Chapter 4
Four
My skin pebbled while I wove my way between the tents, the dress doing nothing to keep me warm in the cooling summer night. Here in the far north, the sun warmed our summer days, but our nights were barely different from fall or early spring once its rays bid goodnight.
When I reached the king’s tent, I hovered outside the flaps for a moment.
“Next heir is Rakkel Rafenskol, daughter of Chief Rafenskol of Kalland,” the king’s second called over the crowd sitting around wooden tables with their backs toward me.
Whistles and hoots followed, some of the king’s court stomping their feet so hard the ale and liquor on the tables rattled. The thralls carrying around trays with refills had to jump out of the way when axes that had leaned against the tables clattered to the ground.
Rakkel was the only other female heir. Her family rune was gomnd, offering her people skills in concealment and evasion. When they carved that rune into their ships, the fleet became invisible against the sky and sea, and they could also sneak through enemy crowds undetected.
Through the opening, I glimpsed the king sitting on a heightened platform in the back of the tent.
A thick bear pelt fastened with a heavy gold chain in the same shade as his hair was wrapped around him, the head of the animal resting on his shoulder, and an iron helmet sat on his head, glistening in the flames that flickered across the tent.
The light came from five fires placed out in a domarring—judging circle.
Four of them honored the Aesir, the gods we worshipped: Odin, god of war; Thor, god of strength; Frigg, goddess of motherhood; and Tyr, god of justice.
The fifth represented the shaman who stood behind the king, a hand on his shoulder.
Unlike the rest of us, who could access magic only through the runes our chiefs earned during the Hird, the shamans were blessed with power that mirrored the gods’.
They could cast spells and curses, and they were the leaders of any divine event, be it holidays, sacrificial ceremonies, or the bonding that we would have to go through with our iron-bound in a few weeks.
The queen sat to the king’s left, while his second—a man with the longest gray beard I’d ever seen—stood to his right. Before them, the space was empty bar the Rafenskol heir, who fidgeted with her long brown hair as she knelt before the royals.
When she rose, the second stepped forward, and a leaden silence settled over the tent.
“Finally we welcome the Sweengard heir to take their place before the king, for their formal invitation into the trials, to secure their family’s standing and place in our kingdom,” he shouted, and the crowd erupted into howls and cheers.
I don’t think my legs had ever shaken so viciously, but I made them move anyway. Straightening my back and ignoring how the shield and the sword clinked with the movement, I strode through the tent opening and down the narrow aisle between the tables to the king.
My stomach whirled when the tent quieted enough for the crackling of the fire and the sounds of gulps of ale to ring in my ears.
A stifling scent of blood and death overpowered the liquor and food, and I tried not to look at the carcasses strapped behind each fire—sacrifices to our gods, ensuring safe sailing, the strength of the crown, and victory in battle.
When the final cheer died, the world slowed. The frantic pulse of the tent stretched into a low, rhythmic thrum, and tension pressed in like a wall of unseen spears, forcing the air from my lungs until all that remained was the cold, sharp focus of prey.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
My heart pounded against my ribs with each step I took, blurred faces turning to follow. Then, to my left, someone giggled, and the focus I’d had on the unimpressed king before me shattered.
Against my will, I turned. It was a beautiful woman behind Ottoh who’d laughed. She righted the leather band over her long icy hair before leaning in and whispering something in the heir’s ear, making his face flush from holding back a bout of laughter.
More gazes seared into me, gloating whispers rising across the crowd, and my fingers furled and unfurled by my sides to hinder the flush working its way over my chest.
I had a right to be here. While it was traditional for the firstborn to be the heir, another could be appointed if the chieftain saw fit.
Then snippets of conversation reached my ears.
“Look at her.”
“What is she wearing?”
“Her father must be so ashamed.”
“Probably why Fritiof isn’t here.”
Laughter rippled through the hall like a sickness spreading in winter. Women hid their faces behind their hands, their whispers trailing after me like smoke, while the men watched with the heavy, patient hunger of someone waiting for an anticipated execution.
My skin went cold. Then warm. Then cold once more.
Clammy sweat broke out across my neck and raced down my spine.
