FREYA
They bring me before the old man and his son one last time at first light.
Three warriors stand ready to take me, big quiet wolves with hard faces, and a car waits beyond them in the grey morning.
The old man leans on his cane and looks me over, the way a man looks over a tool he is about to lend out and expects returned.
His son stands a pace behind him, silent, watchful, and I understand by now that the silence is its own kind of power in this pack, that these are wolves who say little and mean all of it.
"My men will take you as far as the trail," the old man says. "From there it is a half day on foot to where your father keeps himself. They will see you to him and no further. The rest is yours." His ruined face tightens. "I will say this only once more, girl, so that we un
