GENESIS - THE BEGINNING. Book 1

CHAPTER 2 ... Freya ... Asgard: Queen Freya's hall, Sessrumnir

"Preposterous. I will not hear one more word. The Crystaal* returned minutes ago. Why has Hildr not come?" Queen Freya asked as she paced back and forth on the raised dais. She cast a furious sidelong glare at her cowering Chief Advisor.

"Your Highness." Her advisor bowed deeply. Long, braided grey hair fell into a single tail that hung below her shoulder blades. The Valkyrie did not regard Bromwich as a beautiful woman. Big boned with pitch black eyes that would have scared a child were it not for the empathy and compassion that streamed from them. "Forgive me, but that's one of the inconveniences I have come to report. The Crys..."

"Inconveniences? Inconveniences?" Freya stood beside her silver and gold throne, right hand clenching and unclenching the pommel of her sword. Her blue eyes flashed with anger. Her silver-winged helm did justice to her long, silky locks of golden hair. Fair of skin, she was one of the most beautiful women, if not the most beautiful woman of all the nine worlds of the Pantheon.*

Her fish-scaled breast and back-plate armour shimmered beneath the silver chainmail that covered her torso from neck to waste. Her anger infused the armour with power. An iridescent, flickering radiance that came off it blinded her opponents.

"Bromwich, you and your clan are well named, for you are truly a witch to bring me this news."

Now was not the time to cut off the offending advisor's head. Best to get everything first and then kill the bitch. "Are you telling me that for the last month, we have received NO Einherjar?* That is approximately 40 million souls, Bromwich. Half are mine." She turned away and sat on her throne; leaned back against the firm, padded tapestry and relaxed. The glint from her armour dissipated with her fading wrath. "Now then, I am better prepared. Explain why I am only now being told of this matter. A matter of dire consequences no less. And it had better be good Bromwich, for you and your clan's reputation hangs in the balance."

Bromwich swallowed with difficulty; she knew how tenuous a clan's standing could be. The penalty for displeasing Freya was death, preferable to having her whole clan ostracized and banished from their homesteads.

She took a deep breath and stared at her Queen, getting her thoughts in order. "Your Highness, the High Kings Odin*, Hœnir*, and Lodur*, on hearing clan Volva's prophesies on Ragnarök, created Midgard. From the tree trunks that they came upon on the beach of that world, they designed and created the human race. They seeded that creation with all manner of life."

"And I suppose you want to teach me, your Queen, the history that our daughters learn on the knees of their mothers? Is this the manner in which you are prepared to save your clan? If so, you are succeeding only in digging that particular hole deeper."

"Forgive me Your Highness; I would not presume such a liberty. I ask your indulgence. Should my clan and I be correct in our deductions and reasoning over the millennia, we have finally unraveled more of the last prophesy of the Beginning of Ages from clan Volva." Bromwich said.

"The last prophesy?" Freya's eyebrows lifted. This was unexpected. "And what makes you so sure that now, after hundreds of years, your clan has finally disentangled that piece of vexing augur?" She tapped her fingers on the throne's gilded armrests. "And what has this got to do with the subject at hand?"

Bromwich took a deep breath; this was the crux of the matter. She clamped down hard on her stomach muscles. "Your Highness, it has everything to do with the subject. There is a new prophesy and we believe the new god has awoken."

Freya froze. The portent of Bromwich's words was overwhelming.

"Your Highness," Bromwich bowed deeply. "If I may explain our findings."