He halted alongside the ship’s deck, concealing himself and Gulltoppr behind a veil of sea mist and illusion. She sang to herself as she tightened the starboard shroud of her vast drekkar. The Norns guarded Heimdallr’s hjarta and would not let it fall into unworthy human hands.īut as he drew close to the source of the song, Heimdallr discovered that the woman was a warrior. But stealing a god’s heart was not a task for mortals. The god had taken human lovers of many genders before, all of them for fleeting affairs, though he never forced anyone. Or she might be enraptured by his appearance, as so many humans were, and worship him in more carnal ways. She might perform a poem and worship him with her beautiful voice. If he chose, Heimdallr could see her safely to shore and leave her with no memory of him or the great water stallion. Or maybe she was a healer, brought into battle to tend the sick and repair the sails, alone untouched by a plague that ravished her ship.
Maybe she had been captured from a distant land and become a spoil of war, abandoned when her kidnappers perished at sea.
Heimdallr imagined a slight girl: alone and afraid after her kinsmen had died in battle or succumbed to the ocean. The water horse tossed his golden mane and surged over the ocean’s tumult, toward the source of the god’s desire. Compelled as if enchanted, Heimdallr nudged Gulltoppr with his heels. The god peeled back his sleeve and the cobalt tattoos on his arm arranged themselves into a map, charting a course to the sound. The song had a loneliness that called to Heimdallr each note was hesitant and sweet, whispered to the air. THE MAİDEN’S SONG DREW THE god’s attention as he galloped over the Northern Sea.
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