Chapter 37 Bjorn
“It isn’t going to work,” I said, watching Ylva where she sat next to Ragnar near the helm. She had wept for a time when we’d first boarded her drakkar but now sat in grim silence, eyes blank as she stared at the rolling waves of the strait. “Harald will suspect that you know his secret and kill us all. You’re smarter than this, Ylva.”
“Harald very likely has my son.” Ylva didn’t look at me as she spoke. “I will not risk his life with trickery and games. Harald will trade him for you, because you have more value. Whether he kills you or binds you, I care not. I will take Leif, and, with these men, we will sail away to make a home somewhere far enough away that we are beyond concern.”
“You’d abandon Skaland to be ruled by Harald? By a child of Loki?” I asked. “You’d abandon all those in Grindill who swore allegiance to you in exchange for your protection?”
“Yes. For my son’s life, I’ll do what it takes.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “It was Snorri who they swore allegiance to. Snorri who they believed would protect them. Snorri is dead.” She blinked once. “By your hand. ”
I needed no reminders of my actions, but I understood her need to give them. Ylva had seen what I’d done through Freya’s memory. Had watched my father refuse to fight me, and how I’d cut him down anyway. I deserved her hate and all that came with it, but I felt the same toward her, because she’d abandoned my Freya to die, to freeze alone on that island. The only reason that I’d not called flame to my bound hands and lit the drakkar on fire was that I could no more swim back to the island than I could sail this vessel alone if I killed the entire crew.
Freya had both water and wits, which meant that she’d survive while I found my way out of this situation and back to her. Yet doubt was climbing in my chest that it had been an error forcing her not to call Hel’s power to stop Ylva. That I’d overestimated myself and Freya would pay the price.
Except I’d seen what a burden using her magic was to her. Knew that she’d been desperate not to curse anyone else again, for it would only compound the guilt she felt. It hadn’t felt necessary in the moment, because I’d been so certain that it would be nothing for me to get free.
It’s only been a few hours, I reminded myself. Yet I could not help but think of Freya alone and exposed. She always got so cursedly cold, and a vision of her shivering and suffering while she fought to survive caused Tyr’s fire to flare across my palm.
Enough, I silently snarled. Impulsivity will not save her.
“He won’t let you go free,” I said, shifting to alleviate the ache in my arms, my fingers losing sensation as Ragnar had bound them tight. “If Harald has claimed Grindill and taken Leif prisoner, he will be keeping him alive for a reason. He knows that you’ll come for your son and, in doing so, walk right into his trap. In one swoop, he’ll destroy the last link holding the Skalander jarls together and name himself king. Be smarter.”
A tear trickled down Ylva’s face.
“You’re going to get my brother killed,” I shouted at her, the fragile hold I had over my temper evaporating. “You are allowing grief to make decisions for you, and they are the wrong ones. Snorri is dead. I killed him. Neither of us can escape that truth, but wallowing in it helps no one.”
“Be silent!” Ragnar roared, and I gritted my teeth as he kicked me hard in the ribs, adding to the multitude of bruises he’d already delivered upon me. He’d been loyal to my father, and though he’d not seen what Ylva had seen, his grief still weighed heavy.
“You know I’m right,” I shouted back at him. “You are supposed to advise and support Ylva in all things, yet you let her sail to certain death!”
“What would you have me do, Bjorn?” Ylva leaped to her feet, nearly falling as the ship hit a swell. “What solution do you offer?”
“Fight him! Turn around and release Freya from that prison and we can defeat him!”
“You would have me release death upon the world?” Ylva scoffed in disgust. “Of course that is the solution you offer. Freya has controlled your mind through your cock since the moment you set eyes on her. She killed hundreds of warriors. Worse than killed, for she condemned their souls to Helheim when they might have joined the Allfather’s ranks to fight in the glorious last battle. Freya is a monster. A curse upon the world who should not be suffered to live.”
It had been Freya’s magic that had killed them, but it was me who’d forced her to do it. Yet I did not think Ylva would be swayed by that fact. “She is not a monster! Harald tricked her, so the deaths of all are on his hands, yet you care not for punishing him.”
