“Runes?” Oddny had asked. She’d seen her mother use them only a few times. Yrsa was more likely to employ physical implements when healing: potions, salves, teas. Magic was a last resort, because it didn’t always work.
Then again, nothing else had improved Solveig’s condition so far. Yrsa had been desperate.
“Watch me closely, Oddny,” she’d said. “Anyone can carve runes, but not everyone has a strong enough will to make them do what you want them to do.”
Oddny said, “So why not just use them for everything? Isn’t that what Odin got them for when he sacrificed himself to himself?”
“Because there’s too much room for error. They must be carved precisely and with specific intent so they can work on your behalf while you’re not present. If they’re wrong, at best they’ll have no effect, but at worst they’ll kill the person you’re using them on, even if their illness or injury wasn’t life-threatening to begin with.”
Then Yrsa had sung the runes under her breath as she carved them into the wood, and stuck the stick under the sick woman’s pillow.
Oddny knew there was more at stake here than just Solveig’s life: Her mother’s reputation as a respectable healer was on the line. Yrsa and Solveig had despised each other privately for years, but the enmity between them had become public knowledge after Gunnhild vanished. Whenever Yrsa heard people whispering that the disappearance of the hersir’s daughter was a result of the prophecy dooming the three girls, she was quick to correct anyone who would listen—and not just for the sake of her daughters’ prospects—by offering that the child most likely ran away because of her mother. And Solveig took any opportunity to slander Yrsa in return, right up until she’d fallen ill and suddenly had need of a healer.
Regardless, Oddny knew that if Solveig died, her mother would take it as a personal failing. And worse—others might think Yrsa killed her.
“Vestein is going to row over there later to ask after her. He planned to fish today anyway,” Signy said, snapping Oddny out of her reverie. “I may have also bullied him into taking me with him and letting me stay until the king’s retinue passes through again.”
Oddny gave her a sidelong look. “Mother couldn’t possibly have agreed to that.”
“Mother doesn’t have to know.”
“Signy, you have no idea when they’re coming back—”
“It can’t be long. Winter will be upon us before we know it.”
Oddny raked her fingers through her long thin hair and started to braid it over her shoulder. Her pain had dulled for now, but another wave could hit her at any moment. She would need her tea soon and she didn’t have the patience for her sister’s fantasies.
At the beginning of summer, King Eirik, chosen successor of King Harald, the ruler of all of Norway, had passed through Halogaland on his way to raid along the Dvina River in Bjarmaland, to the north and east, with his hird—his retinue of sworn men—and they’d stopped at Ozur’s for a night. With Solveig’s illness in its early stages, Ozur had summoned his neighbors to welcome his distinguished guests, with Yrsa helping the cook to organize the feast and enlisting her daughters to serve the men.
While Signy had made heads turn, few of the hirdsmen had spared Oddny more than a passing glance, likely taking her for a servant girl. Oddny had gotten used to this, given how many feasts she and Signy had helped serve at the hersir’s. Her eyes were a brownish version of Signy’s bright green, her fine hair teetering between brown and blond, whereas her sister’s was thick and glossy, the rich brown of freshly tilled earth. They had the same heart-shaped face, but Oddny’s was thinner. She was half a head shorter than Signy and had no curves to speak of, and her dark, thin, straight brows gave her a perpetually severe look.
So while Oddny had haunted the feast like a small shadow wielding a pitcher of ale, Signy had been in her element, flirting shamelessly with the hird, fighting to catch King Eirik’s eye for some time before finally disappearing with him at the end of the night. Oddny had to suffer through her sister’s ensuing bragging all summer at the dairy as Signy told the younger girls of her conquest in great detail. Their father, Ketil, had enjoyed telling tall tales of his adventures on the raids and of his encounters with trolls and wights and all other manner of creatures, and Signy took after him in more ways than one; Oddny knew her sister’s story was full of embellishments, for it changed a bit every time.
But at the dairy, where girls from the surrounding farms herded the livestock inland to the lush mountain valleys each summer, Signy had a captive audience of bright-eyed, eager teens who didn’t necessarily care how much of what she told them was true. Signy and Oddny were the oldest of the lot besides the mothers who had come along, who overheard Signy’s story with a more critical ear and shook their heads. Signy, twenty-five winters old and unmarried, was not the woman they wanted their daughters to emulate. Signy knew this, and it only emboldened her in the telling of her tale, which became raunchier each time she told it.
“Nothing happened, actually,” Signy had confessed to Oddny in private on their final night at the dairy, as they curled up together in one of the shacks. “We were both very drunk and passed out fully clothed in the hay.”
“If that’s the case, I suspect Papa would be proud of how much you’ve managed to exaggerate such a mundane experience,” Oddny had replied, earning a smack on the arm from her sister.
Presently, Oddny stood and said, “You can’t think King Eirik will come back here and decide to make you one of his wives, or whisk you away and take you on all his adventures?”
Signy stuck out her lower lip and stood as well. “And why not?”
“You know exactly why.” Oddny gave her a flat look as she finished her braid. “We’re poor. We’re cursed. Need I go on?”
Nobodies at best, social pariahs at worst, despite Mother’s best efforts. Ever since the night of the seeress’s prophecy.
Ever since Gunnhild disappeared into thin air.
Oddny looked down at the silvery scar on her palm and squeezed her hand into a fist. She hoped, as she often did, that wherever Gunnhild had gone was a far cry better than her mother’s clutches.
“Well, King Eirik isn’t exactly popular himself,” Signy pointed out, “having killed two of his brothers—”
“Right. One of the worst crimes a person can commit, and he’s done it twice.”
“But I heard the one was on his father’s orders—”
“Don’t defend a kinslayer, Signy.” Oddny wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I’d take a decent man over one like him any day, king or no.”
“Well, maybe our prospects would be better than crotchety old men and brother-murderers if Vestein had gone raiding more than once,” Signy said as they headed to the door. “You know, made the necessary connections. Plundered some gold from unsuspecting monks. Actually attempted to find us husbands . . .”
This particular complaint was the one Signy most often voiced, so Oddny rolled her eyes and offered her usual response: “And if you’d been the one to see Papa take an axe to the head on your very first raid, I doubt you’d be keen to go again. But, you know, I think if you asked Mother one more time if you could replace him, she might actually let you, just to be free of your whining.”