Page 110 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

Freya carried the dying Wren Wynter across the sea to an island whispered of only in myth.

A sanctuary of lush, untamed beauty, where waterfalls carved secrets into the cliffs and forgotten temples slumbered beneath ancient trees.

Upon her arrival, the valkyrians emerged like whispers from the foliage, silent and graceful, and led her with reverence to the River of Resurrection.

Together, they placed Wren into the shallows, the water darkening her clothes as it seeped into the fabric, as though the river itself recognised the weight of what it was about to receive.

Soft, haunting hums escaped the lips of the warrior women as they began their ritual.

With solemn grace, they undressed the wolverian princess, washing her gently beneath the murmuring waters.

Freya moved among them, her hands steady, her expression unreadable.

She aided them as they had once done for her before her own rebirth, before the godhood that left her memory intact when it should have been washed away. For gods do not forget.

When Wren was at last cleansed, skin bare beneath the blessing of the river, the valkyrians lifted her with care, cradling her like a sacred flame.

Up the temple steps they climbed, their bare feet silent against the stone, their voices quiet now, reverent.

She was soon to be one of them, a sister forged anew in death’s embrace.

The temple stood open to the skies, its roof long surrendered to the heavens so that light, and only light, might ever touch the altar. Runes shimmered along the archways, carved in an age when gods walked freely, whispering duty and destiny with every flicker of sunlight.

At the centre, a stone table waited.

Freya knelt, her fingers tender as she cradled Wren’s head and lowered it onto the altar, as though the girl were made of glass and starlight.

And so, the ritual began.

There would be pain.

But through pain, rebirth.

The sisters began their solemn work, etching sacred runes into Wren’s skin with ink so pale it gleamed like milk under moonlight.

It was said to be a divine substance, drawn from the breast of the goddess who had birthed the first of their kind, harvested from the blessed fountain that granted them the strength to rise as valkyrians.

Freya, who had once stood in the presence of that goddess, offered no comment.

Each time the feathered quills, plucked from the wings of their revered horses, pierced the girl’s flesh, Wren screamed, her agony echoing through the temple like a haunting lullaby.

It was a pain unlike any other, the sort that unravelled even the bravest souls.

Freya had tasted it once, through the remnants of memory left in the vessel she now inhabited.

What Wren endured now... it was a torment that few would have survived.

Indeed, many might have begged for death.

With each graceful stroke of the feather, the ivory ink sank beneath her skin, weaving itself into ancient patterns of power and rebirth. And with every mark, the girl upon the altar grew quieter, her breaths shallowing, life ebbing from her body like mist before the dawn.

Freya’s hand moved to smooth the snowy strands of Wren’s hair, a gesture born of a mother’s longing, tender and wistful. It was the closest she could come to touching her own lost children.

She began to mark the face.

Freya hummed as she worked, a low melody that wove through the air like incense smoke. Soft, lulling, the only balm against the cries that rang out. The others joined in, voices blending in bittersweet harmony. There was no disguising the cruelty of the act. It was brutal, merciless.

And yet, it was necessary.

For this was how their warriors were born.

The tattoos etched into their flesh were runes, ancient, sacred markings, bestowed solely upon the valkyrians.

They were blessings and bindings both, bestowing swiftness, strength, and power beyond that of ordinary mortals.

With each symbol inked beneath the skin, a woman became something more, transformed into a creature of divine purpose.

Yet such a gift came not without cost.

The runes bound them irrevocably to serve, to shield, to protect.

Should a valkyrian ever sever those sacred ties, defy the oaths inked into her very bones, death would claim her swiftly.

Most accepted this fate willingly, yearning for purpose greater than themselves.

But Freya found herself wondering how Wren Wynter would wake, how she would wear the mantle fate had chosen for her.

She would awaken with no memory of her former life. The title of wolverian princess would mean nothing. Her kin, her past, her very self, lost in the mists of oblivion.

Yet Freya knew that something always remained. A sliver of soul, a glimmer of the woman she had been. And with time… perhaps she would claw her way back to it.

Time would tell, and nothing else.

When the final stroke of the feather carved its way into Wren’s skin, the girl exhaled one last, fragile breath.

Freya gave a single nod.

