She sat down heavily on the bed and looked at the rune stick, then put her free hand to her belly. There was no avoiding the truth now: Oddny had been right. Gunnhild was most likely with child.
The gravity of her situation hit her so severely that it stole the breath from her lungs. The people of Hordaland, who’d been so impressed with her at Winternights, were turning against her. She’d lost Oddny and Signy. Her husband couldn’t stand to look at her, and her in-laws despised her. Her brothers were here, but they’d been unreliable allies her entire life. Arinbjorn and Runfrid would never take her side against Eirik. Juoksa and Mielat wouldn’t trust her after hearing she’d married a man who’d killed one of their own, and why should they? The workshop women wouldn’t trust her, either, not after they heard how she’d thrown over their darling Oddny; she figured not even Ulla would speak to her again. Heid was dead. Ulfrun was dead. Her father was dead.
Worst of all, Thorbjorg had struck against her yet again, and this time Gunnhild hadn’t been able to strike back. Her life had unraveled in a night.
And now she was pregnant. The very last thing she wanted at this moment was a baby, another person she’d inevitably let down.
It was too much.
She grabbed her witching bag and burst from her chamber. Thora called out her name, but Gunnhild did not heed her as she left the hall. It was raining. She kept walking, ignoring greetings from Ulla and old Hrolf the Lawspeaker as she went—she had to assume they hadn’t heard about the duel, but it was only a matter of time.
It was near dark when she arrived at the birch grove, and she hadn’t grabbed a shawl or the kaftan she’d commissioned Saeunn to sew for her that winter. She was soaked to the bone. The days had been steadily warming, but the nights were still bitterly cold, and the rain and the thaw had turned the ground muddy, caking her shoes and the hem of her dress.
But Gunnhild didn’t feel anything. She dropped her bag beside the tree stump in the clearing, rummaged in the underbrush for dry sticks, piled them between the stump and the birch tree whose hollow held the statue of Freyja, and took out her flint and fire steel.
Once the fire was going strong, she sat facing the tree with her back against the stump, and reached into her bag—only to find her canteen of henbane tea missing. At once she realized Oddny must’ve swiped it when they were in the fog on the way to Vestfold—likely to prevent her from doing anything foolish, but she couldn’t bring herself to be angry about it—and so instead she rooted around in the haversack until she found the nearly empty pouch of dried henbane leaves Heid had cultivated.
“Does it always have to be made into a tea?” her much younger self had asked her teacher one day in the garden. “I heard it’s poisonous.”
Heid had smiled as if that had been exactly the question she’d hoped Gunnhild would ask. “You can burn it, too, and the smoke will send you visions without you having to leave your body. But it’s hard to know whether or not they’re reliable. Best to hear prophecy straight from the mouths of the dead, child, with your tea and staff, and with the warding songs to protect you. Otherwise, there’s no telling who you’ll invite into your head.”
But Gunnhild had her bindrune tattoo to keep out those who’d harm her. She no longer cared that she couldn’t summon the spirits. She needed guidance now more than ever, and it mattered little who gave it.
She dumped a bit of the henbane into the fire and breathed in the smoke, then sat back against the stump and waited, staring up into the tree hollow. The little wooden statue of Freyja, stained with the blood of her devotees, stared back impassively, betraying nothing.
This was hopeless. Foolish, even. She slumped forward, put her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. “I need help. I’ve lost nearly everything, and what remains hangs by a thread. And I—”
Gunnhild squeezed her eyes shut, tears falling into her lap.
“I am afraid.”
She’d finally admitted it, but the words gave her no relief.
For a moment the only sound was the crackling of the fire, and then a woman’s sweet, husky voice said, “What are you afraid of, Gunnhild Ozurardottir?”
A hand cupped her face from the side and gently turned her head, and Gunnhild’s dark blue eyes met liquid gold.
The woman crouched next to her was the most beautiful she had ever seen: long hair the bright red of freshly spilled blood; a dress of the same color, trimmed with golden-threaded tablet weaving; and a gleaming necklace of polished amber at her breast, its gold filigree matching her eyes.
“Freyja was the first witch,” Heid had told her a lifetime ago. “Perhaps you’ll get to meet her one day.”
“Have you met her?”
Heid had only smiled.
Gunnhild’s eyes darted to the hollow of the tree, to the statue. Though it had been crafted with love, she found that it was a poor likeness, and Heid’s own statue had been a poorer one still. But then, what mortal could hope to capture the beauty of the woman in front of her?
“Do not make me repeat myself,” her goddess said.
“I’m—I’m afraid to fail,” Gunnhild answered at last. “I’m afraid I’m not strong enough. I’m afraid to die. I’m afraid to lose more than I already have. I’m afraid to be nothing.”
“Good,” said Freyja soothingly. “How will you ever master your fear if you won’t admit to feeling it in the first place? Embrace it. Wield it. Things are only going to get more difficult from here. But in the end, it shall be worth it.”
“But how?” Gunnhild asked. “I don’t know if I can salvage what’s left. My power is gone. Oddny is gone. I’m losing Eirik. And if something happens to my child—”
“Your power was never lost,” said Freyja. “You only let yourself believe it was. You lost your confidence the first time you lost a fight, the day you tried to call your teacher back, and until now you’ve not been able to face how deeply it frightened you to fail. It’s stopped the spirits from getting through to you. But you mustn’t falter, my daughter. You have so much to fight for, and when it’s over—when you’ve sent your enemies to feast in our halls, when you’ve made their bodies dinner for the crows, when you’ve left nothing but blood and terror in your wake—all the worlds will know you for who you are. They will know your greatness. And they will know you as a mother of kings.”
“As—as a what?” Gunnhild managed, for the rest of it—blood and terror and greatness, Heid’s own words—was familiar as a lullaby.
Freyja slid her hand away and said, “You know what you must do.”
* * *
—
“GUNNHILD. GUNNHILD. WAKE UP.”
Her eyes snapped open and it took her a moment to realize where she was: in the grove, still sitting between the stump and the fire, sagging forward. The fire before her had burned down to nothing. It was dark, and she couldn’t feel her hands or feet, and Eirik was beside her, shaking her.
She lifted her head so quickly that he reared back in surprise and relief. He set his lantern on the stump, unpinned his cloak, and bundled her up in it.
“What happened?” she asked. Her head swam with fractured memories of the vision, but her exhausted mind was unwilling to arrange them into a shape that made sense.