“What’s that supposed to mean? Hey, I’m talking to you!”

Maya paced after the witch. Wrapping her arms around their necks, the Draugr servants carried their master deeper into the cemetery. The Völva ordered the zombies to walk faster. Maya was relentless in her pursuit.

“I’m talking to you!” Maya shouted.

“And I said you should leave!” spit the witch as she ordered the Draugr to turn. Her green mist spewed out of her mouth. Her eyes glowed in rage. She pointed with her rod at Maya. “I order you to go back home before you regret things. Leave, forget about the Valkyrie!”

The mist was Seidr. Magic practised by witches and taught by their Patron Goddess, Freyja. Seidr could manipulate perception, laws of nature, bring back the dead, cure wounds or heal ailments.

By all means, it wasn’t perfect, but it was still powerful. “Yet why doesn’t it work on you!?” the witch gritted her teeth. Maya waved the mist away and pressured further.

“I’m not leaving without her!” Maya persisted. “Where is she?”

The Völva subconsciously ordered her Draugr to step back. Maya was nothing but a powerless mortal, yet she stood her ground against the witch and her undead. She knew there was nothing that could make Maya back down.

“Fine,” relented the witch in her actual voice. “You won’t leave without your girlfriend, no? Come with me then.”

No need to tell it to her twice. Maya followed the witch closely, disregarding the zombies as they growled at how close she came to them. The Völva ordered her warriors to quicken their steps.

They arrived at a wide clearing free of tombstones but crowded with the undead.

Maya had to stop in her tracks when she saw Val restrained against a slabbed stone pillar. White wisps of light whizzed over Val’s head and gravitated around her and the pillar. Before Val was a giant grave piled up with tombstones the Draugr hauled from the cemetery.

Maya called out to her, “Val!” The Valkyrie noticed her and struggled against the restraints. She doubled her efforts futilely. Maya turned to the witch. “What are you doing to her? What is all this?”

“Power,” replied the witch with a heavy tone that made the Draugr shudder in their work. “Valkyries have a vast reservoir of strength and divinity. They are nearly unbeatable and could bolster my magic. Do you know how dangerous the world is?”

“I- I guess the world is dangerous,” admitted Maya. “Between the current political hot mess, America’s gun violence and my student fees, I am more prone to get hit by a speedster, die from undiagnosed cancer or genetic disease. Trust me, high blood pressure runs in my mom’s family.”

“I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT!” snapped the Völva. One of the Draugr crumbled from her voice. She raised it back and forced it to work. Her angry sneer broke the colour of her lips. “People like you living comfortably in Midgard wouldn’t understand. There are forces you cannot take on without power. And without power, you could lose everything!”

Maya raised her hands defensively. She could have sworn she heard a restrained sob from the Völva as she clutched her thigh.

“I-I won’t say I understand how it feels,” said Maya placatory. “A friend of mine once shared with me how she lost her dream after a freak accident. She was heartbroken. We shared lots of letters, and I wish I knew how to help her. The world can be cruel, but I don’t think taking my friend over there will help make it better. You’ll only take someone away who is important to me.”

“Too bad then,” replied the witch. “Sadly, it will, Maya.”

“How?” asked Maya, noticing the bitterness in the witch’s voice.

“Power,” breathed the witch lowly, “to fight the Earth Giants. For that, I need your Valkyrie.”

“Why her? She’s strong, yes, but she’s not fully up her feet yet,” said Maya, glimpsing over to Val. Her breathing was strained again from her struggles against the restraints. The wisps shot little tendrils over Val’s skin. The Valkyrie sunk in every time they zapped her.

“I tap into her innate strength. Her divinity may be diminished, but I can syphon it from the air using her as a catalyst. Although, I don’t know what will happen to her afterwards. She may die, or-”

“Don’t,” urged Maya. “Please, don’t do this to her,” she begged.

“Heh,” the witch laughed meekly. “Sorry about the talk I forced you on. I hope the tea was at least amicable.”

“Oh, it was awful.” Maya grimaced, sticking out her tongue. “But it helped my stomach at least, so thank you for that.”

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“That’s good,” thought the witch, and pulled her hood tighter over her head. “I never intended to hurt you or expected to meet you here, Maya.”

“Hm?” Maya raised an eyebrow at the strange sense of sentiment from the witch. “Have we met before?”

“No, not directly, and not like this.” The witch then moved her hand inside the bare line of her dress and produced a green envelope with a flowery pattern. “Didn’t expect our first meeting to be like this.”

Maya’s eyebrows rose further in confusion, then turned to dumbfounded realisation. “Fey?”

