“Freya!” Ingrid grabbed me by the front of my dress, shaking me. “Make him stop! You’re supposed to protect us!”
I stared at her. All of what I’d endured, all of what I’d done, had been driven by my desire to protect my family, including her, but that desire was faltering.
“Please,” she begged. “Please!”
It’s who you are, a voice whispered inside my head even as a darker voice whispered, What if it isn’t?
It was fear that the second voice was right that snapped me out of my stupor.
“Enough.” My throat strangled the word, so it came out no louder than a breath of air. “Enough!”
Bjorn went still, his eyes going to me.
“Let him go,” I said. “They’ve made their beds. Now they can sleep in them and pray that fate doesn’t turn those beds to graves.”
Then I turned on my heel and walked out.
“Where are you going?” Bjorn demanded, quickly catching me with his long strides.
“I’m done fighting it,” I said, stepping around a goat and then over a pair of chickens that clucked their way into my path. “Done asking questions, done trying to change things for the better. It’s time to accept the path that was intended for me. The path your mother foresaw for me.”
Bjorn caught my arm, pulling me to a stop. “Accept it? What does that mean?”
“It means allowing your father the control he was fated to have.” I forced myself to look up to meet Bjorn’s eyes. “He’s meant to rule, not me, so it’s time I swear an oath to him as king.”
“Freya—”
I tried to pull out of his grip, but his hand tightened on my wrist, so I rounded on him. “What exactly is it you want me to do, Bjorn?”
“I already told you.” He bent down so that we were nose-to-nose. “Change your fate.”
He’d said that to me over Bodil’s body, but I hadn’t really questioned what that meant. “You don’t wish for me to unite Skaland?”
“I…” He exhaled a long breath, moving closer. Too close, given that we were in view of dozens of prying eyes. “Ask yourself how Skaland will become united. Then ask what you’ll have to become to achieve that end.”
“What does it matter?” I demanded, because I didn’t want to look into myself to find the answers to those questions.
“It matters to me.” His thumb rubbed over the back of my wrist. “You matter to me.”
You are mine, Born-in-Fire. Even if only the two of us know it. The echo of what he’d said to me on the mountaintop filled my ears, and I shivered. “What do you want me to do?”
He swallowed hard. “I want you to listen to Steinunn sing tonight.”
* * *
—
A platform had been placed in the middle of the square at the center of the fortress, and it seemed every last man, woman, and child in Grindill had come to see Steinunn sing her ballad.
Not that I was surprised.
To hear a child of Bragi sing was more than entertainment; it was a privilege very few would have the opportunity to witness in their lifetimes. Not only were the stories the skalds told with their songs passed down from generation to generation, so too was the experience of hearing the song direct from the skald’s lips. Because one didn’t just hear, one saw.
That was the part I was terrified about, because seeing the tunnels leading to Fjalltindr had been bad. This would be far worse.
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Bjorn said from where he stood at my left. “I won’t fault you.”
“I’ll fault me.” I squared my shoulders. “I lived it, which means that I can watch it.”
I had to. Needed to see what everyone else had seen that had caused this newfound fear of me. Needed to see what Bjorn had seen.
The crowd stirred, parting to allow Snorri and Ylva to escort Steinunn to the dais.
Carrying a simple drum, the skald wore a dress of crimson wool trimmed with fur, and on her head she wore a headpiece designed to look like a raven, midnight feathers cascading down her shoulders and back. Its eyes were formed of polished glass, its claws and beak of silver, and I swore the cursed thing stared me down as she turned to face the crowd.
Snorri and Ylva retreated to chairs set at the rear of the dais, and with no preamble, Steinunn parted her lips and began to beat the drum she held in her hands.
A deep, huffing chant spilled over the crowd. My heart immediately began throbbing in rhythm, anticipation and trepidation filling my chest in equal parts because I felt her power. Felt the magic of her voice drawing me back to the moment we’d flowed down the mountainside toward Grindill, vengeance burning in our hearts.
And then Steinunn began to sing.
The breath I sucked in was ragged, the air not seeming to reach my lungs. For I didn’t just hear the story in the lyrics.
I saw it. I tasted it. I smelled it.
Not through my own eyes, but through the eyes of all who had been with me, the perspective shifting from person to person, giving me a strange sense of omniscience. Like…like I was seeing events as the gods did.
I watched myself, mouth drawn tight and amber eyes bright with fear, my gait stilted and pained. All around me, there were gasps as those in the crowd felt an echo of what each step had been like for me, and I flinched.
But it was nothing compared to the lance of agony that struck me when the vision focused on Bodil’s face.
I couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t watch her die again.
Bjorn’s hand closed over mine, squeezing. Holding me steady as my courage wavered.
Born-in-Fire, I reminded myself as I watched him cut down the tree. You were born in fire, you can do this.
The vision intensified, Steinunn’s song replaced with our labored breaths as we carried the tree. The screams of panic. Snorri’s shouted commands.
The impact of the ram against the gate.
The perspective shifted.
Now we looked down from above, and I realized with a start that Steinunn had spoken to the survivors of our attack. That I was now seeing from their eyes.
Feeling their terror.
My breath came in too-rapid pants as the hands belonging to the eyes helped lift a vat of boiling water. They poured it over the wall, crying in despair as it exploded off the magic of my shield.
Despair that was tempered as a tall and hooded figure approached, face hidden, lightning crackling between their palms.
It was coming. My heart was chaos in my chest, hammering against my ribs.
I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t watch.
Wrenching my hand from Bjorn’s grip, I clapped my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut. But I couldn’t drown out Steinunn’s magic and the vision only grew in intensity. Sobbing, I watched myself trip. Watched Bodil drop her shield to catch me.
Saw that the thin lightning bolt flung by the child of Thor hadn’t been intended for her. It had been intended for me.
I hadn’t thought it possible for my guilt to cut worse than it already did, but watching the bolt burn through Bodil undid me.
My knees buckled, and it was only because Bjorn caught me that I didn’t fall. He held me against his chest, arms wrapped around me even as I watched myself from his eyes as he dragged me away from Bodil. Felt his panic as I wrenched from his grip and then his awe as I used my shield to deflect the lightning into the wall of Grindill.
Saw the moment when he met my gaze.
And didn’t recognize the woman he saw.
I stiffened, shock radiating through me at the mask of cold fury on my face, eyes that burned with crimson fire revealed only for a heartbeat before I twisted to race through the shattered wall and into the fortress.
Perspective shifted to those whose home I’d just invaded, and tears dried on my cheeks even as horror filled my stomach as I watched myself slaughter all who crossed my path, my expression wrath incarnate. It didn’t matter who they were, whether they crossed blades with me or tried to flee, I cut them all down. Bjorn fought at my heels, killing any who tried to stab me in the back even as he screamed my name. Begged me to stop. Yet I kept going.