The something became tangible, but not enough so that Oddny could grasp it. The scar on her palm began to thrum faintly, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Who . . .? said the mist. Who . . . are you . . .?
“Me? I told you, I’m Oddny. Oddny Ketilsdottir. Don’t you remember?”
Oddny . . .?
“We’ve been friends since we were born.” Oddny’s voice shook. “We swore an oath to each other. That night, after the ritual. You, me, and Signy.”
Oddny . . . Signy . . .?
Oddny could almost reach the something, could almost close her fist around it.
“Yes. Listen—do you hear the song? That’s Signy. You saved her, Gunnhild. Your brothers found her. And beyond her—that’s Runfrid and Ulla and Saeunn. You remember them, don’t you? All our friends?”
Friends . . . our friends . . .
Oddny’s voice hitched in desperation. “Remember the game we used to play with the horns, the one that drove our fathers mad? Two bursts for hello, three for goodbye?”
She closed her fist around—nothing. Letting out a cry of rage, she squeezed her eyes shut even harder. Opened her hand, fingers splayed.
“You have always been so frustrating,” she shouted. “I didn’t even want to take that blood oath, but you and Signy outvoted me. You always did. I was the voice of reason for you two and your schemes when we were young, remember?”
No reply. Perhaps that wasn’t what Gunnhild needed to hear.
Oddny whimpered. “Listen—I’m sorry for what I said to you in Vestfold. In that moment I hated you for choosing Eirik over me, and part of me still does. Part of me isn’t sure I can trust you not to do the same thing again. But you never doubted that we would find Signy. You gave me that silver, but you—you sent your brothers to rescue her before I even could. You were wrong, but I was wrong, too.”
The mist still seemed uncertain.
“Gunnhild—I love you. Don’t let this be goodbye.”
Oddny’s palm burned as her oath flared back to life, and this time when she closed her fist, she closed it around—a thread.
And she pulled on it as hard as she could.
When Oddny opened her eyes again, she was in the dark place, the end of a shining gossamer thread clasped in her hand. She kept pulling, and she felt Signy come up behind her and help as the thread got longer and longer, drawn out of the nothingness of the void.
But Oddny knew Gunnhild was on the other end. They needed only to keep pulling.
And finally, finally, with one last yank, Gunnhild appeared as if being pulled through an invisible doorway, the thread in Oddny’s hand attached to the center of her chest.
36
GUNNHILD WAS NOTHING, AND then she was something again. The last thing she remembered was flying over the water, looking down at Eirik’s ship as the men prepared for battle—and seeing a ghostly figure waving and pointing to something in the water. And in the very moment she’d recognized the specter as Heid, everything had gone dark.
Her fylgja had appeared to warn her after all, but too late.
And now she was falling—but two pairs of arms caught her and righted her, and Signy held her steady as Oddny jumped up and fished around in the air until she caught the end of a dangling gray thread. She brought it close to the one extending from Gunnhild’s chest, and the two threads fused and began to shine as brightly as the other women’s. Gunnhild’s tether was healed.
Gunnhild looked back and forth between the sisters. “Signy—？”
Signy slipped her arm from around Gunnhild’s back and enveloped her in a hug. “You did it, Gunna. Your brothers came for me. You saved my life.”
“They did? I—？” Gunnhild pulled away. “Oddny—you came back?”
Then she looked past them both, to Thorbjorg.
“You,” she said savagely.
Thorbjorg looked at her, then at Signy and Oddny, amber eyes wide with terror and knowing, as though she’d seen this happen before, as though this was her worst nightmare coming to pass. She spat out her gag and scooted backward awkwardly, hands still bound. “No. Wait. Please—mercy—”
Whatever she foresaw, Gunnhild realized, whatever drove her to this, it wasn’t just about Eirik or vengeance or power. Thorbjorg saw her death.
And it was me, with my sisters at my back.
Gunnhild started toward her, but Oddny grabbed her arm. “Leave her, Gunna. She’s lost, and she knows it.”
“Does she not deserve it, though?” Signy said, voice flat. “Let Gunna do the honors.”
Oddny whirled on her sister but did not let go of Gunnhild. “Signy, killing her won’t bring Mother and Vestein back. It won’t—”
“Undo what happened to me?” Signy said. “I know. But watching the person responsible for it die would at least make me feel a little better.”
“Thorbjorg had your mother killed, Oddny. And Heid, too. My true mother,” Gunnhild said, her eyes not leaving the quivering little witch. “I won’t leave them unavenged.”
“Gunnhild,” Oddny said, but her resolve was weakening, her eyes going cold. Gunnhild knew she was remembering the arrow in her brother’s throat, the axe in her mother’s chest, the farm burning.
“It’s too dangerous to let her live,” said Signy. “Gunna—do it.”
Gunnhild ripped her arm away from Oddny and started forward again.
“You—you don’t know what I’ve seen,” Thorbjorg sputtered. “If you do this, it’s only the beginning. You’ll be a murderer. And you won’t stop with me. When given the option to bargain, you’ll choose to kill; when given the option for peace, you’ll choose violence. And in the end, you’ll be remembered as being more ruthless than even your own husband.”
This gave Gunnhild pause, until she heard a whisper in the back of her mind, Freyja’s voice: You mustn’t falter.
She could almost feel the goddess’s presence beside her and wondered if it was merely a hallucination—as she’d often wondered about the presence she’d encountered that night in the grove—until Freyja’s voice came again: Send my daughter home to me, Gunnhild, Mother of Kings.
Thorbjorg seemed to think Gunnhild’s brief hesitation meant she’d changed her mind, for she was much calmer when she asked, “Is that the price you’re willing to pay for revenge?”
Gunnhild crouched beside her and brought her face in very close.
“Yes,” she said.
And then she grabbed Thorbjorg by the neck, pinned her down, and squeezed as hard as she could.
She heard Oddny’s gasp of horror behind her but ignored it. All she felt was the woman’s throat between her hands. All she saw was Heid’s body, cold and dead on her sleeping pallet and then in her grave; the arrow piercing Vestein’s neck; Yrsa crumpling.
They morphed into Thorbjorg’s face, mouth open, eyes bulging. She saw flashes of whatever Thorbjorg must be witnessing in the waking world as she struggled to escape Gunnhild and return to her body. She saw snippets of her thoughts—the last moments of a ship battle; They were never supposed to get this far; How is this happening?—and felt the heartbeat beneath her fingers slowly grow weaker.