softly. "She won't, not yet. She is only in the early stages."
Thor shook his head. "I don't understand how you know."
With a short lift of a shoulder, I pursed my lips. "I just do. And it's not the first time. I've dreamed before. In fact, I dreamed of the Vigrid Plains even before I went there."
Frigga touched my hand leaning forward to look at my face. "Bryn, how long have you been able to see things?" she asked, her voice soft and gentle. I was hesitant to admit it, but her tone was encouraging enough to make me answer.
I looked away, staring into a dark corner of the hall. "It happened a few times when I was very young. It didn't happen as often as seeing pretty shining people. So it caused me less trouble with the head-doctors."
"And since coming to Asgard?" asked Frigga.
"I haven't paid too much attention to it. It's happened a few times and I've pretty much ignored it."
Frigga shook her head and the light glinted on her armor. "Do not ignore it, Bryn. The more you use it the more you will be able to see."
When the goddess straightened, Thor glanced at her and asked, "Is she a Volva?" I watched as Frigga nodded, while looking at me with a wide smile on her face. "I do think so."
The way Frigga watched me made me suspect something. "I have no idea what a Volva is but I'm assuming it's a seer of sorts?" Frigga nodded. "So, was Brunhilde also one?" I saw her hesitate before she eventually nodded.
"So it's likely Bryn would display the same ability?" asked Thor, his forehead wrinkled.
Frigga paused for a moment as if she was being careful of the words she chose. "It could be either Brunhilde's DNA or Bryn's own ability. Either way, however she received this power, it is not something to turn your nose up at."
I placed a hand on the arm rest on the great throne and held it tightly. "I understand. I wouldn't disrespect such an ability. Even in Midgard people with the ability to sense or see things are regarded as fortunate." Or crazy, I thought.
Frigga was a seer as well, and her ability to see things was not one she called upon at will. She touched my hand, "My visions come to me as and when they please. I cannot call them up, cannot answer a question unless I already sense something. I feel a lot more about people than they are able or willing to tell me. But in the end I am at the mercy of the power. And so shall you be." She seemed at peace with an ability that could prove flighty at best, and scary at worst.
I nodded then looked away. It would have been easy to resent Brunhilde now for one more thing she'd passed down to me through her DNA but I didn't get to pick and choose what I wanted or didn't. I'd begun to accept that it was okay to be this reincarnation, or reinvention, of the warrior princess, the Valkyrie daughter of the All-father who had died so long ago.
With a sigh, I finally let go of my tense hold on the stone arm of Odin's throne, and sank against the backrest. It rose behind me, at least eighteen feet into the air. I craned my neck and peered up to see both Hugin and Munin perched there, watching me as if they expected something from me.
Suddenly, the birds took flight and the wolves beside me got to their feet and growled, their lips curling back to reveal yellowed canines. I stood up quickly and a glance around the hall revealed a strange tension, the Ulfr, baring their teeth, growling softly as they tilted their heads as if listening to a distant sound. The dwarfs began to hurry for the door and I could feel the low, insistent rumble beneath my feet.
Dust fell from the domed, painted ceiling high above us. The eight columns shivered and groaned, and fear rippled through my veins.
Thor flashed away, dissolving into thin air while Frigga's eyes rolled back in their sockets showing the whites, making fear pebble my skin. Making my blood run cold.
A loud crack echoed through the hall and one of the columns shifted, scattering dust and small stones on our heads. A thunderous crash echoed through the hall as the column toppled somewhere in the squall of dust, sending a gust of debris in our direction.