It was a struggle not to roll my eyes at his hypocrisy.
Shoulders back, Snorri strode among the warriors. “Don’t you see? This is a test! Not only a test of your faith in the shield maiden, but also of your faith in the gods themselves, for she is their chosen one.”
I felt ill, not wanting to be the reason that these men and women abandoned their families to whatever fate awaited them.
As if hearing my thoughts, Snorri shouted, “The fates of those in Halsar are already woven, whether they live or die in our absence is already known to the gods. But the shield maiden is unfated and all our threads are twisted around hers. Let us stand our ground at the base of the Hammar and bring a reckoning to our greatest enemy, King Harald of Nordeland. Let us have vengeance!”
It twisted my head, the idea that all lives were fated except for the few of us who had a drop of god’s blood in our veins. That somehow, by standing with one foot in the mortal realm and one in the divine, the rules that bound all, including the gods, did not apply. The idea that my actions could catch and tangle the threads of those around me, forcing them into a different pattern than the Norns had intended. And it made me wonder about the reach I possessed. Could I change the fates of those in Halsar?
“Tell me,” Snorri roared, “will you scurry back to those whose fate is already decided, or will you stand in the shield wall with the one favored by the gods? Choose!”
Destroy our enemy or protect our home. I squeezed my hands into fists because the alternative was to squeeze my head. This was all beyond me, the realm of great thinkers, not fishmongers’ wives.
Except I was a fishmonger’s wife no longer.
I was Freya, child of Hlin and lady of Halsar, and it was the latter that drew words up my throat to my tongue, and then out into the ears of all who listened. “What good is vengeance when all we know and love are dead? What glory will we feel in defeating our enemy if it means no hearth fire for us to return to? The Norns may have woven Halsar’s fate, but together we will force them to weave a new pattern, and with the strength of our families and allies, we will turn our eyes north for vengeance!”
Cheers rose from the warriors around us, and my chest tightened at the relief I saw in their eyes. Not only that I had removed the need for them to choose between their honor and their families, but because I had the power to alter what the seer had seen.
I had the power to save Halsar.
Yet not everyone was smiling. Snorri’s jaw was tight, his mouth drawn into a straight line. He cared more about defeating Harald than about the lives of those in Halsar, and I’d stolen the opportunity to have his prize. But almost as much as that, I suspected I’d earned his wrath by making a decision at all. People who were controlled did not make choices—choices were made for them.
He eyed his warriors as they lifted their hands and cheered my words, and he said, “Let Harald scuttle home to Nordeland to hide, for every day he evades us we will grow stronger. When the gods will it, we will strike our blow and vengeance will be ours!”
Men and women shouted their agreement, promising blood, and my own grew hot with anticipation of that moment, whenever it should come.
“Ready yourselves,” Snorri shouted. “We march, and if the gods are with us, we’ll see the bottom of this mountain before dawn.”
All became organized chaos, my clothes—still filthy and stinking—once again on my body, along with my chain mail, and then we were walking to the gates of Fjalltindr, the gothar waiting with our weapons.
As we passed over the threshold, Bjorn’s axe flared to life, lighting our path downward. I wanted to ask him why he’d left the hall. Why he’d gone to speak to a seer when the threat surrounding us was so great.
And most of all, what we should do about what had happened between us.
That question terrified me, because it was driven by the fact that I cared about what had happened. That I cared far, far too much. So instead I asked, “Do you believe we walk toward battle?”
Bjorn was quiet for a long moment, then he said, “My mother once told me that the trouble with foretellings is that you never truly understand them until they come to pass.”
I frowned. “Then why did you bother asking the seer about Halsar?”
“And there lies the trouble with seers,” he said, stepping away even as Bodil strode up next to me, her maidens arraying around us. “They rarely answer the question you ask.”
By the light of torches, we made our way down the southern slope of Hammar. No one spoke, every bit of concentration required not to slip on the treacherous pathway. Yet for all the slightest misstep that might send me tumbling to my death, flickers of memory invaded my mind’s eye. The sensation of Bjorn’s mouth on mine, our tongues entwined, the taste of him lingering like spice. Of his hands on my body, my legs wrapped around his waist, his hardness rubbing against my sex as I ground against him. Each time my boots skidded on loose rock or I stumbled over a root, I’d snap back to reality, my cheeks flushed and thighs slick with liquid heat, shame in my heart.