Ralaen spent a long time just… lying on the bunk and talking. Out loud, in her head, back and forth with Artemis until the nerves she’d been carrying for weeks finally started to unknot.

  She learned more about her new partner. Not specs, not “core revision numbers” or whatever the techs would have listed, but who she felt like. Artemis felt like the older sister she’d never had—calm where Ralaen spun, dry where Ralaen flailed, indulgent without being condescending. When Ralaen’s thoughts started racing in five directions at once, Artemis just… steadied them. Redirected the worst spirals with a joke or a pointed, Really? That’s the disaster you’re going with?

  Ralaen told her about home. About her parents. Her Varaen (pack-brothers). The arguments. How she’d wanted more than the path laid out for her, how signing up for the Jaeger program had been equal parts escape and calling. How the Black Trials had nearly broken her. How the Crown had scared her more than anything, and she’d done it anyway.

  Artemis listened.

  Sometimes she replied with words. Sometimes with little flashes of feeling—pride, fondness, a soft heat in Ralaen’s chest that very much wasn’t just her own.

  She was still talking, stretched on her back, one arm thrown over her eyes, when the door hissed open.

  Eirik stepped in, looking a little pale and a little dazed and a lot like someone who’d just had their world turned inside out and back again.

  Ralaen bounced off the bed before she’d consciously decided to move.

  “How did it go?” she demanded, grabbing his hands in hers, eyes wide, tail wagging once behind her before she got it under control.

  He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “Weird,” he said. “Good-weird. You?”

  She grinned, the expression bright and a little shaky. “Her name’s Artemis. She’s—” Ralaen broke off, hunting for words. “She’s… a lot. In a good way.”

  Flatterer, Artemis said, mildly pleased.

  “And you?” Ralaen asked, squeezing his fingers.

  “Apollo,” Eirik said. “He’s… serious.”

  Stoic, came a new mental brush—cooler, more formal, but present. You are imprecise as always, Eirik.

  Ralaen blinked. “Was that—?”

  “Apollo,” Eirik confirmed, rolling his eyes a little.

  Artemis’ amusement fizzed along the link. Of course it is. He has to make an entrance.

  She shared a packet of context with Ralaen—not data, more feeling: two AI minds coming online in the same instant, in the same lab, awareness twining and diverging. Not “siblings” in any biological sense, but kin all the same.

  “They were created on the same day,” Ralaen said slowly, piecing it together. “Together.”

  “Same cycle, same yard,” Eirik said. “The techs call them brother and sister AIs.”

  “AIs having family feels weird,” Ralaen muttered.

  We also think organics having families is weird, Artemis said dryly. But we’ve decided it’s endearing, so it balances.

  Apollo stayed quiet, but there was a faint sense of long-suffering tolerance in the background.

  He's not actually that serious, Artemis confided, a private flicker to Ralaen alone. He's been composing dramatic speeches about your pairing for weeks.

  He has not, Ralaen shot back.

  Ask him sometime, Artemis said, voice sparkling with mischief. Watch his reaction.

  They settled; Ralaen perched on the bunk, Eirik leaning shoulder to shoulder with her, trading pairing stories. Where they’d sat, what the Node had looked like, how it had felt when the presence arrived.

  Halfway through a sentence, Artemis shifted.

  Ralaen, she said. Incoming instruction from Einherjar Command. Want it in text, audio, or direct?

  Ralaen hesitated. Then: Direct.

  The experience was… strange.

  One moment, her mind was just hers. The next, a message unfolded in it fully formed: words, formatting, everything, as if someone had put a sheet of text down on a desk she hadn’t known was there.

  She jolted, ears twitching. “Okay, that’s weird.”

  “You get it too?” Eirik asked.

  “Yeah.” She focused, reading it where it sat in her mind.

  ASCENSION PROGRAM – STRUCTURAL PHASES COMPLETE Candidates Ralaen [ENH-9974] and Andreassen [ENH-9973] Status: Accepted Einherjar candidates Directive: 3 days unstructured downtime for interface acclimation Follow-on: Formal oath-taking at Palace, Uppsalír

  “We have three days off,” she said aloud. “To ‘adjust to the new interface.’ Then palace. Oath. Allfather.” Her tail flicked once. “No pressure.”

  Eirik blew out a breath. “Three days first,” he said. “We can do a lot of adjusting in three days.”

