The Valkyrie in Norse mythology—a captivatingly beautiful woman, dressed in full scale battle gear, sweeping the battlefield for fallen heroes. I am fascinated by this image. So much so, a version of a Valkyrie appears as a main character in the ShadowLight Saga:
A long-limbed beauty straightened up from the edge of the still waters of Prophetess Cove, turning to face Hallad. The woman’s white hair silvered in the cast of the moonlight, shimmering off of her naked limbs. Beads of water clung to her skin like hundreds of white jewels. The woman fixed her cool gaze on Hallad. Her hardened eyes defied the fact she bared all to a strange man. Hallad could not turn away. No matter how hard he tried to look askance, his eyes stayed prisoner to her own iron black.
The empty space inside Hallad rushed with emotions he couldn’t identify. As their eyes connected, awareness surged through every muscle, bone and the blood of his body—a sense that on this night, the Norns drew forth his destiny from the rune stones. A shine in her dark irises, a flicker of her eyelid, told him she felt the same.
A shift in her carriage broke Hallad’s stare. He realized the woman gripped a battle sword in her right hand. Women did not carry swords. In his village and throughout the lands of sudr Scandi they carried keys, needles, small knives and broaches, proudly displayed on a chain strung around their dresses, but never swords. Even the men in his father’s hall wouldn’t possess such a fine instrument.
Swan, my heroine in Bonded, book one of the ShadowLight Saga, is inspired from Valkyrie stories and Norse mythology stories. She is the quintessential ice queen, except secrets lay beneath her frosty demeanor. And those secrets will changes one man’s destiny forever.
