Malik and Alexandria are bedecked in matching Oni silk robes and bear fur cloaks as they nibble on toast, with Malik lazily draped over Lexa’s athletic lap. She is a head and hand taller than him, even on the days he wears boots. The husband and wife duo are talking in a dear lover’s fashion as Matilda serves them ginger tea.
Lussi’s black coffee from the Ifrit lands of bloodsoil and volcanic heat bubbles over a flame, and my maté from across the Iron Ocean from the continent of the southern Unktehi is tangy, spiced with cinnamon. The table sits under a veranda on the high walls of Lussi’s Ice Palace, overlooking the Bay of Seething. The pavilion is heated by geothermal pools that bubble up in waterfalls in quartz bowls in order to heat us. Salty drafts from the ocean breeze in. The glaciers unfurl like hills of milk, and the Northern Lights of Skahdi’s Bow still dance like thieves in the early morn across a pink sun.
“S
A strange tide awakens me as Lussi snoozes til midday, his arms possessively clutched around me.“Huh? Whastat?Static wet and deep as Rahab’s abyss seems to reach out to me from the ether, across the ages, and jolts my lion garnet cabochon ring into a fizzled tremor.Groggy, I rub my eyes, shaking my hand like a geriatric monkey as it stings.Confused and perturbed, I do not know what to expect:A strange woman stands at the balustrade of our bridal chamber, out on the widow’s walk over the wide pavilion and frozen ice gardens. She has snow owl wings, icy blonde hair, and grass green eyes. She is adorned in traditional Peri attire, and a seaweed dark, venomous serpent’s tail twitches below her naked waist.Her skin is dark olive, in stark contrast to her burning green eyes and light, sun-bleached hair.I balk. A Peri? In my bedroom?I attempt to speak, but no words
“Lilith!” I cry out, awaking in my bed from the strangest of dreams. Lussi is watching me in bemusement, but there are molten glitter salt trails on his eyes – meaning he had one of his night terrors, from back when Eleleth used to torture him, in order to “fortify” his son. Lussi may sacrifice himself during Harrowings to Lady Lashtung in order to secure his kingship, but Eleleth preferred to sire a sacrificial, cursed scion on Rahab’s watery breast for the sole purpose of bearing the Harrowing for him.Lussi startles. “You speak of the Fates?”“We call them the Norns, in Laushtian.” I rub sleep grit from my eyes, unable to remember anything but the words “Unsung Hero”, “War,” and… and… and?The taste of lemons. No, it was, lips like limes. No, a peach tart! A madrigal kiss?“Ugh!” I cry out, stuffing my face into the pillows. “I hate dream
“Dia, calm down, collect yourself! You’re literally burning alive in my arms,” Lussi frets, concerned, as he lands in the ice garden in the royal courtyard. Diamond Vidagol pears and crystal fruits grow, tender to the taste in this orchard of beauty and sorrow.“I hate you and Lexa’s parents,” I seethe. “Not one goddamn immortal has ever parented well. If – if we had kids, if Malik and Lexa had kids – we’d be different. We’d love our bairns and sing them songs of moondrop fairy lullabies and give them all the treasures of the world. I don’t care if you’re a tyrant to some – you’re a fair ruler. And I’m sick of mock murdering you.”I walk a pace away from him and sit by the Norn’s fountain, with Lilith, Eisheth, and Agrath carved in Triplakon, giving Chavah’s fruits out in watery spouts of offerings.I dab at my eyes in anger. I am w
After what seems like an eternity of torture at Eleleth’s hands, we split apart, fully dressed and reformed, my violet fire having simmered down to a slow burn. Lussi kneels, sobbing.“I did not want you to see that. What have you done, Dia?” he cries. “Every Harrowing, you must now endure my travails.”I fiercely yank him up into my arms, and hold him so tight, around his waist and wings, I could break him with the gristle of my biceps. “What kind of godsdamned wife would I be to let you endure that alone?” I comb his flaxen hair, take a bit of rose oil from my pocket and rub it into his horns. He smiles softly as I wipe his tears away, wrapping his wings around us. “Lussi, my love, let’s go hunt the damned white hart.”We fly to Barri Woods, our marital birch grove where we met as blushing virgins on our wedding night. We scout the snow for tracks of the elusive white harts that live here. Lussi has h
