And Bjorn stirred.
I jerked my hand out from between my legs, irrationally certain that he’d sensed what I was doing. My face turned molten as I waited for him to leap to my side of the curtain and accuse me of pleasuring myself with his name on my lips.
But instead, Bjorn walked on near-silent feet to the front of the hall, the curtain blowing across my face and then settling as he closed the door behind him, leaving me alone in the hall.
Blowing out a long breath, I waited for him to reenter. Seconds passed. Then minutes, and my unease as to where Ylva and Bjorn had gone grew and grew until I could sit still no longer.
So I climbed to my feet.
Easing the door open a crack, I peered out, fully expecting to find Bjorn leaning against the wall, or at the very least in sight.
But there was no one.
While the hall was warded with runes to protect any inside from those of ill intent, it still didn’t feel right that he’d leave me alone and unguarded, especially given that Snorri had instructed him to remain.
What was going on?
My unease deepened, and I opened the door enough to lean my head and shoulders out. In the distance, countless figures moved about between bonfires, but in the area near the hall, no one stirred.
Stay within the wards. Snorri’s warning echoed inside my head. I shut the door, then leaned against it, but my pulse didn’t slow. Ylva, I suspected, had gone to find her husband, probably because she begrudged her exclusion from his conversation with the other jarls.
But where was Bjorn?
Fear soured my stomach as answers, each worse than the next, cycled through my head.
My life wasn’t the only one our enemies sought. King Harald had been more than clear that he’d try to take Bjorn prisoner again. What if he and his soldiers had been waiting outside? What if they’d waited for him to step out to take a piss and then cracked him over the head while he was watering a tree? What if they’d realized they couldn’t get past Ylva’s wards and decided to cut their losses with one prisoner? What if even now they were dragging him down the southern slopes of the mountain?
You need to stay in the hall, I told myself. It’s warded. Running around Fjalltindr by yourself is an idiot thing to do. Wait for Snorri to return.
Except that I had no idea when that would be. What if I sat here until morning while Bjorn was marched toward Nordeland?
I needed to get help before it was too late.
My cloak was draped over a bench, so I swiftly donned it as well as one of the antlered masks on the wall, praying that others enjoying the revels still wore theirs so that I might blend in. Then I stepped out into the night.
Moving through the trees, I searched the shadows, wanting to scream Bjorn’s name but knowing that to do so would bring unwanted attention. So instead I whispered, “Bjorn? Bjorn?” then out of desperation, “Ylva?”
Nothing.
I needed to find Snorri and the rest of the warriors. Needed to tell them what had happened so they could help in the hunt. But beyond knowing Snorri’s intent to meet with other jarls, I had no idea where to find him.
Stepping closer to the revels around the fires, I searched for familiar faces, realizing now why my parents had never brought me to Fjalltindr. Everywhere I looked, men and women staggered around, either drunk or intoxicated on other substances, and those who weren’t moving about were coupling in full view. Not only in pairs, but in groups of threes or fours or more, and if I hadn’t been in a full-blown panic, I would’ve gaped.
Such things pleased the gods, who delighted in the carnal. Yet I doubted the revelers were motivated by the gods, instead entirely consumed by their own pleasures. Which was good because it meant they paid no attention to me.
“Where the fuck are you, Snorri?” I whispered, though my heart was screaming, Where are you, Bjorn?
The rhythmic beat of drums echoed through the air as I walked, though it did little to drown the moans of pleasure of the revelers as they sought release on the ground or against trees, some wearing masks and some not, all of them strangers. Perhaps Bjorn was among them. Perhaps he’d left the hall in order to find pleasurable pursuits, thinking that I’d have the wisdom to remain behind the wards. My stomach soured, but logic immediately chased away the idea. There was too much at stake for him to take that sort of risk.
Except that he had left the hall of his own volition. Which begged the question of why?
The question repeated to the beat of the drums, my stomach twisting even as my chest constricted, every breath a challenge.
I wove through the narrow paths, searching, but not a single familiar face appeared. Shivers stole over me, my arms and legs weak as I eyed the other sleeping halls, but guards stood in the perimeters around them, watching over the jarls and their families within.
What if everyone was dead? “They aren’t,” I whispered at my terror. “No one would dare kill them within the confines of Fjalltindr. It’s forbidden.”
I took a step down a path, then light from the Hall of the Gods caught my eye. Dozens of brilliant torches encircled the structure, and as I watched, a shadow passed in front of them.
Moving closer, I eventually made out the face of Tora. If she was here, then Harald surely was as well, and if he’d taken Bjorn, this would be where he had him. Tora stood with her arms crossed in front of the entrance, expression implacable. Though she was unarmed, and presumably her magic as curtailed as my own by the power of this place, she was still twice my size, which meant I would not get past her by force without warning those inside.
Shit.
I circled the building, wishing the revelers would quit laughing and humping and banging on drums so I could bloody well hear, but knowing my people as I did, they’d be at it until dawn.
The only door was the one guarded by Tora, and there were no windows. Stepping over the stream that flowed beneath the building, I paused, because if the water that flowed around the statues inside could exit, that meant there was an opening. Picking my way upstream, I reached the outcropping on which the hall sat. Water trickled down the rock, making soft tinkling sounds.
Feeling for handholds, I climbed, cursing silently as the antlers on my mask scratched against the wood of the hall’s wall. The freezing water numbed my hands, but I barely noticed as I peered through the narrow opening through which the water flowed. Immediately, my eyes went to where Harald stood.
He was speaking but I couldn’t make out his words over the tinkle of water and the noise of the revels. Just as I couldn’t make out the face of the individual he was speaking to, for the person, or persons, were hidden from view by Loki’s statue. I searched the shadows for any sign of Bjorn, Ylva, Snorri, or the rest of our companions, but found nothing. So my eyes drew back to the king.
He was angry, gesticulating and pointing.
Who was he speaking to?
“Did you think there wouldn’t be a cost to this?” I caught some of his words during a lull in the drums and leaned forward. “…he’ll destroy everything you care about if…this is the only way you can be certain Snorri won’t…”
My heart broke into a gallop at Snorri’s name, and I silently shrieked at the revelers to be silent as they broke into song.
“A good mother protects her son…does what it takes to…”
Loud voices from the revels drowned out the rest, but Harald ceased gesticulating, focusing intently on the unseen speaker.
The singing stopped.
“Then that is our plan,” Harald said. “He trusts you. Go—” A loud shriek of laughter drowned out the rest of what Harald said before he turned and left the building, leaving whomever he’d been speaking to in the hall alone.