The wind arrives before the horizon does—cold, thin, carrying the scent of wet pine needles and something sharper, older, like iron left too long in rain. Gartheride feels it shift against his cheek, a warning he doesn't need to name. The horse beneath him lifts its head, nostrils flaring, ears flicking forward in quick, nervous jerks. He tightens his grip on the reins until the leather bites into his palms. Behind him Bjorn's mount snorts once, low and uneasy, hooves stamping once against the frost-hard ground; Sigurd's mare lowers her head, ears pinned flat, a soft rumble rising in her throat; Torvald's pony dances sideways, eyes rolling white, hooves scraping stone in sharp, anxious clicks.
They crest the ridge.
The land falls away in black steps. Pines thin to skeletal fingers, then vanish entirely. Soil turns from brown to midnight, stones stand upright like teeth in a jaw that has already bitten. No one speaks the name aloud, but the map—creased, stained with old blood—says it clear enough:
Jötunmaw.
"Giant's maw."
Old tongue.
Old terror.
A valley where the world once opened its mouth and forgot to close it.
The name is older than the border wars, older than the first human king who tried to claim it. The stories say the valley was once a giant's grave—Jötun, one of the last of the mountain-kin, felled in a war so ancient the stars have forgotten their names. When he fell, his jaw cracked open the earth. From the wound came a breath—cold, endless, hungry. It swallowed light. It swallowed sound. It swallowed the dwarves who tried to mine the giant's bones, the elves who tried to weave spells over the grave, the humans who tried to build roads across the gap. The breath never stopped. It still moves through the valley, slow and patient, waiting for something warm to wander in so it can taste it again. Some say the giant's tongue still lies beneath the soil, thick and black, tasting for blood. Others say the teeth are the standing stones—sharp, upright, waiting for the next fool to step between them. The old skalds sing that Jötun's last roar still echoes in the wind, low and mournful, calling his children home. No one has ever come back to tell if the song is true.
No roads.
Just game trails scarred by iron wheels that never rolled on wood.
Roots poke up through the dirt like claws, pale and thick, pulsing faintly in the dusk—slow, deliberate, as though the ground itself is breathing. The air grows colder the deeper they descend, the kind of cold that seeps into bone marrow and stays. The wind tastes metallic, like licking a blade. Every hoofbeat sounds wrong—too loud, too slow, as if the ground swallows the echo and keeps it for itself. The sky above the ridge is bruised purple, but down here the light is wrong—dimmer than dusk should be, as though the valley drinks it before it can reach the bottom. The smell is heavier here: wet rot, old stone, and something faintly sweet—like overripe fruit left to decay in shadow. The horses hate it; their ears stay pinned, tails lashing.
Thrain rides point, low on his horse, beard brushing the mane. He doesn't look back. His hands are loose on the reins, but his shoulders are set, every muscle coiled like a trap waiting to spring. The two women flank him—one sniffs the wind constantly, nostrils flaring like a hound's, her lips curling back to reveal teeth filed to points; the other trails a hand through the dirt, fingers splayed, reading braille no one else can see, her expression blank but her eyes narrowed, as though the soil is whispering secrets she doesn't want to hear. The Ulfhednar—wolf-blooded, beast-kin—rides drag now, fur matted black, eyes glowing low gold in the dusk. He's been with them since Skardal, silent except when he needs to be. His night vision cuts through the gloom like a blade; his ears flick at sounds no one else hears; his nose twitches at scents carried on the wind. He hasn't spoken since they entered the valley, but he hasn't needed to. His presence is enough.
Bjorn breaks the quiet, voice rough as forge bellows. He leans forward in the saddle, beard matted with dew, one eye squinting against the wind.
"This ain't right.
Should be fog, not black.
Fog hides tracks.
This… this shows 'em."
He gestures with a thick hand, palm open, fingers splayed as though measuring the darkness itself.
Sigurd grunts, rasping like dry leaves. He rides with one leg slightly forward, old arrow wound making him favor the right stirrup. His white hair whips in the wind, but his eyes are sharp, always scanning the ground for signs. He shakes his head once, slow, deliberate.
"Ain't fog.
Ain't meant to be.
They're not hiding.
They're leading."
Thrain's voice cuts through, low and hard.
"Quiet.
Listen."
They do.
The wind drops for one heartbeat.
In that silence, something answers—a low, wet rasp, like lungs full of gravel.
It comes from the left, from between two standing stones that lean toward each other like broken teeth.
The sound stops when they stop.
Bjorn's hand drops to his axe.
"Warg?"
Sigurd shakes his head.
"Wargs howl.
That wasn't a howl."
The rasp comes again—closer.