Everyone in here was dressed up, some women in dresses and men in formal tunics and fur robes in cuts I hadn’t seen before.
But no one was wearing anything like the dress I was in.
No one but the group of women standing to the side of the dais where the king now glared at me so intensely with his hazel eyes it felt as if I might burst into flames.
Women who were entertainers—captives, their minds leashed by the king’s shaman—from whatever nation Gustief had most recently returned from.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I caught Ottoh’s eyes, and his smirk forced me to bite down a snarl.
That fucker.
Another man I vaguely recognized sat beside Ottoh, his raven hair falling far down his back. There was a flicker of amusement in his handsome face, but the way his eyes darted to the king and then back to me made my stomach hollow.
Ivren. Ivren Solsken. Heir to Chief Solsken of Gotravik, and one of Lika’s friends. That was who it was. And the smile on his face? It was a lie. Ivren was masking fear with that bright grin, but it wasn’t his own blood he was worried about spilling.
I cursed violently in my mind, my hands shaking with the desire to cover the chest every man around me was staring at. It felt like they could all see the severed rune beneath the thin fabric—that they knew what I hid behind this stupid dress.
Beside Ivren was Adrion Leskog of Aaland, another heir I’d met once during a raid a few years ago, and while his dark eyes didn’t betray his emotions, his half-turned-away body assured anyone that he wanted nothing to do with me.
Rakkel was taking her seat on Ottoh’s other side, and she nodded when I caught her eyes. Then her gaze dropped to the dress, and her wince might as well have been an arrow to my back. She lowered her shoulders and spun to face forward, sitting so still she could have been carved out of bone.
A familiar stare burned into the side of my face, a heat that had nothing to do with the sacrificial fires.
I knew even before I turned toward the wall behind the heirs that Viljan would be there.
He was leaning against the stone like a coiled spring, his jaw tight enough to snap iron.
He was furious—not at the crowd but at the gamble I’d just taken with my own life.
His gaze followed mine when I glared at Ottoh once more, and I was unsure who he was most enraged at: the heir for putting me in this position, or me for falling for it.
My nails scratched the meat of my palms, and something reddish tinted my vision as more laughter filled the room. Amusement and disdain swirled together in the air, thick enough to choke on, and anticipation built with every passing second.
My kin smelled blood, and I was the one at risk of being torn apart. I could see it in the way they leaned forward, in the way they hushed their neighbors when the king shifted on his fur-lined throne.
The culling had begun, and my name was at the top of the list.
Blinking rapidly against the smoke so no one would mistake the water filling my eyes for tears, I pulled air into a body that had gone rigid with the instinct of the hunted.
In and out.
In and out.
But it was as if I was frozen. A rabbit stuck in the middle of a field with the foxes closing in.
Someone cleared their throat. As I instinctively spun toward the sound, my eyes collided with a pair so dark brown that they almost seemed black, in complete contrast to the man’s summer-tan skin.
The eyes belonged to a massive warrior who, unlike the others in the crowd, wasn’t sitting on his chair but standing behind it, his large hands gripping the backrest.
Also unlike the others, his golden hair was cropped short to his head, not in the long style most men favored. And while it was common for Vikings to have tattoos, his were different. Even the smudged war paint darkening the area around his eyes couldn’t hide it.
Three distinct dots formed a triangle beneath his right eye, and on the other side of his face were three lines that looked like the rune for rippling waters. But the leathers he wore were those of the king’s warriors, and our ruler would not allow someone from another people to join his ranks.
As he rolled his shoulders, my eyes widened. This was the warrior from the tent. I just hadn’t recognized him without his helmet. The man raised a dark brow before turning his face forward. My gaze lingered for a beat before I did the same, and my heart jolted in my chest.
I’d come to a stop midway down the tent, and now I was not only strolling down to greet my king in the clothes of his enemies—the ones he forced to entertain us as punishment for whatever grievance he had against their nation—but I was also keeping him waiting.
It took every ounce of my willpower to get my legs moving.
Ottoh laughed again, but I kept my chin high and my pace steady, and my hands in position should I need to reach for my sword. Viljan’s axe was already in his hand, and he’d moved away from the wall, cautiously walking beside me at the edge of the tent as I approached the king.