Page 46 of A Curse Carved in Bone
Gooseflesh rose on my skin. “How does he look at me?”
“Like a child looking at a new plaything.” Bjorn lifted his chin, eyes on the battlements. “Last chance to run, Freya. After we enter those walls, I think it will be a fight for you to ever escape.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks, no part of me disregarding the threat. Yet the threat of Snorri to thousands of innocents was also very real, and I wouldn’t turn back now. “I’m not running.”
Bjorn made an aggrieved noise but then muttered Tyr’s name. His axe flamed into being, and the sight of it caused shouts of recognition. More shouts still as the sun reflected off the silvery metal of my shield. Soon after, the chains clanked and the thick wooden bridge began to descend, fully flush with the shore by the time we reached the river’s banks. Handing off our horses to a waiting man, we shouldered our bags and crossed the frothing river.
Hrafnheim was already awake as we weaved through the narrow streets. A blacksmith’s hammer rang out and women retrieved water from rain barrels. It smelled of hearth smoke and porridge and humanity—a familiar scene of families breaking their fasts just as they would be in Skaland. Pots clanging and people talking, children squabbling and babies crying. Part of me hated that. How similar it was. I wanted them to be different and strange and off-putting, but instead all I could think of was that an army intent on their blood was potentiallycrossing the strait. An army that sailed in my name, and Hrafnheim was far from the first place that Snorri would strike. Visions of all the villages and hamlets we passed sailing up the Rimstrom filled my head, only to be replaced with the remains of Steinunn’s home. Nothing but the charred debris of lives that had been reclaimed by the earth.
Servants had already begun their days in Harald’s great hall as we entered, and so, I swiftly discovered, had the king himself. He sat at a table with significant company, including Tora, Skade, and Steinunn.
Skade called out, “The favored son returns so soon. Did your mother have no time for your venom-tongued woman, Bjorn?”
Bjorn didn’t respond, but Harald said, “Be silent, Skade.” He rose, and I noticed dark shadows beneath his eyes, as though he’d slept as little as Bjorn andme.
“The gate guards sent word you’d been spotted, but your return is unexpected.” He pulled Bjorn close and pounded him on the back. Then he held him at arm’s length, shadowed eyes scrutinizing him. “What has happened? Is Saga well?”
“She’s fine,” Bjorn answered, then gestured to me. “This is your plan. Lead the way.”
I bit back sharp words and took a deep breath. “Odin gave her a vision of the future,” I said as Harald’s eyes fixed on me. “ ‘A son of Skaland, a false king, sails forth on a wave of darkness. Lies unite the clans, their banners a harbinger of death, their battle cries heard in the realms of gods and men. All tangled in the shield maiden’s thread. All drawn by her call. And in their wake, they will leave weeping widows, orphaned children, and a feast for the carrion crows, their fates certain unless the shield maiden cuts her thread free of the false king’s control and weaves her new destiny.’ ”
Harald grimaced and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “Kaja may have reached Skaland by now, but she won’t have had time to return to Guthrum with news. Did Saga indicate when this is set to occur?”
Bjorn shook his head. “You know she never does. Tomorrow. Ten years from now. Who can say?”
Irritation flashed across Harald’s face, and he cursed under his breath.“Even if she did, it would not matter. I’ve not the power to change the future she foresaw. I’m nothing but a thread the rest of you manipulate.”
As he spoke, he gestured at the table behind him. My skin prickled, and I looked more closely at the table full of men and women. Some I knew—Tora, Skade, Steinunn—but most were strangers. Seemingly from all walks of life, warriors, craftsmen, farmers, and others whose vocations were unclear from their garments. And yet some instinctual part of meknewwhat I was looking at even before I picked out the edges of crimson tattoos. Children of the gods. Every last person at the table was unfated.
I’d known he had many in his service. Known Guthrum had been instrumental in bringing many of them to Harald. Yet not in my wildest imagination had I envisioned so many.
It was as though he’d collected all the Unfated in Nordeland and brought them to one place.
“Might we speak to you alone, Father?” Bjorn asked, and I set aside the question of how he’d collected so many Unfated for later contemplation as I followed them behind the dais.
“Is there a way to break a blood oath?” Bjorn began without preamble.
Harald shrugged. “Of course. Kill the volva whose magic bound the words.” His brow furrowed. “Why? What did you promise?”
“Not me.” Bjorn jerked his chin in my direction. “She can’t speak of it to anyone not of Snorri’s bloodline, so my explanation will have to suffice.” In terse words, he swiftly laid out my oaths, though I noted that he left out our speculation of the oath’s limitations, as well as my desire for him to call me to arms against Snorri.
“Ylva knows her runes.” Harald looked me up and down before turning back to Bjorn. “Yet this is precisely why I forbid such oaths in my company. They never bind individuals entirely but do force them to seek creative ways around them. It is better to earn the loyalty of those in your service because then they are bound by their own hearts.”
There was undeniable logic to that, and I found myself nodding in agreement.
Harald began to pace, expression grave and pale gray eyes seeming to see nothing around him, so lost was he in thought. Finally, he stopped before me. “What do you wish to do, Freya? For it is clear to me that you must lead us through this ordeal if there is to be any chance of success.”
Shock rippled through me, freezing my tongue as surely as my oath ever had. Bjorn seemed equally stunned, though he recovered more swiftly. “Have you been struck on the head, Father? The jarls will not follow a Skalander.”
“They followed you,” Harald said. “Bent the knee to you in this very room as my son and heir.”
“That’s different,” Bjorn snapped. “I’d been here most of my life. And I’ma—”
“Man?” Harald interjected, then shot me an amused smile as though we shared some inside joke. “You were but a boy of seventeen at the time, as I recall. Whereas Freya is a woman grown and possessed of the blood of two goddesses, making her the most powerful Unfated to ever live. As close to a god as a mortal can be.”
My mouth turned sour, no part of me feeling good at being so elevated, for I already felt less than human.
“Father—”
