An Acorn Set In Flame

Many sagas had been sung of the arrangement of the universe, the ways that it began, the ways that it may end, and the different stories it would tell before it fell back into the nothing from which it had spawned. There were songs of frozen Niflheim, the Primal Realm of Order, and stood across the Ginnungagap—a void which had no bottom, no end, and no purpose save to swallow that which would be unmade within its belly—from burning Muspelheim, itself the Primal Realm of Chaos. Bridging the gap, flourishing in the mingled magic between them, the roots of Yggdrasil, the World Tree twisted with mysterious power, and bore the fruits of the other Realms.

Arrayed around the Realm of Midgard, the material world where mortals worshipped any and all, sat the Realms of Gods—the Aesir and the Vanir—of magic both ethereal and material—the light and dark elves, or faeries and dwarves as they were sometimes known—the kingdom of Giants, called Jotun, and the higher and lower halls of the dead, divided between Valhalla and Helheim. For untold ages, the Nine Realms, linked by the World Tree, had existed in a balance set out when Odin, the first among the Gods of Asgard, laid his father low and established a dynasty of war that stretched across history.

Odin’s time had come—as it had been foretold—and Ragnarok had ended the rule of the Gods of Asgard and Vanaheim, with innumerable myths and legends, heroes and villains laid low and buried by time. After Ragnarok came the new age, a promised time of peace and prosperity, which had lasted just long enough to make even the most vigilant survivors grow soft and careless. Through either age, none had conquered Niflheim, though each other Realm had known rulers and tyrants, because the Realm of Order did not abide rule, and in the end ground even ambition to a halt.

In the stillness of Niflheim, where no sun had ever shone, nor wick of warmth ever soothed weary bones, the sound of a hatchet cutting into the ice echoed like a heartbeat in a bass drum. It rolled over mountains, through hills and valleys, stirring mist and ice and emptiness with a pulse once entirely foreign to the Realm.

Thick shards of blue-black ice flaked away from the surface of the lake as the woman who hunkered over her work hammered away with the edge of her hatchet. Once, it had been sharp enough to bite even into the bark of Yggdrasil, but battles and time and the enduring heat of the Forge War had blunted its edge to where she could no longer properly hone the blade. The metal had become dull, but tempered, as if a bone healed solidly wrong, and so was much like its bearer. She was named Kjarta, and she was a shieldmaiden in the war against Surtr’s all-consuming hunger.

She clutched one of her arms to her side as she worked, the fur of a felled mastodon staunching the blood and seeping ichor that pulsed up from flame-cracked flesh while she worked. Though she breathed hard under the burden of her pain, she had not cried out since arriving in Niflheim, for to do so would be to forfeit her life: the nightmare beings that lingered here sought prey by the scent of weakness. Yet she was no mere mortal, and the song screaming within her body fed her blood and bones, fueling a lust for battle and redemption and glory that refuted the simple burden of pain. All the same, her handsome Vanir features curled against the ridged nose of her Jotun heritage as she sneered the weakness out of her spirit. As she worked, she thought upon the war which had brought her here, and how it had all begun.

Unlike Niflheim, the Realm of Chaos practically cried out for rulership, and the mad creatures who called it home were at once innumerable and constantly being felled, smelted down, and reforged as greater threats. The sturdiest of Muspell’s Sons—for so they were known—lasted not by being proofed against the flames, but by becoming their embodiment, and so came Surtr, once kin to the Jotun and now burning king of Muspelheim. At Ragnarok he had led the charge against the Gods, bringing the promise of annihilation to their kind, and though his flames had cooled when the battle was ended, the forges of Muspelheim had rekindled his power.

The coming of Surtr’s armies had not been subtle, nor had it been a surprise, as in the cave of forgotten things, Mimir’s head began to chatter. The ancient thing rattled a breathless whisper of secrets none could hear save dead Odin, and Sinmara, Mimir’s wife, who came to collect her husband’s restless skull. The Giantess appeared under the veil of a nightmare which took the dreams of all who slept within the nine Realms, bearing visions of prophecy. The dwarves had, as she foretold, become trapped within their bleak crypts, unable to face the light and heat. Meanwhile, the fae had taken their leave rather than face a world devoid of dreams: following their whistler-king across the hedge of Yggdrasil’s wildest branches, they threw themselves into the void seeking the myth of Avalon. Both Realms burned to glass, as was promised, and their kind were wiped from all but fable.

Kjarta sat back on her heels, exhausted. Setting teeth to a piece of ice, she forced her jaw shut, jetting shards of broken lake into her tongue and cheeks: it was harder than glass and sharper still, and melted in her blood to a glowing puddle of distilled magic. She carefully cupped the syrupy Mead in her cheek as she bit again, until her mouth was full and her teeth glowed with the light trapped behind them. Careful not to swallow, she tipped her head back to look at the black and starless sky, remembering more.