Then a shape detaches from the shadow between the stones.
A draugr-hound.
Not wolf. Not bear. Something older.
Fur gone in patches, gray skin stretched tight over ribs that show like ladder rungs. Eyes milky-white, glowing with faint corpse-light. Jaws too wide, teeth black and jagged, tongue long and blacker still. It moves wrong—joints bending backward, spine arching like a bow drawn too far. The breath that rolls from its mouth is visible—green-white mist that smells of grave dirt and old meat.
Bjorn curses under his breath.
"Jötunmaw dog."
Thrain's voice is calm.
"Two on the right.
One behind."
Gartheride's hand is already on his sword.
The draugr-hound lunges—fast, too fast for something dead.
Bjorn meets it first. Axe swings in a clean arc. Blade bites deep into the shoulder. Black ichor sprays, hissing when it hits the ground. The hound snarls, twists, snaps at Bjorn's leg. Bjorn kicks it in the snout, bone cracking. The beast staggers.
Sigurd is already moving—short sword out, darting low. He slices the tendon behind the knee. The hound collapses, howling. Thrain finishes it—axe to the neck, clean through. Head rolls. Body twitches once, then stills.
The second hound comes from the right—leaping over a stone, jaws wide. Torvald's pony rears. Torvald rolls clear, lands on his feet, crossbow already raised. Bolt takes the hound through the eye. It drops mid-leap, skidding across the dirt in a spray of black blood.
The third never reaches them.
The Ulfhednar moves—silent, fluid. He drops from his horse, lands on all fours, then launches forward. Claws rake the hound's flank, tearing deep. The beast howls, spins. The Ulfhednar ducks under the jaws, grabs the throat in both hands, twists. Bone snaps. The hound drops, twitching. The Ulfhednar stands, shakes black ichor from his fur, eyes glowing brighter for a moment before dimming.
Thrain wipes his axe on the dead hound's fur.
"Easy."
Sigurd sheathes his sword.
"Too easy.
They were sentries.
Not hunters."
The Ulfhednar sniffs the air once, nostrils flaring.
"More ahead.
Not hounds.
Something… older.
Waiting."
Gartheride looks at the ground where the roots disappeared.
The soil is smooth again.
No mark.
No scar.
Just a faint pulse—like the valley took a breath and held it.
Bjorn spits again.
"Jötunmaw don't like visitors."
Gartheride says nothing.
He thinks of the ribbon.
The boot.
The clues Stella left—smart, deliberate, desperate.
He taught her that.
Not the carving—the resourcefulness.
How to leave a trail when the world wants you erased.
And she listened.
He is glad—fiercely, quietly glad—that Stella left clues.
The yellow ribbon snagged on a low branch three miles back.
The carved boot half-buried under leaves two days before that, the mark unmistakable: two overlapping circles, one line through them.
Her "secret sun."
The one she used to scratch into every surface when she was small and thought no one was watching.
He taught her to be smart when no one else would listen.
And she listened.
He taught Astrid too, in quieter ways.
Stories by the hearth—old tales of clever girls outwitting wolves, outrunning storms, outlasting kings.
He misses telling them.
Misses the way her big innocent eyes would hang on every word, wide and shining, believing every impossible thing he said because he said it.
He misses the way she'd lean against his knee, small hand resting on his boot, asking "And then what happened, Papa?"
He misses the way she'd fall asleep mid-sentence, head heavy on his thigh, trusting the world would still be there when she woke.
He misses Ossi's patience.
Her fairness.
The way she balanced them all—Stella's fire, Astrid's softness, his own hard edges.
She tried with Stella.
Tried harder than anyone should have to.
When the girl was ungrateful, when she stormed out, when she sneered at rules and legacy and everything he tried to give her, Ossi never raised her voice.
She waited.
She mended.
She loved without condition.
She kept the house steady when he was away selling steel or hunting thieves.
She was his rock.
His equal.
His love.
He misses her so fiercely some nights he cannot breathe.
He will avenge her.
He will find them both.
He will burn whoever took them to ash.
And Stella…
His difficult, stubborn oldest daughter.
He misses her most of all.
Misses the sharp intelligence in her eyes, the way she could see through a lie before it finished forming.
Misses the way she'd argue with him—not out of disrespect, but because she believed the world could be better than it was.
Misses the quiet moments when she'd sit with him in the forge, silent, watching him work the bellows, learning the rhythm of fire and steel without ever asking.
Misses the rare, rare smile she'd give him when he got something right—small, private, like a gift she didn't want anyone else to see.
She was fire.
Unforgiving.
Beautiful.
And he failed her.
But she left clues.
She's still fighting.
And that is enough.
He doesn't speak.
He just rides.