Content Warning: This novel contains mature themes, including violence, war, and other sensitive subject matter inspired by Viking history and Norse mythology. These elements are integral to the story's world and are not included for gratuity. Reader discretion is advised.
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Burdened by the weight of her grief, Svea's boots sank into the soft snow that covered the path before her - a world in which she had never lived in, one reshaped entirely by loss. Each step, every crunch, stood as a testament to the trials she had endured. A mirror to the heaviness in her heart, a burden she would never shake.
Passing through the threshold of the building where she had dressed in the ceremonial white garment, her face painted with symbols of her struggle - the shapes like upside-down mountains beginning at her eyes, mirroring the direction her tears had once flowed - she bore also the ancient rune of Othilla upon her brows. It sat upon her skin as a silent invocation, carrying the hope that her ancestors would accept the sacrifice she would give them on this day, as well as grant her their presence.
Despite the chatter reverberating through the gathered crowd, which had come to watch the spectacle even if it meant sitting side by side with the captives forced among them, Svea's world became comfortably soundless - at least to her. It had gone quiet, the words of others slipping past deafened ears. After all, there was no consolation they could offer her. Instead, this silence was the first blessing she had received in weeks. It was proof enough, to her, that the gods above had joined to bear witness as she freed herself.
Do you know the one thing more dangerous than a mother who loves her child?
Flickering torches lined the path, guiding the way to the nearly empty platform. Each spark from the flames was the only semblance of life in her eyes - eyes that had once been vibrant but were now drained dry. She could no longer spare a tear, even for the sake of her beloved son.
It was past the daunting fire, past the people, that she haunted now. A ghost of the woman she had once been, learning to navigate a world where her son no longer existed to hang on her words. A life where he no longer waited loyally by their door, where she had to make this walk alone - without him there to witness as she surrendered the remnants of her love for humanity, which she had clung to through all the horrors she had faced. Before her, the path split, opening for her to proceed to her destiny. She spared, at first, only a passing glance for her tied captive: a woman she had condemned to watch her own son's final moments, to see the life drain from his eyes while he held them locked with his mother's.
"Please," the woman croaked sincerely, wisps of oily blonde hair falling loose from where they had been bound, framing her filthy face. The strands were not long enough to reach the shoulders of her tattered clothes. "Please, he is my son. My only child," she pleaded, swallowing without care for the pain that came from her dry throat. She knew her son's life had already been promised to their gods, but it did not deter her determination to stop his fate. Her words cut through the crowd, carrying the raw cry only a mother could give.
Svea's brow rose, her gaze unwavering.
"What of mine?" Svea asked. Her voice was husky - not from nourishment or rest in contrast to the one praying for mercy, but from the grief she carried. It was the same grief, the same tone, that told the petitioning mother her fear had come true: that before her stood someone no longer reasonable. This was not merely a warrior, nor even the woman who had taken her captive. This was a being consumed by loss, surviving only as a shell for vengeance. She did not seek an eye for an eye - she sought the soul.
The mother stood frozen, ensnared by the predatory green glare that refused to break. It was a gaze that could only be sated through the screams of its victims, if even then. Behind it lingered the promise that nothing between the heavens or Midgard could ever make it right.
Even amidst the chaos of Ragnarök - the end of time, the very twilight of the gods - Svea would not budge. She would remain an unyielding pillar, the truest testament to the inevitability of loss and suffering, even as the fiery hell of Surtr engulfed the world gods and men had known.
Ascending the platform, Svea raised her arm high above her head, the sleeve flowering down as silence fell over the crowd. She gestured twice to the Shield Maidens under her command, ordering them to bring forth the young man - barely older than her own departed son.
Urgency filled the mother below. "Take me instead! Please! Spare my son!" she cried, straining against the restraints that kept her from rushing forward. Her very body cried for the chance to hold her son a final time, to offer him comfort in their darkest moment. She tugged until the ropes cut into her wrists, drawing blood that soaked into the fibers. She prayed the gods would see.
Ulfinna, Svea's closest confidant, scanned the crowd from the platform, keeping vigilant watch on the rooftops to ensure no one had infiltrated the village in an attempt to free the captives.
Drums scattered among the platform played to the frantic rhythm of the young man's heart. His last hope sat lodged in his throat. Even through his brave façade, hot tears threatened to spill. Svea could imagine her son had faced the same - but she was certain he had been brave. They hadn't defeated him, and now they would never defeat her. She could keep her head held high, for him. For him, she would.
The young man swallowed as the smallest maiden pushed him forward, not allowing him to linger by his mother. Svea had not been allowed a final goodbye to her son - it was only fair to deny them the same.
Ulfinna stepped forward, nostrils flared, brows narrowed in open contempt. She took him from the other maiden, guiding him to the center of the platform between two wooden posts crafted solely for execution. His arms would stretch out like wings as his wrists rested on the posts. She raised a finger in warning, releasing his wrists only to position him. His gaze darted to his mother, her desperate wails muted by the rush of blood in his ears.
"He is just a boy! He is all I have to my name! Please! Please!" his mother screamed. Her cries hung in the air, carrying disbelief that the Norns could have woven such a fate for them. "My son is innocent! He had nothing to do with any of this!"
Had Svea known her thoughts, she would have answered with her own question: What fate had the Norns woven for all of us?
