Cedwinr by Victoria Mendoza

cedwinr

By: Victoria Mendoza

A trail of smoke trickles up to meet the dull blue-grey dawn blanketing the lake. Save for the crisp snap of the small fire Freya could afford, the world seems to hold its breath. Scanning the surrounding forest, Freya sees nothing but a thick wall of evergreens with the occasional dull orange of turning leaves interspersed throughout. There is comfort to

be had in witnessing a sleeping world, where even the ghouls and people of the frost, who dust the ground with snow and ice, are at rest. No hunting foxes, no desperate badgers— bellies concave after a hard, unforgiving winter.

A puckish gust of frigid air runs across the back of her neck and stirs the fire, sending sparks up in a swirling eddy. The wind dances around the paltry campsite and Freya could almost believe that there were sprites in the flurry. Almost, if not for the fact that she had watched them die with everyone else. Any other day, Freya would curse at some lost god, damning the icy grip of the breeze. Today, Freya will be like the lambs she never had the patience to nurture. Today, Freya is lingering in every moment.

At the first bird’s song, trilling and sweet and just a bit haunting, Freya kicks rust-red sand over the dying embers and starts towards the spiny ridge of the mountains curved around the lake. The incline is steep and it doesn’t take long for a burning ache to race up Freya’s legs. What was once dulled by the shroud of morning mist awakens as the sun follows her ascent.

Muttering a hasty prayer to a longforgotten god of luck or small miracles, Freya heads towards the glittering peak of the mountain. It is only after she cuts the back of her hand on a particularly jagged branch that Freya slows down to appreciate the golden light streaming through the treetop. Stray snowflakes glittered through the air around her in swirling eddies. Looking around at the deep greens and vibrant oranges of the foliage, Freya tried to imagine the forest around her rustling with life again. A hungry, wanting hope bubbles from the pit of her stomach and she sets her jaw, starting up the mountain once more.

Black sand litters the ground, coating the patches of land not yet overrun by vegetation. Freya’s focus narrows until she can only see the few feet in front of her, urging her on towards the promise of a hidden savior. She climbs, determined, steadily reaching the heavens. Even now, with the sun’s heat battering her back, and even with hours of distance between her and the early morning when all but the most determined gods sleep, Freya neither sees nor hears signs of life. Not much anyways. Not anything close enough to touch. Every so often, there is a distant rumble that makes her think of the giants of the northern ice, slumbering away.

She climbs quicker, anticipation zipping up her spine in sharp bursts. The path ahead of her glints, onyx sparkling through the trees. Freya pushes onward, buoyed by the shrinking distance. The curved peak of the mountaintop flies towards her, as if the ground beneath her was hoping for her success. She thinks, smugly, of her sister’s overwhelming joy when she’ll come home with a god. She imagines the feast. Her mother’s tearful hug. Thorin, finally seeing her worth. She imagines, hopes, and anticipates all of this without paying attention to the fast-fading grass beneath her, until she is stopped short by the feeling one gets from almost falling unexpectedly. She looks around, surprised to find herself at the mountain’s peak, and is underwhelmed. For one, the ground up here is just as silent, just as still, as the one behind her was. For another thing, there is no god. No savior. Just Freya, the allencompassing sky, and a ground so smooth she can almost see her reflection. Her first thought, after the disappointment of a godless existence, is that the climb was all for naught and she is damned to have to go back down to journey back to her sparse village. Her second thought creeps up on her in the way that is

so silent, so unnoticeable, that she’s afraid it had been there in the recess of her brain all along. Her second thought is that the ground, usually so level and forgiving, felt unnervingly slippery. Only then, once she allows herself to register the feeling of one foot involuntarily sliding away from the rest of her body, can she start to feel the fear.

The slick curve of the mountaintop allows for little purchase, lacking the neat little holes and jagged edges common among its kind. Even with the threat of falling hovering over her shoulder blades, she wanders at the smooth cliff face and wonders how it curved outwards on all sides like a near-perfect sphere. There’s no distinct line, but Freya knows—like all dying animals do—that she is balanced on a precipice and losing time. A high, keening whine reverberates through her mind and fear skitters up her spine. In front of her there is oily, black obsidian—an unwelcome surprise. Behind her, a thin layer of moss and grit coats the ground. Slowly, she slides a foot back towards the safety of the silvered moss coating the ground. As she feels the blessed resistance of the moss beneath her, she lets out a shuddering exhale. Heart still racing, giddiness starts to creep through her veins, fizzy and more than welcome.

An explosive shriek sounds behind her as a crow bursts through the treetops, swooping past her for some unseen prey. She startles backward, choking on a gasp. Her left foot— the one anchored to the supporting grip of the moss—flies out behind her as she lands with a painful crack onto the damnably smooth obsidian. It happens slowly and all at once. Gravity’s hungry grip pulls her into a graceful arc down the curve of the mountain’s face. She twists, scrabbling for a grip on something—anything. A choked sob is ripped from her throat. She slips further down. One last desperate lunge towards safety leads to her smashing her chin. The first thing she registers is a deafening crunch and blurred vision. Then, pain—hot and electric—radiates from her jaw as the iron tang of blood floods her mouth.

With that, she falls.

Time slows, until it feels like she’s been plummeting for eons. The wind’s howl rushing past her becomes muted, dull. Her labored breaths drown out all other sounds and it is almost peaceful. Gaze tracing the deep black of what she’d thought was the mountaintop, she collects more details the further away she gets. This is the last thing she will ever see, so she will be gluttonous, devouring its image like a jealous lover.

A jagged fissure, to the left of where she slipped. The crack traces a lightning bolt down the protruding curve above two large, misshaped holes. Inky darkness peers out of them, and she imagines the depths watching her—bearing witness to her ending. Two smaller ones below them that are somewhat shattered. And teeth. Two rows of impossibly large, deep black teeth lining an open jaw, frozen mid-howl. Fear, animalistic and overwhelming, starts to flood her damaged nerves. Then, she lands in a painful heap on a slick palm, spine twisting, legs shattering, and shards of her body piercing itself. She doesn’t have the energy to grimace, much less the energy to shriek at the burning heat of her dying body. She looks up at the dead god, whose body is being reclaimed by the earth.

As her ragged gasps become fewer and far between, as her vision fills with swirling cosmos and a glittering promise of something her mind can’t fully hold just yet, as she stares down the remains of a once-great king, she can’t help but think that there is beauty in the unmaking of a god.