Chapter 4 #2
My fingers twitched with every giggle—every whispered call for blood—that stalked me.
I really fucking hoped I wasn’t walking to my own execution. But if I was, I’d at least make sure they had to work for the kill.
I was proud that my limbs didn’t shake and that my shoulders were lowered—my training was still etched into my muscles—but I had to bite down on my lip to ensure it didn’t tremble when I came to a stop before the dais.
Bending my back, I gave the king a stiff bow. All the time I kept his gaze, waiting for his verdict. He was well within his rights to kill me for my insubordination. If he thought I’d worn this on purpose? That I’d done it to taunt him?
I would have failed already before I entered the trials.
“Rise,” King Gustief ordered as he played with the glittering chain across his chest.
The king was the only Viking who wielded the magic of all five runes: skydd, for armor and defense; styrk, for power and strength; gomnd, for concealment and evasion; ratt, for targeting and precision; and tyga, for influence and persuasion.
His power roiled around me, a lethal singing in the air, and his voice alone commanded such respect that my back snapped straight.
I closed my eyes for a single second. His magic burned, heated and deadly, twisting the knife of the truth: that I was unarmed in a room of adversaries.
I had nothing but a lie, and that lie was already starting to feel as thin as the winter ice.
I fought the color wanting to spread over my cheeks when the king studied me, his intensity making me wish to crawl out of my skin and wash it several times before I put it back on. I clasped my hands behind my back.
“Why are you here?” the king demanded.
The tent fell silent, although I could taste the anticipation in the air—an excitement that came from the king’s bloodthirsty court, who lived for this kind of entertainment.
My mind snapped back to my conversation with Viljan on the longship.
“They’ll believe you when you tell them your father and Lika have found promising new lands,” Viljan assured. “The other fylkis always think we have access to borders they’ve never heard of with the currents that run by our island.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I whispered. “It leaves us vulnerable.”
“Better they believe we’re fighting to grow stronger rather than the truth.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “And I’ll make it believable—make sure they think we’re spoiled for land and riches and that we care little about the Hird because of it.”
The Sweengards occupied one of the southern isles—the one we called Oenskan, an old word for wish, as it had fulfilled our ancestors’ hopes and dreams. It was a coveted piece of land given its proximity to a current that allowed our ships to travel both quickly and quietly when conquering new territories.
My story wasn’t beyond the realm of the possible.
It would also please our king, since it was on his orders we continued to claim nation after nation in the world surrounding our own, even as we’d spread our people so far and wide we could barely understand each other anymore after centuries of blending with the people we forced beneath the crown’s rule.
“Well?” Irritation bled through the king’s words.
My words tangled in my throat as I scrambled to answer. “I… I come as the Sweengard heir, Your Majesty. I will represent the Sweengard name and my father in the trials and in the Hird.”
The way the king’s eyes tightened at the corners had me press my lips together.
“And where is your father?”
“He is at war, my king.” I placed my hand over my chest, wishing for the strength that used to flow through me. “My brother is with him. We found new lands. They’re fruitful, and my father wished to claim them for you before our enemies could.”
“I hadn’t heard about any new lands.” The queen leaned forward as King Gustief continued to eye me, his collar links clinking. “When were they discovered?”
I didn’t miss a beat. “Two moons ago. They had to leave swiftly. Enemy ships were already approaching.”
“Ah.” The queen leaned back in her chair.
“You are the firstborn daughter?” King Gustief asked.
I bowed my head. “Elvara Sweengard.”
“Why are you dressed like my harlots?” The king jerked his head so that his iron helmet shifted, the strange stones fastened to it glittering in the dim light.
The shaman who’d stood like a figurehead behind him shuffled forward to ensure it was centered across his forehead again.
I clenched my hands behind my back as I offered the king a smile, my mind racing with scenarios that would help explain my appearance.
I couldn’t tell the truth because the king would see my stupidity as weakness.
I couldn’t jest about it, not when a single slip would give him the excuse he needed to cleave my skull.
When I turned toward the captives, one of the women spat on the ground, and another snarled something in a strange, thick tongue.
Judging by her tone, though, it wasn’t something particularly friendly.
There was only one—the raven-haired servant I’d almost knocked over—who stared at me with something akin to pity.
