God of War: Ashes of the Aesir

...Trygve...

"You recognize him," Odin said. It was not a question.

Rist clenched her fists, trying to hide the relentless trembling of her fingers. "I do..."

"Then you admit it."

"No!" She shook her head vehemently. "The alliance I made with him was never loyalty. I needed his help to escape, to return to you. That was all. I never chose him over you."

"Then why did you hide his existence? Why did you leave that young man unharmed?" Gná asked sharply, frowning. "Why did you not bring justice to him and that contemptible queen who always sought our destruction?"

Rist took a step back and bit her lips. Her fists closed with such force that warm blood began to run from her hand, dripping onto the stones below.

"...I don't know..." she finally said.

The queen's eyes narrowed even further with anger, but she said nothing. She wanted to, that much was obvious, but Odin interrupted her as soon as she opened her mouth, making a gesture with his hand.

"You are lying, Rist," he said, firm. "Not only to us. You left him alive because you did not want him to die, simple as that. You were weak. And because of that weakness, thousands of our soldiers are dying at the hands of those two. Because of it, our people are once again being threatened with destruction, just as we have begun to rise again."

"You disappointed your sisters, Rist," Odin stated, while slowly approaching her. "You disappointed your people. You disappointed me."

Rist fell silent, feeling her racing heart in her throat. Each one of those words was like a dull knife driven into Rist's chest.

"All-Father, I beg you to believe me... I never intended to bring harm to any of you. I just... couldn't..."

"You did harm us." Odin stopped before her.

He tore the pauldrons from her armor with force, making her stagger, and threw her helm and daggers away. The crowd shouted in unison.

"And for that, I strip you of your titles and privileges. You are no longer one of mine. You are no longer Rist, the Shield Maiden, the Valkyrie of Tremor. You are Rist, the traitor, and you will spend eternity paying for your mistakes in the icy fields of Helheim."

The Einherjar army demanded blood incessantly.

"I never betrayed you. Never! I love you. I would give my life for yours."

Odin said nothing, staring at her with that same chilling expression of disappointment.

"Gná, you need to trust me." She looked over his shoulders to her sisters, searching for the slightest glimpse of support, of empathy, of the concern they had shown throughout Rist's entire life. "Hrist, Mist, you know how important you are to me. Please..."

She found care in the depths of their sorrowful eyes, but no support. Hrist and Mist squeezed their eyelids shut and turned their faces away. Gná did nothing, did not move a single muscle; she only remained there, fists clenched and expression hard.

Rist's world seemed to crumble beneath her feet. Her titles. Her loves. Her life. Everything she had ever cherished was being cruelly ripped away from her. And it was her fault.

"Your wings," Odin ordered.

She stared at the All-Father, but could not withstand his gaze and lowered her head. One part of her, desperate, wanted to continue begging them to reconsider her punishment; to not take from her what she had spent two arduous years fighting so hard to obtain.

Another, however, understood there was no way out. Odin would not change his mind, and therefore, neither would her sisters. They had always been unwaveringly loyal to him... unlike Rist.

For it was true. She had betrayed them.

Her wings opened, making a rustle echo and a few brown and white feathers rain around her. Calmly, Odin walked to her back and, with a single hand, took hold of one of her wings, squeezing it hard.

A brutal pull, accompanied by the sound of something tearing. Rist screamed and fell to her knees on the ground, bracing her hands against the stone. She felt warm blood running down her back, soaking her clothes.

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Odin threw her wing aside, then grabbed the other and tore it away with violence. Another guttural cry. The smell of metal. A crimson pool forming, expanding beneath her. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Even during the conflicts she had fought, Rist had never suffered as much as she did in that moment. The pain. The disappointment. The unconditional loss.

Rist dug her nails hard into the ground, dragging them until they bled. With short steps, Odin returned to where her sisters were and whispered something into the Valkyrie Queen's ear. Gná hesitated for an instant, closing her eyes, but soon she opened them and nodded.

Resolute, she approached her youngest sister and, stopping beside her, guided the golden blades set into her wings until they touched the back of her neck. Rist remained there, kneeling and bent. She did not resist. Nor did Gná falter. She was certain that it was the right thing to do. A conviction Rist herself had once possessed.

Without saying a single word, without showing any remorse, the queen's bladed wing rose... and fell.

She woke with a start, screaming, breathless. Her heartbeat was racing. Her eyes were wet. Without delay, she searched for the presence of her wings and confirmed what she had already suspected. They were still there. It had only been a nightmare.