  They did. They slept. Properly, for once. They ate in the mess, bantered with instructors who suddenly seemed to be looking at them with a slightly different weight in their eyes. They sparred, testing new timing and the extra layer of awareness that came with having someone else in their head watching their footing.

  They listened to their AIs. Artemis and Apollo both had opinions about everything from stance to stress management. They were smart enough to keep most of them to themselves unless asked, but when Ralaen invited feedback, Artemis happily supplied corrections, tweaks, suggestions.

  Midway through the second day, they received another small delivery: two compact devices, each the size of a coin, with intricate runic etch-patterns. Holo emitters, Artemis said, pleased. We can piggyback on your interface and these projectors to manifest in visual space when you want us to.

  Ralaen pressed hers to the recommended point on her collar, just below the rune over her heart. It clicked into place with a soft magnetic tug. Try it, Artemis suggested. If it makes you uncomfortable, we stop. “Okay,” Ralaen said aloud. “Uh. Show me?”

  Light shimmered in the middle of the room. A human-height figure resolved: a woman in well-fitted light armor, lines sleek rather than bulky, hair braided back, eyes bright and knowing. She looked… not like Ralaen, not like Eirik, but like she belonged here—part Valkyrja, part operator, part something older. “Hi,” Artemis said, voice now coming from the projected mouth in perfect sync with the one in Ralaen’s head.

  Ralaen stared. “…You’re tall,” she said, because her brain had chosen panic as an excuse to be stupid. Artemis smiled. “You’re short,” she said, fondly. “It balances.”

  Eirik’s Apollo appeared a moment later: taller, broader, simpler lines of armor, more austere face, the air of someone who’d watched far too many bad decisions and taken notes. Tsundere, Artemis repeated, smug. Ralaen was starting to understand.

  That evening, they dismissed the projections. The presence of their AIs remained, a quiet hum in the back of their minds, but the room was just theirs again. The three days of unstructured downtime stretched before them, a luxury so profound it was almost disorienting.

  They were in Ralaen’s room, the familiar cramped space feeling like a sanctuary. Eirik was sitting on the edge of the bunk, cleaning his sidearm with the methodical precision he applied to everything. Ralaen was pacing, a restless energy thrumming under her skin that had nothing to do with Ascension and everything to do with the man watching her.

  He’s worried about the oath, Artemis supplied gently, a private observation meant only for her.

  Ralaen stopped pacing and stood in front of him. He didn't look up, his focus still on the weapon, but she knew he was aware of her every move. She could feel it now, a subtle echo of his own heightened senses through their linked AIs.

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  “Hey,” she said softly.

  He finally looked up, his grey-blue eyes meeting hers. The usual calm was there, but underneath it, she could see the flicker of apprehension Artemis had pointed out.

  “Hey,” he replied, setting the cleaned part down with a soft click.

  She reached out, her fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the stubble already rough against her pads. “We’re going to be fine,” she said, the words feeling more true now that she was saying them to him.

  He leaned into her touch, just slightly, a gesture of trust that was still so new and precious. “I know,” he said. But he didn't quite sound like he believed it.

  She leaned down and kissed him. It wasn't like the other kisses—the desperate, post-battle ones, or the playful, competitive ones. This one was slow and deep, a promise. A reassurance. Her tongue swept against his, a slow, deliberate tasting. She poured everything she couldn't say into it: I’m here. We’re in this together. Whatever comes next, we face it together.

  When she pulled back, his eyes were darker, the apprehension replaced by something warmer, more familiar. He set the rest of his sidearm aside without looking and stood up, his body crowding hers in the small space. His hands came to rest on her waist, his thumbs stroking the subdermal mesh through her thin shirt.

  “Ralaen,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble.

  She answered by taking his hand and leading him the two steps back to the bunk. She sat and pulled him down with her. They lay facing each other, the room quiet except for their breathing. There was no urgency this time. He hooked a leg over hers, pulling her closer, and she rested her head on his arm, her face tucked into the crook of his neck. The steady, rhythmic beat of his heart was a comforting drum against her ear.

  His hand roamed slowly up and down her back, a long, soothing caress. He was just touching her, re-learning her in this new context, grounding himself in the reality of her while their minds adjusted to the new ghosts inside them.

  He’s calmer now, Artemis noted quietly. You’re good for him.

