Chapter 41 Bjorn
I woke face down in a pile of moldy straw, my nose filled with the stench of piss and shit. Opening an eye, I took in the bars within arm’s reach of my face and realized I was in one of the cells beneath Grindill.
“You want something to drink?”
I turned my head, finding Tora seated on a stool facing the bars, her elbows on her knees. Her face drooped with misery and her eyes were dull.
“Yes.” My mouth tasted like something had died in it. And my body felt worse. “How long have I been out?”
“Long enough that I wondered if you’d ever wake.”
She dipped a ladle into a bucket and held it through the bars as I pushed myself to a seated position. I drank greedily, and it tasted like the nectar of the gods, I was so parched.
“Volund put you back together.” Tora refilled the ladle for me. “More or less, at any rate. He wanted to let you die, but Ylva was insistent.”
I finished off the ladle of water and said, “What has Harald told everyone? Or are you able to say?”
“Changes by the hour.” She gave a frustrated shake of her head, blond braids swaying. “Too many moving parts. Too many players he can’t control. But everyone believes that you and Freya conspired to gather the armies of both Nordeland and Skaland together so that she could send them all to Helheim, and that it is only because the gods intervened that she was limited to slaying the Skalanders. He told them that it was a desperate union between him and Snorri that saw Freya killed and you captured, though I am not sure how he’ll handle her return to the realm of the living if she escapes before Skade can reach her.”
I ignored the latter in favor of the former, because thinking about Skade finding Freya trapped in that prison made me sick. “Why would we want to kill the armies of two nations?”
“Freya is Hel’s child and desires to steal souls deserving of Valhalla for her divine mother. And you are just a lovesick fool who does her bidding.” Tora shrugged. “Steinunn has been singing herself hoarse showing Freya at her worst. Red-eyed and rage incarnate, the midnight roots of Yggdrasil bound to do her bidding. It is easy for them to see her as a monster, and no one questions why a monster does evil deeds. As for you, it is agreed that you have been thinking with your cock.”
I made a face, weary of everyone assuming that my only motivation in life was to get between Freya’s legs.
“He’s not as in control as he likes to be, but once you’re dead and Freya’s dead, it will be easier. He’ll tighten his hold on two nations and then find a new game to play. It’s his nature.” She spat on the floor. “Loki.”
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“A little more than a year.” Tora picked at her nails, the cuticles bleeding. “I wanted to ask Saga some questions, so I traveled to her without asking for his leave. Despite him having claimed to have visited her not a week prior, it was clear to me upon arrival that no one was living in that cabin. Weeks of dust and mouse shit everywhere. No stores. The path overgrown. In truth, I thought she’d died and that he was feigning that she still lived for reasons of his own.”
“Not far from the truth,” I said, my eyes filling with the horror of my mother’s face melting and re-forming as Harald.
“I made the mistake of telling Skade what I’d discovered,” Tora continued. “She feigned concern but then told Harald my suspicions. And that was when he began the process of binding me to his will.” Her lip quivered. “I had a lover in one of the villages. She came to Hrafnheim to see me and we spent the night drinking. Making love. When we were deep in our cups, she said that we should bind ourselves together for life. Pledge something deeper than troth. I loved her so much that I didn’t hesitate to agree. She wrote runes in blood and I swore vows to her, bound myself to her in every possible way. But when it came time for her to swear the same to me, she started to laugh.”
The water I’d consumed started to rise in my throat, the story making me sick to my stomach.
“She laughed and laughed, and then her face began to melt.” Tora clenched her teeth, fighting back tears. “I started to scream, but my lover snarled, ‘Silence!’ and the scream was stolen from my lungs because I’d sworn to obey. And then she re-formed as Harald and I knew. Knew what he was, and that I’d not been making love to my sweet Tove but to him. That I’d not sworn oaths to Tove but to Harald. And he laughed and laughed, because nothing delights him more than one of his schemes coming to fruition.”
“I’m sorry, Tora.” My words felt deeply insufficient for the nightmare she’d suffered. Horror that I understood all too well.
