Although Valkvann had expected Asvoria's departure to fall upon the coldest day of the season, the morning proved merely brisk - as though the gods themselves had chosen mockery over mercy. Svea thought it must have been a jest from Loki, the sly trickster whose laughter ran too often at her expense. How fitting, she brooded, that the air should bite just enough to mirror the frost in my heart, yet not nearly enough to numb it. Her resentment for Asvoria's decision burned too hot. There was no safe haven for the sorrow it brought.
Laying silently on their rocky shore were the sleek boats the group would take with them. Their hulls were dark against the pale stones. They waited, preparing to devour what remained of the village by dividing their forces. The ships bellies were already heavy with supplies: salted fish, barrels of ale, bundles of fur. Amongst these necessities were simple trinkets - a scattering of carvings, polished stones, worn brooches - all talismans of the memory that would soon drift away with the tide, as surely as their owners. What proof would remain that they had ever lived there?
The women gathered on the hill above, a solemn jury of wind-tossed figures, gazing upon their home for what could very well be the final time. Both village and sea stretched ahead of them to either side. Nature waited.
Svea's eyes sought Agathe, the woman Asvoria had chosen to inherit her title. A farmer who had never arrived to battle beside any of us when raiders struck, who bears no scar of shield or spear. How could she leave Valkvann to someone who couldn't care less for the safety of those who remain?
Agathe was no shieldmaiden; this much had been long known. She was built broad and sturdy, a woman fashioned not for war but for furrowed earth or hauling sacks of grain. Her hands were rougher than a warrior's, the nails forever rimmed with the black memory of fields. A goat's charge in childhood had bent her nose slightly askew; her hair remained untamed, defying every attempt made to tame it. Her voice was low, unassuming, the kind easily smothered in a room thick with chatter.
And yet, something about her existed which Svea herself could not deny. Some quiet spark of kinship that gained her the support of others, relating to them easily. It must be the freckles. Svea decided. This was her justification, at least. Those freckles which had been scattered across Agathe's face as though a careless painter had flicked his brush upon her skin, the same brush with which he daubed the poor fields she tilled. They gave her warmth, a mark in a life otherwise lost to the endless churn of season and harvest. They allowed her to create a connection with the majority. In a way, they were her only claim to individuality. Agathe's freckles made her face hers. That was enough.
Still, Svea couldn't help how unsettled she felt. How could a woman like Agathe possibly bear the weight of leadership? Perhaps it was the same unassuming charm that eased the others that had swayed Asvoria's choice. Or perhaps, Svea thought darkly, this is just another of Loki's tricks. Asvoria would never leave her ancestral lands to a stranger, one who cannot and will not fight to defend them. Even if it's not to me, there are better choices.
Wind rose from the sea, carrying with it the saltiness of the water and the faint sound of waves lapping against the boats below. Svea clenched her fists at her side. The fate of Valkvann's daughters now rested in hands roughened by soil rather than by sword. They would now deny what had always been. If the gods laughed, she prayed never to hear it. She wouldn't be able to bear it.
Agathe knelt upon the hilltop, head bowed, her forehead near the earth as though drawing strength from the land she was about to claim. Around her, the gathered women of the village stood silent. As one for the last time.
Asvoria stood before her with sword in hand, the same blade that had carved its path through countless battles. Its edge had been honed to a sheen that hadn't been seen in years, yet Svea knew Agathe's gaze was caught not by the steel, but by the weight of what it meant.
"Agathe of Valkvann, child of Freyja," Asvoria's voice carried steady and strong, bound by the gravity of the ritual. The words were old, heavy with the weight of their foremothers, with the blessing of seers and the memory of oaths sworn in the goddess Freyja's name.
Once, Asvoria had thought she would recite them only when a daughter of her own came of age; now she gave them to a farmer she barely knew.
"Do you come of your own will, to accept this land as yours? Do you accept the charge the seers have foretold and blessed?"
"I have," Agathe said with her voice clear, her dark eyes fixed longingly onto the blade. She was no creature of greed, yet ancient power stirs the heart of all who draw near it.
Asvoria swallowed, and spoke again: "Do you swear to do whatever it takes to make this land prosper? To guide the souls who wander within it? To lead these daughters of Freyja with honor, honesty, and courage?"
"I do." Her voice held firm, though Asvoria heard the faintest tremor beneath, the echo of what she herself had felt when the burden first fell upon her unready shoulders. Agathe was a woman, grown. Asvoria had barely seen fourteen winters when she had inherited the title.
Turning, Asvoria called: "Svea, Eydis. Step forth."
They obeyed. They stood a step behind Agathe on either side.
