Chapter 2
RAVNUR
It was not the first time I had ridden atop Gullinbursti, but it was the first time I had ridden the beast with Freyr, seated behind him, clutching his waist as we left the city for the woods and continued across Yggdrasil’s branches into Vanaheim.
Freyr preferred to hunt in his original homeland, he once told me, because it helped him to be a man of his two most beloved peoples.
I’d asked if he was not a man of three peoples, given he had lived among the Aesir as well, and he’d answered, “Oh yes, but to be one with my Aesir brethren I need only to drink a good horn of ale!”
Gull was built for speed, and though the ride was generally smooth, as though gliding over the ground rather than galloping, an occasional leap over uneven ground would jostle me to tighten my hold on Freyr, feeling the warmth of him like the summer sun in my arms. It eased my nerves at first to have this reprieve, the quiet of the ride, wind rushing past us, just present in each other’s company.
But my tension ratcheted up the farther we went, for once we stopped, this courtship would begin, and I had no idea how to navigate it.
I still wore the pendant I longed to give Freyr beneath my tunic.
“Here we are! The perfect clearing to leave old Gull while we tread deeper into the trees.” Freyr turned to me with his blinding smile, one hand patting my interlaced fingers wrapped around his waist.
Right. I should probably let go if we were to dismount without disaster.
I released him, and he hopped down first to offer me a hand. It too was warm as he tenderly grasped my fingers, perhaps more so because the early morning chill had seeped into my bones, soothed only where we connected.
I swung my other leg from the saddle—only for my foot to catch in the stirrup and pitch me forward. The saddle twisted, upending me to faceplant into the ground while my foot remained suspended.
“Ravnur!” Freyr called with a noticeable laugh, though he quickly disentangled me to help me upright. I was lucky I hadn’t smashed my nose into the dirt, but my cheekbone had still impacted, and my hair that usually brushed my shoulders was a tangled tuft in front of my eyes.
Freyr brushed it back, picking a few blades of grass from its locks. His thumb smoothed across my cheekbone, presumably wiping away the dirt. When our eyes met, neither of us seemed to know what to say.
“Had you recently—”
“Do you often—”
Our babbling caused both of us to chuckle.
“You first, dear Raven,” Freyr said.
I ran my fingers through my hair as well, partially for distraction from the pounding of my heart. “I only wondered if you often use this clearing?”
“Quite frequently! It is spacious enough to fit Gull.” Freyr gestured to the steed and then started to readjust its fallen saddle. “Near areas rife with game. And near a spring and waterfall should I become parched. Why, I was here just yesterday!”
As I was further straightening my disturbed appearance—tunic, trousers, and cloak all chosen to match Freyr’s verdant forest-like colors and better blend with the trees—I realized he meant he had been here when Loki sent him that… gift. “With the mortal?”
Freyr froze while adjusting the saddle’s straps. “Yes. Should I have chosen a different—”
“It’s fine,” I said shortly. Jealously. But how foolish when we had no promises between us before now.
I had former lovers too. Yet in the depths of my being, I believed no one else deserved to have known Freyr’s touch, for only one who gave him their heart should earn his bed, and none ever had.
Or if any others had attempted to, no offered hearts had been accepted.
Freyr paused with a forlorn look I could only see in profile as he stroked Gullinbursti’s golden bristles.
I was starting this off even poorer than expected and stepped toward him to apologize—in the same instant that he stepped toward me.
We collided with an oomph and each nearly toppled backward.
“My apologies—”
“Are you all right—”
Rustling in the brush interrupted our faltering exchange, and Freyr snapped his attention to the trees.
He grabbed my arm, pulled me toward him, and dropped us into a crouch.
It seemed almost silly with Gull as our backdrop, gleaming gold, practically glowing to light the way in these precious few minutes on the cusp of daybreak when deer were most plentiful to catch.
Freyr hushed me as he huddled me closer against him. I turned my head just enough for my nose to brush his auburn hair, and it smelled as much like sunshine as my god looked, like nature and majesty and everything springtime and summer with the promise of new beginnings.
“Wily bastard.”
“What?” I snapped away before I could take in the whiff I wanted.
“Look,” Freyr whispered, nodding forward beyond the clearing.
