As if sensing his power over me slipping, Snorri said, “Save your spirit for the battle to come, Freya, and remind yourself of the cost of failure.” Then he jerked his chin to Bjorn. “Get her fed and warmed, but no fucking fire.”
“If she’s without feet come morning, blame yourself,” Bjorn answered, motioning for me to follow.
I walked slowly, feeling the impact of each step in my legs rather than my feet, and unease chased away the glow of defiance. The gods had already seen fit to cripple my hand. What was to stop them from taking a few toes with frostbite to further test my will, and thus my worthiness? I considered what I might look like by the time Skaland had its king, scarred and bent, parts of me ceasing to function if they weren’t lost entirely, and my eyes stung. Like a tool used until its blade dulls and its haft breaks, then left to molder in the corner, having served its purpose.
Visions filled my head. Of myself in the future, having achieved all that was set for me, and now forgotten in the corner of the king’s great hall. Old and worn. Surrounded, yet alone. A tear escaped my eye, and I didn’t bother wiping it away.
Dimly, I was aware of Bjorn conferring with Bodil. Of one of them taking my hand and leading me behind a piece of canvas that had been stretched between two trees to block the wind. Of my shield being removed before I was lowered to the ground.
The light from the sun had faded entirely, the thick clouds blocking the moon and the stars, casting the world in darkness so that all I could see were the visions in my head.
Stop, I silently pleaded, begging my mind to quit torturing me, but I might as well have spat into the wind for all the good my pleas accomplished. My body was heavy, no longer shivering, as though the effort were too great. Each breath felt like an act of will.
“Freya?”
I heard Bjorn say my name, but he sounded distant, as though a vast canyon separated us, growing wider with every one of my labored heartbeats.
“Freya, are you all right? Freya? Freya, look at me!”
The muscles in my neck didn’t want to obey, pain lancing through my body as I turned toward his voice. “I…” My mouth was so dry. Too dry to form words.
He cursed, then I felt the heavy cloak pulled from my body. I started to moan a protest as the cold bit into my shoulders, then my body moved and I was enveloped in warmth. Realizing I was wrapped in Bjorn’s arms, I tried to pull away but his grip around my waist was implacable. And as he drew the cloak over us, my will to resist disappeared.
“See to her feet,” he said, and my legs shifted as Bodil pulled off my frozen boots and leg wrappings, a shocked gasp exiting her lips. “Those are cold!”
From the pressure on my legs, I suspected my feet were in her armpits, but I couldn’t feel anything. “My toes…”
“Will be fine.” Bjorn’s breath brushed my ear. “You’ve god’s blood in your veins.”
The rapid pound of his heart against my back belied his words, but instead of my fear rising, I drifted, sound and sensation moving in and out of focus. Is this the end? I idly wondered. Not death in battle but freezing to death on the side of a mountain?
“It’s not a fucking mountain, Born-in-Fire.”
I smiled, not certain whether Bjorn had actually spoken or if it were my imagination. “Is this the hill you wish to die upon?”
“Not funny.” His fingers tightened, and sudden regret filled me. That I’d not had the chance to drown in his touch, to taste him, to feel him inside of me.
“It’s a bit funny,” I whispered, because the alternative was to weep.
I lost myself to darkness, then. Floating in a warm pool of blackness that beckoned me down and down. Dimly, I heard Bjorn calling my name but I couldn’t move my body to swim back up to him. Wasn’t sure I wanted to.
Going back meant pain and grief and loneliness. Why should I fight for that?
“This is not your end, daughter,” a gentle voice answered. “You must battle on, for them.”
“I don’t want to,” I answered, not sure whether it was a truth or a lie. “I don’t want to go back.”
“You must,” a harsher voice, devoid of patience, snarled. “For yourself.”
Hands pressed against my back, lifting me through the dark waters. I struggled, trying to escape back down, but I could not slip their grip. Higher they pushed me, pain burning through my body as I drew closer to the surface. “No,” I moaned as the burning intensified. “It hurts!”
“That means you are alive,” the voices answered in tandem, and I gasped in a breath of air and screamed.