Eivor anxiously tapped her foot as she waited for the door to Valka's home to open. It was a bright and early summer morning, birds chirping in the trees, people and pooches walking in the streets. Still, Eivor felt uneasy. Her phone seemed heavy in her pocket, reminding her of the reason why she'd set out so early to meet her friend. She did not dare take it out to see if Sigurd had left another of his inane messages.

Fuck. She did not know if she wanted to pummel him or drag him home for a much-needed intervention. Eivor cursed under her breath, looking heavenward. Valka would know what to do. She always did. Hell, she was fully equipped to deal with that sort of mess.

Finally, blessfully, the door swung open. Eivor greeted her friend with an awkward grin, but Valka only raised a brow. She was the picture of witchy elegance with her long, black dress and the lacy shawl draped over her pale shoulders. The only hint of colour on her person was a blue, pink and white flag that was pinned over her heart. Valka was ready for the afternoon, which they would spend together at Pride with the rest of their girls.

But right now Eivor needed her help for something else…

"Eivor," Valka said, dipping her head, "it's good to see you."

"Hey," Eivor said, "thanks for letting me come. Er, shouldn't we…"

"Come inside. I'm not quite finished with my mother yet."

"Got it," croaked Eivor, following her friend inside the house.

The cottage Valka shared with her mom was small, but warm and inviting. Wide open spaces let in natural light, while a number of potted plants brought life to every room. Eivor had to hide a smile at the sight of the sofa; she'd spent so much time there, watching crappy B horror movies with Valka until the wee hours of the night. This was her second home away from home—and Svala, Valka's mother, had been like a second mom, fussing over her and listening to her teenage woes without a word of judgment.

The woman was seated in a plush reclining chair, a blanket draped over her knees. Svala's stare was unfocused, and she kept muttering something in a low droning voice. Eivor's heart sank at the sight. Svala had been a beloved pillar of the community as the owner of the local pharmacy. Her illness had robbed her of a bright, curious mind—and, Eivor feared, of the fierce love she'd always shown to her one and only daughter.

A woman in a nurse's garb stood by Svala's chair, smiling and speaking softly to her. Valka joined her, a frown touching her fair brow.

"Mamma?" she asked Svala. "Eivor is here. You remember my friend Eivor, right?"

Eivor approached, feeling small and stupid as a child. She forced a smile. "Hey, Svala. How's it going?"

The woman did not answer, and Eivor's spirits plummeted to the pit of her stomach. The nurse, Gudrun, patted Svala's arm in a sympathetic manner.

"I'll be going now, Mamma," continued Valka. "I'll be back this evening, after supper."

"Pusen?" Svala suddenly said, eyes regaining a bit of brightness. "Pusen min, where are—"

Valka kneeled before her mother, taking the woman's hands in her own. "I am here, Mamma. I will go soon, but you will be in good hands with Gudrun here. She will take good care of you." Valka's eyes had grown misty. "I will be back soon, Mamma, don't worry. I promise you."

She kissed her mother's bony fingers, then stood on unsteady feet. Svala muttered, "Pusen, pusen," looking lost and frightened. It seemed to take much willpower on Valka's part to let go of her mother's hands.

Gudrun went to comfort her charge. When Svala finally calmed down, the nurse exchanged a few words with Valka. Eivor's friend was sniffing a little when they both left the house. Eivor patted her shoulder. Still, in the span of a heartbeat, Valka regained her composure, going back to her usual cool goth queen self.

"How is she?" Eivor asked her.

"She was in a good mood today. Sometimes she's… more agitated. Aggressive, even. It's like…"

"She's a different person?" Eivor added, mutely. She thought of the reason why she had asked for Valka's help today—and felt like a total bag of dicks. Her own problems seemed rather inconsequential in comparison to the hell Valka was currently going through.

Valka nodded, her expression grim. "I know it's not her, it's her illness. It's starting to get too much to handle. Soon, I'll have to…"

"Find some nice place for her, yeah," said Eivor dully. Valka remained silent, but Eivor could see the telltale furrow forming on her brow. With Svala in a nursing home, Valka could surely not pay the expenses on the house where she'd grown up, not with a pharmacology student's (nonexistent) salary. Eivor's friend would be faced with a terrible dilemma in the near future—and she would potentially have to grieve the loss of her home alongside the loss of her mother.

As Eivor looked at her with sympathy, Valka shook her head and said, "I'd rather not speak of it right now. What is it you needed, Eivor? We're only going to meet the girls after dinner for the parade, after all. Is there something else?"

