Prologue - Fire and Gold
NJAL
The north star shone brightly amidst the dancing green lights of the aurora, illuminating the night sky and causing the snow to glitter with icy crystals. The woods lay buried beneath a cover of white, resting undisturbed amidst the silence. There was no whistling of birds, nor the rustling of pine branches in the arctic breeze. There was only the soft sound of footsteps, crunching across an old snow-worn trail that squirmed uphill between the trees.
They counted five, relying on the starlight to guide their way, and eight-year-old Njal was among them. He could no longer feel his feet, nor move his fingers within their frozen sleeves, the weight of exhaustion barely keeping him afoot. The muffled sound of snow faded, the forest ahead began to blur, until his father’s sharp voice pulled him back.
“Njal!”
He jolted, a breath catching in his throat. The others looked down upon him from further up the hill, the weight of their gazes flooding him with the shame of lagging behind.
Father came over, his furs almost making him look like a giant.
He went down to one knee and rested a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“Look at me.”
Njal did as asked, trying his best not to show a hint of the sadness he felt.
Father’s grey, narrow eyes studied him. They always saw more than he wanted to.
“I know you’re tired,” said his low, soft voice, “I need you to be strong right now, Njal. It will not be long anymore, I promise.”
Njal nodded softly and looked to the ground, unruly locks of wavy auburn hair shielding his teary eyes.
“Is there a problem, Gûnnar?” asked Birkar from further up the hill.
“It’s nothing. Let us carry on.”
After the words had left his mouth, Father got back up his feet as the others stirred and gave Njal a gentle pat on the back.
“Come on, son,” he said. “Do it for Mother.”
Njal drew a breath trembling with cold and grief, wiped away the tears that had swelled in his eyes, and followed his father’s trail upward.
Snow slid underfoot with almost every step, nearly causing him to fall. His breath rasped in his throat, the cold burning his lungs with every inhale. He focused on the sway of his father’s cloak, the ascending clouds of breath, and forced himself to keep up.
Beneath his furs, the cold touch of steel shifted softly against his chest and with a frostbitten hand he reached for his amulet through layers of fur and cloth. The cold, stiffened fabric burnt around his fingers as they clenched around the shape of a black dragon watchfully coiling around a white moonstone.
“This is for you,” Mother had said on the evening of her death as she had called Njal to lay with her beneath the soft embrace of thick, warm blackets.
Her arm cradled him in a soft, warm embrace, but when she spoke her voice had become faint and rasp.
“This is for you, Njal,” she said, closing his fingers around the jewel as he looked into her eyes with disbelief. “Carry this with you wherever you go, and we will always stay together.”
He refused to take it at first, knowing well the true meaning behind her words. As if she already knew.
“There we are,” said Birkar’s voice, dragging Njal out of his thoughts. “The end of the road.”
The woods finally opened around him as the ascent flattened. Njal glanced back over his shoulder one last time.
The Fóssal valley sprawled far below, flanked by steep, jagged mountains. His village lay resting silently against the riverbed, and he knew that the house they left would soon fall to ruin.
When he turned to the other side of the summit, the knot in Njal’s stomach began to loosen. Beyond the ridge, the vast highlands and dark forests of Môraviih stretched endlessly ahead of him like a shadowed sea of stone and timber. And far beyond them all, rising through the northern haze, stood a mountain so vast that its jagged summit seemed to touch the aurora itself.
A shiver of reverence ran through Njal’s spine as he beheld what he had only ever heard about in the stories of old.
That had to be the Ôlisiir.
Even from this distance, the mountain filled him with the same wonder he had felt when his father first spoke of it beside the hearth.
‘The Womb of the World’, he had called it. The great peak that watched over all who wandered the four kingdoms of Svôzin like a silent sentinel, guiding the lost back home beneath its ancient gaze.
Slowly they approached the ridge, where a ring of ancient stone monoliths stood solemn and partially buried in snow, watching over the highlands beyond.
Between them, Njal then saw her laying atop a funeral pyre.
She looked so different, even though it had barely been a day since Father, Birkar and some remaining villagers carried her up here.
She was pale, stiff and lifeless; almost unrecognizable, like an empty husk deprived of everything that made her his mother.
Njal froze in shock. He could not step closer, but then he felt a cold hand gently wrapping around his own.
Siri’s cheeks had run red with tears, but through her sadness his sister curled up her mouth, the aurora reflecting in her eyes, as if she silently encouraged him to come forward. He breathed out deeply, and with their fingers tugged into each other, they slowly passed between the stones together.
Just as they made it to the pyre, Father bid the rest of the family to stop, and from behind one of the stones came forth Hjalmar, the village elder.
He moved slowly across the snow, cloaked in tattered grey robes.
Wrinkles carved deep valleys across his face, and his eyes held the calm of centuries, as if they had seen every corner of the world. Njal swallowed. Whatever mysteries the world kept, Hjalmar always seemed to know them all.
“Gûnnar,” he said with a soft, hoarse voice as he spread his arms slowly.
“It is good you have come.”
Father answered it with a careful hug.