  Ralaen smiled against Eirik’s skin. She tightened her arm around his chest, her tail curling around his leg, holding on. For the first time since this whole process began, she felt like they weren't just two candidates being upgraded. They were a unit. A pair. And whatever oath they swore in three days, it would just be a formality. The real promises had already been made, here, in the quiet of a room that was finally, truly, theirs.

  The rest of their downtime blurred into a surprisingly gentle period: long walks through the secure sections of the facility, late nights talking with both partners—two flesh, two digital—about what came next.

  Then the three days were up.

  The shuttle ride to Uppsalír was the first time Ralaen had left Einherjar Command since the Crown.

  She spent most of it with her face practically glued to the viewport, to the amused commentary of both Eirik and Artemis.

  The city rose up beneath them like something out of a story.

  Towering spires of glass, metal, and battlesteel clawed at the sky, connected by sweeping concourses and grav-struts that made a mockery of old ideas about architecture. Shuttles and skimmers moved in layered traffic patterns between them, light tracing the paths of transit nets.

  Far below that glittering forest, nestled between the roots of the towers, lay the older city.

  Stone and brick. Sloped roofs. Narrow streets that hadn’t been built with counter-grav traffic in mind. Plazas and courtyards that had seen it all: wooden carts, combustion engines, gravcars, and now the occasional Einherjar patrol.

  Uppsalír predates the Imperium by more than three thousand years, Artemis narrated gently in her mind. Names changed. Walls moved. The bones stay. We’ve been building on top of this place since your people were still arguing about iron.

  Ralaen drank it in, ears perked, tail flicking lazily behind her.

  Then she saw the palace.

  Compared to the towers around it, it was small. Compared to any stone building she’d ever seen, it was colossal.

  A massive, low structure of pale, weathered stone, buttressed and reinforced in ways that still respected its age. Banners hung along its flanks. New defensive emplacements sat discreetly amid ancient carvings.

  “That’s all one building,” Ralaen murmured.

  “Yes,” Eirik said quietly. “That’s home.”

  The shuttle touched down on a landing pad behind the palace proper. Wind buffeted them as the ramp dropped.

  Anastasia Dragomir waited at the foot of it, armor immaculate, helmet under one arm.

  “Candidates,” she said. “With me.”

  They followed her through service corridors that quickly gave way to broader, older halls. The air inside smelled faintly of stone, oil, incense, and something her upgraded nose tagged as very old blood, very old smoke baked into the bones of the place.

  The chamber they were led into was big without being vast. Not a hangar, not a throne room meant to awe a crowd. This was… something else.

  The floor held a large runic circle inlaid in darker stone, lines of power and meaning winding around each other. At the back of the chamber, steps led up to a dais and a throne carved of the same ancient material as the walls.

  Upon it sat the largest man Ralaen had ever seen.

  Even seated, he radiated sheer presence. Broad-shouldered, wrapped in layered armor and cloth that seemed to fold time into itself, he leaned forward slightly, a spear resting easily in one hand. His hair and beard were shot through with iron and silver, but his face was… strange. Young and old at once, like the city outside.

  Below the throne stood three women.

  All three shared a family resemblance: ageless faces, eyes too sharp to be entirely comfortable, clothing that blended old and new—draped fabrics, armored accents, modern materials.

  They spoke first.

  “We are Urd,” said the first, voice like deep water. “Verdandi,” said the second, warm and bright. “And Skuld,” said the third, with a faint, knowing smile. “The Norns.”

  Ralaen swallowed. Her throat felt dry.

  The man on the throne said nothing.

  Anastasia stepped forward, helmet tucked under one arm, and bowed her head.

  “Allfather,” she said. “Norns. I present Einherjar candidates Eirik Andreassen and Ralaen of the Asuari Confederacy. They have passed the Crown, completed Ascension structural phases, and been judged suitable for the bond.”

  “Step into the circle,” Verdandi said gently.

  Ralaen moved without thinking, feet carrying her forward until she stood inside the inlaid lines. Eirik was beside her, solid and steady.

  “Kneel,” Urd said.

  Stone met her knees. It felt… right.

  Artemis was a quiet, steady presence at her back, watching through her eyes.

  I have you, the AI murmured.

  “Speak the Einherjar oath,” Skuld said.

  The words unfolded in Ralaen’s mind a half-second before she spoke them, Artemis offering them up, but they weren’t fed to her. She recognised them—she’d read them before, studied them, thought about them.

  Now, though, they landed like weight on a scale.

