A Queen for the Frost Giant (Legends of Rahasia Book 0)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

"Fell?" I enter the twins' rooms which, for the time being, has been converted into a sick room for the once-jötunn. It's hard to reconcile that this regular-sized mortal boy I see before me is the mighty jötunn, Fell Hallvarðr, son of the once-king of the unbeatable frost giants. It's hard to believe he wasn't always this way, a boy with eyes the colors of roses and hair like snow, as though he was born on a cold and cloudy day to a regular farming family of Idriola.

            I sit at his side, taking one of his hands in mine. Usually, this hand could tear down towers and lift smithies like a child playing with dice on the ground. But in his case, his hands were just mortal ones. Unremarkable, albeit slightly cold. 

            His lashes flutter open, "is that you, regina?"

            "I'm afraid it is." I turn towards his face. The lights shimmer behind his eyes, the Northern Lights of Fólkvangr, the power hidden within. "May I?" I gesture towards his temple, where the stitches have been placed with thread like silver. Nice to know the silverwork of Idriola hasn't been abandoned even in the hinterlands of the kingdom.

            "Of course." He croaks, sleepily turning towards me.

            I run my fingers across his hair, lifting his bangs up to peer at the Knarr folk healers' stitch work. "Not bad." The wound is cleaned, the stitches banding the skin into a sturdy knot. I pause, noticing the wrinkles near his eyes, the permanent laugh lines. The streak of silver in his hair. Fell watches me, sees the pause, the hesitation.

            "You think I'm dying." He says, the words surprisingly calmly for all the emotion they carry. They're more accusatory if anything, like trying to discover a secret he's been kept out of. "That the gods' curse and using my magic is making me die faster."

            "No," I shake my head, "Lord Kazmer asked a question at dinner. We were wondering how your ice armor and clothes shrink and grow each time your curse affects you." I force myself to look pointedly away from the streak of silver in his hair, "it was an innocent question borne out of curiosity was all. Tell me about it. About the magic."

            He purses his lips a moment, and I can feel my heart beat nervously in the silence. I wonder if he can hear it. He accepts the false reply after another mercifully brief glare. "All the jötunn kin knew of the galdrar, the spells and how to work them as related to the magic of Ymir, or as it was called before Cloelia claimed it for the mortals, Aevi. Land of life." He turns away, coughing slightly. I note how his lungs rattle more than they used to. "But only the royal family could wield seiðr, the magic itself. The power. Only the royals, my family, could become vǫlur, seiðkonur, vísendakona,or in my case, one of the seiðmenn."

            "I've heard tales of mortals wielding the seiðr, as well. What of them?"

            Fell smiles at this, a sardonic smile, bittersweet. "They had jötunn blood, of course. A few jötunn that didn't flee and take to the seas of Father Ardo or die by your great dam's hand, they went into hiding. Lived false mortal lives like the gods cursed me to do. They died for it, eventually becoming finite themselves. But their blood, the seiðr, passed onto their progeny. Part jötunn, part mortal children citing the galdrar almost as well as their frost giant kin." Fell pulls himself upwards, and I go to help him. He leans into my touch rather than shirking it off. "It's rare for mortal men to wield magic as well as the women. Those in-between, neither man nor woman, could wield it the strongest. Some even transcended their mortal shells and became gods to you mortals. Legends for the skalds to carry forth in their tales and songs."

            "Alarica." I reply, thinking of the red-plaited warrior with a constellation of scars and rashes down their arms, a fierce jaw turned towards firelight, "that's how they became the ruler of the universe."