“I am sorry I did not return in time,”
“You have nothing to apologize for, my boy. You did everything you could.”
Birkar then followed.
“Thank you for everything. For… taking care of my sister.”
Hjalmar answered it with a gentle nod, then brushed his gaze over Njal and his siblings, a gaze reaching so deep it felt as if the old man could read even his deepest thoughts.
“I can see your pain,” he said. “Fear not what will happen to her. The fire will set her free.”
With his tiny eyes sparkling, he gently raised his hand to the aurora.“The spirits are calling her home. Come, we should not let them wait.” They gathered around the pyre, softly and silently, as the runestones of the Old Gods were standing watch.
After Hjalmar finished brief, guiding words of prayer, he drew his hands from the folds of his robe, rubbed them together briskly, and held them before his mouth.
He exhaled, and a bright flash of flame leapt from his palms, setting the pyre ablaze. Njal’s breath caught in his throat, like every other time he saw a rare glimpse of what mages could do.
“Don’t look away,” said his brother Almer, his voice barely above a whisper as his hand softly held his shoulder. “We owe it to watch her go.”
Njal nodded back at him, ignoring the dread he felt for that moment, and breathed in deeply as the fire roared to life, golden and voracious.
It swallowed the pyre aggressively, the stench of scorched timber burning through his nose, and when the flames reached the top they began eating at his mother’s flesh.
He wanted to turn away, but Almer’s words kept repeating in his mind, and as tears ran down his cheeks, he forced himself not to waver.
A bit further, Siri collapsed into father’s cloak, her sobs muffled in its folds as he drew her close and laid his arm around her. Birkar sat alone with eyes glazed and distant.
Almer’s hand slowly rubbed around his back as the flames danced ever higher and the smoke began its slow ascent.
Hjalmar had told him once that smoke served to carry a spirit from its body to the aurora, where the gods were waiting along with those who left before. She would soon take her place there, Njal thought. Free of hunger, free of the cold, and free of the cursed disease that had taken her life.
The fire cracked once more, part of the pyre collapsed, sending a swarm of sparks into the air. Njal followed them until they evaporated not long after their ascent, but then he saw some had lingered in the heavens.
He rubbed his eyes, expecting the lights to be gone, but when he looked back, they were still there. Small and golden, brighter than any spark or fire could ever be, but unlike the stars around them, these lights did not stand still.
They moved. Drifting through the aurora as if taken by an unseen current.
Every time Njal allowed his eyes to blink, more of them appeared everywhere across the heavens, each larger and brighter than the ones that came before.
Then the brightest lights began to take form.
A young bear playfully chased after fish in invisible waters, a pack of wolves tumbled around with their young, and flocks of birds calmly circled overhead like silent sentinels. Before long, the entire sky had been flooded with gold in a silent spectacle.
Njal glanced around in awe, first at the heavens and then at the others. Yet he could not meet their gazes. The others stared only at the fire, at the body slowly burning away. Njal wanted to poke Almer’s side and beg him to look up and share in its beauty, but just as he reached out a deer emerged from the pyre’s burning heart.
Njal startled, withdrawing his arm. It was unreal and transcendent, as if taken straight out of a dream, and it emitted the same golden glow as the lights that shone above him.
He thought of crawling backwards, away from the deer’s reach, but something kept him frozen in place, as if his body was no longer his to control.
From beyond the golden entity, Njal saw Hjalmar studying him intently, as if sensing something amiss, yet he made no move to inquire, watching in silence as the deer slowly began to move.
She strode gently and soft footed between the stones, and where her hooves touched, the snow gave way to golden grass and bright blossoms. Butterflies rode across a breeze that Njal could not feel, traveling briskly from flower to flower and lighting the runes carved into their surface with their vibrant pulse.
Njal recognized these creatures from Mother’s bedtime stories; tales recalling what the world was like before, when green grass and mosses felt like blankets beneath bare feet. When the sweet scent of flowers was carried on by the summer breeze, and the music of birds echoed from the canopy of the forests.
Njal had always thought these tales a fantasy. The world he knew had only snow and ice. Yet now, seeing it written in gold before his very eyes, for the first time he wished this world truly existed.
After she had circled the fire, the deer came over to him next, her soft gaze flooding him with a once familiar sense of warmth and safety.
He knew then. Without reason or proof.
It was Mother.
His hand rose from his lap, driven by the urge to reach out and touch her, to feel her warm embrace even further, but then she turned away.
He wanted to call out to her, beg her not to go away, but his words remained stuck in his throat. The deer glanced across the others, then at the pyre and left, rising into the air like the steaming of breath,
Njal could only watch until her glow began to dim, her form began to dissipate and, eventually, her presence finally faded into nothing.
The animals around her followed her in quiet unison, as if they had appeared only to take her with them, and the pale white of ice soon swallowed the golden grass the deer had left behind.
The pyre collapsed beneath its weight, loud and cracking, causing the others to startle, and when the curtain of sparks had vanished and the fire began to shrink, Njal saw her body was now gone.
Hjalmar rose slowly, the way old trees bend at creak in the wind.