Eivor sighed, then motioned at her car. "C'mon. We'll talk on the way."

The story escaped Eivor's mouth in a jumbled mess as she drove them to the café where they would meet Sigurd. Valka remained silent and thoughtful as Eivor told her how Sigurd had started messaging her again a few weeks back.

"I thought you had blocked him," Valka commented, prompting a groan from Eivor.

"I should have!" Eivor exclaimed. "Fuck, but he deserved it. The way he treated Randvi…"

"I know. What did he say?"

Eivor resisted the urge to bang her head on the steering wheel. "At first, he just said he missed me, and… yeah, that got to me, right? He fucked up, but he's still my brother, you know? I miss him too."

"Go on."

"Then his messages started to get weird. He started to ask me what I thought about the world, the deeper meaning of life. He was like, what if we all have a purpose here? What if we're special—one cut above other people?"

To her credit, Valka responded to these outlandish words with only a raised eyebrow. "Strange. He's never been the spiritual or religious type."

"I know!" said Eivor. "That's why I'm freaking out so much! And now he says he wants to introduce me to a friend of his. A friend who 'opened his eyes to the truth of the world' or some other bullcrap. I did a background check on her: lady's part of some group called the 'Instruments of the First Will'. Sigurd joined a fucking cult… probably just 'cause he wants to bang some weird chick! You see why this is so messed up?"

Valka looked at her phone for a moment, then frowned. "From their website, it seems like a cult alright. 'Reclaiming the cult of the old gods', 'unlocking one's true potential', 'understanding past selves to guide us toward a better future'... this isn't treading new ground, really. Yet I've never heard of them."

"We gotta stop Sigurd before they force him to do some weird culty shit. Like, what the fuck do they mean by 'finding one's true self by the gift of pain'?"

"Eivor," Valka said, looking at her with a gentler expression, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. This will be up to Sigurd to decide, not us."

Eivor tightened her hands around the wheel; she couldn't say anything to that. She almost wanted to turn back, to leave Sigurd to deal with his own shit. Yet her heart twinged at the thought. Eivor would have said, not that long ago, that he had burned all bridges with her when he'd made the brilliant idea of sticking his dick somewhere it shouldn't have gone. But now that he needed her help, she found herself rushing to lend him a hand—as he had done so often in their childhood, acting as her protector on so many occasions.

Finally, she sighed, moving to park the car in a vacant spot. "Alright," she conceded. "But I'm not going to let this go without a fight, you hear me?"

Valka gave a sly, slight smile. "That's my girl."

The café was unlike any place Sigurd would usually visit; with its subdued atmosphere and oldie-fartsy kind of woodwork, it seemed more like a hangout for caffeine-addicted university students and snotty bougies. Indeed, Sigurd—with his Viking-inspired haircut and buff, tattooed arm—stood out like a sore thumb among the hipsters and the nerds.

But then again, so did his date.

The woman—Eivor remembered her name was Fulke—had short blond hair styled in a bowlcut, of all bloody things. She was wearing black leather trousers and a jacket covered in studs and buckles; she wouldn't have looked out of place in a rave. Joan of Arc by the way of the Matrix. Or a BDSM club. Eivor had to fight to keep herself from laughing at the incongruity.

"Eivor!" Sigurd exclaimed, making to embrace her with his only remaining arm. Eivor realised just how much she had missed his hugs as he crushed her against his chest. When they parted, Sigurd grinned and patted her on the back, "Dammit, sister, it's good to see your grim mug again!"

Eivor smirked. "Who are you calling ugly, arse-chin?"

Sigurd laughed, motioning to his companion. "I told you about Fulke, yeah? She was eager to meet you."

Eivor glanced over to the woman, feeling her smile grow cold. Yeah, I bet she was. "Yeah. Nice to meet you."

"Sigurd talked a lot about you," said Fulke. "I'm glad to finally make your acquaintance, Eivor." She had a slight accent, one Eivor couldn't quite place. The woman then turned to Valka, sizing her up, one goth to another. Eivor nearly snorted at that; her friend was pint-sized, yet she had more presence in her pinky that this lunatic had in the whole of her body. "Who's your friend?"

Valka smiled politely and extended her hand—which was more than Eivor would have done, to be honest. "I'm Valka, a friend of Eivor's. She talked to me about your… faith, and I was interested to know more about it."

A spark of interest flashed in Fulke's dead fish eyes. "Is that so?"

"Then, come on!" said Sigurd. "Let's go order something, I'm starving."

