The king stared at her for a moment before saying, “Fine. But no curses.”
She began, “Well, I could conjure a storm—”
The men cringed in unison.
“No. We’ve had enough of that this summer,” said Eirik darkly. “It was a storm that beached us here in the first place. Try something else.”
If not curses or weather magic, and with no women there to sing for her and no other witches to travel with for safety—especially if Katla was still skulking around—her options were limited to healing. She could ask if any of the hirdsmen were wounded so that she could demonstrate her power on them, but she was hardly the healer she’d watched Oddny grow up to be under Yrsa’s tutelage. Heid had taught her to brew teas and make potions and poultices for aches and pains, but when it came to injuries, the person Gunnhild had had the most practice healing was herself. It was how she’d learned in the first place.
With every moment that she didn’t move, Eirik looked smugger. She wanted to slap the smirk off his face. But then she noticed that the other hirdsmen had wandered over to watch what was going on.
Thirty battle-hardened men were staring at her. Gunnhild needed to make an impression.
She reached into her belt pouch to make sure she had a spare linen bandage handy, and then pulled out one of the small, flat wooden staves she carried around for runic magic and stuck it between her teeth.
Then she drew the knife at her belt.
Several of the men stepped back or made noises of surprise, and some of them touched the seaxes at their own belts as if ready to draw. Even Eirik looked wary, but he held up a hand to still them, not looking away from her.
“Well?” he asked.
She looked down at her hand, fingers splayed and palm facing out, and positioned the knife, willing her grip and focus to remain steady. It had to be a quick, clean wound. A shallow cut wouldn’t make enough of an impact, but if she severed something important, it would take too much of her magic to heal, and she might pass out. That was the last thing she needed.
This had to be done just right.
For Signy.
Arinbjorn was the first to realize what she meant to do. His gray eyes went wide. “Wait. Hold on. You don’t have to—”
Gunnhild stabbed the knife through her hand and then ripped it out—much to the shock of the king’s hird, who reacted with a mix of gasps and expletives.
The pain was instant and horrible and turned her vision red. She clenched her jaw so hard that she nearly cracked a molar on the stave between her teeth. She ignored the muffled noises of astonishment around her, doubled over, and swore loudly around the stave until the words would no longer come.
She heard Eirik say, “I knew it. She’s an absolute madwoman.”
“Give her a moment,” Arinbjorn said.
Blood dripped down to her wrist and soiled the sleeve of her dress and kaftan. When her vision cleared, she took the stave out of her mouth and held it gently in her injured hand. With the knife, she carved runes into the wood, singing each one under her breath. Then she grabbed the bandage from her pouch and wrapped her hand with the rune stick still pressed against her bleeding wound.
The men were dead silent. Gunnhild finally straightened and looked up. Thorolf had gone pale, Arinbjorn looked curious, and Eirik stood with his arms folded dispassionately.
She held up her shaking hand. She was already bleeding through the bandage. Between the pain and blood loss, and the energy she’d expended on carving the runes to heal the wound more rapidly than she ordinarily would, she was spent.
“It’ll be healed by suppertime,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even. It was all she could do to remain standing.
Eirik was still glaring at her, but he realized a moment later when Arinbjorn nudged him in the ribs that all eyes were on him.
Gunnhild raised her chin.
“Fine,” the king said at last. “Once I see the proof, we’ll talk.”
* * *
—
THOROLF ALLOWED HER TO rest in his tent. She barely made it to the bedroll before collapsing.
“Are you all right?” he asked worriedly as he crouched beside her. “That was . . . rather excessive. Was there really no other way to prove your skills?”
Well, it worked, didn’t it? Gunnhild curled into a ball with her bound hand tucked against her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. He’ll be willing to make a deal now.
“I pushed myself too far, and now I’m paying the price,” she whispered. “It’s common to feel fatigued when you do too much magic at once.”
“Would eating something help? I could fetch—”
“I need rest. Wake me before supper, would you?”
“I—yes. Of course.” He stood and moved to the doors.
Gunnhild gathered the last of her strength and said, “Thorolf.”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said.
He lingered a moment too long before nodding and ducking out of the tent. She scooted forward to rest her head on the lumpy haversack he used as a pillow, and she soon sank into the warm embrace of sleep.
Gunnhild didn’t know how long she dozed—only that when she woke up, she was no longer alone, and she jerked in surprise when her eyes fell upon her visitor. It took her a moment to realize what she was seeing.
The white fox sat an arm’s length from her head and watched her with its uncanny amber eyes. Gunnhild sat up slowly, her uninjured hand moving to the knife at her belt.
It won’t do you any good, said Thorbjorg. You’re only dreaming.
Gunnhild believed her, if only because her hand no longer hurt; though she’d expedited the spell, she couldn’t have been sleeping long enough for it to run its course.
“How are you doing this?” she asked in a small, horrified whisper. “Get out of my head.”
I’ve only come to warn you, said Thorbjorg. You must leave these men at once.
“And why is that?”
You weren’t supposed to be there. At the farm. Neither was your mentor. But you were, and we had to act. It was . . . unfortunate.
“Is that so? I thought you said it was fortuitous. Or was that only when you thought I’d be easy to kill?”
The fox said nothing, which was answer enough.
“Why did you attack Oddny and Signy? They haven’t done anything wrong.”
Things didn’t go the way I intended. I didn’t mean to make an enemy of you—just to preemptively ensure that you and your sworn sisters stayed out of my way. Heed my warning now, and no further harm will come to you—
“But why? We weren’t in your way. We don’t even know you—” Gunnhild stopped. Preemptively? “Unless—you’ve foreseen something. Something you think we’re going to do.”
The fox stared back at her, unblinking, and again said nothing.
A feeling bubbled in Gunnhild’s chest as she recalled the carnage of the day before, heard Signy’s screams ringing in her ears, felt the thin, cold skin of Heid’s hands beneath hers as her mentor took her final breath:
Rage. Pure rage, deep and cold and vicious. Had the fox truly been sitting before her, she would’ve grabbed the creature and snapped its neck. Or worse.
“My teacher told me once that nothing would bring me greater grief than trying to fulfill or avoid a prophecy,” she said. “I don’t suppose yours ever told you the same thing, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We might have never even crossed paths if not for your actions.”