“How did seeing it make you feel? What were your thoughts?”
My jaw tightened, the invasiveness of her queries again rubbing me the wrong way. As though sensing my irritation, the skald swiftly said, “It is how my magic works, Freya. I chronicle the stories of our people as ballads, but for them to possess heart and emotion, they must be told from the perspective of those they are about, not my own observations. I seek only to do justice to your growing fame.”
“It feels strange to share with someone I barely know.”
A rare flicker of emotion appeared in the skald’s eyes, then she looked away. “I’m not used to speaking about myself. Most desire for me to sing of their exploits, so conversation is about them, not me.”
My irritation fled in favor of sympathy, and for the first time since we’d met, I truly focused on the skald as I considered the cost of her gift. What it would feel like if everyone you spoke to cared only about telling you their stories on the chance of expanding their fame in a ballad, and nothing about the woman who wrote the songs. Steinunn was used as a tool, just as I was. “I would like to know more about you.”
Steinunn stiffened, then wiped her palms on her skirt. “There is little to tell. I was born in a small fishing village on the coast. When I turned fourteen, our jarl took me into service, though it was short-lived, for another jarl soon learned of my gift and paid him in gold to bring me into his service. So it was for many years, jarls buying my service from one another.”
Like a thrall. “You had no choice where you went?”
Steinunn lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “For the most part, I was well compensated and cared for, and in recent years, my…liberty has grown.” Her jaw clenched as she said the last, but then she gave me a smile, the moment of discomfort gone as swiftly as it had appeared.
I opened my mouth to ask whether she had or wanted a family, then closed it again. If she had a family, they weren’t in Halsar, and she might not appreciate me raising the topic. “So you wish to know how I felt? That is how your magic works?”
Steinunn nodded.
Keeping my eyes on Bjorn’s axe, I bit the insides of my cheeks. Admitting that I had been afraid seemed counter to the story Snorri wished to spread about me, but if I said otherwise, the woman would likely know it was a lie.
“Perhaps if I show you,” the skald said, and opening her full lips, she began to sing. Softly, so that only I would hear, her beautiful voice filled my ears, telling the tale of the raid against Halsar. Yet it was not the words that drew a gasp from my lips, it was visions of darkness and flame that filled my eyes, blocking out the world around me, fear forming like a vise around my chest.
“Save your caterwauling for those who didn’t live through that battle, Steinunn.”
Bjorn’s voice cut through the song and the skald fell silent, the vision immediately fading away.
“I’m following your father’s orders,” she snapped, the first sign of anger I’d ever seen from her. “It is Snorri who wishes Freya’s fame to grow.”
“I felt afraid,” I blurted out, not wishing to be at the center of a confrontation between these two, who clearly were not friends. “But I also wanted answers.”
I held my breath, praying that would be sufficient.
“Thank you, Freya.” Steinunn rose to her feet, not saying a word to Bjorn as she pushed past him.
“You shouldn’t be so rude,” I said to him as he knelt near the fire. “She’s got no more choice in what she does than I do.”
Bjorn grunted, though whether it was in agreement or denial, I wasn’t sure. “I once allowed her to pick my thoughts, not realizing what her magic could do. Days later, she sang to all of Halsar and I realized that her power would allow all who heard her song to…become me in that moment. To see what I saw. To feel what I felt. To cast their judgment upon me for something I’d never have shared with them, if given the choice. It was…intrusive.”
It struck me as strange that a man such as him would resent anything that brought him notoriety. He was above all else a raider, and to warriors like Bjorn, nothing mattered more than battle fame. Except I’d once dreamed of such things, and those opening verses of the raid on Halsar had not brought me pride and elation, but rather fear. Perhaps, however improbably, Bjorn felt the same. But still…“That doesn’t mean you need to be rude to her.”
“You might reconsider your stance after a few more months of her prying into every detail of your actions,” he answered. “It’s the only way I can get her to leave me be.”
Chewing the insides of my cheeks, I debated whether this was something I wished to argue about and decided on changing the subject. Gesturing at his axe, I asked, “Does it have to be an axe? Or could you make it any weapon?”
Bjorn huffed a breath at the subject change but said, “It has always been an axe. For others with Tyr’s blood, a sword or knife.”
“And it looks the same every time you summon it?”
His axe abruptly disappeared, as though he liked my scrutiny of it as little as he did Steinunn’s intrusions into his thoughts. “More or less.” Circling the fire, he sat cross-legged next to me. “Is Hlin’s shield always the same?”
I frowned, considering the question. “It takes the shape of the shield I’m holding.”
“Does it need to be a proper shield? Or could your magic turn anything into a shield?” He reached over and picked up a pot, brandishing it. “Such magic would keep anyone from crossing you in the kitchen. Are you a good cook, by the way?”
“Don’t be an arse—of course I’m a good cook.” Wrenching the pot from his grip, I turned it over in my hand, then lifted it. “Hlin, protect me.”
Power flooded my veins, the warmth of it driving away the chill in the air. It flowed from my hand to cover the pot, its glow doing more than the fire to illuminate the darkness. Vaguely, I was aware that everyone had stopped to stare at me, but my attention was all for Bjorn, who was eyeing the pot thoughtfully.
Extracting a knife from his belt, he slammed the tip into my pot. The weapon bounced off with enough force that it went spinning out of his grip and into the dirt, but rather than retrieving the blade, he motioned for me to rise. Nerves prickled my skin, but I obliged him, my nerves turning to fear as his axe appeared in his hand.
“Bjorn…” Snorri said, stepping forward. “I don’t think this—”
“Do you trust that I won’t miss?” Bjorn said to me, acting as though his father hadn’t even spoken.
I swallowed. “Bjorn, I’m wielding a cooking pot.”
“You’re wielding Hlin’s power,” he corrected. “So perhaps the better question is whether you trust the goddess? Or whether you trust yourself?”
Did I? Hlin’s magic had held against Tyr’s once before, but Bjorn had been unprepared. What if this time his axe sliced through my magic?
The memory of the pain I’d felt when the axe had burned me filled my head, feeling so real I looked down at my hand to ensure it wasn’t aflame. My breathing accelerated, my pulse a dull roar in my ears as the arm holding the pot trembled.
“Bjorn,” Snorri snarled, “if you hurt her, I’ll cut out your gods-cursed heart!”
Bjorn did not so much as blink, only asked softly, “Well, Freya?”
Terror and nausea rolled in my guts, every instinct telling me to back down. To say that I couldn’t do it. That I needed a proper shield and time to test just how powerful Hlin’s magic was. But a defiant, albeit potentially idiotic, part of my heart forced two words up through my strangled throat and across my dry tongue. “Do it.”
Bjorn threw the axe.
I clenched my teeth, fighting the instinct to dive sideways, instead holding my pot steady, a scream filling my ears. Crimson flame flipped end-over-end toward me, the screaming—which I realized was my own—abruptly drowned out by a concussive blast that shattered the air like thunder.