Two baristas greeted them at the counter: one gangly young man with a smattering of freckles over his face, and a cute, short-haired person with a nose ring. Once Eivor and the others had taken their orders, they sat in a more secluded section of the café, to have a little bit of privacy.

"Eivor, Eivor, Eivor," Sigurd said when they had all taken their places. "God, how long has it been, sister? Too long, that's for sure!"

And whose fault is that? Eivor thought, temper flaring. "How have you been?" she said instead.

"I'm doing better, yeah," Sigurd replied, with a somewhat wistful expression. Then he grinned at Valka. "I wasn't expecting you to come as well, old friend."

"I was feeling nostalgic," said Valka. She glanced over to Fulke. "And curious."

"Oh, I have a feeling you two would get along," said Sigurd with a laugh. "You're both, er…" The two women looked at him. Valka's expression was cool and composed, as always, but Eivor expected that she longed to say, 'Are you kidding me right now…?' Sigurd coughed awkwardly, before adding, "You're, well, the spiritual sort, is what I mean… it's… it's inspiring, really."

Since when Sigurd had been interested in the spiritual stuff? Fuck, this chick had messed him good. Was she that good in bed? Eivor stifled a grimace at the thought. Now, that was a cursed image if there ever was one…

"Eivor told me you are a follower of…" Valka made as if she was looking for the word. "What was it called again?"

"We are the Instruments of the First Will," Fulke said. Bitch looked proud. And a bit scary. Deep bags encircled her eyes, which made her piercing gaze even more unsettling. Did she truly believe the bullshit she was peddling? If not, then she was a damn good actress.

"Sigurd called you spiritual," Fulke said to Valka. "What faith do you follow?"

"I'm a believer of Ásatrú," Valka explained. At Fulke's blank look, she added, "Forn Sed. The Old Faith."

"Ah," said Fulke, "a neopagan. We have much in common then."

The slightest frown touched Valka's brow; Eivor doubted anyone but her had seen this subtle mark of disdain. Valka managed a mild smile—one that did not reach her eyes, however. "This is why I wanted to speak with you, yes. I've read… a lot about your organisation on the way here. Finding new ways to reinvent old faiths is an interesting topic, I think."

Fulke nodded. "Bridging the past to the present, yes. Not many are aware, but we walk in the footsteps of the Ancients."

Jesus Fuckin' Christ. How the hell did Valka manage to listen to that claptrap and keep a straight face? Eivor felt like she was about to piss herself from bottling in her laughter.

"There are many examples of the gods walking among mortals in the sagas, yes," Valka said in a level tone.

"And now we find traces of them in our own selves," said Fulke, turning to Sigurd with an overly proud expression. "I see Tyr's fairness and strength in Sigurd when he tells me of his life experience, for one."

Eivor stared at her. Is she for real? Did she pick up the one god missing a limb because… Fuck, but she wanted to throw up. Or to throw hands. Honestly, BDSM Bowlcut Lady had gone to unsettling weirdo to fucking evilest bitch ever in the span of a heartbeat.

"By suffering, one awakens to their true selves," Fulke said. "By focusing on the pain, one's eyes are opened to the truth of our divine lineage. Such are the main tenets of our faith."

"You see, Eivor?" Sigurd said. "All this shit that's happened to us… it all has a purpose."

A purpose. It was fine that Sigurd had suffered—that his life had spiralled out of control after that motorcycle accident where he'd lost an arm—because all of it led to some bullshit greater purpose. All the painful stuff they had gone through their lives—Eivor's father dying in front of his helpless daughter, Valka's mother losing her own damn mind—Fulke and the rest of these arseholes all saw it as some kind of inspirational bullshit, like a story from a feel-good movie where people walked away from their trauma with a big, beatific smile. Shit, but that was evil.

"Listen, you," Eivor growled, half-rising from her chair, "I dunno what the hell my brother sees in that bullcrap of yours, but—"

"Eivor!" Sigurd exclaimed, while Valka sighed, rubbing her temple.

Fulke, however, only nodded, as if this was expected. "Yes, yes… you have a touch of Thor about you, I see. Or… Sigurd told me you're not the kind to stay in one place for long. He said that you have a wanderer's soul." She made a humming sound, meeting Eivor's glare head-on. "Odin, perhaps?"

Eivor's hand tightened into a fist. Valka tugged at her sleeve, telling her, "Sit down, Eivor. This isn't the place."

