I flinched. “Don’t speak about them that way.”
“Why not?” he snapped. “Despite all you do, all you’ve done for them, your brother called you a mad bitch. Your mother called you a whore. They aren’t worth allowing Snorri to turn you into a monster to make himself king.”
He wasn’t wrong. But neither was he right.
“I thought when you saw how your mother is living, you’d turn your back on them,” he said. “Yet though I watched you realize she profited from your pain, it changed nothing. I watched you listen to her tell you how time and again she’s chosen your brother and herself over you, and again, it changed nothing. You refuse to change your fate.”
“So you thought to do it for me?” My skin flushed with anger. “Because I’m not the only one with a god’s blood in my veins, with the power to make the Norns alter their plans. You can do it too.”
“I would tear their plans to shreds if it meant sparing you the fate my mother foresaw,” he said. “But I want you to choose to leave, Freya. All I’ve done is given you the opportunity.”
Though I wished he’d told me the whole truth sooner, I still found my anger fading. “I want to say yes, Bjorn. What I saw in Steinunn’s magic terrifies me. But if I go, I’m condemning my family to die.”
“They condemned themselves.”
Turning my mare, I walked a short distance away to stand on the cliffs overlooking the sea. Gulls sailed over the whitecaps, a north wind tugging my hair loose from its braid. It would be so easy to ride down to the shore. To find a merchant vessel from one of the lands far south of here and sail away, never looking back. Never even knowing if Snorri followed through on his threats.
Not knowing would be worse. To have the uncertainty of whether those I loved lived or died. Would happiness even be possible, or would the guilt poison whatever life I built?
“Hlin told my mother that if I possessed only avarice, my words would be curses, but if I possessed altruism, what divine power I might make my own was a fate yet unwoven.” I hesitated. “I know there is no way to know what she meant by that, but to me, it means that choosing others before myself will be how I achieve a destiny different from what your mother saw.” Turning my head to look at him, my breath caught, because I knew that making this choice meant giving him up. “I have to go back. I can’t leave knowing that they will die, because that would mean conceding to the avarice that Hlin warned of.”
I held my breath, waiting for Bjorn to react. Waiting for anger and condemnation for my choice. Instead, he exhaled softly. “How is it that the part of you that I hate the most is also the reason I love you?”
Love.
Emotion drowned me, threatening to double me over, and I wanted desperately to tell him that I loved him as well. That I loved him more than I’d ever dreamed was possible.
Except what did that even mean, given that I hadn’t chosen him? So instead I said, “If you want nothing more to do with me, I’d understand that. I wouldn’t fault you.”
Even if it breaks my heart.
“You’re mine, Born-in-Fire,” he answered, reaching out to take my hand. “And I’m yours, even if only the two of us know it.”
I clung to his hand, barely able to breathe. Knowing that if I looked at him I’d crack; instead I stared out at the fjord. In time to see a large drakkar with a blue-striped sail appear around the bend. “Bjorn…”
“I see it,” he answered, lifting his hand to shield his eyes. “Fuck.”
Unease filtered into my chest. “What is it?”
Or who?
“Skade.” Bjorn spat in the dirt. “We need to go.”
Snorri had mentioned the name Skade while we were in Fjalltindr, but I had no idea who she was. “Is she one of Harald’s warriors?”
“His hunter. Who he sends to find those who don’t wish to be found.” His throat moved as he swallowed. “She’s a child of Ullr.”
My stomach tightened, for I knew Ullr’s children had bows with magical arrows that never missed their target. “Who is she hunting?”
Bjorn turned his head to meet my gaze, the muscles in his jaw so tight they strained against his suntanned skin.
“No,” I breathed. “That makes no sense. Everyone thinks that I’m in Grindill.”
“There is no other reason for her to be here, Freya. We need to go. Get a head start before she finds our trail.”
The fear singing in my blood told me that he was right, except there was only one place to dock a drakkar of that size on this fjord. Selvegr. My home.
Ignoring Bjorn’s protests, I dug my heels into my horse’s sides, urging the mare into a fast canter. Too fast for the narrow trail, but I didn’t care. Every man and woman in Selvegr who could fight had been called to join Snorri at Grindill, which meant the village was undefended. Full of women with children, the elderly, and the infirm. Entirely unaware that a drakkar bristling with Harald’s warriors sailed toward them.
“Freya!”
I risked a backward glance at Bjorn, his horse on my heels. “I have to warn them!”
“You won’t make it in time!”
He was right. As fast as I was riding, the drakkar had a strong wind at its back. But I had to try. Had to do something.
Through the trees, I watched the drakkar lower its sail, the rowers maneuvering it to the single, empty dock. They’d have been spotted by now, and everyone would be racing to find their children. To grab weapons.
To hide.
“Freya! Stop!”
In my periphery, Bjorn’s bigger horse gained ground. I urged my mount for more speed but the mare was spent, and as the trail widened, Bjorn moved alongside me. I tried to widen the distance, but he leaned recklessly far off the side of his horse and caught my reins, pulling both mounts up.
Hissing, I leapt off my horse and broke into a run. Boots hammered the ground as he gave chase, easily catching me by the arm. I fought against him, but Bjorn swept my legs out from underneath me, both of us falling hard.
“Quit hissing like an angry cat and look,” he snapped, pinning me to the ground. “They aren’t attacking!”
“I can’t see anything!” I squirmed, trying to get loose, but Bjorn was infinitely stronger than I was, his hips holding mine against the dirt.
“Listen!”
Instinct demanded that I struggle, for my people needed me, but I forced myself to stillness. The only sound was Bjorn’s ragged breathing, the wind, and the waters of the fjord lapping against the shores. No clash of steel. No screams.
Easing off me, Bjorn led me on hands and knees to the edge of a ridge overlooking the water, from which I could clearly see Selvegr and Skade’s drakkar tied up to its dock. Some of the warriors had exited the drakkar, but most sat idle, waiting.
“That’s Skade.” Bjorn pointed, and I made out a woman with crimson hair standing and speaking in earnest to a villager, no weapon in sight. “She’s looking for you, not a fight.”
“Then why does she have a full raiding party of warriors on her drakkar?”
Bjorn didn’t answer for a long moment, then said, “That’s a good question.”
There was an edge to his voice that made my skin prickle, but when I tore my eyes from Skade to look at him, Bjorn’s face was unreadable. “A better question is how do they know we are here at all?”
His brow furrowed.
“The only person who knew where we were going was Ylva.” My guts twisted. “I was a fool to trust her.”
Bjorn gave a sharp shake of his head. “It doesn’t make sense. When you accused her of leaving the message with the runes, she denied it and Bodil confirmed she was telling the truth.”
“What if Bodil was lying?” The thought hollowed out my core because I’d trusted Bodil. Put my faith in her. To discover that she’d lied to me, conspired with Ylva, with Harald…