  Her voice was rough at first, but it held.

  “I am Einherjar.

  Crowned in trial, remade in fire.

  By the Allfather’s word and the Norns’ weave,

  I swear my strength to the living

  and my fury to the foes of humankind.

  I shall stand where others break,

  strike where others falter,

  and rise where others fall.”

  I will not turn my hand to cruelty,

  nor raise my blade against the innocent.

  Those who murder, enslave, or hunt the helpless

  I name my enemies, now and forever.

  My body is the shield of my people,

  my will the edge of their wrath.

  If I fall, I fall forward,

  marching into Valhalla with blood on my hands

  and the innocent at my back. “

  She risked a glance at Eirik. His jaw was set like stone, but in his grey-blue eyes, she saw a single, bright tear track down his temple before he blinked it away. He wasn't just here; he was feeling it with her. It was all the anchor she needed.

  “So sworn, before gods and mortals.

  So kept, until death and beyond.”

  As they spoke, the runic circle lit. Lines of blue-white light flared to life under their knees, and a low hum resonated through the stone, a vibration that traveled up her adamantium bones and made her teeth ache. The air crackled with the sharp scent of ozone. Her fur, every single hair, stood on end, and her Asuari ears rang with a high, clear chime that seemed to come from inside her own skull. When the last line of the oath left her lips, the power in the circle peaked.

  For a blinding instant, the light from the runes lanced upward, tracing the lines of the Einherjar rune already inked over her heart. The old tattoo burned with a cold, blue-white fire, a searing cold that was the opposite of pain. It was a feeling of being claimed. Then the light softened, the power settling around her like a cloak. The burning faded, but the rune over her heart now felt different—warmer, as if a tiny star had been set behind it.

  She felt it then: A sense of being watched. Not by the four in front of her, not by hidden cameras or sensors. By others. Millions of eyes. Or something older than eyes. Weighing her. Measuring her. Judging her worthiness to stand where she knelt and say the words she was saying.

  The man on the throne rose. He was huge—easily three meters tall out of armor—and in it even more imposing, but it wasn’t just size. It was… focus. Every line of him, every step down the dais, felt deliberate.

  Two ravens swooped in from somewhere high above, riding unseen currents. They landed on his shoulders as if they’d always belonged there.

  He stopped before them, his gaze falling first on Eirik, then on Ralaen. His eyes were not human. They were like chips of flint, and when they met hers, Ralaen felt a sensation she recognized instantly: it was the same cool, methodical feeling of Artemis sifting through her thoughts, but a thousand times deeper, faster, and more ancient.

  In the space of a single heartbeat, she felt him see the Black Trials, the Crown, the rune on her chest, her defiance in the face of oblivion, and the quiet, stubborn love she held for the man kneeling beside her. He saw it all, and there was no judgment in it, only acknowledgment. He blinked, and the sensation vanished, leaving her feeling strangely seen and utterly naked.

  When he spoke, his voice was low and quiet and still somehow filled the hall. "I have heard your oaths," he said. "I find them worthy. I find them true."

  Each word seemed to settle in Ralaen's bones like another layer of adamantium.

  "You will break them," he continued, and Ralaen's heart seized. "Not in malice. Not in cowardice. But you will stumble, as all who swear great oaths stumble. And when you do—" His gaze held hers. "—you will rise, and swear them again. This is the way of it."

  He was silent for a moment.

  "You are mine, and I am yours. Fight, fall, rise. My table will be waiting."

  He inclined his head a fraction—barely a nod, but somehow more than a bow from anyone else.

  “This,” he finished, “is my promise to you, my Einherjar.”

  He lifted his spear, the motion smooth, and the ravens let out sharp cries that cut through the charged silence.

  “Rise,” the Allfather said.

  Ralaen got to her feet.

  Her knees didn’t shake, but a profound exhaustion washed over her, a bone-deep weariness that spoke of power expended and a price paid. It was followed instantly by a counter-wave of energy, a raw, buzzing hum that felt like the Allfather's promise was now a tangible current in her veins.

  Eirik stood beside her, jaw tight, eyes bright. Inside her chest, under fur and rune, Ralaen felt something settle into place.

  Well then, Artemis said, quiet pride threading through the link. Until death and beyond.

  Yeah, Ralaen thought back, heart hammering as she met Odínn's strange, ageless gaze. Yeah. Until death and beyond.