Though his face was expressionless, tension simmered in Bjorn’s green eyes and my chest tightened in sympathy. If the specter was indeed his mother, it meant that all these long years she’d lingered between worlds, suffering the agony of her death. If there was a way to help her, I didn’t know it, which meant she might languish until the end of days. Perhaps even beyond.
“The message was left with sorcery,” I blurted out to draw attention away from Bjorn while he came to terms with the revelation. “The spy is someone who knows runic magic. A woman.”
Eyes flickered past Snorri and Steinunn to land on Ylva and it was an effort not to crow with delight as discomfort filled her face, but it was Bodil who spoke. “Show us what runes you saw, Freya.”
Shrugging, I bent to pick up a stick and then sketched the runes I’d seen into the mud. As I completed the one in the center, I felt a chill pass over my forehead and I jerked away, dropping the stick.
Ylva elbowed me out of the way and knelt, pressing her hand to the eye I’d carved in the dirt.
Sudden panic filled me. Had I unwittingly placed a memory in the rune? If so, which one? What if it was of Bjorn? What if, even now, Ylva was watching him kiss me through my eyes?
“It is as Freya has said.” Ylva straightened. “I saw the runes as she did. Simple magic, easily taught to anyone.”
I opened my mouth to call her a liar, but the runes in the circle abruptly began to smoke, the dirt charring into a black circle at our feet and proving her point. If I could replicate it, so could anyone else.
“Gather everyone who witnessed Snorri speak,” Ylva snapped. “Bodil will question all and use her magic to discover who betrayed us.”
“I agree,” I said. “Let none be exempt.”
Ylva’s lips pursed as her eyes met mine, and though it might be foolish, I allowed her to see that I knew. And that I wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
So it was with great shock that I watched the lady of Halsar turn to Bodil and declare, “The memory was not mine. I did not carve the runes. I did not betray my husband.”
Bodil eyed her for a long moment, then nodded. “Ylva speaks the truth.”
“Gather everyone,” Ylva called out. “Let no stone go unturned until we discover who has betrayed us.”
“Enough!” Snorri roared. “Saga did not reveal herself to Freya to help us root out a traitor. She revealed herself to show Freya her path forward.”
I blinked, because that was the last thing I’d taken from my exchange with the specter.
“Our plan to attack Grindill is known by our enemies.” His hand drifted to his weapon. “Which means that Gnut will be prepared for us to come. Will have scouts watching the sea and the passes through the mountains. That is what Saga revealed to Freya. Not that we have been betrayed, but that Freya must change the course of fate.”
“How?” I demanded, because the alternative was to point out that a day prior, he’d been certain that Gnut would be cowering behind his walls out of fear of Snorri’s wrath. All talk to win support, it would seem. “She said nothing of what I should do.”
“Because she does not control you.” Snorri’s eyes burned into me with utter fanaticism. “I do. And I say we do not go around the mountains, but over them. I say we attack now.”
No sane person would go over the mountains in a Skaland spring. Not when it was a simple journey through the passes or by water via the fjords. Certainly not when the sky was releasing a deluge of rain and sleet, the temperature plummeting to freezing each night.
Which meant that while Gnut and his warriors might know we were coming, they’d not expect it this soon.
If, that is, we survived long enough to attack, which seemed less likely with each passing minute.
Gasping for breath, I paused on an outcropping and wiped sleet from my face. Every muscle in my body burned from climbing all day, yet I’d all but lost feeling in my hands and feet from the cold. My teeth chattered with such violence the noise would have echoed through the peaks if not for the fact that the howl of the wind drowned out everything but the loudest of shouts.
“You all right?”
I twitched, turning to find Bjorn slightly below me on the slope. The hood of his cloak hung loose down his back and his hands were bare, no part of him touched by the cold. Tyr’s fire burned within him at all times, and I curbed the urge to step close to him. Bjorn had honored my request to keep his distance to the extent that Snorri’s orders allowed, and I needed to do the same. “I’m fine.”
“You look like you’re freezing your tits off.”
I scoffed, giving him a disgusted glare. “Oh, my poor frozen breasts. If only some generous man would offer to warm them for me.”
He shrugged, voice flippant as he said, “Your words, not mine.”
I kicked snow at him. “Piss off, Bjorn. I can take care of myself.”
Fixing the furred hood of my cloak, I shoved my mittened hands into my armpits, trudging after Bodil up the slope, the older woman resembling a bear beneath her heavy furs.
“That is a foolish way to walk, Born-in-Fire,” he said, following me. “If you fall, you won’t be able to catch yourself.”
“I’m not going to fall.” Or rather, the risk of doing so seemed far less than losing my fingers to frostbite.
“Quit being so stubborn and let me warm your hands for you.”
Against my backside, I felt a sudden glow of heat and knew that if I turned it would be to find his axe blazing bright. I ground my teeth together, desperately wanting to hold my numb fingers over the burning weapon until they were warm again, but I kept trudging forward, adjusting my shield strap as I glared at Bodil’s back. Everyone else was managing, so I would as well.
“Freya—”
Twisting, I snarled under my breath, “I told you to stay away from—”
My feet slid out from under me, a gasp tearing from my lips. Bjorn reached for me, his eyes wide, but my arm was tangled in my cloak.
I bounced painfully off the slope, my fingers clawing for purchase on the icy rock and frozen mud, but they found nothing. My body flipped and I flew through the air, a scream tearing from my lips as I dropped—
And landed hard with a splash.
Water closed over my head, bubbles exploding from my lips as my shield struck rock, the handle digging into my back and driving the air from my lungs.
I thrashed, desperate for breath, then hands grabbed the front of my clothes and jerked me to the surface.
Spluttering, I met Bjorn’s panicked gaze. “Don’t even say it,” I said between coughs, cold piercing down to my very bones. “Don’t you dare say it!”
“What is it that you think I planned to say?” He pulled me out of the pool of slush and water that I’d landed in, setting me on my feet.
“That you told me so,” I muttered, stealing the words so that he wouldn’t have a chance to embarrass me with them.
“That was not what I intended to say.”
He pulled off my shield and soaked cloak, casting them aside before wrapping his own cloak around my shoulders, heat encasing me and his scent filling my nose. But not even that was enough to ease the violent trembles wracking my body. “What then?” I demanded, seeing Snorri sliding down the slope toward us, eyes full of panic.
“I was going to point out that you have a habit of getting very wet around me,” he said. “I’m starting to wonder whether it’s purposeful.”
For a heartbeat, my body forgot that it was freezing to death and sent blood rushing to my cheeks. I’d told him to stay away. Told him the reasons why I couldn’t be in his presence even though revealing the truth had been humiliating, and now he was making jokes. “Don’t flatter yourself!”
He gripped my hands, his skin scalding against mine. “It is you who flatters me.”
“I did not fall down a mountain to get wet for you, Bjorn!”
“Oh, I know,” he grinned. “It’s really only a hill with lofty aspirations. That”—he pointed off in the distance at a rocky peak—“is a mountain.”
“The only lofty thing I see is your sense of self-worth,” I hissed as Snorri shouted, “Is she hurt?”