Freya Valdis's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

Freya crossed the golden hall after Aezrath. His fire dimmed at every step. She reached the inner doors, and they slammed shut before her. Ice sealed them, thick and white. She pressed both hands to the surface and pushed her cold into it. The ice only grew deeper. His winter was older than hers. "Aezrath," she called. "Open the door. Answer me." No sound came back. She struck the ice with her fist. It held. Elsa stood behind her, gripping the carved pixie. Torrent Iron set his metal shoulder to the door and heaved. The gold groaned but did not give. "He's hiding," the girl said. "He won't come out." Freya stepped back, breathing hard. She had broken his seal on the sky. She had crossed the frozen sea. Now a single door stopped her, and the god behind it stayed silent. The air changed. Warm feathers drifted down through the cold hall, blue and gold and red. A woman walked out of the light near the frozen doors. Bright plumes crowned her head. Her bare feet left no frost on the floor. Freya raised her lantern. She did not know this face. "You waste your strength on his door," the woman said. "He built that cold before you were born. You can freeze it a thousand years and never reach him." "Who are you?" Freya asked. "His sister." The feathered woman smiled without warmth. "I am Moira. I see every road that was and will be. I have watched my brother throw down the guilty and the innocent alike for a long age. I want him stopped as much as you do." Elsa stepped closer, wonder in her face. "You know everything?" "Enough," Moira said. She turned back to Freya. "His cold cannot be broken from the outside. But it can be called. He must answer his own name spoken in the old god's tongue. You still hold that tongue. He cannot refuse it. That is the law even he obeys." Freya looked at the sealed door. She lifted her cracked lantern. The blue flame steadied. She spoke his name in the old speech, the words rising from somewhere deeper than memory. "Aezrath. I name you. Come and answer." The ice on the doors cracked from top to bottom. The seal split. The gold swung inward on its own. Behind it, in a hall gone dim and small, Aezrath stood with his blue eyes wide. He had not moved to open the door. The naming had opened it for him. "You should not know that word," he said. "Now you can't run," Freya answered. She walked through. Torrent and Elsa came behind her. Moira followed last, her feathers bright in the failing light. The god was cornered in his own hall. But his sister walked at Freya's side now, and Freya did not yet know what price that help would carry.