Oddny wept. She wanted to go to him, to comfort him, to heal him—but Svein was still holding her back, though he gave her arm a squeeze as if reading her mind. Part of her still smarted from the gravity of the secret Halldor had kept from her. But that pain paled in comparison with how much she loved him.
She could not watch him die.
After throwing his remaining axe to the ground, Eirik stalked forward, drew the sword at his hip, and looked down at Halldor; his face twitched as he tried to maintain his flinty expression, but failed.
“Halldor Bjarnarson,” he said hollowly, “you may tell my brother that he has gone unavenged. If there’s anything else you wish to say, say it now, or save it for Valhalla.”
Halldor set his jaw. Eirik raised his sword.
“Stop!” Oddny screamed, wresting herself from Svein’s grip and throwing herself between the king and his nephew, facing Eirik. Beyond him, she saw Gunnhild’s wild look. Saw the queen shake her head just subtly, eyes wide and pleading in the orange light of her lantern.
Oddny ignored her.
Eirik’s red-rimmed eyes bored into her own. “Oddny Ketilsdottir, get out of my way.”
“No,” she said. “She cheated.”
“Step aside or I’ll cut you down, too. I won’t tell you again.” His voice was deathly quiet. He looked as though one more thing going wrong this day would cause him to lose his very last shred of sanity.
“She cheated,” Oddny repeated. “When Halldor struck your side, he should’ve killed you. Even you knew it—we all saw your face. Gunnhild has been working on a protection charm for herself, and she’s used it on you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look in your pouch,” said Oddny, “and see for yourself.”
Eirik held her gaze as he reached into the pouch at his belt—and a moment later his fingers must have brushed an unfamiliar object, because his brow furrowed in confusion.
He drew out a rune stick and stared at it.
Oddny saw the moment he realized that she was right, realized what Gunnhild had done—and what it would mean for him. And when she saw the spark of fire in his eyes as he whirled on his wife, she almost feared for her friend.
But Oddny could not bring herself to regret exposing Gunnhild’s treachery.
Eirik snapped the stick in half and threw it at the queen’s feet, shaking with incandescent fury. Gunnhild did not look away, eyes as intense and unblinking as her husband’s as the couple stared each other down.
Whispers reached Oddny’s ears, then: Sorceress. Magic. Cheated.
“You didn’t think I could defeat him on my own?” Eirik snarled. “Do you realize how you’ve made me look?”
Gunnhild did not quail in the face of his rage. “I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“There’s little honor in winning if you can’t win fairly,” said Oddny.
More murmurs around the circle. The rest of the hird saw the sense in her words, and when he turned back to her, Oddny saw by the look on his face that Eirik did, too. Beyond them, Tryggvi’s party watched the horrible scene unfold with unabashed eagerness, while Gudrod seemed at a loss.
“I did not consent to this,” Eirik said, more to his men and Tryggvi’s than to his wife, and kicked the broken rune stick aside. “I didn’t even know such a thing could be done.”
“Halldor Bjarnarson deserves to leave here with his life,” Oddny said, and Eirik spun back around to face her. “Anything less would be dishonorable of you.”
Mutters of agreement from around her. She had the hird on her side; now she needed only the king.
“Besides,” she said, “if the people of Vestfold find out that you slew the lost son of King Bjorn during a duel you cheated to win, they’ll call you worse than kinslayer.”
The semicircle was completely silent, locked on her every word as intensely as Eirik’s eyes were locked on her own. She had no doubt in her mind that Tryggvi’s men would tell Olaf exactly what had transpired the moment they left, and Oddny knew how things would go after that: As the story was passed around, parts of it would be conveniently altered or left out to make Eirik look worse. He knew about the spell, they’d say. Cheated on purpose. Started the fight himself. Wanted to be a kinslayer for the third time.
Eirik had realized this, too, for his face went blank as he looked past her to Halldor—still prone on the ground, close to passing out from blood loss—and sheathed his sword.
“Halldor Bjarnarson,” Eirik said flatly, raising his voice so all could hear, “I sentence you to greater outlawry. You are henceforth exiled from Norway forever. Should you ever dare to return, any person may slay you with impunity.”
Oddny sank to all fours as all the fight drained out of her and relief flooded in to take its place. Halldor is going to live.
Eirik turned and stalked toward the woods, brushing past Gunnhild without so much as a glance. The hird trickled after him and, sensing that the night’s entertainment was over, Tryggvi’s men hauled their leader away. Gudrod lingered, silent, unmoving.
Gunnhild remained, too, and stepped toward Oddny, lantern still held aloft. “Oddny. I . . .”
Oddny raised her body enough to sink backward onto her knees. The scar on her palm burned. Thorbjorg’s insidious words from Winternights crawled out from the depths of her memory where she’d shoved them: “You hadn’t seen her for twelve winters, Oddny . . . She’ll show you her true self soon enough, and then you’ll regret refusing my offer for the rest of your life.”
The warning had seemed absurd at the time. Her faith in Gunnhild had barely wavered even when her friend’s rituals had failed.
But Thorbjorg had been right after all.
“How could you?” Oddny whispered, raising her head to look the queen in the face.
“I wasn’t thinking,” Gunnhild said. When she was a few steps away from Oddny she stumbled, righted herself. She still wasn’t well. “I didn’t have time. I made the decision before I could fully—before it sank in that—”
“That to save your husband you’d be killing the man I love,” Oddny finished. Betrayal smoldered hot and bright in her chest. When it came down to it, when the blood oaths Gunnhild had sworn with each hand had stood in direct opposition to each other, she’d picked Eirik, not Oddny. She hadn’t hesitated. Not even for a moment.
“I couldn’t let him die, Oddny,” Gunnhild whispered. “Halldor beat him once, remember, on the practice field? And when he cut his face—when I saw the blood, I panicked—I couldn’t risk—”
“Do you want to know something?” Oddny rose, fists balled, voice raw. “On your wedding night, Thorbjorg offered me a ship with a swift wind bound for Signy, and the silver to free her, in exchange for neither of us ever seeing you again.”
Gunnhild looked stricken. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“Why should I have told you? Obviously, I refused her.”
“You did the right thing—”
“Oh, did I? Now I’m not so sure.”
“Oddny, please—”
“I believed in you. I was loyal to you. And this is how you repay me.”