“Freya is the daughter of the goddess of death! She is a Hel-child!”
“But also Hlin’s!” Fire again filled my palm, but I forced thought of Tyr’s name out of my head and it faded. “Harald fears her, that is why he wanted her dead. If he thought there was a way to control her, he would have kept up his deception, tried to bind her in other ways. You have condemned the one person who can defeat him, the one person you know has more cause than any to destroy him, because you are afraid.”
Ylva waved a hand, dismissing my words. “Your arguments hold no weight, Bjorn, for I know that you argue only out of a desire to save your lover’s life.”
“That I argue for her life does not mean that I’m wrong!”
“Gag him, Ragnar,” Ylva said. “I no longer wish to listen to this honorless creature bargain for death’s life.”
“You’re a coward!” I snarled. “You condemn Skaland out of fear, not wisdom.”
Ragnar shoved a filthy piece of fabric in my mouth, binding it with another strip around my head so that I couldn’t spit it out. Not that it mattered. I could scream all the warnings, all the logic in the world, and they would not hear me. Because they believed that the only thing I cared about was Freya.
And they were right.
There was nothing that mattered to me more than her. Nothing I wouldn’t do to see her freed. But I also knew that Ylva was wrong, because I knew Freya’s heart. In all my life I’d never met anyone who cared so much for the well-being of others, usually to her own detriment, and hearing her named monster for it made me seethe. Made me want to show Ylva what real monstrosity looked like.
Burn the ropes, my rage screamed. Kill them all!
I could do it. When the ropes caught fire, they’d burn my flesh but I’d fought through worse pain. There were thirty warriors on this drakkar, but if I was quick, I could kill enough of them that the others would capitulate and turn the ship around. I silently calculated the number I’d need to leave alive to sail the vessel.
“My lady!” a voice called. “Torne is in sight! Two of Harald’s ships are at the docks.”
Only two?
I shoved away the thought, because if the village was in sight, the ship was close enough to shore that I could swim. All I’d have to do was escape into the forest, then steal a fishing vessel once darkness fell. Then I could make my way back to her.
Hold on, I silently willed Freya. I’ll come for you.
“Run up a white cloth so that they know we come to treat,” Ylva ordered.
Ragnar moved to obey her command and with him distracted, I whispered Tyr’s name. My axe flared to life in my right hand. The axe itself didn’t burn, but as I rotated to press it against the ropes, natural fire took hold. Agony lanced across my wrists and forearms as the ropes burned, the metal of my chain mail heating against my back.
I kept my eyes on Ylva, who was staring at the village.
Come on, I willed the fire even as I strained against the burning ropes. Burn.
Ylva’s nostrils abruptly flared, and her focus snapped to me. “Ragnar!”
I jerked my arms, blackened ropes falling against the hull. I rolled to my feet and ripped my mail vest over my head. Ragnar leaped at me, axe in hand, but I threw the mail. The heavy vest slammed into his face and knocked him back, giving me the space I needed.
Stepping onto a bench, I put a foot on the edge of the drakkar between two shields. The village was close, warriors running about on the docks, but my eyes were all for the stretch of empty beach.
I sucked in a breath, ready to dive, but then agony stabbed through my shoulder. A green brand, familiar and horrible, was spiked through my right shoulder. Slowly, I lifted my head to see Skade standing at the end of a dock. A smile formed on her face as she nocked the brand that had disappeared from my shoulder and was once again in her hands.
She loosed her arrow, eyes promising pain.
“Tyr,” I gasped, blood sluicing down my arm as my axe appeared in my palm. But I couldn’t lift it, my ruined shoulder muscles refusing to obey.
Pain lanced through my wrist, then thigh, Skade’s shot pinning my arm to my leg. My hand opened, axe falling to hiss against the water, glowing as it sank.
I swayed, then fell backward.
My back struck a bench, bouncing me sideways. Rolling, I got to my feet in time for Ragnar’s weight to slam against me. Not just him, but all the warriors in the ship who’d abandoned their oars to pin me down.
