The dreams had started with howls. Faint at first, like echoes from across a snow-covered valley, but each night they came closer. And when the moon was high, Brynhild would wake, heart racing, fists clenched, sweat soaking her furs.
She had always been different. While other girls in the village wove flax and whispered of marriage, Brynhild climbed cliffs, wrestled the boys, and watched the woods with an untamed fire in her eyes. Her mother called it stubbornness. Her father, who died when she was just a child, had called it strength.
But the others called it feral.
The village of Skarn was nestled on the edge of the forest, where the shadows were thick and the old gods still whispered in wind and bark. They told tales of the Wolfborn—cursed bloodlines from the days of giants and gods. Shapeshifters. Beasts. Monsters who walked as men until the moon unveiled their truth.
No one believed such tales anymore. Until the howls came back.
And this time, they weren’t in Brynhild’s dreams.
One by one, hunters went missing. The forest grew quiet, unnaturally so. Livestock vanished. Blood was found in the snow, steaming and bright.
On the night of the blood moon, Brynhild stood watch with her uncle near the edge of the woods. He clutched his axe tightly. She gripped her spear tightly.
Then the wind shifted.
And the world changed.
From the darkness, a shape leapt—huge, fast, furious. Her uncle shouted, swinging wide. The beast knocked him aside like a child’s toy. Brynhild met its charge with steel, thrusting her spear deep into its side. But it didn’t stop.
It stared at her.
Eyes like fire.
Then it fled into the trees.
Her uncle lived, though broken. The beast was wounded. But what haunted Brynhild most was the moment they had locked eyes. In that instant, she hadn’t seen a monster.
She had seen herself.
That night, the dreams returned—but this time, she was the one howling.
Her grandmother, an old woman with clouded eyes and stories older than stone, called her to the hearth the next morning.
“You feel it, don’t you?” the crone rasped. “The pull of fang and fury. The truth in your marrow.”
Brynhild didn’t answer. Her hands trembled. The old woman reached into the ashes of the fire and pulled out a bone charm, blackened and carved.
“Your father left this for you. He knew this day would come.”
Brynhild took it. The charm pulsed with warmth.
“You are not cursed,” her grandmother said. “You are chosen.”
She left the village that night. Not in fear, but in need of answers. The beast still lived. And something deep inside her called it kin.
For days, she tracked it through the snow. Her senses sharpened, hearing what no one else could, scenting blood from miles away, seeing shapes in the night. She moved like wind and shadow, no longer bound by fear.
And then she found it.
The beast lay near a frozen stream, breathing shallow, its wound festering. It lifted its head when she approached.
“You’re like me,” she whispered.
It growled, a low rumble of warning and pain. She knelt beside it and placed the charm on its chest.
“I don’t know what this means. But I know we share something.”
The beast closed its eyes.
And then, its body twisted. Shifted. Bones cracked. Fur receded.
Before her lay a man.
Scarred. Grey-haired. But human.
“My name is Eirik,” he said. “And I’ve waited a long time for another.”
Under Eirik’s guidance, Brynhild learned the truth.
The Wolfborn were not monsters. They were guardians. Chosen to walk between worlds, man and beast, to protect the balance between order and chaos. But the old ways had been lost. The bloodlines hunted. Their purpose forgotten.
Brynhild trained under moonlight. She ran with the wolves. Fought with tooth and claw. Learned to control the beast within, not cage it, but understand it.
Her dreams were no longer screams of confusion, but songs of power.
When she returned to Skarn, she was no longer a girl chasing shadows.
She was the shadow.
A raiding band had come while she was gone. Outlanders. Slavers.
The village had burned.
Brynhild found the survivors—wounded, broken, hiding among ruins. Her grandmother was dead. The rest had been taken.
She followed the trail. Her fury was cold. Measured.
That night, the slavers never saw her coming.
She moved through their camp like a ghost, blade flashing, eyes glowing. When they ran, the wolves hunted. When they fought, they died.
By dawn, it was done.
She freed the captives. The survivors stared at her in fear.
“You’re not one of us,” someone whispered.
She looked at her bloodstained hands.
“No,” she said. “I am more.”
They speak of her now in hushed tones.
The wolf in the skin of a woman. The one who walks the twilight path. The protector from the shadows.
And when the wind howls through the trees, the children of Skarn do not fear.
They whisper her name like a prayer.
Brynhild. The Wolfborn.