Chapter 1 #3
I forced a nod. “The summer trials come first. The heirs need to earn blood, steel, and wood, and then we’ll face the gods. If we receive their blessing, we’ll get our runes and we will be allowed into the academy as commanders of our section—the warrior clan that will later join our fylki.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Viljan responded as he rowed harder, the wooden oars slicing through the water with a speed that made my stomach lurch.
“It’s not.” I glided my hands over the sleek wood, my chest caving when it didn’t vibrate beneath my palms. “My mother was right. The gods will be watching. And I will enter the summer trials on a lie. The king and the chiefs cannot find out my father is dead—that there is no divine strength running through my veins. They’ll kill me before I can even try to win the gods’ favor. ”
“They won’t find out.” Viljan’s fingers coiled fiercely around the oars. “The other initiates have left their chiefs, so they don’t have magic anyway. It’s only the heirs who are allowed to keep their chief’s magic, and it’s only because you’re blood.”
“That doesn’t mean they won’t notice when I can’t take down four men at the same time.”
When fear flickered in Viljan’s cerulean eyes, I wished I hadn’t said anything. But it was true. We were known for our strength, and it was harder to hide its lack than if we’d been able to sneak through a crowd unnoticed or had silver tongues.
“You’ve trained me well,” I added quickly. “I will do everything I can.”
“You will walk into the halls of the gods and carve the rune they offer you into your flesh, and after that you’ll begin your training as chief at the academy. You will. I know it.”
“Yes.” I rubbed my knees. “Or I die trying.”
Viljan ground his teeth so loud it echoed over the water. “Don’t say that.”
I shrugged. “It’s the truth. You need to be prepared for it.”
His nostrils flared. “I will not have you dying on my watch.”
“You know as well as I do the karls—the other initiates—will be after us heirs,” I snapped. “Every generation there are heirs killed.” My eyes went to the gloomy sky above us. “Every generation the gods allow it, because what worthy heir would yield themselves to the grave? Without my magic—”
“Vara.” There wasn’t a softness in Viljan’s voice.
There never was. But there was something else—a conviction that twisted deep into my chest. “Your brother might have been favored to win, but they knew him. They knew how he fought and how he thought,” Viljan continued.
“None of them know you. We’ll use that.”
I stared into Viljan’s hard eyes. “A blade feels heavier when it’s aimed at a heart you know,” I whispered.
Viljan’s face fell for only a second, but it was enough for a cold hand to crush into my chest.
“I…” I swallowed hard. “I will make you all proud,” I promised furiously. “I will do everything I can to protect our people and our lands. I will bare my soul and give up my spot in Valhalla if it’s needed. I know my mother has her doubts, but I will not surrender until death’s realm greets me.”
The twitch of Viljan’s hands had me jump, but there was no apology in his face as he rowed harder, the vein in his neck throbbing.
“You have already made everyone proud,” he snarled.
“Your brother and father were murdered by our enemies, and while your father’s men won’t stop until their blood paints our clothes red for an entire year, you did exactly what they would have wanted.
You stood right up to take your brother’s place.
” He pushed a dark braid out of his face.
“The summer trials and the Hird might be ruthless, but so are you, Elvara Sweengard. Your father and I made sure of it. Besides”—Viljan threw me a lethal smile that, despite his protecting me for nearly ten years, had my skin prickle—“you get to choose your second, and although I might only be a karl, you’re allowed to tap me. ”
My lips lifted into a weak—but real—smile for the first time since the soul of the vessel we sat in passed with my father.
Viljan wasn’t only my guard but the best fighter I’d ever seen.
He’d even bested my brother. It was the main reason my father had selected him to protect me, not one of the older, more experienced guards.
From what Lika had told me, heirs only formally bonded with their seconds before the academy’s formal training began in the fall.
The king and his men wanted us to be more experienced before we added more karls to our circle.
The tether demanded blood, in a ritual led by the king’s shaman to forever tie us together in battle and glory—including sharing our magic.
That meant me bonding with Viljan would allow me to continue hiding the lack of power in my veins.
