Gullveig

They tried to kill her with fire,
as though flame could frighten
something that already glittered
like the heart of a furnace.

They dragged her into the hall of gods,
where spears were law
and suspicion sat heavier than crowns.
She spoke of gold,
of hunger,
of the quiet power that lives
in wanting.

They did not like that.

So they burned her.

Once.
She turned to ash and ember,
and in the smoke
her laughter coiled like a serpent.

Twice.
Her bones became bright metal,
her hair a river of molten light,
her eyes two coins
no god could afford.

Three times they burned her,
and three times she stood again,
not healed, not forgiven,
but changed
into something that understood
exactly what gods fear.

After the third fire
she did not scream.
She did not beg.
She simply stepped out of the flames
and walked away,

and everywhere her footprints fell
gold grew,
and greed followed,
and war came behind it
like thunder after lightning.

They called her witch.
They called her curse.
They called her the beginning of war.

But she was only this:

A woman
who walked into fire
and learned
she was made of it.