The Mead Keeper's Daughter
A Norse Myth Retold

About this book:

High in the frozen fortress of Hnitbjörg, Gunnlöð has spent decades as the silent jailer of the gods' greatest desire: the mead of poetry, brewed from the blood of wisdom itself. She is a frost giant's daughter, raised on duty and suspicion, her world measured in torch-hours and the heavy breathing of the mountain. But the mead is not merely a treasure—it hums with living memory, whispering of song and sovereignty, and Gunnlöð is the only one who hears it calling.

When a wandering laborer named Bölverkr appears at the mountain's base, offering strength in exchange for a single sip, the fortress's impenetrable silence fractures. He is charming, patient, and utterly impossible—because no mortal could survive the climb, and no giant would bargain for what the gods would kill to possess. As winter deepens and the three nights of their bargain unfold, Gunnlöð finds herself trading more than mead: she trades stories, secrets, and the lonely certainty that has defined her existence.

But Bölverkr wears a thousand faces, and the oldest story in the nine realms is about to write its most treacherous chapter. In this lush, haunting reimagining of the Norse myth, the keeper of inspiration becomes its prisoner—and the price of a single taste of poetry may be the unmaking of everything she was born to protect.