Chapter 1: The Fallen Prince and the Valkyrie's Claim
The mist clung to the bare branches like a shroud, muffling the world into a damp, grey silence. Caius urged his horse forward, a gentle nudge with his heels, but the beast only sidestepped with a nervous snort. It was his own fault. He’d chosen this path, this supposedly ‘shortcut’ through the Blackwood, to avoid the royal procession on the main road. He couldn’t stand another moment of the knights’ sidelong glances, their barely-concealed amusement at a prince who preferred scrolls to swords.
A twig snapped somewhere to his left, too loud in the hush.
The horse reared.
It happened too fast. One moment he was in the saddle, the next he was airborne, the world a dizzying swirl of grey sky and black branches. He hit the damp moss with a thick, jarring thud that knocked the wind from his lungs. By the time he’d gasped a ragged breath, spitting out the taste of soil and decay, the sound of galloping hooves was already fading into the distance.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he groaned to the empty forest.
He pushed himself up, his body protesting with a chorus of new aches. His fine velvet doublet was smeared with mud, and a long, ragged tear ran down one leg of his trousers. Perfect. He was lost, alone, and looked like a beggar who’d lost a fight with a shrub.
The fog seemed to thicken, swallowing the path he’d been on. Every direction looked the same: a latticework of skeletal trees and that suffocating, silent grey. He picked a direction and started walking, his soft-soled boots making no sound on the spongy ground. An hour, maybe two, slipped by. The light began to leach from the sky, the grey deepening to charcoal. Panic, a cold and familiar creature, began to uncoil in his gut.
Then he saw it. A break in the trees. A clearing.
He stumbled forward, hope a fragile flutter in his chest. And then he froze.
The clearing was not empty. The air itself seemed to change, growing charged and heavy. A sudden wind, warm and unnatural, tore through the stagnant fog. It wasn't a bird. It was a woman, descending from the low-hanging clouds on wings of shimmering, ethereal light. She landed with a soft thud that nonetheless seemed to vibrate through the soles of his feet, her knees bending gracefully to absorb the impact.
She was… immense. Taller than any man in his father’s guard, with shoulders broad enough to carry the sky. She wore practical, hardened leather armor that gleamed dully, and her arms, crossed over her chest, were corded with muscle that spoke of a lifetime of wielding something much heavier than a book. Her hair was the color of winter wheat, braided tightly back from a face that was all sharp angles and stern lines.
She looked at him. Her eyes were the pale, piercing blue of a glacier.
Caius felt his mouth go dry. He was a scrawny, mud-stained librarian facing a demigod.
“You are lost,” she said. Her voice was not loud, but it carried, a low resonance that hummed in the air.
He could only manage a jerky nod.
She uncrossed her arms, taking a single step forward. She moved with a predator’s effortless grace. “This is Valkyrie territory. Mortals are not permitted. How did you get past the wards?”
“I… I fell off my horse,” he stammered, immediately wishing he could vanish into the moss. It was the most pathetic confession imaginable.
One of her sharp eyebrows arched slightly. A long moment of silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant hoot of an owl. Her gaze traveled over him, from his disheveled hair to his torn clothes, pausing for a fraction of a second on his slight frame. He felt utterly transparent.
“You’re not a threat,” she stated, not unkindly. It was a simple observation of fact, and it somehow stung more than an insult.
“I try not to be,” he mumbled.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. “I am Astrid.” She tilted her head. “And you are…?”
“Caius,” he said, too quickly, before he could think to lie. He saw the recognition flicker in her glacial eyes. The name of the prince of the neighboring kingdom was apparently known, even here.
“Prince Caius,” she corrected, her tone neutral. “Your kingdom is a three-day ride east. You are very, very lost.”
The reality of his situation crashed down on him. Three days. On foot. Through this. The cold panic returned, sharp and visceral. He took an involuntary step back, his foot catching on an exposed root.
He flailed, arms pinwheeling, and felt a sickening rip as his torn trouser leg snagged on a broken branch. The fabric gave way entirely, tearing from knee to hip. He landed hard on his backside, a fresh wave of humiliation washing over him. But Astrid wasn’t looking at his face.
Her gaze was locked lower, on his exposed leg and hip. Her expression, for the first time, was one of pure, unguarded astonishment.
Caius followed her look and felt his blood run cold. There it was. The source of a lifetime of awkwardness, the reason for the whispered jokes and averted eyes in the royal baths. The witch’s curse, she’d cackled, was a gift that would make him unforgettable. He’d been sixteen. He’d just wanted to impress a stable hand.
It was grotesquely, disproportionately large, a ludicrous appendage on his otherwise slender frame.
Astrid blinked, then looked back at his face, then back down, as if her warrior’s mind was struggling to process the incongruous sight. The stern Valkyrie was completely derailed.
“What… in the nine realms… is that?” she finally asked, her voice laced with a bewildered honesty that was entirely devoid of mockery.
Caius squeezed his eyes shut, wishing for the forest to swallow him whole. “It’s a curse,” he whispered, his voice tight with shame.
There was another long pause. He heard her take a step closer. When he dared to open his eyes, she was kneeling beside him, her head cocked. The astonishment in her eyes had softened into something else, something curious and deeply thoughtful.
“A curse,” she repeated slowly. She looked from the physical evidence back to his mortified face. A slow, deep, genuine smile spread across her features, transforming it. It was the most terrifying and fascinating thing he had ever seen.
“Well, Prince Caius,” Astrid said, her voice a low rumble of amusement and something like intrigue. “It seems you are full of surprises.” She offered a hand, not to help him up, but to halt his retreat. “Tell me about this curse. And then we will decide what to do with you.”