“I’m glad for it.” I adjusted the sword on my back, trying to absorb the strength Viljan exuded—the one that propelled the silent ship forward by will and will only. “Still, we’ll need to be careful.”
The summer trials had begun as a few weeks of calculated brutality to show the king and the chiefs what the heirs could do before the true training of the Hird began in the fall.
It was also an opportunity for the gods to evaluate us from afar—before we ventured to their halls for our runes at the final full moon before summer waned.
But the most recent kings had twisted the tradition into a blood sport. Our raids were no longer seasonal—they were constant. War had become the breath of our people, and the trials were the crucible where the weak were burned away to make room for those who thrived in the carnage.
In the eyes of the Hird, an heir was only as sacred as the steel they carried.
We were not sheltered, we were tested. If an heir was found weak enough to be bled, we were sacrificed, our lives discarded like rusted blades to make room for a sharper edge.
By the end, five heirs would walk out of the halls of the gods, and they would rule our five islands until they either died or passed their legacy on to their own heir.
“We will survive them,” Viljan said again, as if he needed to convince himself.
“The trials might change year by year, but it’s always about strength, skill, and strategy.
We might not have magic right now, but we still have all of those.
” His gaze dipped to the battle-axes fastened by his waist, and another vicious smile spread across his harsh features, showing off his white teeth.
“The others will underestimate us, and that’s when we’ll come for them. ”
I nodded, thankful that he ignored the lonely tear that sneaked down my cheek.
“We’ll need to stay away from the other initiates as best we can,” I said when I trusted my voice again. “They cannot find out that this”—I covered the faded rune on my chest with my right hand—“no longer pulses with power. They will know instantly what it means.”
Viljan’s jaw clenched, and even if his gaze remained somewhere above me, I could taste the fury in the air, sparking from the revenge he wanted to exact on the people who had caused me harm.
I tried for another smile, although the tension layering over the ship battled it. “Thank you again. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Stop thanking me. It’s been an honor to be your guard, and it’ll be an even fucking greater one to watch you thrive through the Hird as your second,” Viljan growled.
I gaped at him for a second. Then, despite everything that had happened, despite the pain that seemed to have taken hold of my very soul, despite the emptiness and fear at what I faced now, I giggled.
It was a soft, sad laugh that didn’t make Viljan smile in the slightest but rather made his sharp features firm into stone.
“Always so serious,” I mumbled, bowing my head when something rumbled in his chest.
My father hadn’t selected Viljan to be my guard only for his strength.
I’d overheard my parents speaking one night almost ten years ago, when Viljan had shown up for his first day of guard duty.
My father had convinced my mother that he would be perfect because he didn’t like people, so there would be no temptation for me before they found me an appropriate husband.
The river roared around us, and I bent over the side and let my hands split the waters, watching how the waves playfully lapped at my skin, weaving their way up my arms. My father had been right then too.
There hadn’t been a single time—not even when we were attacked in the woods—that Viljan came within the range my father had set.
A sharp jab of sadness pressed at my chest, and my other hand moved on its own, fisting across my heart to try to quell it.
“It’ll be three days until we’re there,” Viljan said after it had been silent for a while, only our steady heartbeats and my struggling, uneven breaths reverberating across the calm river. “You should think about what we will say about your brother’s absence. I will be quiet now.”
Another faint smile touched my mouth. His silence was a shield, granting me the mercy to mourn. He knew I needed these final hours to bury my father and brother in my heart before the world closed in, demanding a ruthless heir instead of a grieving girl.
I leaned fully over the side of the ship, letting the sea stain my cheeks and mask the warm tears I could no longer hold inside.
“Please help me,” I whispered to the black swells as they brought us closer to what would be either the end or the beginning of my life. “Please help me remain strong so that I may save our people and ensure my father’s legacy lives on.”
A spray of salt water lashed my skin, and air hitched in my lungs when the dampness seeped into my leather tunic and pooled over my heart.
Almost as if it was trying to replace the rune I’d lost.