The valkyrians lifted Wren’s body with reverence and returned her to the River of Resurrection.

As soon as her skin met the water, the runes ignited in brilliance, the milky ink bleeding into the stream until the river itself shimmered like a thread of woven pearl.

Wren’s body glowed with it, suspended in the current like a relic kissed by moonlight.

The others withdrew, for what remained was not a spectacle, but a still and quiet thing.

Freya settled upon the temple steps, the only witness to what came next.

She watched as the glowing form lay motionless in the water, the current coaxing breath back into lungs that had long since fallen silent. Sometimes, the process demanded days. For others, it required mere hours.

And sometimes…

Freya’s thoughts drifted.

Sometimes, they did not return at all.

Time slipped by, and still the girl did not stir.

Perhaps she never would. Not all were meant to rise.

Some souls, fragile or unwilling, slipped through the river’s fingers like sand.

They would lie beneath its surface, waiting until at last the valkyrians understood that the moment had come to let them go.

And send them, gently, into the next world.

Freya departed and returned the next day, hope blooming within her chest, hope that she might find Wren Wynter standing tall, water cascading from her reborn form like silver threads.

But the wolverian girl remained as she was, slumbering still beneath the crystalline waters of the river.

So Freya left once more, and again she came back.

Time, as it often does in places touched by gods, slowed to a languid crawl. Days bled seamlessly into weeks, yet the girl did not stir.

Perhaps Kage Blackburn had been mistaken. Perhaps Wren had chosen not this path of rebirth, but the sweet release of oblivion. Perhaps death, to her, had seemed a kinder fate than waking without memory, without the ones she loved.

Still, Freya returned to the temple day after day. Her faith never waned. She stood at the river’s edge, eyes fixed upon the girl sleeping beneath its sacred current, waiting for the flicker of breath, the flutter of an eyelid. But Wren did not wake.

Eventually, duty pulled Freya back inland, where the world teetered ever closer to ruin.

The valkyrians would soon be ready to intervene—slow as ever, locked in endless debate, casting votes and pondering fates as kingdoms unravelled.

They were measured and methodical in their judgments, determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. And yet, Freya frowned at such delays.

The last time they had hesitated, a century had passed in ruin.

Still, she could not help but relish the unraveling threads of the world. She was close now, so very close to clawing her beloved children from Hades’ grasp. The chaos was necessary. The suffering, a means to an end.

Freya did not wish to return to the island, nor to the temple carved from stone and memory.

For she knew what she would find. A valkyrian, face sombre, would meet her at the steps to whisper what she already feared.

That Wren Wynter had not returned. That the river had claimed her, and she had been sent on to Niflheim, to rest where no breath reached.

Freya would have to accept it.

And Kage Blackburn... it would shatter him. The news would be his undoing.

Freya would be the one to tell him. She rather liked the prince of shadows—so quiet, so steeped in rage and sorrow. She had tried for him. She had offered her best.

But her best, it seemed, had not been enough.

Now, it would be his turn to honour the bargain.

Whether or not his heart could endure it.

Freya felt the change the moment her feet touched the island’s earth once more.

As her boots struck the ground, her gaze lifted to meet the silent glances exchanged between valkyrian warriors, glances that spoke volumes though not a word passed their lips.

She patted her loyal brown mare, a creature of grace and fire, and without pause hurried towards the temple, her heart already braced for what she knew she would find.

She wanted to snarl at them, those sisters of hers, for the way they looked at her, as though bearing a secret she already feared to hear aloud.

But then she stopped. And all breath left her.

There, standing in the sacred river, framed by the soft lilt of twilight and the hush of eternity, was a girl cloaked in glowing runes, her skin alight with milk-white ink that shimmered like starlight.

The markings pulsed faintly, whispering power, ancient and divine, and lit the sky with their brilliance.

She resembled Wren Wynter with the soft lines of her face, the proud curve of her jaw, but that girl was no more.

This was no wolverian princess.

She had no name, no memory, no crown of past .

She was reborn. A valkyrian warrior, forged in pain, etched in power, kissed by the River of Resurrection.

And when her eyes opened at last, eyes that had once known sorrow, love, and fire, they gleamed like the gods had set twin stars within them.

So bright they blinded the world.

THE END