Asvoria had been born to this land, the land that had shaped her, but her dreams were no longer welcome here.
Her words remained unanswered, "What we need. . ." she had faltered, knowing the truth would bring every eye onto her. "is to leave."
One of the maidens who had come to fight broke the silence that followed. "Where would we go?"
Asvoria swallowed, shame tinting her cheeks even as she tried to own the decision. She had hoped she would never need to admit it, but the truth could no longer be ignored: she would abandon her family's land, the only home she had ever known, the land entrusted to her line. She would abandon it for her ambitions.
Crops no longer grew as they once had, the population dwindled, and those who remained were quantity, not quality. She could pick the true fighters out on one hand - and would have traded most of them for a single good warrior.
She steadied herself, voice firm. "Jarl Aeneas has offered us a place among his guard. A home where food flows freely. Where survival is no longer a question."
The mention of the Jarl's offer struck Svea. "You'll leave us for him?" she spat, her voice dripping with accusation. Asvoria did not flinch.
Instead, she stood tall. "I would rather die with a sword in my hand than remain here, a farmer who cannot guarantee she'll see the next winter." Her voice was resolute, the finality like a thunderclap sent by the god Thor himself.
The maiden who had first spoken shook her head, disbelief raw. "What will happen to those who stay?"
"You'll truly go? You, flesh of Herja?" Svea demanded, her heart hammering within her chest.
"I believe I am meant to accept this." Asvoria said steadily. If she pretended to believe it then one day she might. "And so, I will. I am not blind to the will of the gods."
The maiden narrowed her eyes, snapping, "Do not presume to speak for the gods, Asvoria."
"As long as I remain here, I will only ever be a farmer." She explained. "And not even one who can ensure she'll live to see her harvest. I am meant to be something greater. When my time comes, I will burn with a sword in my hand, not a clove of garlic."
Once more the maiden repeated her question, her voice smaller now. "What will happen to those of us who stay?"
But Asvoria was done giving answers. Eumelia stepped forward instead. "Why would anyone stay?" she asked coldly, eyes sweeping along the women.
A murmur spread through the group of doubts, accusations, and loyalties clashing. One by one, choices began to emerge. Some were willing to follow Asvoria, others rooted in the history they shared. "I will go with you," one woman said, her voice quiet but resolved.
Asvoria returned this show of loyalty with a small, grateful smile. "Then it's settled. By nightfall, we will know who follows."
Stubborn as ever, Svea, would not allow her to leave so easily. She chased after her, bitter words spilling from her mouth at the taste she could not stomach. "How can you think of leaving? All these women who came here for you. . . for your mother, Herja. . ."
"I know why they came." Asvoria's words cut sharp, though beneath them lived the doubt she refused to show. "But to survive, they must leave."
Svea's jaw clenched. "We can survive here, but we need -"
Asvoria's patience snapped, her jaw mirroring Svea's. "We need to be honest with ourselves. This -" she swept her arm wide, encompassing the dying land, the crumbling future around them - "was my mother's dream, and her mother's before her. It is not ours. We are not bound to their hopes. We can leave, Svea. We can become something beyond the decay."
Bitterness sat on Svea's tongue like a wine pressed from grapes which had been denied the chance to properly age.
"How you bow would disgust Herja!"
"Do not speak for her." Asvoria hissed her warning, venom in her voice. Her fist clenched tight at her side, as though she could crush Svea's words into silence. "You knew nothing of her. She was my mother."
Svea's breath caught, her chest tightening at the sting of the words. She felt them settle deep in her bones, into the cracks of old wounds. Her lips trembled as she met Asvoria's unforgiving gaze. "Then you will be the one to disappoint her, Asvoria." she whispered, nodding as though to concede to the truth, "in the way only a daughter can."
Silence sat between them again, pulsing with years of love and resentment, festering into something neither could name.
Svea's voice fell to a murmur as she turned away. "Do you remember when they left? The women we called the Valkyries. The ones who raised us, trained us. They were everything. We all shared that title, though none more fiercely than Herja. She lived by their rules. She embodied what it was to be one amongst men."
Asvoria nodded, her throat tight. She knew all too well the woman Svea held in such esteem - the woman they all had, even back then. They never saw her cold streak; they admired her for it. Her mother's name was a curse she could not escape, a ghost she could not lay to rest. She wanted to remember alongside Svea, to feel something other than the guilt pressing down on her. She longed to relive the pride she had once held for her lineage. But even now she knew it was slipping away, dying on the vine like the land itself.
"I remember," Asvoria said softly, her words almost like a confession.
It was not lost on Svea that at Asvoria's side, her hand was clenched in a fist.
Then her eyes hardened. "And when you came to us. . . you were nothing more than a thrall." A slave.
"Never yours, Asvoria," Svea spat, her lip curling in disgust. "Never your thrall, despite your fascination." She would never forget the endless days Asvoria had pressed her for details about her time as a thrall but never about the days before it. Even now, Asvoria could reduce her to that time in her life when she had been valued below a loaf of bread, as if the brand on her skin didn't do it already.
Even now, Asvoria couldn't admit aloud that she had never known the right questions to ask. She had never met someone like Svea before. She had been fascinated by the scars beneath her skin, the life before Valkvann, but she had been blind to what it meant to live in servitude, to be valued only for the labor of your hands. All she had wanted was to feed her hunger for every sordid detail. The brand on Svea's body was a mark Asvoria had never fully understood, and never wanted to. Yet there they stood: two women bound by fate, by hatred, by love, standing in the shadow of a future that had once promised greatness - and the giant who had done his best to steer them there.
The worst of their words hung in the air, heavy as stones, raw and unspoken, pressing down upon them like the sky itself. It was the kind of silence that outlasts battlefields, the kind that lingers when the blood has dried and the land has grown empty. A silence that would rage on between them, a war neither blade nor shield could ever resolve, long after the land itself was dust and forgotten by men.