Chapter 2

The roaring laughter of the Einherjar—the fallen warriors who now feasted for eternity—sounded like distant thunder through the veil of my death. I drifted closer to the high table, a ghost at my sisters triumph, watching my mother gently smooth a stray golden lock behind Freyas ear. That simple, tender gesture cut deeper than the fangs of the Garm-brood ever could.

My mother had never touched me like that. To touch Greta was to invite the ash of bad omens into her pristine life.

I hovered near the heavy stone pillars, my smoky, midnight wings curling around myself like a funeral shroud. Looking at Freya, so radiant and untouched by the harshness of the world, unleashed a flood of memories I had locked away in the deepest dungeons of my mind. It wasn't just the golden spear. It was a thousand tiny cuts, a lifetime of being the shadow cast by her brilliant light.

I remembered our fourteenth winter, when the Great Frost settled over our mountain estate. As Valkyries-in-training, we were required to undergo the Vetr-Nótt—the Winter Night trial. We were to fly to the highest peak, gather a single bloom of the frost-lotus, and return before the blizzard took the sky.

Freya had struggled with the updrafts. Her golden wings, though beautiful, were broad and caught the heavy winds like sails. I, accustomed to fighting the weight of my dense, dark feathers, sliced through the storm with ease. I reached the summit first. I braved the biting ice, plucked the lotus, and even flew back down to catch Freya when a sudden gust nearly sent her spiraling into the jagged crevasses below. I practically carried her back to the warmth of the hearth.

When we presented the frost-lotuses to our father, he didn't look at my pristine, perfectly preserved flower. He looked at Freyas crumpled, half-frozen petals.

"Look at the resilience of the golden prophecy,"he had whispered, his eyes gleaming with tears as he took Freya's hands. "To face such a storm with wings made for the high sun, and still return victorious. You are truly Odins chosen."

When I stepped forward, holding out my own lotus, my mother had merely frowned at my dark feathers, which were dusted with snow.

"You are built for the dark, Greta. It is no feat for a creature of shadow to survive a storm. Go clean the soot from your feathers; you look like a scavenger bird."

No praise. No recognition that I had saved their golden child from breaking her neck on the rocks. I had gone to the aviaries and wept into the straw, wondering why doing better always meant being worth less.

Then there were the banquets. Valhalla loved its court poets, the Skalds. Every year, a Skald would come to compose verses for the youth of the noble houses. Freya would sit on a velvet stool, her golden wings fanned out like a sunrise, while the poet strummed his lute and sang of the "Shield-Maiden of Light"who would conquer the twilight of the gods.

I was always made to sit behind the heavy tapestries, out of sight, because my mother claimed my dark presence would "ruin the meter of the verse."

Once, when I was ten, I had tried to sneak into the light to hear the music better. The Skald had paused, his eyes widening at the sight of my midnight plumage.

My mother had laughed a hollow, tight laugh, quickly stepping between us. "Pay no mind to that one, master poet. She is merely the afterbirth of the prophecy. Write of the gold."

The next morning, my velvet tunic was gone, replaced by coarse, dyed wool. We must practicalize your wardrobe, Greta,my mother had said coldly. Bright colors only emphasize the dirt in your wings.

I looked down at my translucent hands, floating in the grand hall of Valhalla. Even now, dead and free of physical pain, the injustice burned. I had trained twice as hard, run twice as fast, and studied the battle runes until my eyes bled, all for a crumb of the affection they showered on Freya for simply existing.

At the high table, Freya laughed, raising her golden mead horn. The replica of Gungnir caught the torchlight, throwing bright, blinding reflections across the room.

Just a voice emerged from the top of the throne. It was Odin himself.

I heard you gave birth to the twins that night. Where is the other one?