Eivor cast about a glance. The few patrons sitting around were staring at her; one woman had her mouth puckered in a look of disapproval. The two baristas were frozen on their spot. Nose Ring had lost their smile. Freckles stopped wiping the mug he'd been cleaning. Eivor's face grew hot. Fuck. She thought she'd grown better at this. That she'd grown past erupting into petty rages. Again she was proved wrong.

"Sorry," Eivor muttered, getting back into her chair. She wanted to crawl into that fine wooden floor—or to punch the daylight out of that cultist freak. Her expression was a deal too smug-looking for Eivor's taste right now.

Sigurd shook his head. "Eivor, Eivor… you never change, do you? My god, but what are we going to do with you, sister?"

If Valka hadn't been holding Eivor's wrist under the table, that fist would have come flying for Sigurd's face. Instead, Eivor stared at him, fuming. She was about to ask Valka to leave these two pisspots to their mind games when her friend took out her phone. Looking at the screen, Valka said, "Twenty-three."

Fulke's brow furrowed. Sigurd blinked awkwardly, uttering, "Wh-What?"

"Lawsuits," continued Valka. "In the last five years, there have been twenty-three lawsuits against members of the Instruments."

"Which have been withdrawn," Fulke said, eyes cold.

Valka did not look at her; she continued to scroll down her phone. "In five cases, there have been rumours of plaintiffs being harassed. Three concerned former members who claim to have been subjected to treatments that worsened their mental health. Two journalists investigating the organisation were laid off from their jobs recently, reasons unknown. One woman claimed to have been sexually assaulted by the mentor assigned to her."

Sigurd's face had gone bone white. "Where… where are you getting all this?"

"I hang out with heathens and neopagans," Valka said with a shrug. She showed her phone to Sigurd; Eivor saw that she had been looking at a Discord server. "They did the research for me while we were speaking. My friends are quite invested in uncovering frauds for the blight they are, you know. They give pagans a bad name." She fixed a pair of cold blue eyes on Fulke, and the latter flinched. "People like you disgust me. You prey on the vulnerable to fatten your pockets. Worse, you do it by misusing their faith." Her nostrils flared. God, but Eivor had rarely seen her so wound up. She grinned widely, feeling like a little kid in a candy store. "I've half a mind to let Eivor beat the crap out of you," Valka continued, "but she's my friend, and I wouldn't want her to be in trouble for the likes of you. So piss off, and never show your face again."

Fulke's face was hard and cold as marble. She then turned to Sigurd. "Are you really going to let her speak to me like that?"

Sigurd cursed, surging from his seat. Face red, he opened his mouth to say something, but Valka looked at him, and he hesitated, to Eivor's great surprise.

"We only want the best for you," Valka said, the worry evident in her voice. "We're your friends, Sigurd. Don't shut us out. Please."

"Er, excuse me?"

Eivor startled, looking aside. Nose Ring had left the counter, and they were wringing out their hands next to her. Behind them, various clients of the café were glaring in their direction.

"Ah, I'm sorry," the poor barista said, "but you're disturbing the other customers. I'll have to ask you to leave, please."

Fulke threw them an absolutely chilling glare, but Valka smiled and said, "Of course. We're sorry for the trouble."

As they exited the café, Fulke turned to Sigurd and said, "I'll call you soon. Goodbye, Sigurd." She hadn't even looked at Eivor and Valka. Before Sigurd could utter a sound, Ms. Belts 'n Buckles turned on her heel, crisply walking away.

Eivor whistled as she went. "Now there's a bag of crazies if I ever saw one."

"Eivor," Sigurd warned in a growl.

Valka held up a hand, silencing him. "We're late for our meet-up with the girls, Eivor. We should get going."

"Yeah," Sigurd said, sounding like a fucking petulant brat, "you should go."

Hell. Was he that pissed that Eivor had ruined his booty call? Hadn't he heard the golden rule of not putting your dick in crazy? Again she was seized with the urge to flip him the bird and blithely walk away. Maybe that's all he deserved.

"Well, I'm off then," said Valka. She looked at Eivor, her gaze insistent. "I can get there by walking, Eivor. No need to trouble yourself on my behalf. You can join us later, if you want. I'm sure the girls won't mind."

Eivor's shoulders sagged. "Yeah. See you later, Val."

She was left on the pavement with a glowering Sigurd. Great. Just what she needed. She was sorely tempted to let him hang out to dry; after all, this was a mess of his own doing. Eivor sighed, jamming her hands in the pockets of her jeans.

"C'mon, you nitwit," she said. "Let's find somewhere we can talk in peace."

"Why should I go anywhere with you?"

