The lightning flash was blinding, followed instantly by a deafening thunderclap. A tree nearby split asunder as it was struck, exploding shards of wood in all directions. A few splinters embedded in her shoulder and leg as she ran, but she couldn't afford to stop. Emma stumbled onward, slipping and sliding in the fast thickening mud. The wound between her ribs was spreading warmth down her side. She'd pass out soon from blood loss, that much she knew.
The storm was relentless, and she knew she was lost. But there was nothing to do but keep going, and hope she was still headed away from Asagarth, and with any luck, toward the portal. She dug the orb out of her pack and held it aloft in her bloodied hand, its faint glow lighting her way in the dim murk. Branches smacked her in the face as she ran, adding more cuts and bruises to the collection she already sported. Her red leather jacket gave her some protection, but she was still soaked to the skin by the freezing rain. Teeth chattering, she forced one foot in front of the other. Time passed, but the storm showed no signs of weakening. On the bright side, it was making it harder for her pursuers to track her. On the downside, she had no idea where she was. At long last, there was a break in the trees and she stumbled, exhausted, onto a rocky, windswept plateau. The gray sea stretched out before her, the thunderclouds roiling far into the distance. She fell to her knees, weak and desperate, and was debating whether to lie down and rest or keep walking when she felt the cold steel blade at her neck. She froze, and raised her hands, both covered in blood, one holding the orb.
"You've magic, but you're no Asgardian," rasped a low voice in brusque tones. Emma thought it was a woman, but wasn't sure. She was shaking violently now, from the blood loss and shock. The curse meant she couldn't speak, so she merely held still and waited.
The blade lifted from her neck and a squat figure, deeply cloaked in roughspun brown wool appeared in front of her, holding the knife between them threateningly.
"You're trespassing. What do you want? If you're looking for the cutwife-"
Emma didn't know what that was, but she did know she was about to be sick. She leaned over, retching violently though there was nothing in her stomach. With some horror, she realized she'd just vomited up a huge amount of blood. Her injury was worse than she'd realized. The figure knelt beside her and peeled up her jacket and shirt, hissing when she saw the wound. She was a short woman, wrinkled and spotted in the way that people who spent their life out in the elements were, with gray hair trimmed close and unevenly to her scalp. Her eyes were hard, distrusting, but nonetheless she examined Emma's wound with skill, poking and pressing with an almost angry expression. In Storybrooke, Emma would've thought she was a nurse. A cranky one, she thought, with a chuckle. Her head spun. She was becoming delirious.
"Up you get, girl," said the woman, roughly hauling her to her feet with surprising strength. She was at least a foot shorter than Emma, and a lot wider. She braced Emma against her with an arm around her waist and hauled her bodily forward toward the edge of the cliff. For an absurd moment, Emma thought this crazy stranger was about to toss her off the edge, and dug in her feet.
"Do you want to die up here, girl? Come with me, if you want to live. Stay here, if you want to die."
Emma's strength was waning. If she stayed where she was, she was sure to bleed out. Deciding to trust this weird woman, she allowed herself to be led to the edge. Peering down with hazy vision, she could make out a series of stone steps carved into the side of the cliff. They trudged downward precariously. The drop-off to the rocky beach below was terrifying, made more so by the slipperiness of the steps. They finally reached a landing and turned inward to the cliff, where a wooden door was set amongst the rocks. The woman pushed her forward, and they entered a drafty corridor. Emma figured the woman had magic when torches along the wall guttered to life, but she was unable to ask. They stumbled onward, turning a few times until they reached another door. This one opened into a cozy sitting room. A fire burned warmly in the hearth, and none of the cold ocean air penetrated this deeply. A profusion of dried herbs hung from the ceiling in bunches, lending the place a pungent, but not unpleasant, aroma. The woman dragged her to a cot by the fire, and laid her down on it.