"You two have been chosen as guardians of this village. I entrust its safety to you. Do you accept the charge. . . to uphold Valkvann as a sanctuary for those who have none?"
"We do," they answered, voices striking the air like the clash of steel. Herja had once told them that a warriors' life passed through the stages of their weapons. Svea believed this was a sign she still walked the first part of her path, her years as the shield.
Asvoria's fingers tightened on the sword hilt, her knuckles pale with strain. Her grip so tight that it seemed to Svea the blade would imprint itself into Asvoria's very flesh. It was the very last time in her life that she would hold it.
Her voice came softer, "Agathe, you inherit this land, its women, and now the sword of Valkvann. It shall be your strength, your burden, and your bond. Do you accept this charge?"
Lifting her callused palms, Agathe nodded slowly. "I do." She uttered the solidifying vows. Once they settled in her mind, her confidence grew, as if the oath she had taken had helped her to discover her resolve.
"With this sword," Asvoria declared, lowering the blade into Agathe's outstretched hands, laying them across her palms. "I give you my blessing, and my prayers to Freyja." The words were simple, yet fell heavy as an anchor dropped into deep water.
Svea's chest constricted.
A farmer now held the blade of warriors.
The land itself seemed to hush, waiting to determine how worthy the new Chieftain truly was.
Rising slowly, Agathe's gaze fixed on the sword that had been presented to her. She ran her thumb along the hilt, her expression unreadable. For the first time, she met Asvoria's blue eyes, inclining her head, "Thank you." She cradled that blade that had come from a long line of warriors.
In the distance, the wind stirred as if to beckon those who had agreed to move to uphold their end. Faint cries of gulls sang along to the whisper of the sea.
The women looked amongst themselves for the last time; neighbors, kin, companions in labor and in war. They knew, each in her own heart, that this gathering would never come again. Some clung to one another in tearful embraces, wrenched apart only by the tide's demands or the hands of other maidens; others exchanged brief farewells, courteous but restrained.
Eumelia boarded first, eager to return home. Then Iona, and the others followed one by one.
At last came the moment of truth: whether Asvoria herself would depart.
In Svea's heart, she still felt that Asvoria wouldn't be able to tear herself from the land, especially not to serve as a guard dog. She watched the way Asvoria lingered, rooted to the soil of her birth, her gaze sweeping over the hills and hall of Valkvann as though she could stitch them into her memory with her eyes alone. The land clutched at her like a child begging its mother not to leave. The hauntings of her past would never leave her be.
Svea couldn't lift her eyes from her, the scene struck too close to her own past.
She remembered another night when she had stood frozen, unable to move forward yet unable to return. Her hands had been slick then, small, trembling with the warmth of blood she had not known she could spill until she had been forced to do so. The sound of it still haunted her - the slow, inexorable drip onto her clothes, louder in memory than her own breath had been. Beyond the door, a guard's voice had muttered with relief at her silence. A mutter that had reminded her she was alone. She did not speak of that night. She never had. Yet as she watched Asvoria's struggle, she thought to herself how the price of freedom was to leave something behind.
At last, Asvoria tore herself from the earth that had once bound her. She had released it to Agathe, perhaps it had done the same. She stepped toward the waiting boats, towards the sea that would carry her into the next part of her journey . She was following a thread spun for her by the weavers of fate long before. For some reason, this upset Svea even more.
As strange as it was, it wasn't so much the memory of the murder that sat with Svea. No. It was the memory of the time she had recounted a part of the tale to her surrogate sister.
"And then we met." The young Asvoria finished, looking over Svea. While she offered a polite smile, the younger could tell she was disappointed with how quickly the story had gone. She hadn't pictured Svea to be capable of killing someone when she, herself, hadn't done so. Not yet. She had grabbed Svea's hand next, inspecting the cut in her hand that the knife had made. "Do you think my mother was guided there only to find you?"
"I do." Svea had confessed.
Now, as adults, Asvoria had chosen to board a ship to find her own freedom; Svea couldn't fault her for that.
"Do you think -" Asvoria began.
Words did not need to be said between them, not after all their years at each other's sides. "I do," Svea assured in return.
Together, they shoved the boat deeper into the surf before Svea stepped back, the salt water tugging at her boots as the vessel slid into the waves. The oars dipped, cutting clean paths across the darkening sea, each stroke carrying Asvoria further from the land of her birth.
Svea lingered on the strand, waiting until their eyes found one another across the widening distance. No words could bridge it, yet none were needed. The sea itself weaved a cord that The Norns, the fates, would happily toy with, one that was farewell and promise all at once.
Land, and sea, even fate itself stretched to divide them.
They were left only with their unbroken gazes.