Ulfinna gave a nod to the curly-haired maiden beside the mother, signaling her to cover the woman's mouth.
He had nothing to do with this? Svea thought bitterly. Was he not loved by you? Born of you, raised by you? Did you not tend his wounds, tuck him in at night, dream of holding his children one day - just as I did? Until you decided his greatest sin was being loved by me? How does your son bear less guilt than mine did?
Svea crouched at his side, grabbing his hair rougher than intended to pull him closer. She pressed her temple to his, sharing words meant for him alone. She had positioned herself so his mother could see his expression change - hope giving way to fear.
"This. . . this is not your fault. I am sorry you have been chosen to atone for the crimes of your mother, but you must," she said quietly. "Be brave. That way, you might be found worthy to sit beside my son in Odin's Great Hall." She whispered as she released his hair, lifted his arms back to the posts, and turned to face the crowd after stealing a quick glance to the tools which had been prepared for the execution.
"It is through the blood and suffering of a mother that a son is brought into the world," she intoned, her hand twitching with the urge to touch her stomach. "Today, it will be because of a mother that a son is taken from the world - through the same blood and suffering that tied them. Just as mine was."
Although the one behind her was male, she could imagine the victim she truly longed to have in his place. She could picture their head dropped to face the ground, how their blonde hair would have to be kept up so the weapon could make easier cuts. When the time came, her fingers would drag down the woman's spine, practicing against the smaller frame's skin, jealous of the axe that would make the true cut against her real enemy.
Tilting her head back, she turned to the sky where she sent her silent prayers to the Aesir; a pantheon of the Norse. Steadying herself when she closed her eyes. Even the drummers paused with bated breath, allowing her to slip somewhere in between their beat. She lowered her chin back down, her gaze fixated on the female prisoner beneath them to ensure she wouldn't look away as Svea traced over the handles of the axe and the cold steel of the knife - both eager to make the first cut.
"Accept this boy, Aesir!" Svea called to the gods.
Lifting the heavy axe, she swung it down with all her might. It broke through flesh to the spine, cracking bone. Blood splattered her face, clothes, and hair. Cracking deeper into him as he grunted, vibrating through his bared chattering teeth as the shock of the attack pulsed through him, his senses tried to understand the trauma as it took place but did not allow for him to cry out.
It was his mother who made the first human sound - shrieking into the maiden's muffling hand as her body thrashed futilely. She tried again to get closer to him, an even stronger urgency brewing as her son's blood splattered onto Svea's face, staining her clothes, hair, and even the wood of the platform. Somehow, it became real.
Svea stepped through the growing pool of thick blood, which dripped over the edge of the platform, in search of comfort from the same woman who shared it - the one who had once bled for his life. Though paired with an unrelenting, hostile glare, Svea's eyes lightened, reflecting a sense of life and purpose that was all her own. Wind caressed the flames of the torches as the people watched, casting shadows that seemed to call him forward. She shifted her gaze to his mother, absorbing the heartbreak spreading through her as she collapsed to the ground. On a nod from Ulfinna, their comrade lifted the mother up again, forcing her to keep her gaze locked on her son's - trying to offer him a feeble comfort, a final gift from his mother.
Gritted teeth hid behind Svea's clenched jaw. She flared her nostrils, trying to catch her breath, then tossed the bloodied axe aside. Shoving her cold hands into the cavity she had carved into his back, she gripped his ribs tightly between her fingers and palms without care if the bone cut into her own flesh. She snapped them back, shattering the ivory cage that protected the vitals in his chest, exposing more and more of him to the winter air and her wrath. Guiding the bones in opposite directions, they pressed against the skin of his open back.
The son's hands went limp, succumbing to the pain. His head fell forward, swaying. Entranced by the same crunch each splintering piece gave - mimicking gravel being ground beneath a boot, a sound the others found nauseating - Svea found peace. It was the sound of destruction: delicate and cruel, the symphony of life undone. But more than that, it was the first step toward righting the wrongs done to her son. It was a second more of drowning out the rest of the world for the quiet space where her son now lived.
She failed to hear the gasp of the crowd as she pulled his ribs further outward until they reached his limbs.
Before them had a young man of nineteen, but with his arms outstretched, his ribs and skin forward just beneath, he had been transformed into something more - into an eagle.
Reaching in for the sacs that had been guarded by the fortress within, she pulled them from the safety of his chest.
In her hands, she held his final breath.
Awaiting the arrival of the sacrifice, the god Odin sat forward in his chair.
"So. . . what was it?" Odin wondered as he watched the scene unfold on Midgard, a darkened look in his single remaining eye as the blood of the sacrifice neared. His voice was worn iron.. "The one thing more dangerous than a mother who loves her child?"
Svea lifted his lungs onto his shoulders for all to see as she relinquished the last shred of her humanity - the final bit of her patience and compassion. In an act of their most sacred execution, the blood eagle, she had created the predator of the skies. But they had made something far worse.
"Bring her to me," she snarled, facing Ulfinna.
Beside the All-Father, his wife Frigg sat forward with a knowing smile, full of the bittersweet love she had once held for her own son - remembering the day she, too, had lost him. It had long been believed that the eyes of a jötunn, a giant, filled the night sky as stars, but today the pantheon knew they were the sparkling tears of Frigg as she remembered:
"A mother who loved them."