Emma clung to consciousness desperately. She realized dimly her clothing was about to be cut away. She wanted to warn the woman to leave her red jacket alone, but the words wouldn't come. The woman seemed to register her resistance, and shook her head with irritation. Nonetheless, she propped Emma up, tugging the wet jacket off with difficulty. Her reaction at seeing the obsidian cuff on Emma's wrist was marked. Her dark eyes narrowed, and she hissed a series of unfamiliar words, making a quick gesture with her thumb and forefinger over her heart. Emma noticed she avoided touching it, as though it would contaminate her. Emma's shirt she cut away, revealing a truly hideous wound between her ribs. The woman busied herself and returned with a kettle of boiling water and a variety of herbs and tools. She poured water into a bowl and began mashing some of the plants into it, making a thick, aromatic paste.
"Bite down," she ordered, slipping a wooden dowel between Emma's teeth. Without warning, she slapped a handful of the concoction on the wound and rubbed it firmly, forcing the paste into it. Emma screamed soundlessly, unable even to articulate her agony thanks to the curse. The dowel creaked between her teeth. The room spun and she thought she'd lose consciousness, but didn't.
"Good, you can take pain without blathering," said the woman, grudgingly approving, not realizing yet that Emma couldn't have talked, even if she wanted to. The agony slowly faded to a dull roar. The woman poured hot water over the wound, and Emma was shocked to see that it looked much better. It wasn't closed completely, but the bleeding had stopped and the color of her skin was improving. The woman reached for a needle and thread and set herself to sewing it up. Emma gritted her teeth and looked away. Another coat of paste was applied, and then she was wrapped snugly in a bandage.
"Sit up," she was ordered. Emma was exhausted. She didn't think she had it in her to do anything other than lie there.
"Sit. Up."
It took all her remaining strength, but she swung her legs over the edge of the cot and pulled herself up to sit. A rough wooden cup, steaming, was thrust into her hands.
"Drink."
It was a bitter concoction, scalding hot. Emma brought it to her lips with trembling hands and sipped. She gagged. It was absolutely vile. Why couldn't medicine ever taste like cocoa?
"Every drop. Unless you would rather the wound fester."
Emma scowled, but drank. The taste was horrible, but the warmth was welcome. She was still in soaking wet pants and her hair dripped onto her knees as she sat shivering. The woman handed her a wool blanket to wrap herself in, and took a seat opposite her in a rocking chair.
"No thanks for saving your life?"
Emma raised the cup and nodded, trying to indicate gratitude. The woman grunted.
"I guess that'll do. Not much of a talker, eh?"
Emma shook her head, unable to explain.
"Good, that suits me. You have magic though, or did, before some bastard cuffed you," she said, looking at the bracelet with disgust.
Emma nodded tiredly. She had a thought, and raised her wrist toward the woman with a questioning look. She was greeted with a brusque shake of the head.
"Can't remove it. Or even touch it. Bears the mark of the Order of the Sun."
The woman made that same quick gesture over her heart with her thumb and forefinger shaped into a crescent, as though warding off evil. Emma cocked her head questioningly, but the woman chose not to elaborate.
"You're running from them, then?"
Emma nodded resignedly, sure she was about to be kicked out into the storm. Who could blame the woman for not wanting to shelter someone hunted by the Order? She'd just gotten a peaceful band of Xoraxai attacked by Sentinels, and wasn't looking to drag anyone else into her mess. But the woman's response surprised her.
"You'll stay a while and heal, girl. This place is warded against the Brothers' magic."
At Emma's confused look, the woman pointed at the low stone roof overhead. A series of crude symbols was carved into it, blackened with years of soot. The centermost symbol, and the largest by far, was of a crescent moon, surrounded by a field of stars.
"Forbidden, since before the Long War. The Order of the Moon. All the women in my family, always practiced in secret. It's why we were always outcast, always shunned. People suspected."
"Moon?" mouthed Emma, eyes round.
"Not surprised you don't know. We had balance, once. Between the Orders. Dagr's boys in the Sun temple, and Nótt's girls in the Moon temple. Odin destroyed our temple before the war. Forbade our Order. Because of Freya, of course."
