In life, he didn't believe in regrets.
As far as he was concerned, regrets and guilt were for fools.
His father taught him that one should be bold and decisive in regards to everything he did in life. If he hesitated, if he showed an ounce of uncertainty, it would betray his weakness. A chink in his armor that he could ill afford.
Men in his position couldn't afford to betray their baser emotions.
It was why he remained cold and stoic at all times.
How could one think with a clear head if it was clouded by anger, sadness or other lesser emotions? How many times did a fit of anger or misplaced aggression lead to one's downfall? Humanity as a whole had so much potential.
A chance to seize greatness to prove their superiority over nature.
But each human had their own individual weakness.
He despised it when his baser emotions got the better of him. It was moments like those that proved he was no better than the rest of the unwashed masses that peopled this world. The only exception was when he spent time with his wonderful wife.
She was the best thing that ever happened to him.
He felt like he could relax and be happy when she was around.
But she herself represented a dichotomous paradox. He loved her and prized her above everyone and everything in his life. But she was a weakness his enemies could exploit.
They could seek to bring him down through her.
His kingdom was too small and vulnerable for his liking.
He felt like they were on a small island, surrounded by angry, turbulent seas and opportunistic vultures that wanted to feast and devour what they had. While his kingdom was small, it was rich with natural resources and priceless jewels.
The forests were bountiful.
The seas were full of delicious fish and other aquatic comestibles.
His father Brynjar was a formidable warrior in his day. He was a tyrant, but the kingdom prospered under his rule. He looked up to Father. He seemed strong, invincible and godlike. It seemed like nothing would bring him down...until he was struck with a sudden, mysterious illness.
The doctors didn't know what was wrong.
Brynjar wasted away in his bed.
Losing his father was a blow that he never fully recovered from. There was no maternal influence to speak of as his mother, Asta, died in childbirth.
When his father was in his final moments, he was summoned to his deathbed.
Brynjar's final wish was that he would finish what he started.
Before he was struck down, Brynjar would plan his conquering campaigns. He was determined to take their kingdom to new heights and crush their enemies with such a blow, they would prove they were sharks in a sea full of minnows.
Other potential enemies would hesitate before deciding to attack.
Their tiny kingdom would be feared, rather than be sneered at.
Unfortunately, Brynjar was killed before he could even kickstart his campaigns. He knew that it would fall to him to honor Father's last wish. He clasped Father's hand with both of his own and promised on his mother's grave that he would bring their kingdom to glory.
Brynjar passed away with a peaceful smile on his face.
He had to wait until he was of age before he was crowned.
He wasn't idle in the years leading up to his twenty-first birthday. He would consult with his most trusted generals and advisors. The plans were kept secret, as he was wary of spies and there was a neutrality pact to worry about.
Both he and Father shared a mutual contempt for the Northuldra.
To them, they were stupid, primitive and uncivilized.
But no one knew the true reasons for their contempt and dislike were more personal and vindictive in nature. One of Asta's midwives was from the Northuldra. She managed to save HIS life, but it came at his mother's expense. To them, the midwife should have done more to save Asta.
Ever since, Brynjar loathed the Northuldra.
He passed that hatred onto his son.
When his coronation came and went, he knew that he had to wait until he had a son and heir of his own. After his son was born, he spent the next subsequent years planning and perfecting his campaigns. He even carefully selected his first target:
The very Northuldran settlement the midwife came from.
He painted all of the Northuldra with the same brush.
He wanted the midwife, her family and her fellow villagers to suffer. It was why he ordered that they all be wiped out, root and stem. He didn't want her seed to prosper.
His men succeeded in pillaging what valuables the vermin had.
He knew that he had to be generous on occasion.
It was why he chose the most amoral soldiers among his forces. He knew they would want to have "fun" with the female members of the tribe. If it boosted morale-and their loyalty to him in the process-who was he to argue?
Especially if it yielded the desired result.
His only command was that every man, woman and child had to die.
At first, it seemed like his plan worked. Then, he realized the leader of the settlement wasn't even in the village when his men attacked. Even worse, he belatedly learned that she was a powerful witch. But he learned this bitter truth the hard way.
When she uttered her curse, he didn't take her seriously.
