Ari's quiet sobs woke me up from my light slumber. How long had it been since I had a good night's rest?

The forest was quiet and still, but Ari kept complaining and I knew he was hungry. The only thing I had to offer was some water. But the boy instantly rejected it and turned his teary red face to the side and called out for his mother. I stared at him in disbelief, since when had he learned to speak?

"Ari," I whispered and pulled him up in my lap, "You will be fine, we will find food soon. You just have to wait a little longer for me to find it." My voice seemed to calm him, as his big eyes drifted out into the woodlands. "A wolf spoke to me last night, he showed me the way to our family. I know where to go now," I told him in an attempt to comfort both him and me. "Everything is going to be fine in the end, we just need to get through this, and we will. I promise."

The vision had cleared my head and my doubts were gone, maybe that was the reason why I found a grove filled with soft pine sprouts and bark to eat. And while I would have rather caught a hare or squirrel, I knew that I wouldn't be able to make a fire and cook it. And hunting was time consuming work, even without a baby on my arm.

Even though the wolf had calmed me, and surprisingly I remembered the path it showed me, its presence overflowed me with longing for Freke and for Vidar. As soon as our mouths were full of the floral taste of pine sprouts and our bellies were a bit more content, my thoughts started to wander. What were they doing right now? What if a spirit had foretold Freke and Vidar about Bjarke and they were on their way to Skal? Would they search for me? I shook my head. Of course they would, they loved me. They had actually married me, a memory that made a welcomed feeling of joy spread through my body and gave me some comfort in this frustrating situation I was in.

Ever since that day, I had felt a much stronger connection to Freke and Vidar, but also towards the Mother-Wolf. That thought led me to an overwhelming fear. Had my gods abandoned me? Was that what the völva tried to tell me in that old dream when Fenrir and Garm transformed into my lovers. Around my neck hung a silver hammer of Thor, and I clenched it tightly in my hand as I sent a quick thought to the brave gods who I had looked up to all of my life. I did not want to abandon them, I loved them, but I had also found a love inside my heart for the world that Freke had most recently opened my eyes to.

The thought made me chuckle at my own arrogance, I was almost twenty five summers old, why had it taken me so long to discover this? Freke had always been around, they had always talked to the spirits and told me about their wisdom. So why had I never felt this connected to them before?

Knowing I was closing in on my hometown, I felt a sting of guilt in my heart. I had not spoken to my father in over a year, did he even know that I had killed his brother? Was he angry at me, or was he proud? Did he know what kind of offspring Brokk had created with his violence and inhumane actions towards his only son?A part of me felt sorry for my cousin. Maybe he would have been a better person if he'd grown up in Bildsfell with me. Or maybe he was just a dark soul, destined to be filled with hate from a young age.

The thoughts about Bjarke made me think of Ivar and Dag. I knew that Bjarke would punish them for their betrayal, but my hopes were that he would keep them alive and use them as bait to lure me back. I was not going to abandon Skal to him.

My thoughts were broken by my son's soft babble, as his small fingers reached up to grab my braided beard which he loved so much. The sun was about to set, and I realised I had been walking all day without any rest.

"Are you hungry?" I asked him, but he seemed content enough for me to continue a bit further. As my feet pushed through thick bushes, sticks and stones, I found a clearing and finally a glimpse of the evening sky. "Look Ari," I whispered, "It's a sign from the gods, they are still with us." As to thank them I raised my eyes to the setting sun and began to pray out loud, for my boy to hear, a prayer to Tyr, my namesake.

"I stand in the sunset, O Lord of Swords, seeking your wisdom in the last ray of light.

Falling from between the clouds as scarlet pools. Like blood upon the ground." I smiled down at Ari who was looking up at me, as he faced my body and not the stunning view.

"I face the act of honour that may break me, may cast me out from clan and kin,

I may cleave a gulf between us. Time turning, I now accept what must be done,

And my resolve is as iron, but iron unsmelted," I continued and let my eyes grace the last rays of the sun that colored the treetops in warm burgundy.

"Oh Lord of Swords, I pray you give me the fire of courage to lay behind my old life, my raw honour, to sustain me as I am pressed through this forging. One-handed God who does what must be done, grim and uncompromising, keep my spine straight, my head high, my eyes forward on this path."

I drew in a deep breath of forest air, my hand planted on my son's soft hair, relaxed and calmed I finished my prayer with a smile on my lips, "Hail, God of honour, I pledge to you, that if you bestow this gift, I will use it only on a path that I will never need to live down. Give me that gift which is the last gift, to keep going in the face of all fear.

To do right in the face of all necessity. To walk unswerving through fire and blood and steel."

The prayer was done and I let the words ground me. Freke would have nagged at me for not removing my shoes, but I was too cold and too lazy to do that now. But as soon as I took in my surroundings again, I felt a presence behind me and my body tensed up.

As I turned around I was met with five pairs of hesitating eyes, all of them belonged to wolves I had never met before, but something told me that these were not regular wolves. These were shifters, the question was, which pack did they belong to?

Ari started to whine when I raised my arms in the air, "Please, I mean no harm," I told the one who stood closest to me. "I'm searching for the Hamarr-Pack, can you tell me if I'm close."

Eyes pierced through my body and soul, then they all shifted in unison and instead of wolves there were three men and two women standing in front of me. "Tell me your name," one of them called out to me and I did not hesitate to tell them. My clan had always been kind to the neighbouring packs.

"Tyr Starke, son of Halvar."

"Tyr? The maður of Freke and Vidar?" a woman asked as she stepped forward with a tilted head and curious eyes, "what are you doing out here, alone with a child?"

"If you know of my relationship to them, you must know what happened in my village?" I asked, and they all nodded. "I had to take my son and flee from Skal," I whispered and my eyes fell to the ground, "Bjarke fooled them all into accepting him as their jarl."

Their faces were as hard to read as any wolf's, but I noticed how their muscles tensed up.

"Come then," another male said and reached out a hand to me. "Let us take you home to your maðurs. They would want to hear the rest of the story."