Emma tried to follow the thread of the words, but her thoughts swirled and her lids were heavy as lead. She was dimly aware of the cup being taken from her hands, and the woman pressing her back onto the cot, and then she knew no more.
The stars twinkled in a thick multitude like nothing she'd ever seen. She was floating, weightless, in the velvet darkness. There was no pain, because she had no physical body. She was merely a presence. Calm, eternal. A star nearby beckoned her, winking in a purple flash. She moved toward it, not conscious of traversing a distance exactly, but aware she was traveling. The light grew brighter, inviting her, and she moved straight for it, approaching with rapid speed. She entered it in a bright flash.
She found herself standing on the main street in Storybrooke. The town was bustling with normal activity, and she saw familiar faces everywhere. A couple was ambling away from her, pushing a stroller. She'd know them anywhere.
"Mom!" she cried, and was shocked to hear her own voice. She couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken aloud. The couple turned, and it really was her parents, beaming.
"Emma, there you are! We're going to be late for school. You can push your little brother, if you want."
"Okay, Mommy!"
Emma skipped toward them, her braids flying. She was happy to see her parents, happy to walk to school on a sunny day.
"What do you want to learn about in school today, sweetheart?" asked her Dad. She looked up at him and smiled.
"Um, dinosaurs!"
Snow and Charming laughed, and baby Neal gurgled happily in his stroller. She reached up to push him, though she was barely tall enough to reach the handles.
"You shouldn't be here," said a low voice, taut with anger. Emma looked up to see the drab figure of the woman, holding her arm in a death grip.
"Hey, leave me alone!" squealed Emma, in her six-year old voice. She was happy. Her family was here, and everyone was safe.
"This isn't real. Search your heart, and you will know."
"Get your hands off our daughter!" said Charming, reaching for the woman. The scene blurred and distorted and Emma had the sense of being pulled away.
"No!" she screamed. "I want to stay! Mommy!"
"Foolish girl," said the woman. They were standing on the clifftop, overlooking the gray ocean. She was scowling at Emma, who realized she was back to her normal, adult self. She patted her hair, looking for the braids she'd just been wearing, and found only her usual long tresses. That had been truly weird. She'd actually become a child for a while, even in her own mind.
"What was that? And how is it I can talk here?"
"That was someone else's dream, and you could've been trapped there permanently, you fool!"
"A dream? What do you mean?"
"We are in Nott's Nightworld. The world of dreams. Just my luck you have the ability to Walk. If I'd known, I wouldn't have dosed you with blue Nightshade."
"Dosed me?"
"Sedative. For normal people, it induces a deep, dream-filled sleep. For those who Walk, it allows entry to this place, the Nightworld."
"And this is a world of…dreams?"
"Yes, and you made a child's mistake, allowing yourself to be pulled into another's dream. We are drawn to the dreams of those we feel most strongly about, and those are the ones which are most dangerous to us. Without experience, you could've been trapped in that woman's dream, or injured or changed in some fundamental way that would remain with you upon waking. Your mother?"
Emma nodded, frightened by the woman's intensity.
"That's why she saw you as a child, and you changed to match her desires. The power in a dream belongs to the dreamer, not the Walker. Without practice, and strength, you should not visit the dreams of another. Do you understand me, girl?"
Emma was beginning to understand. "You can stop calling me 'girl'. I'm Emma Swan. What's your name?"
The woman turned and walked down the steps leading to her home, which looked exactly the same as they did in real life. Emma followed, wondering what would happen in real life if she fell off the cliff in this place.
"I am called Jamri. I am the cut-wife of Tarth."
"What's a cut-wife?"
That earned her a sharp look.
"I am the one the village girls come to when they have nowhere else to turn. Or when someone has a problem the healers can't cure."
"You must be very important, then."
The woman snorted. "They despise me."
"But they must need your skill, your herbs. You healed me from a wound that should've killed me!"
"They despise me because they need me."
