Gry gasped as Aslaug applied a poultice to her leg. It stung almost as bad as it smelled. Closer to shit than any healing draft she'd ever used. Didn't dull the pain nearly enough too, just like the old Völva wanted, keeping her helpless.

“Do not retreat from the pain,” Aslaug said, earning a scowl from Gry.

“I'm no craven!”

Aslaug huffed and slapped more of the brown stinking poultice on Gry's neck. “I didn't say you were. Anyone would have done what you did. No shame in it, but walking the astral realm will have you dead for certain in battle.”

“It was an accident,” Gry said but while true, it felt like a lie.

The agony of a vargr wolf's bite had been a new kind of suffering. Their spittle had been like acid, burning while sharp teeth tore at flesh. There had been so much blood and like every other time she was in battle, Gry had seen it first through the sight.

The beasts would have ripped her to pieces. The vision sent bile into her throat, but then came not an image, but an understanding, a prescient insight as Aslaug called such unspoken truths gifted by the sight.

Gry knew what she had to do to survive. She'd throw the hatchet knowing it would split the first wolf's skull, so it wouldn't tear out her throat in an instant.

The tactic had worked, or perhaps Gry just did what she knew would keep her alive as surely as the sun would rise. Felt like she was possessed, her body moving all on its own once she'd made the choice and the consequences that had been inevitable.

Her leg would be a sacrifice.

The second vargr wolf came low, biting down just before Gry's burning dagger sliced across its snout. It yelped, releasing her, but pounced an instant later crashing into her like a galloping horse.

She hadn't seen what happened next and might have faltered if she did. The wolf bit down, its teeth stabbing into her neck as her blade sunk into its brain. The rest had been a blur of pain and terror.

“Astral projection is an aspect of the sight,” Aslaug said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. The Völva was annoyed, good, she wasn't the only one. “If you're capable of it without guidance, I'll need to teach you more and faster than I've been."

“So, magic?” Gry asked.

“No. I'll teach you of the other worlds and their dangers. You were lucky a wraith or some other ghostly being didn't snatch your soul for a meal."

“No,” Gry said, crossing her arms.

“No, what?”

“No, I'm not learning of the other worlds. I want to turn a man's luck. I want to blind my foes. I want to fucking make another burning dagger! I want magic!” Gry spat, a glob of spittle landing inches from Aslaug. “But you want to make me a skald, teach me Midgard isn't flat and of ancient kingdoms that don't matter!”

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Aslaug laughed, the first time Gry had seen her do so in her life. “Where should the tribe's next hunting ground be?”

By the fucking tree, the woman had gone mad.

“Why would I know that?” Gry huffed.

“You'll need to. The Jarl and his Thanes won't know. They don't know anything. Just little men, every one of them, only concerned with fighting and spreading as many legs as they can. I keep the tribe alive, girl, and it's your turn now.”

“Then teach me magic.”

Aslaug's laugh grew more shrill like the cawing of crows. “You aren't ready for magic and might never be. I wasn't, and paid a heavy price.”

“What price?”

“I'm old aren't I,” Aslaug said after a heavy pause.

Gry didn't quite agree. The Völva wasn't old, she was ancient. Her hair was a bushel of white, skin wrinkled and spotted, and eyes milky with age. If she survived for another five winters, Gry would be surprised.

“49 winters,” Alsaug continued. “Not that much older than the Jarl.”

“Troll shit. You must be twice that.”

Aslaug laid her back against the wall, suddenly looking older than ever. “Like I said, all magic comes with a price. Odin hung himself on the branch of the world tree, a sacrifice of himself to himself for power. What have you sacrificed?”

“But the other tribe's Völva, they aren't-”

“Old. No, they aren't, because they had good teachers and strong mediums where I did not.”

The Völva pulled a dagger from her belt. Its curved blade was black with a hilt that seemed to be blackened bone. Runes dotted its surface, but none the like Gry had ever seen.

“This is my medium,” Aslaug said, holding the dagger out.

Gry reached for it, dropping the weapon from a rush of terror that came over her as her finger brushed its surface. Its point stuck in the ground and immediately, the wood began changing color, splitting, dying right before her eyes.

Aslaug snatched the dagger up before the blight was larger than a man's palm. “It's called Necro. Came into my possession many winters ago, before you were even born.”

Gry swallowed, palming her own enchanted dagger as if to ward off the corrupted thing in front of her. “What does it do?”

“Any man killed by it becomes a draugr, fire or sunlight be damned. It's why I never draw it, but I still cast magics through it, pulling on the foul vaettir inside for power. You can do the same with your own dagger.”

Gry looked at her own dagger. What could she do with it, light a man ablaze with a look? All Aslaug seemed to do with her power was ward off the cold for a time, and the Necro seemed to pulse with power while the flaming dagger merely sputtered.

“You're most like to light yourself a flame if you attempt magic through that blade,” Aslaug continued. “I didn't have a teacher to tell me this, and so my first true casting left me thrice my age. And even after finding Necro, pulling from it too heavily has left me vulnerable to possession in the past. Ripped open a man's neck and drank his blood before casting the vaettir out.”

Gry dropped her dagger like the thing was about to burn her. “It can possess me!”

“Yes,” Aslaug assured. “Most magics can, which is why you need to learn of the other world and of many other things to help the tribe. I don't have long now to live and there are so many secrets to pass on, the most important being our Jarl and what I know you saw in the astral realm.”

Gry didn't want to say the words, had denied what she'd seen as a trick of the sight, but she was sure now. “The troll.”