“Don’t kill him,” Ylva shouted. “He’s no good to us if he’s dead!”
And if Skade had wanted me dead, I wouldbe.
I thrashed and fought, cries of pain filling my ears as I took up my axe in my left hand, the blade cutting. The fire burning.
But there were too many, and with each gush of blood that poured from my shoulder, my strength lessened.
As they restrained me, regret pooled in my chest. I should have tried to escape earlier. Should have killed them all and found a way to sail by myself. Should have tried to fucking swim back to her, because then at least there would have been a chance.
For now all chance was lost.
The Skalanders bound me with more rope, the rough fibers rubbing raw my burned arms, and then held me face down in the water pooled in the hull. Ylva bound the wound in my shoulder with strips of cloth while shouting at her warriors to hurry. “We can’t trade him if he’s dead!”
The world swam in and out of focus as the drakkar bumped against the dock.
“We’ve come to treat!” Ylva shouted. “To negotiate a trade with Harald. Bjorn for my son, Leif!”
“What makes you think that Leif is alive?” Skade answered, and Ylva gave a soft sob.
Skade laughed. “I jest. Your son is alive and well, Ylva.”
A heartbeat later, I heard the heavy thud of someone jumping into the ship near my head. “A trade, you say. That’s destined to be an interesting conversation, all things considered.”
Then hot breath brushed my ear as Skade whispered, “Your capacity to survive never ceases to amaze, Bjorn. But I think you will regret not dying on that island with the Hel-child.”
The gag kept me from any retort, but I turned my head to meet Skade’s gaze, and with it, I promised her death. She only smiled and straightened. “Leif is safe in the fortress. I will escort you to him, Ylva. The king is most eager to see you, of that I am certain.”
It’s a trick, I screamed around the gag, but everyone ignored me except Ragnar, who hauled me to my feet.
“Bring your full guard,” Skade said. “We are all friends here.”
What is goingon?
I stopped fighting Ragnar in favor of looking around Torne. The salty sea breeze carried the stink of fish and seaweed between the wooden huts with thatched roofs. Fishermen unloaded their catches while seagulls shrieked overhead, the gulls nearly drowned out by a strapping woman shouting at every person who walked by to look at the wares in her cart.
It felt profoundly unchanged, and though it was possible that the people cared not who they swore fealty to or paid tithes to, my hackles rose with the sense that something was very wrong.
On Skade’s orders, they wrapped chains around my hands to keep me from calling my axe, and then a wagon was brought over. Ragnar shoved me inside and then climbed in next to me, sword tip digging into my balls. “Try anything, traitor, and I’ll unman you.”
A dozen possible ways to indicate my indifference to his threat reared in my head, but the distance to Grindill was the last chance I had to convince him that this was folly before we reached the confines of the fortress.
The cart rocked from side to side as the horse started walking, accompanied by the heavy footfalls of the Skalanders flanking either side of the cart. Through the slats, Ylva was visible, her mouth drawn in a tight line, whereas Skade was smiling and gesturing as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
Ragnar shifted, the tip of his sword digging painfully into my balls, but when I turned my head it was to find him staring back at Torne, his brown skin creased from his heavy frown. He felt it too.
The wrongness.
The cart hit a bump and I groaned around the gag. Blood was pooling from the wounds Skade had given me, my wrists and forearms already blistering from the burns I’d inflicted upon myself. Survivable, yes, but surviving wasn’t enough. I had to get back to Freya.
Or someone else had to forme.
I rubbed my cheek against the wood of the cart and pulled down the strip of fabric holding my gag in place.
The sword dug deeper, but I spat the fabric out even as I met Ragnar’s gaze. “Something’s not right,” I said softly. “I know Snorri didn’t leave Grindill entirely unmanned, yet somehow Harald has managed to take both Torne and Grindill with no fight?”
Ragnar’s jaw worked back and forth beneath his silvered beard, warring with his dislike for me and his knowledge that I was right. “Might be they surrendered. Leif would have known they could not win in a fight.”
