There wasn’t much I could say to that as Snorri reached down to lift Ylva, who settled comfortably behind him. Steinunn also shared a mount, though with a young thrall woman, the skald watching my every move, though no emotion showed on her face. Sighing, I walked over to Bjorn’s big roan gelding, noting that he was also wearing mail. “What happened to riding shirtless into battle?” I grumbled, my aching arms protesting as he pulled me up behind him, knowing it would be my arse suffering in a few hours. The horse likely wouldn’t be impressed, either.
“You’re riding behind me, Born-in-Fire,” he said, heeling the horse into a walk. “And it is very nearly guaranteed that I’ll say something to anger you on the journey. It’s a long ride and I’ve no talent for silence.”
“Well, that is certainly the truth.” I barely managed to curb a yelp as he urged the horse into a canter that nearly sent me toppling off the back. I clung to Bjorn’s waist as he followed Snorri out of Halsar, but as we left the town, a hooded figure on a rocky outcropping caught my attention.
It was the same figure I’d seen during the funeral of the victims of the raid, smoke and ash drifting away on a wind despite the air being still.
“Bjorn!” I pointed. “Do you see that person?”
He turned his head, and through the mail and all the padding he wore beneath it, I felt him tense. “Where? I see no one.”
A chill of fear ran down my spine, because if Bjorn couldn’t see the figure, I was either losing my mind or this was a specter revealing itself only to me. “Stop the horse.”
Bjorn drew up his mount, the rest of our party following suit even as Snorri demanded, “Why are you stopping?”
I pointed again at the specter, which remained with its head lowered, embers and ash falling around it. “Do any of you see that hooded figure? The embers? The smoke?”
Confusion radiated across our party as everyone looked to where I pointed, shaking their heads. Nothing. Yet the horses seemed aware, all of them snorting and stomping, their ears pinned flat.
“A specter,” Snorri breathed. “Perhaps even one of the gods having stepped onto the mortal plane. Speak to him, Freya.”
My palms turned clammy because that was the last thing I wanted to do. “Try to get closer.”
Bjorn urged his mount toward the outcropping until the horse finally dug in its heels, refusing to go closer. “What do you want?” I shouted at the specter.
“So polite, Born-in-Fire,” Bjorn murmured, but I ignored him as the specter’s head tracked toward me, face still hidden by the hood. Then it lifted its hand and spoke, voice rough and pained.
“She, the unfated, she the child of Hlin, she who was born in fire must give sacrifice to the gods on the mount at the first night of the full moon else her thread will be cut short, the future that was foreseen unwoven.”
The words settled into my head, understanding of what they meant twisting my guts with nausea.
“Did it answer?” Bjorn asked, and I gave a tight nod. “Yes.” Louder, I asked, “Why? Why must I do this?”
“She must earn her fate,” the specter answered, then exploded into embers and smoke.
The horse reared, and I cursed, clinging to Bjorn’s waist to keep from falling while he settled the animal.
“How did the specter answer?” Snorri demanded, riding his snorting mount in circles around us. “Did it identify itself?”
“It said that I must earn my fate,” I answered, righting myself behind Bjorn. “That I must give sacrifice to the gods on the mount on the first night of the full moon, or my thread will be cut short.”
“A test!” Snorri’s eyes brightened. “Surely the specter was one of the gods, for they delight in such things.”
A test that, if I failed, would see me dead. Needless to say, I did not share in Snorri’s enthusiasm.
“The gods will not grant you greatness for nothing,” he said. “You must prove yourself to them.”
It was not lost on me that I’d once dreamed of greatness, and now, presented with it, it felt like the last thing I wanted.
Besides, I was unfated. How could the specter, the gods, or anyone truly predict what my future held? How could they know for certain that if I didn’t go to Fjalltindr, I’d die? Maybe I could alter my destiny and escape this. Maybe I could wait for a moment when backs were turned and run. I could retrieve my family, and together we could flee out of Snorri’s reach. I could weave a new fate for myself. The race of thoughts made me abruptly regret not taking Bjorn up on his offer to help me escape.
As though hearing my thoughts, Snorri added, “If you destroy the fate foreseen for me, Freya, you had best hope that you are dead. For my wrath will burn like wildfire, and it will turn on everything you love.”
Hate boiled in my chest because the gods weren’t the threat I feared. It was the bastard standing before me.
“We’ve wasted enough time! We ride to Fjalltindr,” he ordered, spinning his horse and setting off at a gallop.
Instead of following, Bjorn twisted in the saddle, wrapping one arm around my waist, and pulling me in front of him. As I struggled to right my legs around the horse’s shoulders, he said, “I don’t think the specter was threatening you, Freya. I think it was warning you that there will be those along the way who will try to kill you.”
“As if I didn’t already know that.”
“The mountaintop is sacred ground.” Bjorn’s hand pressed against my ribs to hold me steady. “No weapons are allowed, as all deaths must be in sacrifice to the gods, which means some level of safety within Fjalltindr’s borders.”
I didn’t take much comfort in that. “How long will it take us to reach the mountain?”
“Tomorrow we’ll reach the village at the base of the mountain, where we’ll leave the horses,” he said. “Then another half day’s climb.”
A night out in the open. I swallowed hard. “I think we should ride faster.”
* * *
—
By the time dusk fell, the horses were laboring hard and my body ached from bouncing up and down for hours on Bjorn’s lap. Judging from his groans as he slowly dismounted his horse, falling on his back in the dirt and shouting at the sky that he’d lost the ability to sire children, he’d not fared much better.
Yet it was the first time since we’d left Halsar that anyone laughed, so I welcomed the release of tension even if it was at my expense. The warriors jostled and elbowed one another as they tended the mounts, the thralls Snorri had brought moving to prepare dinner while their mistress perched on a rock, clearly above doing anything at all.
I hesitated, not certain where I belonged, then moved to join the thralls. For while I didn’t know how to prepare the defense of a camp, I did know how to make a fire and dress game.
Carefully stacking a pile of kindling, I stuffed moss under the sticks. My scarred hand was painfully stiff, likely from my training with Bjorn, and I struggled to grip my knife to strike the flint.
“There’s an easier way.” Bjorn crouched next to me, axe appearing in his hand. The crimson fire flickered and danced as he shoved it into my carefully assembled stack of wood, knocking everything askew before disappearing into the darkness.
I eyed the weapon, this the first opportunity I’d had to really scrutinize the axe up close. It gave off tremendous heat, though the sweat that beaded on my brow was more from nerves than the temperature, as I remembered how it had felt when it seared my palm. How in the heartbeat I’d held it, the crimson fire had enveloped my hand as though it intended to consume me. As though Tyr himself wanted to punish me for wielding a weapon never meant for my hands.
Yet my curiosity was greater than my fear, and I bent closer, squinting against the glow. Beneath the flickers of fire, the axe itself appeared to be made from translucent glass with patterns etched along the blade and haft.
Realizing the thralls were watching, I pushed kindling on top of the axe. The wood swiftly ignited, the oranges and golds and blues of natural flame mixing with the blood-red god-fire as I added larger pieces.
“Will you describe to me the specter’s appearance?” Steinunn knelt next to me, her cloak slipping dangerously close to Bjorn’s axe. I reached to move the fabric even as I said, “Hooded. Embers and smoke poured from it as though it were aflame beneath its cloak.”