Bjorn went still. “You could run.”
Could I? Could I race away into the night and find myself a simple life that didn’t violate the oaths I’d made? Maybe, but my family would pay the price. “I can’t.”
He huffed out a breath, frustration seeming to ripple out from him. “How did I know you’d say that?”
My unease suddenly turned to trepidation, though I wasn’t entirely certain why. “What difference does it make to you?”
“Every difference.” His hands balled into fists, but then he abruptly went still. “Do you hear that?”
I inhaled and exhaled, listening, then a rhythmic sound filled my ears. It came from the water and grew louder with every passing second.
Oars. The sound was oars moving in their locks, blades splashing into the water.
Not a single set, but many.
Bjorn stepped up next to me, both of us peering out at the water. My skin turning to ice as I spotted the shadow of not one vessel, but the shadows of many.
Raiders.
“Fuck,” Bjorn snarled, then caught hold of my arm, both of us racing down the dock. There wouldn’t be much time, and I prayed that the warriors enjoying my wedding festivities were armed and sober enough to swing a weapon.
I knew raids. Had lived through them. Had lost friends and family to them. They were vicious and bloody, and the victors rarely spared anyone they caught.
And Halsar was far from prepared for an attack.
Mud splattered my skirts as we crossed the beach. We had minutes, if that, before the drakkar hit shore, and then the enemy would sweep through the streets, killing as they went. And they shouldn’t even be here. “There is still ice on the water. How are the Nordelanders raiding so early?”
“Whoever it is isn’t here to raid—they’re here for you!”
For me? “Why?” I demanded between gasped breaths. “How could anyone even know I’m here?”
“Because the foretelling is no secret,” he answered. “And every jarl across Skaland has been watching and waiting for the day Snorri found you so that they can put you in your grave.”
The sweat pouring down my skin seemed to freeze to ice. “Why do they want me dead?”
A stupid question, because I knew.
Bjorn looked down at me, his eyes shadowed. “Very few relish the idea of being ruled.”
Dragging me behind the great hall, Bjorn slid to a stop next to the entrance to the escape tunnel. “Get inside. Warn my father.” Then he broke into a sprint toward the front entrance.
I crawled on my hands and knees in the mud, and then slammed my hands against the trap door. “Snorri! Ylva! Raiders!”
The trap door swung open, revealing a bare-chested Snorri. “Raiders,” I gasped out again. “Many ships. They’ll have landed by now.” Remembering that I wasn’t supposed to have ventured out, I added, “I heard the warning shouts!”
“Raiders?” Ylva demanded. “Not possible! There is too much ice on the strait for Nordeland to come.”
“Well, then it’s another jarl,” I snapped. “If you don’t believe me—”
Shouts of alarm filtered in from the main hall, one name being repeated over and over again.
“Gnut!” Snorri roared the name, his eyes blazing in fury. Reaching down, he hauled me into the room.
Gnut Olafson was jarl of the territories to the east of us, familiar to me only because his stronghold was one fjord over from my village and we often needed to pay his warriors to leave us be. Close as Gnut’s territories were, he still must have had a spy within Halsar with magical abilities to have learned of my identity so soon. The means mattered little, though; he was here now. All because of me. Because of what I would supposedly do. And he was here to kill me. “I need a weapon.”
Snorri leveled a finger at me. “You need to stay here with those who can’t fight, where you can be kept safe.”
“But I can fight!” For the first time in my life, I finally had the chance to defend my people against raiders without hiding my magic and it was being taken from me.
“For twenty years I hunted you.” Snorri gripped my arms hard enough that I’d have bruises tomorrow. “I refuse to lose my promised destiny within hours of possessing you.”
Possessing. The word made my muscles tighten as though my body itself rejected such a notion, but I said nothing as I watched him pull on a shirt and then a vest of mail before belting on a sword. “Keep her here,” he ordered Ylva, then strode out into the chaos of the great hall.