The witch nodded and bowed her head slightly and with grace. “The one and only. Again, sorry about this.” Fey waved with her hand for two Draugr to apprehend Maya and keep their strength in mind not to hurt her.

Fey advanced with her Draugr towards the cairn. Placing a hand on the large grave, she whispered her Seidr magic into it, bringing the runes on the ground and on the stone she tied to Valkyrie at to glow.

Maya and Val protested, but they could do little against their restraints. Fey laughed as she channelled her Seidr magic and brought the cemetery to rumble.

—✶—

“Ok, that was NOT supposed to end like this,” thought Fey as her newest creation blasted out of the cairn.

First, the ground split. “Sure, that happens.” Then half of her Draugr got incapacitated from the magic discharge. “Not a problem—I can only control so many at once, anyway.”

The cairn started crumbling, and more cracks appeared on the ground. “This is getting a wee bit troublesome, but no worries. As long as no more cracks appear to disrupt the runes-”

Crack.

The first rune of Fey’s magic circle got destroyed by a fissure in the ground. She hastily ordered a Draugr to fix the mess, but it was too late.

The wisps of raw energy containing the Valkyrie’s divinity discharged a violent shockwave. Val’s eyes glowed hot white. She bobbed in and out of consciousness. Fey almost fell to the ground as one of her Transport-Draugr disintegrated.

“Something’s wrong. I have to regain control!” Fey crossed her arms in front of her, opened her palms, and steadied her breathing. Green mist coalesced around her fingers, the fine hair on her arms, and eyelashes. She cast a Seidr spell. “Raido. Kenaz. Naudiz Seidr!”

The wisps screeched and scalded Fey’s skin as all the raw power swirled and zapped around her body. It blew away her hood and revealed her long, curled brown hair and wild green eyes glowing with magic. Her makeup and mascara came undone.

“I can control it.” Fey gritted her teeth. “I’ll control the Valkyrie’s power and get my vengeance on the Giants-”

“GRAAAaAUGH!” The Draugr finally burst out of its stone grave, sending stones and shrapnel flying over their heads.

Maya hit the floor, protecting the head, but Fey was less lucky as her last Transport Draugr disintegrated—shredded to pieces. “Ah,” Fey yelped as her wrist slept against the ground and audibly cracked from the impact.

She had tried to cushion her fall somehow, but her stupid underling just had to crumble in half and throw her off like a startled horse. Fey squirmed on the ground, holding her injured hand as she tried to gather herself from what was happening.

“The ritual was flawless. I’ve set up the runes perfectly and checked the summoning beforehand. There shouldn’t have been any issue with the flow of energy. Is it the Viking itself?”

Dazed, Fey looked up to the new Draugr emerging from the earth. Its earth-shattering cry cracked the ground further open as it tried to dislodge itself from the hole. It was by far her biggest creation yet—a Draugr comparative to a giant in terms of size.

Fey had to use some tricks and experimenting since there was no Viking warrior the size of a two-story building, but she should be able to control it. She should be.

“Warrior from Hel,” Fey shouted through the pain. “Denied of a glorious death and scorned by the Valkyries. For I am your master. OBEY ME!”

The Giant Draugr regarded Fey. Its eyes were glowing a scathing shade of blue. The damaged armour was rusting, and its grey skin decayed. His snow-white beard danced like the canopy of a Winter spruce when it made its way to Fey.

She realised too late it wasn’t listening to her. “Stop, I tell you… stop.” Fey couldn’t run or stand up. Fear overtook her.

It was like last time.

She was walking in her town after practice. Fey was a gymnast and offered to compete in the Olympic Games in a few months. Frankly, she knew she deserved it. Unlike anyone else, Fey dieted and trained daily—before and after school. She had put everything into it.

She also didn’t need to use her Seidr magic to advance her chances. Not like she couldn’t have. She simply didn’t need to. Her mother, like her mother and her mother before her, were witches. Famous witches. All visited by the Goddess Freyja and taught the secrets of the world.

Fey could bend the will of the world to her whim if she wanted to, but she wasn’t more interested than she was in being a gymnast. Then, on that day, Fey met a Giant. She didn’t know why it lurked in that particular corner or what it wanted on that particular day, but that monster had ruined her life and body.

It snapped her right leg like a twig and crushed her bones. It left her in the streets without help to arrive until it was too late. The damage was done and irreparable.

She and her family tried everything to heal the wounds, but they were permanent. Fey would never walk properly again. Her life and career were over. She had prayed to the Goddess every night to heal her leg, but her prayers remained unanswered as her anger towards the Giants grew.

Revenge was now a pipe dream as the giant’s foot hovered above her, ready to crush her prone body. “I just wanted to walk again,” Fey sobbed before the foot came down on her.