Winter broke and gave way to spring.
With it, the ice shattered, and the fjords were free to give birth to dragons once more.
Vetrúlfr stood in his long hall, adorned in full battle-raiment.
The skin of the arctic wolf, his oldest companion, hung from the nape of his neck. He washed his face in a gilt-bronze basin before wiping it with a dry linen cloth.
When he finished, he looked into a polished bronze mirror to witness his own reflection. The lines of age had begun to mark his face, yet he was no less formidable in stature.
He reached for a fine ceramic bowl resting near the basin and dipped two fingers into the dark-blue liquid.
He drew the pigment beneath his eyes, darkening the flesh so that it stood in stark contrast to the steel of his ocular helm.
A voice fractured the silence, soft and gentle, yet as unyielding as the roots of Yggdrasil itself.
"Is it time already?"
Vetrúlfr did not need to look behind him. He knew the voice by its nature alone.