“Those who have surrendered have a way about them, Ragnar. You know that. Men and women who are waiting to see what the consequences of capitulation will be. Did the people in Torne look like that to you?”
Skade’s head turned to look at the wagon, frowning, and I fell silent.
We pressed closer to Grindill, the breathing of the men and women walking alongside the wagon growing heavier as they climbed the steepening slope.
“This will not go as Ylva plans,” I whispered. “Harald will not let you all walk away with what you know, because it puts every scheme of his at risk. Someone who knows the truth needs to stay free of this. Needs to stay alive.”
“I suppose you volunteer yourself?”
I shook my head. “Not with these injuries. It needs to be you.”
“I’m not leaving Lady Ylva.”
“You cannot help her if you are dead,” I hissed. “Sneak away. Spread the truth and get aid. That is how you can help her.”
“You mean Freya?” He shook his head. “She’s probably already frozen to death. Let it go, Bjorn.”
My chest clenched painfully, every part of my soul rejecting the notion that Freya was lost to me. I’d know. I’d feel it. And my heart screamed that my Born-in-Fire warred on. “She’s not dead.”
Exhaling an irritated breath, Ragnar moved his sword from my balls, then stood, his eyes on the fortress that would be visible ahead. Taking in the scene. The man was twenty years my senior, born and bred to fight. He knew Ylva was making a mistake—it was a matter of whether he’d go against her to save her.
“Skade!” he abruptly called out. “He’s half dead but needs someone to watch him while I piss. Get up here, would you?”
Skade shrugged, then moved to the back of the wagon and jumped in, Ragnar leaping out and heading into the trees.
Her arrow appeared in one hand, glowing green and malevolent, and Skade began to prune her nails with the tip. “I told him to let me go back and make sure you were dead,” she said. “Not like him to leave loose ends. Ylva said Freya was alive when she left, but trapped. After he kills you, I hope he lets me go put an end to the bitch.”
Instead of rising to her bait, I tilted my head. “You know what he is, don’t you? A child of Loki.”
She grinned, eyes feral. “I’ve always known. Harald trusts me. Knows that I’ll do what needs doing and keep my mouth shut. Ground my nerves all those years that he pretended you were his favorite, but I’ve always known the truth. I’m his daughter. I’m his heir. I’m his blood. You were only ever something for us to use.”
“What has he promised you?”
“Power.” Skade tapped her arrow against her palm. “Wealth. Status. And when he sees you, I hope he will give me the pleasure of your death.”
“And Ylva’s?”
Skade shook her head. “Oh, Ylva he wants alive. Needs her alive, if I’m being truthful.”
I narrowed my eyes.
She grinned. “If you’re lucky, you’ll have a heartbeat to appreciate the beauty of his plan before you die.” Standing, she leaned over me, forcing the gag back in my mouth. “Not many heartbeats left for you, I’m afraid. We’re here.”
The cart trundled through the gates. A cheer rose at the sight of Ylva, for many who lived in Grindill were originally from Halsar. The horse stopped, and Skade leaned forward to grab my bound wrists. “Get up. The king awaits.”
My knees threatened to buckle, but I managed to keep my feet as she dragged me out. The Skalanders scowled at the sight of me, several shouting, “Traitor!” as I was dragged into the great hall. All of Ylva’s warriors flanked her as she walked inside, but I noted that Ragnar was nowhere in sight. Shoving me forward so that I landed on my knees, Skade then turned to put a beam in place to lock the door. “The king will be here shortly.” She took Ylva’s arm, leading her onto the dais and seating her on one of the fur-covered chairs.
What is goingon?
Ylva shifted uneasily, her eyes flicking briefly to mine. “Skade, where is my son?”
“With the king.” Skade grinned, eyes bright with delight and a hint of madness. She cupped a hand to her ear. “I believe I hear them coming.”
Leif’s familiar laugh rang out from the rear of the building, then my brother appeared. He wasn’t alone. For walking with a muscled arm slung around Leif’s skinny shoulder, hale and healthy as I’d ever seen him, was Snorri.