Emma left it alone. She had ideas spinning in her head, the possibilities of this Nightworld they were in.
"So Jamri, tell me more about this place. Can I contact people, get them messages?"
"Yes, with practice, and once you are able to convince them that you're really there, and not just a figment. It's easier once you've seen them in real life and warned them what to expect. And of course if they can also Walk, then you can meet them here, in the Nightworld, which is a reflection of our own reality, rather than entering their own private dreams. It's safer, and less embarrassing."
"Embarrassing?"
"Would you want someone to be able to walk into your dreams? See your innermost fears and hopes? I thought not," she said, to Emma's frown.
"How do I find a specific person's dreams?" she asked, heart beating faster. If she could just see Killian, even for a moment…
"Don't even think about it. You'll just go bumbling around and get yourself into trouble. You need training, girl."
"Then train me."
"With all of Asgard searching for you? You have hours, days at the most, and then you move on."
"I thought you said you were warded against the Brothers?"
"Against Brothers, yes. Against normal Asgardians searching every haystack, or Sentinels for that matter, there is no warding. I've seen that cuff and the scars on your back. You have magic, and you can Walk. You are no ordinary woman. And tell me, why is it you can't talk?"
"You saw my back?" snapped Emma, feeling violated. The woman simply crossed her arms and waited in a way that said she would hear the whole story, then and there. Emma didn't want to, but she felt she owed it to the woman to be honest about her situation.
"We might as well start at the beginning then," said Emma, sitting down on the cot with a heavy sigh. "Hope you have plenty of time."
"It's hours yet to sunrise, and the dose I gave you should last till then. Myself, I am trained to enter the Nightworld at will, and stay as long as I want. With time, you could learn to do the same."
"It began five years ago," started Emma, spinning her tale with a heavy heart. She told of their disappearance into an empty world, and the birth of her daughter, who had such strange and awesome powers, even as an infant. At this, the woman's attention sharpened, but she didn't ask questions, merely listened. Emma explained how they had found their way back to the real world, through Soria Moria.
"I know of this place, and its destruction. It is a gateway to the Nightworld. Or was," muttered Jamri, lost in thought.
Emma concluded with the tale of finding their friends in the EF, battling Asgard, Henry's imprisonment and rescue, and her own capture and torment at Vakyr's hands. They sat in silence for a time, listening to the waves outside and the crackling of the fire.
"You are a brave woman," said Jamri at last. "And uncommon strong, to resist a curse so evil. So ancient. There should be a special place in Nair-Hel for those who cast an Ond-Praell."
At this, Jamri spat on the floor, as though even the words caused her physical disgust.
"I do what I have to," replied Emma.
"This curse is an abomination. It can be laid at Odin's feet, like so much suffering in this world and others."
"What does Odin have to do with it?"
"He created the curse, many thousands of years ago. Odin and his ilk, the demigods, they rise again and again, incarnate in mortal form. And every time Odin rises, he always, always, falls in love with Freya."
"Freya?"
"A demigoddess, touched by Nótt, Goddess of the Night, just as Odin is touched by Dagr, God of the Day. They are opposites, analogues."
"Order of the Sun, Order of the Moon," murmured Emma, beginning to understand.
"Just so. As I was said, Freya rises again and again, and always she is pursued by Odin, but never in all their lives has he attained her love. It is their eternal tragedy, locked in a chase that never ends, just as the sun pursues the moon across the heavens, never catching it. In one cycle of their lives, long ago, Odin resorted to a terrible curse, the Ond-Praell. He created it to bind Freya to him, to make his desires her own."
"That's what Vakyr did to me," said Emma, sickened. "What happened to Odin and Freya? Why did he forbid it?"
"It worked, for a time. It went badly, though, in the end. In his next cycle, he made it a forbidden curse, punishable by death. The thing about the Ond-Praell is that it only works on those touched by the Diviner, the Goddess Nótt. She anoints some women with her touch, gifting them with special traits. I think you know what I mean. An ability to tell truth from lie? An inner strength that resists all efforts to influence it? Yes, you are touched by Nótt, of this I am sure. That you can Walk proves it. But the double-edged sword of the Ond-Praell is this: it can be turned against the wielder."
