His commander choked on air. “Oh, you have pet names now? Gods below, I liked it better when she despised you.” Seela rolled her eyes. “Stiarna!”She mocked. Vali only smiled at her back as she walked away from them.
“Don’t mind her,” he said.
“I never do.” Ailsa offered him a feigning smile before taking a long swig of her full tankard. The motion sent her off balance, staggering to the side and suddenly becoming very lightheaded. “Burning Hel, is it getting hotter?” She clawed at the neckline of the dress, suddenly feeling smothered and her skin set on fire despite the cover of shade. Heat washed from her head to her feet, pooling in her bloodstream.
“What is happening?” Ivor spoke as Ailsa fell to her knees. The wolven caught her before she ate the dirt.
Ivor dragged her deeper into the forest and placed her on the cool earth, but it did nothing to cease the heat. It was like she had been placed inside a furnace and it was scorching hotter by the second. Her fingers fumbled with the laces of the bodice, desperate to be free of the bindings cinching tighter around her waist. Her breath came through noisy gasps, sinking the skin beneath her collarbones as every muscle in her chest pleaded for air.
“Get it off!” Ailsa managed to scream.
Vali didn’t hesitate. He snatched the dagger from her belt and used the blade to split open her bodice and form slits in the sleeves to rip apart with his fists. He slipped the dress free from her body until she was in nothing but her undergarments.
“Odin’s fucking eye,” Vali mumbled as he watched her skin come to life. New runes were being branded into her skin. An invisible paint brush stroked red lines across her chest before glazing a flaming orange. Ailsa writhed against the earth, unable to take a deep enough breath to verbalize her pain into screams. Not enough fluid in her body to form tears.
“What do we do?” Ivor said, noticing the fresh runes.
Ailsa in her agony only knew she had to get rid of the marks. She needed to stop this hot iron digging into her flesh and searing through her existence. Although the markings were carved into her chest, she felt the pain bleed into every pore of her skin.
She was burning alive, but the flames were inside her.
She snatched the blade from Vali’s hand and staggered away from them, crawling on her hands and knees to hide within the shadows of the trees. Ailsa brought the tip of the dagger to the newest rune still being formed and sliced through the intricate triple swirl. The incision ruined the symbol, and her blood quenched the branding heat.
Until another one started the pain all over again.
She sliced the fresh one burning over her stomach, this time cutting deeper than her desperation.
“Ailsa!” Vali shouted as he watched her practically butcher herself. But as soon as the agony ceased from the interrupted rune, another one started. No matter how many slices she made across her skin, whoever was doing this was determined to keep it up as long as she had bare skin available.
She dug her hands into the earth and looked up at the trees as if they could help her. She begged them to stop this, to hide her.
“Help me,” she mouthed. The forest answered.
The blood must be willing.
A crow flew down and perched on a low hanging branch, watching her struggle with its veiled gaze.
“Who’s doing this?” Seela spoke somewhere behind her, worlds away.
Warm blood trickled down her arms, and she staggered to her feet to approach the bird where it perched. It was like the day in the woods when she was lost, the black crow watching her, guiding her back to the right path. Ailsa stumbled toward the tree and reached to steady herself.
The moment her bloody hand touched the smooth ash, her vision was swallowed by darkness.
She awoke inside a dream, or the fabrications of one. The place her spirit had manifested was far beyond the place and time of the Tree. The space where nothing lived and yet where everything was born. On one side, a world of fire and lava. On the other, and a frosted landscape of mist and ice.
The First Realm.
Ailsa stood between them, the birthplace of life itself. Her mind was there, but her body had not followed. She didn’t recognize the form she controlled as it hurtled through the vision, operating on its own accord. This form was bare, singed as if she had just crawled from the ashes of a bonfire.
She has returned to us,a voice whispered from the void beyond where she stood. The voice from the Tree.
Risen from the ashes a final time.
Her blood is not willing.
It can be convinced.
“Hello?” she said with a tremble, shaking her voice. The voices hushed like they’d been caught in a private conversation. “Where am I?”