God, but she wanted to throttle him. That wrung a smile out of her. Same as usual, then. "'Cause you're my idiot brother, and I'm your stupid sister—and unlike that psycho friend of yours, I actually care about your wellbeing, you git."

She was relieved when he agreed to follow her to a nearby park. They sat on a bench, watching their surroundings for a moment: the park was popular with women jogging in tight yoga shorts, people walking their dogs, and fat squirrels… squirrelling about. Sigurd remained stubbornly silent. Not that Eivor was inclined to fill in the silence; two could play that petty game. Valka would have rolled her eyes if she had seen them. And Randvi… Eivor's stomach twisted. She did not dare imagine what Randvi would have said if she had caught them moping like a pair of misbehaving children. Really, Eivor, she could almost hear Randvi say. That's not very sexy of you…

It was this thought more than anything that drove her to say, "Hey, mate, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for everything to go… so badly."

Sigurd snorted. "That's an understatement."

Was she really that good of a lay? Eivor almost asked. At the last moment, she schooled herself and said, "Did you believe all that stuff she told you? About you being like… some weird avatar of the god Tyr or something."

"Does it matter anymore?" Sigurd said, wearily. "Valka was right. It was too good to be true—and I fell for it like a total dumbarse."

"Valka also said she targeted you because you were in a vulnerable position," Eivor reminded him. "These people are good—hell, they're professionals. They know what they're doing."

Sigurd passed a hand over his face. "You don't have to twist the knife in the wound, Eivor. I know I'm a fuckup. It was just good to pretend that I could be anything else for a while. That I'm more than the disappointment of a son who won't take over Daddy's company." He signed, before adding, "That I'm more than the piece of shit fiancé who—"

Again, Eivor felt a flare of that familiar temper. "Who fucking cheated on the woman he was supposed to marry?" Was he truly trying to play up that card for sympathy? Maybe he deserved that punch, after all.

Sigurd muttered something, evading her gaze.

"What?" Eivor challenged. "If you've got something to say, then speak up."

After what felt like an eternity, Sigurd croaked, "We'd already broken up when that happened."

"...did Randvi know about that?" Eivor growled, earning herself a wince on his part. Oh, but how she enjoyed prodding into that metaphorical wound. Prat deserved it.

"Goddammit, Eivor!" Sigurd exclaimed, surging to his feet. "You don't know what happened, so get off that high horse, will you?"

She lifted her chin, goading him. "Yeah? So tell me, dickhead. Tell me why I shouldn't have a go at you right here and now."

Sigurd swore, kicking at the ground. For a while, they glared at each other, unwilling to give up ground. Then he slumped beside her, sighing once again. "Ah, fuck it. You deserve to know. We were a bad fit from the start. That's all."

Eivor lifted a brow, unimpressed with that shitty explanation.

"Alright, alright!" Sigurd said. "You know her dad is a business partner of the old man, right? We thought… we thought that would make them happy, to have the two of us together. We wanted to get them off our arses, you see? Dad kept telling me how to live my life, and I… well, I just wanted to find a way to finally shut him up and do my own thing, yeah? And Randvi…" He shrugged. "I don't really know why she agreed, in the end. She had her own shit to deal with, but she never really told me what it was about. Ask her if you want to know."

Eivor nodded. "Go on."

"And then, there was the accident, and… the whole fucking thing fell apart. I'd been lying to myself. She'd been lying to herself. We were two lonely people thinking we'd have a better go at it as a pair. That's not really a good foundation for a relationship, yeah? Randvi was the first to realise we were a lost cause—and she decided to break things off."

"Wait," said Eivor, "she's the one who…"

"But as I said, that's her story to tell." Sigurd groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Turns out I'm shitty boyfriend material as well as a shitty heir to dear Daddy's legacy."

Eivor's anger dimmed, replaced by a deep sense of familiar weariness. "That's why you were willing to believe in Fulke's bullshit. At least to her, you were someone."

"I was a gullible little bitch, more like. God, but how pathetic can one man be?"

For a moment, Eivor was silent. Then, very quietly, she said, "You're someone, to me. You're always been someone. You were someone when I had no one else. You were someone when I needed a friend—a brother."

Sigurd turned to her, quite suddenly. His eyes seemed a bit misty. "Eivor, I…"

"C'mon, you wet piece of shit," Eivor said, opening her arms. "I've been talking 'bout my feelings for a while now, and you know how I hate the touchy-feely stuff. Gimme a hug and let's call this quit, eh?"

He laughed. God, but she had missed his laugh. "Hah! Now you're the Eivor I remember."