“She’s fine,” Bjorn answered. “Only wet and cold. We need to make camp and get a fire going to warm her.”
“We cannot lose the hours,” Snorri growled, throwing up his hands. “We need to crest the summit before nightfall or there will be no chance of making it to Grindill to attack tomorrow night. If we delay, we risk word reaching Gnut that our forces have departed, and he’ll be prepared for an attack from the mountains. We’ll lose the advantage.”
“Better the loss of the advantage than the loss of your shield maiden,” Bjorn snapped. “She’ll do you little good as a frozen corpse.”
“This is the gods testing her!” Snorri gave a sharp shake of his head. “She must prove herself again.” He started to turn, then fixed Bjorn with a glare. “Hlin set you the task of protecting Freya. Allowing her to fall down the mountain was your failure.” Without another word, he stalked up the mountain.
Bjorn abruptly pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around me so that my head was pressed against his chest. “It’s not a fucking mountain,” he muttered and I was too miserable to argue, watching as the rest of the warriors trudged onward until only Bodil remained.
“You truly are favored by the gods, Freya,” the jarl said, handing me a skin that smelled of strong drink.
I took a sip, coughing as it burned down my throat, then chased it with another. “Doesn’t feel that way.”
She lifted one furred shoulder, then gestured to the ledge I’d rolled off, higher than Bjorn was tall. “If you’d landed a few feet to the left or right, you’d have cracked that pretty skull of yours beyond repair, but instead the mountain tossed you into a pool of water just deep enough to cushion your fall.”
“It’s not a fucking mountain!” Bjorn shouted. “It’s only a hill!”
Bodil’s eyebrows rose, then she laughed. “Although the truly amazing thing is that Bjorn didn’t piss himself when he didn’t save you from falling off the”—she smirked—“hill.”
She laughed as Bjorn’s hands tightened around me, and I didn’t understand why he cared so much about semantics to pick a quarrel over them. His heart thudded where my shoulders pressed against his chest, slowing its thunder only as Bodil began pulling off her shirts and he asked, “How many shirts are you wearing, woman?”
“Six,” she answered. “And three pairs of trousers. I’ve little tolerance for the cold.”
Taking another mouthful of liquor, I reluctantly pulled away from Bjorn and handed back his fur cloak, wanting to weep as the icy wind sliced my soaked body. Shaking hard, I tried to pull my mail over my head, but it felt like my arms weren’t working properly and Bjorn had to intervene, pulling it upward and then dropping it to the ground. “Close your eyes,” I said between chattering teeth, then glanced up to ensure he had complied.
His lids were closed, black lashes resting against his cheeks. Yet with unerring precision, he caught hold of the hem of my padded tunic, removing it before moving on to the shirt I wore beneath. The backs of his knuckles brushed against my skin as he lifted it carefully over my head, easing my stiff and unwieldy arms from the garment as the wind clawed at my naked breasts.
I wanted to be back in his arms, to curl into the heat of him and inhale the smell of him. I wanted him to open his eyes and look at me. I wanted him to drive away not only the cold crippling my flesh but also the cold consuming my heart. Instead I forced my arms up so that Bodil could lower her shirt over my head, barely feeling the fine wool against my numb skin. She added a thicker wool tunic, then lifted Bjorn’s cloak over my shoulders.
“His blood is the temperature of boiling water,” she said. “He could walk naked up this mountain and not feel the chill.” Reaching out, she lifted the skin of liquor to my lips again. “Drink up, Freya. Will keep your toes from freezing off before we reach the top.”
All I could manage was a jerky nod, allowing Bjorn to gather my soaked clothing and mail, leaving me with only my shield to carry as I followed Bodil up the slope. Each step was an act of will, my muscles so stiff that, if not for the pain, they’d have seemed made of wood rather than flesh. Hugging myself, I pressed on, my chest aching, each breath a ragged gasp of cold air.
I stumbled, Bjorn catching my elbows and keeping me from falling.
“Don’t you dare carry her,” Bodil called over her shoulder. “She needs to keep her blood moving.”
Tears leaked onto my cheeks to mix with the sleet, my nose running and forcing me to gasp in air through my mouth, my bottom lip drying, then cracking. I licked at it, tasting blood, then I tripped again.
Bjorn caught me. “I’ve got you.”
He started to lift me into his arms, and I desperately wanted to let him. Instead, I twisted away and fixed my eyes on Bodil’s heels. “This is my test, not yours.”
Which meant I had to walk on my own feet.
Tomorrow, I’d lead all the warriors in our camp into battle on their faith that I was someone worth following. I wanted to prove I was worth it. Wanted them to fight at my side not because of signs from the gods but because I was strong and capable. No one would think that if I allowed Bjorn to carry me into camp because I was cold.
I clenched my hands into fists, the sleeves of Bodil’s tunic mercifully long enough to cover my hands, because my mittens were soaked. And I climbed.
Higher and higher, the sleet lashing my face, the wind attempting to tear Bjorn’s cloak from my body. I couldn’t feel my toes and I stumbled every few steps, but I brushed Bjorn away whenever he tried to help me.
I could do this.
I would do this.
The sky dimmed, the sun dipping below the horizon, all warmth leached from the air. How much farther could it be? Exposed as we were on the mountainside, the thought of stumbling around in the cold and the dark looking for the rest of the group kindled embers of fear in my chest.
So much could go wrong in the dark.
Then Bodil called out a greeting, responses filtering through the wind into my ears. I lifted my head and saw faint shadows moving in the dark. We’d reached the camp.
But there was no fire.
I staggered to a stop and Bjorn stormed past me. “What is wrong with you,” he snarled at a shadow I could only assume was Snorri. “You left us alone on the trail and now you wish to watch her succumb to frostbite? She will fight poorly if deprived of fingers and toes. Light a cursed fire or I will.”
“You will do no such thing.” Snorri’s voice was steady and unmoved, and as I moved closer it was to find him sitting on a rock, furs wrapped around his body. “Gnut has scouts. All it would take is one of them seeing a fire on the mountaintop and our advantage will be lost.”
Bjorn’s hands balled into fists, and I thought for a heartbeat that he’d strike his father. Yet he only said, “I don’t understand why you risk Freya the way you do. You say she is of value, that she will make you a king, and yet you make no effort to protect her, only to prevent others from stealing her.”
“The gods protect her.” Snorri tilted his head. “You’ve seen evidence of it time and again, Bjorn, yet still you don’t believe: They will not let her fall.”
“They let her fall today.”
“So she might survive what no one else could,” Snorri answered. “Steinunn will sing of her exploits and her stories will move through Skaland like wildfire and people will have no choice but to believe Saga’s words. They will come in droves to follow her into battle, and they will swear oaths to me as their king. To interfere with the gods by sheltering Freya would be to deny her that fate, and in doing so, alter my own for the worse.”
“So you will throw her to the wolves time and again, certain the gods will spare her life?”
“It is her destiny.”
“No matter how much suffering it causes her? She is your wife. Don’t you care about the pain she’s enduring tonight?”