Chapter Seventeen

"What?" Cierra asked, confused, "I've always been able to enter…" She paused, wondering what exactly to call this place, "the dream realms." She settled on Goldie's terms as it might be the most universally accepted.

"You're bright like an apostle," The skeleton paused, looking Cierra over, "Do you have an item that you keep on you daily? That can be a source of power sometimes."

Cierra shook her head, "Have you met others like me, then? Who were they associated with?"

"I've only met one, a woman Frigg chose. She came for six years, through-out her pregnancy, gifted to her by a golden apple." The skeleton continued, "It was the sad fate of royal women in her time to bear children and die. Frigg simply granted her the ability to live longer than most women of her status were allowed."

The skeletal woman before her seemed sad, voice dipping low.

"Did she also glow, like me?" Cierra asked, wanting to get as many answers as she could.

"Yes, though fainter. I am not sure why." The skeleton answered. As they spoke, the skeleton's speaking speed picked up to a normal cadence.

Had she not talked in so long that forming words was difficult? Cierra wondered.

"Did you know any other apostles?" Cierra couldn't stop herself from rapid firing questions, "What kinds of powers did they have? Were they also related to Frigg somehow?"

The woman was quiet for a moment, as if trying to choose which question to answer first.

"I personally did not met any others. There were rumors over the years of men blessed by Odin, typically his own descendants, but no one who came to visit us." Cierra did not detect any malice in her words, "They were known for their feats of strength and cunning. There was no need for them to visit women who had long since passed on."

They trudged forward in silence for a moment, their advance slowed by mud. Where before the puddles had been sparse, they were now seemingly joining together, becoming bigger and hard to navigate.

"What's this place called again?" Cierra asked, the ground once again shaking under her feet.

"Fólkvangr," the skeleton answered, "a graveyard for women who die a noble death."

"Are you all…" Cierra stopped herself. She wanted to ask if these were all the women who had died noble deaths, but that seemed rude. Still, she expected there to be more than a dozen.

As if reading her mind, the woman answered, "We are all that remain. We are also the oldest, the first ones to follow Freya here."

"The others," she continued, "Do not move anymore. They are here," she gestured around them, "Somewhere. But no longer have the will to fight." She paused thoughtful, "Perhaps they only wish for peace."

Cierra nodded, trying to understand. If these were women who had died noble deaths, it made sense that they would want their afterlife to be as war free as possible.

For some reason Cierra felt guilty. The nightmares must have ruined that peace for them.

"Is there a way to get rid of the nightmares here?" Cierra asked. If she could help them achieve peace, then why not try to help them.

There was silence.

"My name is Leif. I was one of the first women here, before the nightmares arrived or our flesh rotted off. Fólkvangr may be a graveyard, but it was also a place of eternal rest then. There were gardens, rivers, places to practice combat. It was a place for rest after a life of strife."

"The nightmares changed that. We fought them, while we still could, and it was a welcome change for many of us." She nodded, acknowledging Cierra's confusion, "Eternal peace is only nice for so long. Many of us relished the opportunity to pick up a weapon and fight again."

"So then, how can I help? How long have ya'll been fighting?" Cierra was growing impatient, as interesting as Leif's story was, it wasn't the answer to her question.

"We've been fighting this battle for—" Leif was cut off as the ground shook even more violently than before. It seemed to Cierra that the further they pressed into the darkness, the hard the earthquakes became. "For hundreds of years. It's like an infection, we can stave it off for a short period of time, but it always comes back stronger than before."

"How did it start?" Cierra asked, curious if there was a way to cut off the 'infection' at its root.

"No one knows. We just know one day they were here and Freya…" Leif's voice filled with emotion, "Freya was not."

Cierra reflected on what she said; Freya wasn't here then, much like Sekhmet wasn't where her vessel was. She found herself chewing on the insides of her cheeks.

"Do you happen to know if Freya knew Sekhmet? An Egyptian goddess?" Cierra asked, cautiously.

"An Egyptian goddess?" Leif thought for a moment before answering. "No, but we never knew much about Freya outside of Fólkvangr."

"Are you all not able to visit other realms?" Cierra asked, pensive.

"No, we stay here, where we belong." Leif answered, pausing for a moment before continuing, thoughtful, "I have never heard of an apostle visiting realms outside of the pantheon they were blessed by. Are you not limited in where you can go?"

Cierra was about to answer that she wasn't sure what her limits were or if she had any, when a piercing cry penetrated the darkness.

"We're close." Leif announced, and the troop halted. A few meters in front of them was a cave, noticeable only because its mouth was darker than anything around it. Cierra could hear movements from inside, as though something was patrolling the area.

Leif dropped her voice to a breathy whisper, "For some reason, they have been gathering Freya's artifacts here. They have collected five tears so far, but we know not why."

"I thought nightmares couldn't corrupt divine artifacts?" Cierra asked. Had Goldie been wrong? That didn't seem likely.

"No, they cannot. And we have not yet found why they keep them."

Leif led them to the side of the cave entrance, finger to her lips.

"We," She nodded to the others, "Will help you find the tears, take as many as you can and leave this place."

"You don't want them?" Cierra couldn't understand why they wouldn't choose to keep the rest of the tears for themselves.

"We have been here rotting for hundreds of years. We may be able to take the tears, but they would still be here, in Fólkvangr. And who knows how long we will last?" She shook her head, "No, the tears should leave this place. Take them somewhere else, where they can be protected."

"I," Cierra hesitated, "I might be able to fix you. If I just knew what you looked like…before."

Leif shook her head, looking at the others.

"I have lived long enough, perhaps one of you might wish to try?" Leif offered.

A skeleton holding a spear stepped forward. Cierra noticed she was missing two fingers and a thumb from her right hand. Was that a battle wound or were they all slowly falling apart to nothing?

Cierra swallowed nervously, what if she couldn't help them? "Can you tell me what you looked like?" Cierra asked.

"I had raven hair, much like yours," She raised a hand as if to touch Cierra's hair and then let it fall back to her side, "Though not so straight. My lover, "Cierra's cheeks flushed, "used to say my hair reminded her of the soft roll of the sea."

"My eyes were golden in the sun, like honey, and my skin was the color of cream."

Closing her eyes, Cierra tried her best to envision the skeleton as the woman she described. She could see her face in her mind, but Cierra struggled with the armor, instead imagining her in a modern-day outfit.

There was a murmur around her, and she opened her eyes. In front of her was a woman with black hair that tumbled past her shoulders, with nothing covering her bare skin.

Just as the woman was looking at her hands, all ten fingers back, the flesh started to rot off, sloughing down in patches to the ground.

Cierra gagged, unable to keep looking as her hair started to fall in clumps, leaving nothing but blood and bone.

There was silence all around.

"I suppose it is not meant to be." The once raven-haired woman stepped back to her original position among the warrior women.

"I'm sorry, I can—" before Cierra could finish offering to try again, Leif cut her off.

"No, it is better this way."

Another cry came from inside the cave, followed by the earth shaking. Cierra grabbed onto Leif, almost falling while the others supported themselves on either each other or the mountain the cave was carved into.

"Let us move." Leif turned towards the women.

"Protect the girl and find the tears, we must get them out of here no matter the consequences."