"How?" asked Emma, perched on the edge of her seat.
"With difficulty," replied Jamri, wryly. "The only way out is through."
"What does that mean?" asked Emma, exasperated.
"Did you ever try to physically harm Vakyr after he cast the curse? Ah, so you tried. And the result was terrible, yes?"
Emma shuddered, remembering breaking his nose during their last encounter, how the curse had magnified it back at her a thousandfold. It had been the worst pain she'd felt in her life.
"You have to be willing to endure it. You have to be willing to die. Only by embracing the pain, embracing death, can you kill the one who cast the curse. Not many are willing, in the end. The horror of the curse is that it saps the will. Most give in to the wielder's desires long before they reach the point of desperation needed to end it all."
"But Freya ended it? She killed Odin?"
"Yes, in that cycle both died. Apparently the curse was turned against him, so that at the end, Odin was powerless, in Freya's thrall, and she killed them both to free them of the bond, thereby ending that cycle. Apparently it was so excruciating for him that Odin forbade it ever after. Surprising that Vakyr was even able to learn how it was done."
Emma had paled. "So I'll have to die then, to get free of him."
"Probably."
"Great."
"I have another question for you, Emma Swan. Was your daughter touched by the divine before her birth?"
Emma froze. It was such an odd question, so on the nose, that Emma thought Jamri already knew the answer.
"How did you-? A sea goddess, Yemaja, she shared my body for a while. I was pregnant with Moriah. I always assumed that had something to do with her special powers after she was born."
"You are more right than you know. All the goddesses of life, love, fertility, they are derived from Nótt. If one such shared your body when you carried the child, then Nótt touched your daughter directly. Your daughter has been chosen as Freya's incarnate."
Emma sat still, blinking dazedly.
"Come again?"
"Your daughter. She's Freya's new incarnate. The prophecy, your disappearance into the Nightworld for years, which protected you and crucial allies from Asgard, not to mention your daughter's special gifts. It all has but one explanation."
"No," scoffed Emma. "I mean, yeah, she's powerful, but my daughter is still a normal kid. She's not a goddess!"
"Demigoddess. Incarnate in mortal form. So she's normal, eh? Never did anything extraordinary, or said anything in a language she couldn't possibly know, or wielded magic beyond her years?"
Emma's gut was churning. Sure, Moriah had spoken fluent elvish at her bonding ceremony, read ancient dead languages in books at the library of Soria Moria, opened portals at will from the age of two, and had already shown more magical power than she and Regina had combined…Emma gulped.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean-"
"Emma Swan, you should be proud. Proud! Your child was chosen to bring Nótt's daughter back to the world, to save us from Odin yet again. The Order of the Moon will serve her gladly when the time comes."
"No! She's not some ancient goddess! She's herself, her own person! She's not a…a reincarnation of someone else!"
"Stop shouting, girl. Of course she's herself. She is, in many ways, an ordinary child. But scratch the surface, and there are many, many past lives within. She will not be an average woman, when she is grown. As she matures, more and more of the ancient memories will unlock themselves, and eventually she will have a full grasp of magic and knowledge which you and I can only dream of. Don't you see? She is the only one who can defeat Odin! She can end this war and restore peace to the worlds!"
Emma paused at this. Killian had seen a vision, once, in the elf queen's mirror. He'd seen their daughter leading a vast army against Asgard. Could it really be true?
"But then, she's also in danger," choked Emma. "Until she grows into her power, she's vulnerable. And Vakyr is looking for her. When he was torturing me, all he wanted to know about was the girl. I knew about the prophecy, that he meant Moriah, but I didn't know why."
"Vakyr is not the worst of it," replied Jamri, quietly. Emma lifted her head, heart pounding.
"What could be worse than Vakyr?"
"Odin, of course. He loves her. And love is the most dangerous weapon of them all."