Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter LV⎮Brenna

Cerridwen — (Ker-RID-Wen) Celtic patron Goddess of witches and wizards. She is also associated with fertility, prophecy, shape-shifting and poetry.

Aila's countenance darkened. "Epona," she said, the warning clear, "this is not the time!" Her lips were like marble, frozen with anger as she betook herself to the fireside, giving her back to them all.

"And I say it is time!" Heida looked despairingly between the two women. Then to Aila she said, "Do not hide anything from me, Mother, my shoulders are broad enough to bear many weighty truths."

"I know it, child."

"Then tell me what the nature of my curse is!"

At length Aila turned to face her. "Brynja did not lie to you. You will not have children, it is true. Just one. And you will never have sons. So it is with the curse of the valkyrie."

"The curse of the valkyrie?" There was an audible deglutition as Heida digested Aila's words. "Then why did Brynja not—"

"The daughters of Odin are much like their sire, the Allfather. They speak truth well enough, but only in such a way as suits their purpose." Aila's shoulders grew by degrees more tense. "All the gods are like that, some trickier than others. One must learn to hear and know what it is they do not say."

"The daughters of Odin?" Heida's pale hands came to rest once more at her thriving abdomen.

"Ay. The valkyries are the war god's handmaidens; his shield maidens; and his daughters, besides."

"His daughters! Who then is their mother?"

"It is not generally known in Midgard, but they are all the daughters of Sol, the sun goddess. Moreover, they are his ravens who scour the battlefield for worthy warriors to feast in his hall; those that will, when the time comes, fight for him at Ragnarök. So in that way they are unlike Sol, for where she goes there is life, and where they go there is always death.

"Although it happens rarely, sometimes they become enamored with certain of Odin's chosen — men he calls Odinssonns, like Renic. Berserkers that have no equal on the battlefield. Trysts such as ofttimes occurs between these men of Midgard and daughters of Odin are strongly discouraged by the Allfather, yet they happen all the same. And not nearly as infrequently as one would think. But Odin turns his blind eye towards those couplings, just the same.

"Unless, of course, that union should become fruitful. As was the case with your birth mother, and my husband."

"Do ... they become fruitful often, these trysts?"

"Not often by any means. Yours is the only one that Loki and I are aware of. And that Loki himself had a hand in contriving." The thought of Loki's actions seemed to compress her mouth into a hard line. "There is no more fallow a place than the womb of a valkyrie, and yet there are otherworldly methods of making a man's seed fruitful even in the most desolate of soils."

"Did Brynja know that Harald had been given those ... seeds," Heida asked. "The seeds from which I was conceived. Perhaps she meant to for this to happen?"

"No. I do not believe she understood the full measure of her folly. But lust will do that to a woman," Aila said with a wry grin. "At all events, she is of Odin's line, and so it is a matter of course that she should distrust Loki's motives, as her father does; and as most others do." The last she said as she bent a momentary, disproving eye towards Epona. "She likely thought that he meant only to harm Harald somehow, not entrap her. Whatever her motives she was ever a presumptuous creature, and I believe she bethought herself impervious to whatever tricks Loki might dare."