While she appeared to disappear into thin air, he tried to find a rational explanation. Like his father before him, he was raised to believe what his senses told him. There was always a rational explanation for everything, especially in the fields of science, logic and common sense.
Not fanciful things like magic.
Then, barely a week after she uttered her curse, his wife wasted away.
The only bit of sunshine in his life was wasting away before his very eyes. It wasn't manly of him, he knew, but he begged and pleaded for her not to leave him.
Bitter tears would pour like rivers down his cheeks.
But there was nothing the doctors could do.
When he lost his wife, he became consumed with rage and grief. All he cared about was vengeance at that point. Everything else, his son, the kingdom, his father's ambitions, fell by the wayside. All he cared about was wiping the Northuldra from the face of the earth.
The war with the Northuldra was bloody and costly.
So many soldiers and innocents lost their lives.
It was during one of the skirmishes with a more violent and bloodthirsty tribe that he was hit with a poisoned arrow. He would learn in the afterlife the arrow was cursed by a powerful member of another tribe who desired vengeance for what he'd done to her sister.
He wasn't above having "fun" with the female Northuldra.
Her sister was traumatized by what happened and committed suicide by throwing herself in the nearby river.
Ever since, she vowed revenge. She cursed that arrow and gave it to a member of the tribe he was fighting. She wanted him to suffer before he was finally put out of his misery.
For weeks, he lay in his war tent.
Lost in fever dreams.
His dreams weren't natural by any stretch of the imagination. Not only was he haunted by violent images of the future, he would experience what his myriad victims did at either his hand or his command. He would suffer what the people did who paid the final price for his vengeance and his ambitions. In between, he would see the woman who cursed him and his line.
There was no triumph in her eyes.
Only a sadness and other emotions that he couldn't interpret.
When he finally died, he expected to go straight to hell. Instead, SHE appeared before him and grabbed hold of his soul. Then he was dragged to the realm of his nightmares.
He struggled and writhed.
But her hold was too powerful.
He was genuinely afraid for the first time in his life. When he was young, he attended a traveling carnival with his bodyguard in tow. A fortune teller warned him that he would be intricately linked to an evil realm that everyone knew not to approach.
She warned him that he was destined for this realm unless he changed his ways.
Outwardly, he scoffed.
He even had her flogged for her insolence before he had her banished from the land. But the warning stayed in the back of his mind. It was why he ordered that all books and paintings that mentioned or even hinted at this land was to be destroyed.
The palace staff and denizens of his kingdom were told to keep their mouths shut.
No one was to speak of it for future generations.
As his soul approached THAT damnable tree, the fortune teller's words proved to be prophetic at that point. Even though he was dead, he felt the pain a thousand fold as he was brutally impaled by various clawlike branches.
He struggled and writhed.
But his struggles only made the branches cut in deeper.
He didn't know how long he was stuck in this tree. All he knew was that time flew by at a rapid rate. Now that his mind wasn't clouded by anger, grief, ambition and arrogance, he could feel the belated guilt and shame filling the void.
He was a fool.
It was all his fault.
HE was the one who ordered that Northuldran settlement to be destroyed. The blood of countless innocents and soldiers stained his hands. HE was the one to start the curse.
Now, his descendants were paying for it.
She glanced upwards.
She knew her fellow prisoner blamed himself for what happened.
But she was equally to blame. Both of them were clouded with anger and desires for vengeance. She was a good woman once. All she wanted to do was to help people, to heal.
To do good with her powers.
To prove to the world that she wasn't some vile witch out for people's souls or the devil's whore.
It was only through sheer dumb luck that she was in the Enchanted Forest, visiting her nieces. She brought one of her daughters with her so that she would be able to play with her cousins. There was a huge age difference between her daughter and her siblings.
Well, half-siblings.
Her youngest was the daughter of her second husband.
Her two oldest daughters lost their father to a drowning accident. Her second husband promised to look after the village during her absence. Her oldest daughters promised the same. Like her, they were powerful in regards to magic.
She was disappointed that her youngest displayed minor abilities.
But she tried to accept her nevertheless as she was still her daughter.
She was in the middle of a conversation with her sister when she was struck by the visions. Her daughter had them at the same time.
She curled up into a fetal position on the forest floor.
Screaming and begging for the violent images to stop.
