The people of Halsar roared along with him, hands in the air, the wariness in their eyes replaced with delight at the promises of their lord. Promises he’d made but which I was supposed to deliver, though the gods only knew how.
My gaze skipped over the people who not an hour ago seemed ready to spit at my feet and who now screamed my name, then it landed on Bjorn. He’d stood with Ylva during the ceremony but had since moved to the rear of the crowd, his arms crossed and expression tight. As our eyes locked, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a half smile that appeared as forced as the one currently gracing my face, though I didn’t understand the source of his displeasure.
“She was born in fire,” Snorri shouted. “Now let her be marked by the blood of the god who made her.”
Before I could react, Ylva stepped behind me and tore the dress down the back. Gasping, I clutched the fabric to my breasts even as she said, “Kneel.”
“What are you doing?” I hissed, equal parts horrified and afraid.
“You have hidden your powers for too long,” she said. “Past time that you were marked so that all might know your lineage.”
The blood tattoo.
I should’ve known it was coming. Vragi’s tattoo had been on his thigh, a fish with crimson scales rendered in such detail it had looked real. A living tattoo gifted by ritual after his magic appeared. I should’ve been marked well over a decade ago, but that would have revealed what my father had been desperate to keep hidden.
Slowly, I lowered myself to my knees in the cold sand.
“Bare your flesh so you might receive Hlin’s mark,” Ylva demanded, and though I was loath to expose myself before a crowd, I pulled the dress down to my waist and removed my gloves, keeping one arm across my breasts. Forcing my eyes up from the sand revealed that no one was leering at me, every face solemn as they watched. I could feel Bjorn’s scrutiny but instead of meeting his gaze, I looked back to the sand, my heart a riot in my chest.
A drum began a slow beat, and Ylva walked in a circle around me, drawing runes in the sand. My heart thundered faster at the revelation that Ylva was a volva—a witch capable of using runic magic. Which made her far more powerful than I’d believed.
She chanted as she moved, calling out to the gods to witness this moment. As she finished the circle, the runes flared and the drum ceased, the hairs on my arms standing on end. A knife appeared in Ylva’s hand, and I tensed, for while she might need me, this woman held no warmth for me in her heart. “Hlin,” Ylva cried out, voice carrying on the wind as it swirled around us, creating a cyclone of snow. “I beseech you! If this child is worthy, claim her as your own, else still her heart so that she might wield your power no more!”
My heart skipped. I’d never seen this ritual performed. Vragi had undergone it as a young child long before I was born, so I didn’t know the words. Didn’t know that the ritual could end in death, for none of the stories ever spoke of a god rejecting their child. But everyone else was nodding, so it must be the truth.
A thrill of fear turned my already chilled skin to ice as she approached, knife glinting in the muted light. “Bare yourself, girl,” she said in a low voice. “Or find yourself judged unworthy.”
What if I was unworthy?
I’d hidden my magic, my heritage, all my life, which had to have angered the goddess who’d gifted her blood to me. I’d treated it as though I were ashamed.
But I wasn’t.
Taking a deep breath, I dropped my arm and lifted my face at the same time.
Though prudence demanded that I look elsewhere, my eyes locked with Bjorn’s. The snow billowed and swirled between us, and I clung to the strength in his gaze as the tip of Ylva’s knife pressed into the divot at the center of my collarbone.
She sliced downward, leaving a trail of fire from my throat to between my breasts, but I didn’t flinch. Didn’t break Bjorn’s stare as hot droplets of blood rolled down my skin. Didn’t so much as breathe as I waited to be judged.
And waited.
And waited.
My chin quivered, panic seeping into my veins, because if I was found unworthy, all of Snorri’s plans would be destroyed. What were the chances that he wouldn’t punish me in every way he possibly could, seeing me as the one to blame?
Then a crackle of energy surged across my skin.
The first warning that all was not as it should be was Ylva’s startled gasp. It tore my gaze from Bjorn’s in time to watch her stumble backward across the circle of runes, her eyes fixed on my chest. I looked down, terror consuming me as my blood spidered outward from the wound, infinitely greater in volume than the shallow slice should have provided. “Oh gods,” I breathed. “What is happening?”