All at once, it pulled me in, and I was thrust into swirling darkness. I couldn’t breathe or scream, but it didn’t hurt. Air was rushing around me, through me, in the tiny spaces between the smallest particles that made up my body.

And then I was tossed out the other side. I crashed through a cold waterfall and landed in the grass. When I looked up, I was on the mountain on the far side of the Lost Bridge, across the ravine from the ruins of Áibmoráigi. Only, the ruins and the bridge weren’t there. Even the plateau that Áibmoráigi was built on wasn’t there.

It was only a sheer mountain across from us, with a small ledge.

But the álfar and Ögonen were already building. Stones floated on by, and the Ögonen used their powers to stack them up.

It was safe here. No wyrms or etanadrak. The Ögonen kept the window closed, so no one else from Alfheim could get through.

The first winter was hard. The bridge wasn’t finished when the heavy snow came. We all went underground together.

We lived like rodents, burrowing deep in the dirt and huddling together. The Ögonen hibernated, but spring came and the álfar started hunting and gathering before the Ögonen. They helped each other—the álfar kept the sleeping Ögonen safe, and the Ögonen shared their powers so the álfar could work more easily.

The summers were short, and the álfar ventured down from the mountains to find more to survive the harsh winters. They found human tribes—first the Sami, then Vikings. They traded them food for fur; for elk, rabbits, and fish; for gemstones—they even shared languages.

And the álfar did more than that. They communed, they started families, they brought humans back to their village in the mountains.

Áibmoráigi was growing, the plateau was expanding and was covered in homes of rock and wood. The álfar went out to settle new lands, and they built villages with humans, living and growing with them until they were all one tribe.

The Ögonen stayed underground all the time, slumbering in warm caves, while the álfar and humans only grew stronger. They called themselves trolls, and they called their ruler King. The crown sat first on Waudin before passing to his son.

And this is how things were done. The son of the King ruled, unless overthrown by a younger, stronger troll. There was peace, and all the Ögonen slept, the way the trolls suggested.

Until King Egil, who reigned over the Longest Winter. He no longer believed that here was better than where the troll ancestors had come from. Egil woke the Ögonen and asked them to open the window home.

The Ögonen did as they were asked, and a pair of wyrms came through. I watched in horror as the Grændöden happened—the wyrms leveled Áibmoráigi in a green fire.