“These books don’t yield their damned secrets, do they?” Lussi sighs, in an ice blue suit with gold embroidery and ruffled white undershirt. I am in a ribbon-dotted tiered cherry blossom pink dress with crinoline like a princess’ wedding cake. I wobble in my white high heels as I carry a stack of books – we had to dress up for Matron Lucifuge to grant us access to her library, not in “roguish hunting gear, but outfits befitting a King and Queen.”Lussi steadies me, smiling softly, then lifts me and the books into a seat by the bay window that looks out onto the ice gardens and Seething Sea. The waters foam, waves crashing into salty spray against seaweed spires as the Midnight Sun lights the library with pristine fire through the frosted pane.“This could give us an advantage, Dia,” he murmurs as he pushes my seat over, leaning over me on his huldra legs, tail wrapping around my ankle.I sigh remorsefully, an
Thick ebon blood boiled in the veins of the Troll Queen, black as congealed tar.The Beast's curse was bearing fruit.Queen Jarngrimr of the Sorrows waited on the frosty tip of Utgardr's tallest mountain, her steed - a blue roan marked with a white death mask, the gallows itself incarnate - whinnying as the Troll Queen's awaited visitor hiked past the mountain laurel and fir, the girl's stang helping with her belabored, fitful steps."I am here, dearest Jarnja. I brought you Lady Freida's most sacred treasure, stolen from the sanctum of her hall Folkvangr in Valhalla for a terrible price. It is all for you, in return for protection for my three children. This cursed rose is my only possession after this godsdamned truce, sweet Jarnja of the Sorrows, daughter of Wotan the Raven and Sithgunt the Seeress, guardian of the Isa tribe of my land of the midnight sun. Please. I have nothing left to give but the petals of this godsvow."The princess
As I stand in the Beast's rose garden, years down the line, I remember my first love. The thorns are aflame, the sky is scorching, and my heart is torn in twain:Between the Troll Queen, and my first love, once mortal, now a handmaiden of the warrior goddess.This is how my tale begins:We were sixteen summers old, but time for me, and my soon to be Valkyrie, was never enough.We strayed to the banks of the Maroon Sea Bay by midnight, my best friend and true heart's companion, the stable lass Yolanda, glimmering under Mani's moonlight like a Valkyrie of Mother Freida the Wanderer's own dauntless making. She was chosen by the Goddess for glory, after all.My sweetheart, the Lady of Love and Luck's fierce devotee, was bold and free and wild as she rode aback her stallion like a sunburst striking the gods' rainbow bridge of Bifrost, high in the stars above.Yolanda's long, wild, velvet black hair was a curling bear's man
That was the night - the first rosy night that my Beast began to call on me, and never, ever, ever did my monstress queen cease drawing me down submerged in to her unholy, trollish web.Now, I am never alone.By the candlelight after Skadhi had carried me to my room, me unable to stand, I slit my wrists that gloaming, my prayers to dead mama, Queen Aslaugh, unanswered.I could not give up the ghost. No, I was the Troll Queen's draugr – an undead scion, cursed. Now, I was of the zombie armies that had eaten father's berserkers alive.A grave of a girl. Belonging to none other than Jarngrimr of the Sorrows from mother's ill-fated curse, last of the Cunningfolk witches.The Beast peered back at me in my looking glass, the Troll Queen's red dead eyes cold and lustful. She smirked, a yellow fang agleam as she watched me with wicked delight and decrepit fascination.I picked at the black, black clots of blood, ignorin