Having set the Realms of magic to the flame, Surtr halted his advance. Hel had long since emptied, with Ragnarok seeing both it and Valhalla emptied of souls to join in final battle, and, Sinmara sat on Hela’s vacant throne, conversing with her dead love. Surtr promised a hundred winters would burn before battle would be joined then took to the skies in a chariot drawn by Odin’s steed Sleipnir—set ablaze for the delight of its rider— to become a meteoric flame over the Realms that gained heat and light and malice with each passing year, coming to be known as Surtr’s Promise.

The Aesir and Vanir fell into disarray as Vanaheim deadened, turning brown under the oppressive heat of Surtr’s Promise. Asgard—itself a Realm more favoured by gentler seasons—endured better, but the Gods had grown soft and accustomed to revel, so they bickered furiously amongst themselves, and inevitably, tempers, and alliances, wore thin. In the tenth year, the Gods rallied to war, but before they could fall on the hapless mortal Realm, a Giant stepped into the field of battle between their armies.

Kjarta had heard the story of the Midgard Pact her entire life. At the dawn of time, the Chaos of Muspelheim had heated the Ordered stillness of Niflheim such that between them a river began to flow, and the waters of life had sprung at the place of truce where the two forces met; if balance had not been reached between Order and Chaos, nothing could have grown there. The same was true of the Midgard pact, for if the Gods had been left to war, Chaos would have crushed the life from the Realms and all would have fallen back into the abyss between worlds. Breathing through her nose, she tipped her head forward and carefully opened her glowing lips to let the Primordial Mead spill free, locking eyes with the scarred giant entombed beneath her in the ice.

She was named Hyrrokkin, and once she had launched the ship which bore Baldr at his funeral when all the assembled Gods lacked the strength to set him forth. Scarred like a melted candle, she’d fallen to a knee before the horrified armies, and spoke of how her King had seen the ancient glaciers of Jotunheim melt, tumbling cities which had stood since the time of Ymir as the bones of ancient Giants washed into a tide that crashed against the walls of their Realm. The heat of Surtr’s Promise had exposed the icy heart of Jotunheim to an unforgiving sky, and when their King had petitioned to Surtr for mercy—offering fealty against the Gods to be spared his wrath—he’d poured molten silver over the frost Giant, entombing him in his final screams.

Surtr may have once been Giantkin, but he would show them no mercy. The Gods could expect even less.

Gods, Giants, and Mortals all saw this and knew that none would survive if they did not band together, and so made pacts, and set about reinforcing Midgard against Surtr’s fire. In the years that followed, there were children of mingling with bloodlines, producing hearty new heirs. In the heat of a savage world preparing for annihilation, Kjarta and her kinfolk became a new pantheon bound not to the outer Realms, but to Midgard on which they were born. When the hammer finally fell and began the Forge War, armies of newly bred deities stood ready to meet what had been foretold.

They were not, though, ready to survive it. As the glowing Mead spilled over the seared surface of Kjarta’s arm, it worked its way into the ruined flesh, knitting and binding and infusing it not with health and life, but only order. Her wounds seized in place, and though the pain died away, she knew another part of her was gone forever. This was the property of Niflheim’s Primordial Mead: Chaos would be staved off, but at the cost of change, growth, and regeneration. When she finished, she was breathing hard, but whole.

The lake beneath her knees still glowed blue, quickened where the molten drops had spilled from her lips, but missed her flesh. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of warriors were interred here in the endless ice: with Ragnarok, Hel and Valhalla had both been lost to them, and the dead had nowhere to go. When a warrior’s time came, they were either consumed by Surtr’s flames, or they fled here to the edges of the universe where nothing moved. Muspelheim would continue to burn as it consumed the other Realms, and the inevitability of the mad Giant’s conquest was guaranteed, foretold, and undeniable. However, when all that remained along the branches of Yggdrasil was Midgard, Muspelheim, and Niflheim, the heat of the flames would finally reach this place where warriors long thought dead lay waiting, freeing them from their prisons with the warmth of life again for a final rally to save the world that they had all come to call home.

Ragnarok had robbed them of the old Gods, and the Forge War of all else besides, but the Quickening would turn the tides when Surtr most relished his victory, and a new Order would grow from the ashes. Such was the way of things. Such was the cycle of Yggdrasil, and the balance it helped span across the unknowing void. Kjarta stood, collected her blunted axe, and saluted Hyrrokkin through the glassy skin of ice between them. She would join her mother once day, but this was not that day, as there were battles yet to be won. Their latest warship, Hringhorni, was nearly set to launch among the stars, and she intended to be on its bridge to lead the charge. For honour, for glory, and for all who stood for the balance. For Midgard.

As her footfalls clapped a gentler beat across the drum of the frozen lake, the stillness settled in, and Orderly silence was restored: the ice would wait for another day.