“Every time I’d find a way to worm my way free, he’d only make me swear another oath,” she said. “I am so bound to his will that there are times I feel that I can barely breathe without his permission. And the things he’s made me do…” Tears trickled down her cheeks. “I am like one of his Nameless. Bound to his will and destined to do all his dark deeds. I hate him but I also love him more than life, and I will continue to love him until the end of my days, because I swore it to him when he wore my sweet Tove’s face.”
Tora had been a sister to me most of my life, and to know that the man I called Father had done this to her made me see red. “How is it you can speak of this to me now?”
“Because I swore to keep his secrets, but the truth about his bloodline and magic he revealed to you himself.” Her hands fisted. “It is his weakness, always wanting those he manipulates and tricks to know it was him. It is the sweetest moment for him, and watching him… relish what happened to Snorri, you, and Freya on that island was—” She broke off and took a deep breath. “Suffice it to say that he took the greatest of pleasures from that moment.”
So much made sense now that I knew it. I’d always questioned why we just didn’t kill Snorri and be done with it: My mother’s convenient prophecies and foresights and opinions of why that was not possible were now revealed as Harald’s lies. Death was no satisfaction to him, no vengeance, and watching how easily he’d played me when dressed as my mother made me cringe.
“The only foretelling Saga ever gave about Freya was the first,” Tora continued quietly. “That she’d unite Skaland beneath the one who controlled her fate. All the rest was lies created by Harald to manipulate you and, ultimately, Freya herself.”
Harald had made Freya believe that she was destined to be a monster.
No. I had made her believe that.
I rested my head on my knees, knowing that I’d made Freya believe that her fate was to be a plague. That she’d leave thousands dead in her wake. I’d made Freya believe she was to be hated and reviled, and that her fate was dark and full of horror. That I’d been manipulated didn’t absolve me of that fact. Everything that had happened on the strait, every Skalander who’d died, was because of my choices. Because it hadn’t just been Freya who believed she was destined to become a monster—I’d believed it too.
“Can you help her?” I asked. “Can you stop Skade?”
“No.” Tora sighed. “Even if it were possible to catch Skade, he was very clear in his orders. I am to keep you imprisoned in this cell, even if it means my own life. But to be clear, if you are able to kill me and escape, I will thank you with my dying breath, because this is no life, brother.”
The sound of wings flapping caught my attention, and shock filled me as Kaja landed on the bars of the opposite cell. Tora held out an arm and the merlin swooped onto her wrist. “What are you doing here, Kaja?”
“Guthrum is alive?” My chest tightened because I’d seen my friend fall from the drakkar and go beneath another vessel. The chances of him surviving hadn’t been good.
“I did not think so.” Tora gently stroked the bird’s feathers. “But if he is, he’s not made himself known to Harald. At least, that I’m aware of.”
It was possible Guthrum had managed to escape the sea and Harald had told him to remain hidden while Kaja spied, but if that was the case, why had the bird shown herself to us? Guthrum was not one to risk his familiars, and entering such a confined space with us put Kaja very much at risk. Alternatively, Guthrum was dead, and the bird had merely sought the comfort of those she knew well. But the uncanny intelligence in the bird’s eyes told me otherwise.
Which left one other option: that Guthrum had sent Kaja to me of his own accord. Which meant that my friend might yet be turned into an ally.
“I won’t kill you, Tora,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go down without a fight.”
Her eyes met mine. “Don’t tell me any of your plans. I’m bound to protect him, and I swore never to keep any secrets from him.”
She’d sworn those words believing them vows to the woman she loved. Harald’s perversion of those vows was fuel to my anger, and I climbed to my feet, ignoring the pain from the injuries Volund had only half healed. “Give me the bird.”
Tora eased Kaja through the bars and she flapped to land on my knee. It was impossible to get comfortable with my wrists and hands bound with chains behind my back, but I leaned one shoulder against the cold walls as I stared into the bird’s golden eyes, praying to the gods that Guthrum saw through them. “Hello, old friend,” I murmured. “There is a story I need to tell you, and then I need your help.”