I thought him mistaken at first, seeing only shadows that were really just brush and branches, but though I saw no movement like the rustling we had heard, the silhouette of a stag eventually took shape, holding still in the hopes that we wouldn’t spot it.
“Would you like to have a go?”
“What?” I sputtered again, snapping my attention back to Freyr, but naturally, he meant a go at shooting, for he was slowly, silently, reaching for the bows and quivers we had affixed to the saddle with our supplies. He handed one set to me, and my hands shook while accepting it.
“No need to be nervous.” Freyr winked at me.
That hardly helped! Before Ragnarok, Freyr would occasionally take several companions with him on hunts, so I had accompanied him before, on horseback or on foot.
This felt different. This changed so many of the rules of our relationship that all my words and actions kept coming out stilted, as though I’d forgotten how we once conversed or comfortably wiled away hours in each other’s company.
“I am afraid I doubt my skills when placed against yours,” I said.
“Then let me demonstrate.” Freyr nocked an arrow and readied his bow, every taut muscle steady and eyes sharp upon the hiding stag.
“No beast could best your prowess, my king,” I whispered, and as I placed my palm on the ground to push up taller onto my knees, I felt a different sort of give beneath my palm and realized I had braced upon Freyr’s thigh.
His arrow loosed and lodged itself into one of the trees, spooking the stag into fleeing.
“Damn,” he grumbled. Was that color in my lord’s cheeks?
I had distracted him. He missed.
He was nervous too.
I felt my confidence return almost instantly and squeezed where my hand gripped his thigh. “Perhaps I need not doubt my skills at all,” I teased.
“You doubt your lord’s after a single miss?” His cheeks were still a touch pink as he frowned at me.
“Only at the moment.”
He opened his mouth as if to protest, only to fall into a laugh with a more relaxed smile, just as I had hoped he would. Relaxation was key, I realized, to not think the introduction of intimacy meant the friendship at our foundation needed to change.
“Shall we make a wager out of our excursion?” I asked, standing to offer a hand to my lord, given our quarry was gone.
“Such as?” Freyr accepted my assistance and secured the quiver on his back, bow still in hand.
“First to slay a worthy beast gets to decide what we do on our next outing.”
That Freyr seemed pleased to know there would be a next outing boosted my confidence further. All was not lost from a few missteps. “I accept!” He grinned, wide and mischievous. “And I already know my request.”
Freyr sprinted away like another arrow loosed and was halfway across the clearing before I recognized his ploy. He meant to catch up to the stag!
I bolted after him but veered slightly right as I entered the tree line.
I could not settle for a rabbit or other small creature.
I’d said “worthy” and a nesting sparrow wouldn’t count.
Knowing Freyr was a vastly superior hunter, my only chance was to shadow him and snag his prey out from under him through further distraction.
He was like a stag himself with how he leapt and ran and maneuvered through trees. Perhaps it was only pity that slowed him enough that I didn’t lag far—or because he had spotted the stag, who was not lost to us but had slowed just ahead.
Freyr dropped down, and I did as well, continuing forward until I was parallel to him.
I was just as in line with the stag, perhaps more so, as I crept another step or two closer.
The wind was strong this morning, causing much ambient noise in the treetops, with birds chittering, and the sounds of the nearby waterfall drifting to us too.
The measly crunch of a few sticks underfoot or even faint murmurs would not be easy for the stag to overhear.
“My lord would not use his magic to veil a stag as a tree or vice versa?” I whispered across the expanse.
The stag’s head twitched, but not in my direction. It was listening for us but uncertain of where we were.
Freyr readied his bow again, so again, I mimicked him, each of us eyeing the other in our periphery.
“Now, Ravnur, I would never do that.”
Thunder cracked the sky with a boom, and I nearly fired an unaimed arrow, immediately drenched by a downpour where the sun should have been brightening the dawn.
That cheat!
Freyr let fly his own arrow, but his gambit failed, for the thunder had spooked the stag too. As his newest arrow lodged into a tree, I was on my feet before its feathers stopped quivering. Even barreling through the thick sheets of rain, I attempted to skewer the animal while it ran.
I hit a half-completed nest on a low branch instead and watched a warbler flutter off in irritation.
“You’ll never hit anything with your arms!” Freyr called as we converged upon the narrow path the stag had headed down.
“How does one fire a bow without arms?”