth of something new. It will grow until it cannot be contained. It will last forever.”

               Edda grinned. “I will stay Hrothgar’s woman,” she vowed. “I will defy the spirits.”

               The Skuld smiled. “Then you will do what I could not,” she said. “And then, you will do what I cannot.” Edda felt a rush of anxiety over her words, but the Skuld seemed satisfied, proud even. “Brave Bairn,” she added, an echo of what the spirits had said on the day she was given her true name.

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               Hrothgar went to the bakery early in the morning. He had not filled his belly full since the day before Edda became a Bairn. His body craved something other than stale cheese and a bit of salted ham. The smell of fresh bread wafted down the street, mixed with the smell of wood smoke. There was a line outside the bakery. He hadn’t mean to come so early, but he also hadn’t been able to sleep. Thoughts of Edda’s white eyes had filled his head. He was anxious for an explanation.

               He took his place in the line, which was only three people deep, and waited impatiently. The cold was biting. The melting snow seeped into his boots. He rubbed his arms, glancing into the window of the bakery. He saw Gisla at the counter, taking loaves from a tray and placing them on the racks. She came around the counter when she was finished, moving towards the door.

               An unnatural quiet spread over the area and he knew it was the approach of a Bairn. He turned his head and watched passively as Astrid made her way to the front of the line just as Gisla opened the door. No one stopped her. She was a Bairn. Bairns always took precedence. They could have whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it. Hrothgar frowned and ground his teeth. Before he could think to stop himself, he called out, “Get in line, Astrid!”

               The line of people between him and Astrid melted away as she turned towards him. She was swirling with wild magic. The flow of it around her caused her hair and cloak to dance, as if there was a steady breeze. Her eyes were empty of emotion as she came towards him. Hrothgar felt the nervous tension around them, the others stiff with concern. Astrid held his gaze and Hrothgar wanted to sneer, but he managed to keep his expression bare.

               Astrid considered him, cocking her head to one side for a moment. Her golden hair was alive. She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you insist on pursuing Edda?” she asked.

               Hrothgar couldn’t help from prickling at her question. The Bairns could read people like they were runes. Some said people had runes inside them. This made him think of Leif, and the suggestion that the runes men carried determined if they could make boys. He wondered. “Do you not pursue the things you want, Astrid?” he asked casually, as if he was not unnerved.

               She smiled sweetly at him. “You cannot have her,” Astrid explained. Her attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere, and Hrothgar’s gaze went to where hers had gone. Over his shoulder, he saw Helga walking with Sigrid. There was nothing tying them together, but Hrothgar got the impression that Sigrid was still on leash. The man moved stiffly. He was being taken somewhere he didn’t want to go.

               Astrid smiled. “She has found another mother,” Astrid said to herself.

               “She wouldn’t need to find mothers if she didn’t want the wild magic,” Hrothgar growled.

               Astrid’s gaze slid back to him, and the smile she now wore was devilish. She leaned closer to him, her eyes gleaming. Hrothgar could smell the herbs she used to clean her teeth. “We will always want the wild magic, Hrothgar.”

               Anger rising, he bared his teeth at Astrid. “It’s true, then?” he asked. “The spirits are the reason we don’t have enough boys?”

               Astrid didn’t reply. Her smug grin made his blood hot with rage. She turned from him and walked towards the bakery, where Gisla was still standing in the threshold, holding the door open. She quickly ducked out of the way, letting Astrid past her. The others who had witnessed the confrontation began to move forward as well, falling back into a line, shuffling inside the shop.

               Hrothgar stewed in his fury, his eyes cast downwards. He drew breath slowly, but his heart did not slow. Someone tapped Hrothgar on the shoulder. He turned, and Leif was giving him a measured glare. “You’re being reckless,” he growled.

               “Why should they get everything for free, while we work?” he asked, his anger at Astrid still painfully fresh.

               “They keep us alive, Hrothgar,” Leif explained.

               But Hrothgar didn’t believe that. He thought of Skogul and Ofbradh, growing up with first-hand stories from the Freezing, existing among the trash of the old world, surviving on the ancient ways. “The ancient ways will keep us alive, Leif. We do not need Bairns. We need boys.”

Leif grumbled something unintelligible, moving away from Hrothgar slowly. Hrothgar watched his retreating back, still fuming. Once he had eaten, he would find Edda. He would demand she tell him what was in the runes. He would make a plan with her. He would keep her as his woman, no matter what Leif said. No matter what Astrid said.

               He waited until Astrid came out of the bakery before he made a move to go inside himself. She slid past him as if he didn’t exist.