Page 19 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

There was something about the way Freya said it.

A calmness, almost too assured that made Wren pause.

It was not the words, but the way they lingered, heavy with unspoken meaning.

She glanced back, unease prickling along her spine.

Valkyrians were renowned for their might in battle, their unflinching devotion to justice, but there was something else now, something Wren couldn’t quite name.

As she crouched beside the fire, building it from ash and splinters, she kept her eyes on Freya.

The warrior looked much as she always did: tall and broad-shouldered, her long brown hair tied loosely beneath the fur-lined hood she’d been lent at the castle.

Freckles scattered like snowflakes across her cheeks and nose, and her blue eyes burnt with that quiet, determined fire all valkyrians seemed to carry.

Wren had always thought her beautiful—breathtaking, really—but now she watched with a different sort of curiosity, a glimmer of something deeper, something unsure.

‘You’re staring, Wren.’

Wren jolted slightly. She hadn’t realised how long she’d been watching. Freya had seated herself beside the fire, her expression shaded with concern.

‘Got lost in me thoughts, that’s all,’ Wren replied, clearing her throat.

‘Something’s troubling you.’

Wren shrugged, feigning nonchalance. ‘Seems to be da mood of da world these days, wouldn’t ya say?’

Freya tilted her head, her gaze searching. ‘But it’s not the witches that trouble you tonight… is it?’

Wren began to trace idle circles in the earth, her finger carving lazy patterns into the patch of thawed soil where the snow had finally relinquished its grip.

They had stopped at the very edge of her kingdom, where the whiteness of winter gave way to damp, brown ground and the cold no longer bit quite so fiercely.

Here, one could sleep without their bones rattling from the chill.

‘What’s yer land like?’ she asked, voice light and conversational as she deftly sidestepped the question Freya had asked moments earlier.

‘It is a beautiful place,’ the valkyrian replied, her tone softened by memory.

‘Our floating islands are smaller than the rest of the kingdoms, but breathtaking nonetheless. We are sisters, every one of us, and we care for one another as kin. We are more than warriors. We are protectors of the realms.’

‘I’ve heard there ain’t any men.’

‘You’ve heard correctly.’

Wren wrinkled her nose. ‘So how… where do ya all come from?’

‘We are chosen,’ Freya answered, a wistful smile tugging at her lips. ‘By the gods.’

‘How?’ Wren pressed, her curiosity piqued. ‘Do ya remember da moment ya were chosen? Were ya a baby? And if so, where’s yer ma? Yer papa?’

Freya’s smile deepened, though it carried the weight of something ancient.

‘Some are chosen as infants, left upon the steps of our temple by the hands of fate. We never know where they come from, only that the gods have brought them to us. Others are chosen in adulthood, usually on the brink of death. The gods offer them a second chance. They are taken to our sacred waters, and there, their past lives are washed away. Their faces soften, the markings of their origin fade. Whether Fae, drakonian, wolverian…It no longer matters. From that moment on, they are valkyrian.’

‘So no valkyrian remembers their life from before?’ Wren’s brows drew together in thought.

Freya shook her head gently. ‘No. The sacred waters cleanse us of memory. It is part of the rebirth.’

Wren frowned. ‘So… if I hated me life bad enough and wished real hard to be taken away… would da gods just snatch me u p and plonk me at yer temple gates?’

‘Not quite,’ Freya replied, thoughtful. ‘It’s not about wishing.

The gods only come to those whose bravery has been proven in life, who have faced suffering with courage.

Those about to cross into death who are, for whatever reason, deemed worthy of something more.

The rest…’ she hesitated, ‘the rest are taken to Niflheim.’

Wren shuddered at the name.

Niflheim. The Underworld.

Every kingdom had its own tale for such a place, though the valkyrians and the wolverians shared many of the same beliefs. Even so, Wren had never truly wanted to believe in it. The idea of being dragged down by cruel gods into endless darkness was not one she liked to dwell on.

‘Were ya a babe when ya became a valkyrian?’ she asked, eager to chase away the lingering dread.

‘No,’ Freya said quietly. ‘I was grown.’

Something in Freya’s gaze shifted. Her blue eyes, once full of fire, dimmed to embers.

‘I was married in my old life. I had two beautiful children. I thought I was content, that I was loved. But it was all a lie. My husband… he didn’t love me.

His heart belonged to another he could never have, and I was the consolation.

I tried to be what he wanted. I tried to fill the void she’d left behind, but nothing I did was ever enough.

I loved him so deeply that it became unbearable.

It was as though he was the very air in my lungs, and without him, I couldn’t breathe. ’

Freya’s hands clenched into fists.

‘One night, I tried to end it all. I walked into the river and let the current take me. But the gods didn’t let me die. They pulled me from the edge and brought me to the Kingdom of Air. There, I was reborn. ’

Wren sat in silence, her breath caught in her throat. Rarely had she heard a tale so raw, so tender and tormented all at once. Her pale eyes searched Freya’s face, wide with a quiet awe. There were a thousand questions circling her tongue, and yet the only words she found were simple and true.

‘I’m sorry that happened to ya, Freya.’

They prepared for sleep in silence, the fire crackling low as the stars blinked above. Freya lay on the hard earth and drifted easily into slumber, her breath even and calm. But Wren remained still, watching her through narrowed eyes.

A single question coiled in her mind like a serpent. Freya had spoken of her past. She had remembered the pain, the betrayal, the river. But if valkyrians were stripped of all memory when they were reborn…

How, in the name of the gods, did Freya remember?