Page 102 of A Curse Carved in Bone
“Gone.” Steinunn kept well back of the bars. “She came to me thinking that the truth about Harald’s identity and his deceptions would turn me to her cause, but in doing so, revealed to me that I finally had my vengeance against Snorri. The man who killed my family is dead by your hand, and though he has kept it from me, it was Harald who ensured I had justice. When Freya asked me to turn on him, I revealed her presence, though she and Geir were able to escape. He’s undead—adraug raised by her magic, is my guess.”
Anger burned hot in my veins and, ignoring the pain in my body, I got to my feet. The chains binding me rattled as I stepped close to the bars. “You bitch. Is your revenge worth so much? Snorri is dead! What more do you hope to gain by furthering Harald’s deceptions?”
“Harald delivered me from the worst moment of my life,” Steinunn said softly. “Without him to give me a reason to live, I would have surely died of grief. Trickster or not, he has given me everything he promised.”
“So because he’s given you everything you wanted, you are willing to turn a blind eye toeverythinghe’s taken from everyone else?”
“Weren’t you willing to do the same?” Steinunn’s head tilted. “Youknew he was not a good man, not really, and yet you ignored all the signs because he offered you the chance to avenge what had been done to your mother. That it was a fabrication doesn’t matter, because you still trod over innocents without mercy in pursuit of your vengeance. We are the same, Bjorn. And perhaps if you had not betrayed your loyalty to Harald for Freya’s sake, you and I would yet still be on the same side of the bars.”
“He betrayed me. I swore loyalty to a lie.” The muscles in my arms flexed as I strained against the chains. “He wore Snorri’s face when he attacked Saga, and all because he couldn’t bear her rejection. It cost my mother her life, and eventually cost my father his as well.”
Both dead at my hands.
“I know your story, Bjorn. I know the stories of everyone in Harald’s cabal of Unfated.” She sighed. “Do any of you know mine?”
“I don’t fucking care about your story, Steinunn,” I snarled. “I don’t want to hear your justification for all that you have done.”
Silence stretched, and Steinunn was the one to breakit.
“I have always told myself that no one cared to hear my story when the truth has always been that I am too afraid to tell it,” she whispered. “And so I sing the songs of others but never the song of myself. But the words have always been composed in my heart.”
Her tragedy did not justify her actions and I didn’t want to hear it. “I know enough.”
Then Tora reached through the bars and took hold of my shoulder. The tension in her face told me that she could not speak the thought in her mind, her tongue bound by Harald’s magic, but not every truth was told with words.
“Fine.” I rattled my chains, then sat back down. “Sing. It isn’t as though I have anywhere else to be.”
Steinunn sat on the floor, a small drum in her lap. The rhythm she beat upon it was soft, and as she began to sing, it was not just my ears that filled with the skald’s story but my eyes. And though I wished otherwise, my heart.
A story of a hard youth, liberty won through the love of a good man, and a year later, came a child. A boy with red curls and a large smile, blue eyes beaming at me. A ghost’s eyes, because death came and though death carried the colors of Skaland, Steinunn’s magic revealed the true villain’s face. He destroyed all that he touched, laughing as he did, and as the last lines of song poured from Steinunn’s lips, the child’s blue eyes were glassy and still.
A tear ran down my face. “Harald killed your family. Not Snorri. Harald and his Nameless. Harald wearing Snorri’s face.”
Steinunn’s face was dry. As though she’d already wept every tear she would ever have. “I’d long refused to join Harald’s service because I wished to remain with my husband and child. He killed them so that he could make me part of his cabal. So that he could use me in his machinations. He created my tragedy and then allowed me to weep on his shoulder and name him my savior. And because I was too much of a coward to sing of my own loss as it would mean watching them die, I did not know the truth until now.”
Tora reached into her pocket and pulled out balls of wool. “I cannot speak of plans that I have not heard,” she said, then shoved the wool into her ears and turned her back on us. Doing all that she could to aid us within the boundaries of the oath she’d sworn.
“I know the stories of everyone in the cabal.” Steinunn gripped the bars of my cell. “And I think it long past time I composed a song to honor our king. Our father. Our savior. But there is one more tale I must learn in order to ensure the song is complete. Will you help me, Bjorn Firehand?”
We would never be friends, this woman and me. There was too much ugliness, too much betrayal, between us. But in what might be the final hours of my life, Steinunn and I would be allies.
Geir and the other Skalander draug hauled me out of the river and half carried me at a run through the trees, the shouts of pursuit filling our ears.
“Skade led those who came after us,” Geir told me after we’d reached our camp, which was nothing more than a few tents and a single fire, for the draug needed neither rest nor warmth. “But she broke off chase. Likely because she does not care to face us in the dark.”
“Do not allow your confidence to get the better of you.” I crouched next to a small fire, warming my shaking hands. I was frozen to the bone, the sensation made worse by the hollowness in my chest. “I cannot believe Steinunn did not listen. That the truth did not matter.”
“You assume that everyone is like you, sister.” Geir muttered orders to the other Skalanders to keep a strong watch in case Skade had continued her hunt alone. “You assume that everyone will fight for what is right and make sacrifices for others, but that is not the nature of most people. They are selfish, and they always choose the path that is best for them and call it wisdom. But it is cowardice. Let them call you the foolfor trying to do better—the gods see the truth of their nature and they will be judged accordingly. Odin has no place for cowards in Valhalla.”
It was cold comfort. I’d spent my one chance to extract Bjorn on a failed conversation with Steinunn, and in the coming day, he’d be executed unless I found a solution. Exhaustion dragged upon me, but there was no chance that I’d waste these last few hours when I might yet win Bjorn free to do anything as useless as sleep.
A sharp whistle split the night, and as I lifted my head, it was to see that the first hint of dawn glowed through the dense trees of the forest. Yet that was not the reason for the whistle. Two of my draug were coming toward us with a man between them.
“Guthrum!”
I clambered to my feet, and one of the draug said, “He approached and asked to speak to you.”
I waved a hand at them to let Guthrum go, then motioned for him to join me at the fire.