“It is done,” he said softly. “She is in the Spirit World now.”
Slowly, the others followed his example. Njal felt Almer’s hand gently brushing across his shoulder.
“May she be at peace,” Father said, helping Siri to her feet. “And find her way to the halls of her ancestors.”
“What will you do now?” asked Hjalmar. “Will you head for Lôkhiin at once?”
Father nodded. “It will be a long journey. We can set up camp once we are down the mountain. Cold and hunger will take us if we won’t make it quickly.”
“The children are exhausted, Gûnnar!” Birkar shot back. “Let them rest first. They have seen enough for one night.”
Hjalmar gesturing to a nearby wooden hut crested on the mountainside, the dim light of hearthfire flickered from within.
“Over in my home are blankets, some food reserves and a fire. You can stay there until the breaking of dawn and continue your journey afterwards.”
Father looked at him briefly, then nodded.
“Good,” said Hjalmar with a gentle smile, glancing across Njal and his siblings. “Then let us go inside at once. The cold is unforgiving.”
As the footsteps of the others faded, Njal lingered still by the dying fire. Its heat faded fast, the sky above now bare of spirits. The last embers glowed like coals in a hearth long left untended.
His eyes searched the heavens, desperate for even one last flicker of gold. But it remained silent, empty, as if the lights had never been there.
“Come on, boy,” Birkar called. “You’ll freeze to death out here.”
Njal could not answer nor move. His jaw was clenched tight, a wave of grief pressing against his throat as the fire blurred before his eyes.
“Njal!” Father called, more sharply this time.
Hjalmar’s soft voice drifted behind him, soft and tender like a breeze, and then silence fell, only broken by the old man’s footsteps slowly approaching him, the ice cracking beneath his every step.
His wrinkled hand touched Njal’s shoulder, his thumb slowly brushing across his furs, and when Njal looked up his gaze was gentle and calm beneath the wild silver of his brows.
He pulled Njal back up his feet, not saying any word.
“I… I can’t…” Njal began, his voice falling apart in his throat, but he then saw in the old man’s eyes there was no need to explain.
He collapsed forward into the folds of Hjalmar’s robe, clutching him as if he were drowning and releasing all the pain he had swallowed from the moment she grew ill.
Hjalmar held him tight, one arm around his back, the other rubbing in slow circles between his shoulders.
“Go on,” he murmured. “Let it out. You have every right to mourn.”
When the storm within him began to quiet, Njal finally pulled back, his cheeks wet, his breath uneven, but there was also a sense of relief.
Hjalmar gently wiped his cheek with the edge of his thumb, smiled through his beard, and Njal returned the favour. A light, crooked smile that felt like an apology, a thank you and a goodbye all at once.
The wind whistled through the standing stones, causing him to shiver.
The last crackle of fire gave way to silence.
Njal looked at the smouldering remains of the pyre, hesitating whether he would say it, but if there was anyone in this world he would trust with his life, it surely would have been him.
“I think I saw her,” he said, his voice still trembling as he gestured at the place where the deer emerged.
“Before she left. My mother. She was…”
“I know what it is you saw.”
Njal looked back, and noticed Hjalmar’s expression had shifted. Gently, almost imperceptibly, but he saw it. A tension fostered beneath his beard. Some sort of heaviness he had never seen him carry before.
“Did you…” he hesitated. “Did you see her too?”
The old man gave no answer, turned away slowly and edged out of the stone circle, murmuring something Njal was unable to hear.
“Hjalmar?”
Njal went after him, .
“What is going on? Where are you going?”
The old man halted on the edge of the ridge, his gaze resting on the distant Ôlisiir as Njal stood by his side.
For a long moment Hjalmar said nothing, as if weighing something heavy he could not yet put to words.
“What you saw was not something ordinary,” he spoke at last. “It was a glimpse into the Spirit World.”
“A what?” Njal asked incredulously, frowning.
Hjalmar went down to one knee and faced him eye to eye.
Up close, something moved behind the old man’s gaze that Njal had never seen there before. Not sorrow. Not the calm of someone who carried the wisdom of the world. Something closer to fear.
“Listen to me, Njal,” he said, his voice stern and urgent. “Lôkhiin will not be a place of safety. Once you are there, I want you to always be on your guard, for if word of what happened here reaches their ears…”
He swallowed the rest of his sentence, the old man’s gaze drifting away for just a moment.
“Who do you mean?”
“Those who hide behind masks of grey.”
Njal frowned, but just when he wanted to ask more, a sharp voice broke the silence.
“Hjalmar. Is everything alright?”
Njal startled and saw Hjalmar did the same. It was Birkar.
The old man did not respond to him, instead Njal felt his hand tightening on his shoulder.
“I want you to promise me, Njal,” he urged, “from this day until your last. Keep it hidden, both in your words and in your mind, for your own sake and for those you love.”
The words landed heavily, his stomach churning with a confusion and dread. He hesitated at first, but then mustered his courage, looked back up at Hjalmar and when his words came, they did so resolutely.
“I promise.”