Her biggest regret was that she didn't comfort her daughter. Instead, she grabbed her by the arms, roughly brought her to a sitting position and shook her a few times in order to get her to focus. She ordered the poor girl to stay with her aunts and cousins.
Then she raced back to the village as fast as she could.
She was so desperate and panic-stricken, she forgot to ask for a reindeer.
The earth giants were too far away to carry her to the outskirts of the forest. She kept on running. She fell several times, but she managed to rise shakily to her feet to keep going. She was panting, red-faced and sweating. She even felt a hitch in her side.
But she kept going.
She hoped and prayed that her visions were wrong.
Finally, she reached her village. She felt her legs buckle and she fell down. At first, she couldn't process what she was seeing. She felt dizzy and her body start to sway as she nearly fainted.
She pressed a hand to her stomach.
Trying not to vomit.
She was soon letting out horrified, pain-filled sobs at what she was seeing. The entire village was destroyed. The homes were burning. There were bodies and piles of blood everywhere. The women were naked. All of them showed signs of rape.
Even the young girls weren't spared this indignity.
But the most horrible sight was her daughters.
They were naked, their bodies scratched up, bloodied and abused. Their features were forever frozen in a rictus of pain and fear due to the violation they suffered.
She rose to her feet with a strength she didn't know she had.
She started to dig up graves for the villagers.
Tears continued to run down her cheeks. Her body heaved as she put everyone into the earth, starting with her daughters. Her mind became consumed with hatred and a growing desire for vengeance. It was all she could think about.
Even her surviving child didn't register in her mind.
Once she was done, she ran to the hiding place where she performed her spells.
Normally, their culture was passed down from parent to child through oral folklore and tradition. But there was a book that was handed down from mother to daughter in her clan.
It was dark and forbidden magic.
They were supposed to be the guardians of this book.
To keep the evil from the world.
But to her, the evil would become her salvation.
The ticket to her vengeance.
She reached the clearing where she performed her spells and pressed a button that revealed a secret compartment in a nearby tree. She picked up the book and carefully scanned its pages. Finally, she found the map that would take her to where she had to go.
It was a land that was forbidden to everyone.
But she felt like she'd lost everything.
Feeling like she had nothing left to lose, she headed for the realm, not stopping until she reached a certain tree, with bark that was blacker than ash and evil holes for eyes.
Volva nodded in satisfaction.
"Did it work, my lady?" Laeknir asked.
"Yes. Ahtohallan aided us, as promised."
Both women watched as images started to form on a nearby wall.
It showed Agnarr and Iduna looking around Ahtohallan, searching every nook and cranny of every chamber. But they didn't know that Ahtohallan would ensure the former royal couple would go on a wild goose chase.
It wasn't yet time for Anna to confront them.
Volva had mixed feelings as she stared at her daughter.
The old guilt for leaving her at such a young age would always be there. But she couldn't help but feel disappointed with Iduna for neglecting her second daughter. For ignoring her and subjecting her to some mental and emotional abuse.
For helping Agnarr to imprison the eldest in her own room.
All they did was feed her fears, not alleviate them.
Agnarr and Iduna had good intentions, but they were horrible parents to both of their daughters. Both girls would carry the mental and emotional scars for the rest of their lives.
Yes, Ahtohallan made them whole once more.
But it couldn't cure everything.
It would be up to Elsa and Anna to continue the healing process. Volva and Laeknir could only do so much. Anna couldn't afford to falter now.
She had to rise to the challenge as her prophecy dictated.
So much depended upon her, it wasn't even funny.
"Do you think we have enough time, my lady?" Laeknir asked.
"We have to hope it's enough, my apprentice." Volva said.
"I'm just glad that time has no meaning in dreams." Laeknir said.
"Anna is strong, Laeknir. She'll be ready." Volva said.
She has to, was left unsaid, but the words hung in the air between them nevertheless.
Then, both women stiffened. A familiar evil presence started to fill the chamber and spread like a virus. Volva stiffened even more as a familiar, sinister laughter filled the air. "No, you leave her alone!"
The women tried to run to Anna, but a powerful force hurled them away.
They hit the far wall and fell with a grunt.
Before Volva lost her consciousness, a familiar image filled the air:
An evil tree, with bark blacker than ash and clawlike branches.