Rist took a deep breath, straightening and bringing her hands to her face. She felt as if she were falling into an infinitely dark pit. A risky path, with no return, and the uncertainty of where she would end if she chose it. But she still had her wings; she could still choose to climb and leave that hole.

She let out a low little laugh, without smiling, and hugged her knees. "Yes, I haven't made a mistake yet," she whispered to herself. "I can still do the right thing..."

"Lady Rist?"

Rist shuddered. Her face turned to Trygve and found him wearing a worried expression, his bright purple eyes fixed on hers. They were nothing like the lifeless gaze she had seen. They were full of life, and that made her calm down and truly return to reality.

"Are you all right?" he asked without approaching, merely bending down near her with a few pieces of root in his hands.

"I am," she lied, looking away. Even though it was just a nightmare, the things she saw... the things she said... It was hard to look at Trygve now. Shameful. "Just... leave me alone for a little while..."

He took a moment, but nodded, straightening. "All right. But if you're hungry, I roasted a few pieces of meat. They're over there, near your fire."

Hearing his footsteps moving away, Rist noticed that Niflheim's misty sky was already lit by the midmorning sun. Now that she stopped to think, she had fallen asleep, even though she had planned to remain awake all night. I suppose I was more tired than I imagined, she concluded, and then checked her belongings. They were all there.

Rist stood and looked at the fire Trygve had made for her. It was lit, burning intensely, surrounded by several twigs skewering steaming, succulent pieces of meat. She paused for a moment, staring at the food while clenching her fists, then turned her face toward the young god walking away.

Trygve was walking toward an enormous mound of snow that certainly had not existed before Rist fell asleep. She narrowed her eyes, studying it, and noticed that the mound apparently had... a tail? Her eyebrows rose slightly.

Rist opened her mouth but said nothing. She closed it. She had never seen a farewell like that, but it was a farewell, without question. She had heard of people who did not burn the dead, but buried them instead. But why had he gone through the trouble of doing that?

They were only two undead. It was not as if they were important to him. Trygve himself had said he had been a farmer for practically his entire life. There was no way he could have known a dragon like that, much less the Raven Keeper, right?

Rist looked at the fire, at the breakfast he had prepared, then turned back to Trygve. He tossed a few pieces of root into the fire near Sinmara, as always close to him. After that, he did not go to the dragon, but to the witch who had accompanied it, lying right beside him.

Then, stretching out his hands, the tattoos now winding around his arms lit with a cerulean glow, and torrents of snow poured from his palms, burying the woman. He tried to hide it, but his face twisted with pain. Judging by the rhythm of the magic, Trygve must have spent at least half an hour doing that.

Rist did not touch the food. Uncertainty would not allow her to. Confused and hesitant, Rist approached Trygve. He heard her coming long before and stopped, letting the pain pass and the color of his magic fade, his face turning toward her with a peaceful smile.

There were so many questions passing through her mind, so many answers she desired... Had he stayed awake all night? Had he drawn his swords? Why was her fire still burning?

However, in the end, amid her inner storm, she managed to expel only one word.

"Why?"

Trygve raised an eyebrow. "Why what?"

"Why are you doing all this?"

"Ah." He stared at the buried witch. "I kind of knew these two before I ended up here. I just thought it'd be wrong to leave them lying around like this, for the scavengers." A sad little laugh. "But while I was burying them, I realized how frivolous my actions were. After all, I never stopped to discover what happens to the bodies I left behind throughout the labyrinth. Surely, they'll be revived again and again whenever another challenger arrives here..."

His eyelids grew heavy. His smile, however, though it had withered a little, did not vanish.

Rist opened her mouth once more, but the words remained stuck in her throat. She sketched a small smile. The questions vanished from her mind like drops of water cast into flames.

Trygve was strange. He was nothing like Odin, nor like Thor or Sif, and, until that moment, the reason she found him strange had still been unknown to her. Or rather, she had always known.

Rist told herself otherwise, but that was a lie. From the very first moment, that discomfort she felt near Trygve had a familiar name. It was one of the origins of the flaw that had grown inside her, of the mistake she had perhaps always wished to make. The other, of course, was the doubt that had perhaps existed within her since she personally met the All-Father and his conditional kindness.

I have to stop lying to myself, she thought, realizing now that the values carved into her by her loved ones might be wrong. Perhaps her own desires had been right in the end. Or perhaps being the kind of person who gave a second chance, who gave time for others to understand, pay for, and repent of their mistakes, was not the right thing to do.

However, if it truly was a mistake, that was a mistake Rist now had the courage to make.