A Song for Winter: Regret

    William was not Odin Drackonas’s first child. Odin’s firstborn was a wolf girl named Brianna born to him by his wife, Lene. Brianna was initially named Ragnar after an ancient hero king of Clan Drackonas but when she was born a girl that honor was taken away from her. When William’s mother, Katherine Wintersong, was pregnant with him five years later Odin insisted on naming him this child Ragnar but Katherine refused and named him William instead. Odin still referred to his son as Ragnar, a habit that would eat at his daughter.

 

    Despite having different mothers, Brianna still treated William like a full-blooded sibling at first. The two of them would play together and have fun like normal siblings. However, around the time William turned eight, it became glaringly obvious to Brianna who her father’s favorite child was. William received all the best training and gifts while she was left begging for her father to even notice her. Brianna trained three times as hard as William and even surpassed him in several instances but it wasn’t enough to get Odin to notice her. She was not her father’s chosen favorite and she never would be as long as William was around.

 

    By the time William was fifteen he had a talisman, weapons, armor, learned how to harness magic, was granted adulthood within the clan, and had a pet raven. Brianna was stuck with second-hand swords that were poorly balanced and ill-fitting leather armor. William tried to still treat his half-sister like the siblings they used to be but she pushed him away. Anger and resentment had dug their claws deep into Brianna and they were not going to let go. She only saw William as an obstacle to not only her happiness but to their father whom she desperately desired to have to herself again.

 

    Late one night Brianna snuck into William’s house to kill him. She stood over his bed sword in hand ready to strike down the sleeping folf when his raven, Viggo, came flying out of the darkness clawing at her face. The commotion woke William who grabbed his witch knife to fight off the intruder. Whistling a few notes William pinned his would-be attacker to the wall with a gale force wind strike. Knife to her throat William finally recognized his half-sister as the one who tried to kill him. With Brianna immobilized and helpless, William called for help and had her hauled away in chains for trial.

 

    Odin hated to find his own child guilty but she was caught in the act. William being the victim was charged with carrying out the sentence of death. Still feeling love for his half-sister William appealed the sentence and had it reduced to condemnation and exile from the clan. Five of the strongest warriors held down Brianna while William used a white hot brand to forever burn a hagalaz rune into the wolf’s forehead forever barring her from Valhalla. She was then beaten and taken to the wilderness never to return to the clan grounds. William had thought this to be a mercy at the time but he would truly regret not carrying out the sentence of death on Brianna.

 

    “If I had executed her when I had the chance Julia, mom, dad, and everyone else would still be alive,” William explained to his friend Violet and daughter Julia. “I will never not regret not killing her.”