Slowly, I blinked.
“We come to the Hird to learn how to best pillage and conquer, do we not?” I asked, my voice cutting through the thick, smoke-heavy air. The silence that followed was physical, a large hand tightening around my throat.
When Gustief waved his hand for me to go on, one corner of my mouth quirked. “What better way than to blend in—make our enemies trust us—before we strike?”
“What do you mean?” The king took a goblet the queen offered him and downed it swiftly, leaving brown droplets of ale in his light beard when finished.
“The trials serve to display our strategies and strength. I was thinking… If I pretend to be one of our enemies, I may learn their weaknesses—save as many of our own lives as possible so we may claim more, farther-away lands,” I explained.
“I’m also sure many of the nations we invade hide their treasures.
Blending in as one of them… I might find out things that a blade to the throat cannot. ”
The girl who had had some warmth in her eyes looked down at her shackled feet, and something twisted deep in my guts. But I ignored it when the king’s laughter broke the silence. The crowd mirrored him, their voices joining in a rehearsed chorus of mockery.
“Beautiful and cunning.” He nodded again. “I understand why Fritiof kept you hidden. You’ll have to fight off the brutes this summer.”
As the Vikings behind me howled, I gave him my most vicious smile, hiding every piece of my broken heart behind my sharp teeth.
While almost every person was laughing, there were some who did not.
Ottoh and Adrion glowered when I peeked their way, and there were a few karls who adjusted their weapons instead of cheering with goblets in their hands.
“You may enter the trials, Elvara Sweengard.”
With that, the king waved for a servant to come with another horn of wine.
I backed away, putting distance between myself and the throne.
I didn’t join the other heirs. The urge to drive steel through Ottoh’s chest was too heavy a roar in my ears. But such an outburst would be telling, so I stayed my hand, seeking the comfort of the tent walls instead.
That strange warrior with the cropped hair and tattoos stood beside a table cluttered with half-gnawed bones and spilled ale, still as a monument to a faraway battle. He looked as out of place as I felt, not an ember of mirth in his eyes, not a drop of liquor running down his chin.
While he hadn’t meant it, he’d snapped me out of my panic, so I settled beside him, hiding my shaking hands behind my back while the king rose from his throne. Head turned forward, I mumbled, “Thank you for earlier.”
Not a muscle in the man’s body moved.
I tried again, raising my voice slightly. “I said thank you.”
“I heard you the first time.” He still didn’t look at me, his eyes on the fire where the king strode into the empty space I’d just left, and harsh features locked down, as if this was the last place in the realm he wished to be.
“I…”
A blaze trailed over my face. Viljan was making his way over.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath.
The man scoffed.
“What?” I hissed as I hunched under my guard’s glare.
Again, the man didn’t respond, and strokes of irritation flared across my neck.
“What is your problem?” I snapped.
“I have no problem.” The man laughed darkly as he nodded to Viljan shoving people aside to get to me. “You have many.”
There was something strange in the way he pronounced the words. I’d heard it in the longhouse, too, but I’d attributed it to the tension.
“Elvara!” Viljan ordered in a raging whisper.
I cursed again. I didn’t want the lash of a public outburst.
“Such a mouth on you.” The warrior licked his lips. “I thought heirs were supposed to be well trained. Like the king’s horses?”
“Excuse me?” I whirled his way, the rage against Ottoh and the karls who’d come for me and my fucking wyrd boiling my blood. “Did you liken me to a horse?”
“No.”
My shoulders lowered.
“That would be unkind to the animal.”
My lips parted. “You f—”
“Careful.” The word was laced with such venom, the reddish hint clouding my gaze, which had lingered since I met Ottoh’s eyes, turned bright crimson. “You’ve already marked yourself a target, heir. And targets… they disappear.”
My hand moved to my sword.
“Was that a threat?” I asked quietly as the king raised his hands, silencing the crowd.
“It was.” The man pushed off the wall, giving me a look that raised every hair on my body for how he managed to pile in such jadedness, warning, and disdain in one glare. “Save your tantrum for your little guard.”
With that, he cut a path toward the dais with a stride as sharp as his words, just as the king’s voice boomed over the hall once more. My ears rang, and I stared after the warrior with my mouth hanging open, unsure whether Viljan or I should be the most offended.