Bodil exhaled a slow breath, then wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close like a mother would a child. “You don’t deserve to hurt. Hlin’s blood runs in your veins, so it’s your nature to want to protect those you care about. Vragi was a man who destroyed the lives of everyone he touched, and no amount of fish makes up for that. He didn’t need to go after this Ingrid you speak of. He could’ve taken Snorri’s gold and walked away, but he chose to attack you and yours. It’s his own bloody fault that he picked a fight with the wrong woman.”
There was logic to what Bodil said, yet I remembered the surge of emotion that had filled me when Vragi uttered his intention. Protectiveness, yes. Fear, yes. But above all else, rage. And that was not something I could cast at Hlin’s feet.
Bodil reached into my pocket to extract the salve. “Put it on.”
I rolled the jar between my hands. “I will. But I’d like a few minutes alone to sit, if that’s all right.”
She hesitated, eyes considering. But she must have heard the truth in my words, for she rose, casting a warning over her shoulder as she departed. “Do not wander, Freya. There are many who seek your death.”
Sighing, I opened the jar and smeared some of the salve on my scars, feeling almost instant relief from the stiffness. When I’d finished, I leaned back in the wet sand, turning my face up to the misting sky and closing my eyes. If only there was a way to clear my head. A way to silence the problems warring for my attention. A way to not constantly be thinking.
What I needed was not respite from the world but respite from myself. Except short of someone knocking me over the head, there was little chance of that.
“Breathe in,” I murmured, attempting one of Bodil’s exercises for settling the mind that she’d taught me earlier in the day. “Breathe out.”
My heart steadied as I breathed, pushing away every thought that came for me as I hunted stillness.
Breathe.
My mind quieted but the silence was short-lived, for a crackle soon filled my ears.
Along with the stench of charred meat.
Jerking upright, I panned my surroundings and my eyes instantly latched on the source.
Walking down the waterline, embers and ash falling in its wake, was the specter.
I froze, watching the hooded specter walk down the beach, not one of the people working along the shoreline paying it any notice.
Because, like the last time it had appeared, no one could see the specter but me.
This time I didn’t stop to question why that was, my mind instantly leaping to the fact that this…this thing might have answers to the endless questions that I faced about my future. And now might be the only opportunity I had to ask it.
Snatching up my sword, I shoved it in its sheath and started down the beach after the cloud of smoke and embers. I didn’t run, because running would cause people to notice me. Would cause alarm. Might cause someone to try to stop me.
Or worse, given the specter clearly didn’t want to be seen by anyone but me, might make it disappear.
I walked swiftly, smiling and nodding at those I passed so as not to give them any cause for concern, but though the specter’s pace appeared a slow plod, I did not draw nearer. Smoke tickled my nose, the stink of burned hair and flesh making my stomach sour. I could taste the ash, feel the tiny burns from the embers as they floated back on a preternatural wind to char the fabric of my clothes.
Yet for all the creature burned, the wind blowing from it was as icy as the depths of winter, and the dichotomy made my skin crawl with the awareness that what walked before me bridged two worlds.
It reached the edge of the beach and moved into the forest. A flicker of trepidation filled me, because the last thing I was supposed to be doing was wandering off alone. Yet I dared not lose sight of the specter to retrieve someone to go with me. So, gritting my teeth, I ventured into the forest.
Other than the hiss and crackle of the flames consuming the specter, there was no sound, as though the creatures of the forest saw what those on the beach had not. Whether it was reverence or fear, I didn’t know. My heart ricocheted against my ribs and my palms were slick with sweat, yet I forced myself into a trot. Then a run. Yet no matter how fast I sprinted, branches slapping me in the face and roots threatening to trip me, I couldn’t close the distance. “Wait,” I called between gasps of breath. “I want to speak to you!”
The specter stopped.
Cursing, I slid on the thick layer of needles and dirt, nearly colliding with the creature. “Please, wise one,” I said. “I—”
The specter turned.
I sucked in a breath because the alternative was to scream, for what looked back at me from beneath the hood was the ruin of a face. Flames of orange and red ate at tendons and bone, teeth visible through the blackened holes where cheeks had once been. Whether it was male or female, I couldn’t have said, for the only thing that was whole were its eyes. Bloodshot though they were, the green was vivid, capturing me with their gaze.
“I—”
It cut me off with a gesture up the hill, and with my stomach churning with nausea, I moved to look over the lip and into the shallow ravine below. Through the trees, I could see that a small fire burned on a rock in the middle of a stream, the wet wood sending up clouds of white smoke. Curious, I moved to descend the steep slope, but something icy cold pressed down on me.
Heart in my throat, I slowly turned my head to find the specter’s hand on my shoulder. Flames danced over blackened bones, only bits of bubbling flesh remaining, and yet for all I could see the fire, it felt like its fingers were made of ice.
The urge to run filled me, but I only dragged in a shuddering breath, allowing the specter to push me to my knees. It knelt next to me, mercifully removing its hand, which it used to gesture downward. “Look.”
Just as when it had spoken to me when we’d left Halsar to go to Fjalltindr, the specter’s voice rasped painfully, making me want to recoil. To run. Instead, I listened. And looked.
Wings fluttered through the trees, and I saw flickers of a bird in flight. I ignored it, searching for what the specter had brought me to see. Motion caught my eye.
A cloaked figure stood before a tree. Only their back was visible to me, and as I watched, they withdrew a short seax and carved something into the bark. They sheathed the weapon, then turned and walked down the ravine and out of sight.
“Who was that?” I breathed once they were gone, turning to the specter. “Where did—”
But the specter had disappeared.
I hissed out an aggrieved breath, but then started down the slope, knowing that the specter wouldn’t have expended the effort to show me this if it wasn’t important. I hoped that whatever was on that tree would give me answers.
There were carvings in it. Deep gouges that left parings littered on the moss at its base. Runes drawn in a circle, at the center of which was carved an eye. I traced my finger around the circle, uncertain of the meaning, then touched the eye at the center.
Light exploded in my vision, then Snorri’s face appeared. I staggered backward, the vision disappearing the moment I ceased touching the carving.
Runic magic.
I swallowed hard, unease filling me. Tentatively, I reached out to touch the carving again. My eyes flashed bright, then Snorri appeared again, faded and blurred, drifting in and out of focus like I was looking at him through water.
But his words were clear enough.
Heart in my throat, I watched him give his speech about abandoning Halsar and moving on Grindill, his eyes flashing with passion the way they had when I’d witnessed the speech myself. Then the vision faded, and I was left staring at the tree.
Someone who’d witnessed Snorri’s speech had left this message. Had revealed our plans.
But who had cause to do such a thing? And who was the message for?
Gnut was the obvious answer, except everyone who’d witnessed Snorri’s speech had been from Halsar, which surely meant they would hate the other jarl for what he’d done. Another jarl perhaps? Or…
King Harald.
My jaw tightened, pieces of the puzzle falling together. Ylva.