Chapter 8 #2
I tasted worry when the hall erupted in a low, hungry rumble.
The tent got warmer, the flames from the five fires reaching for the wool and leather, when Ivren started stalking in a circle around me.
His face was twisted with the shadows dancing over it, the two streaks of coal beneath his left eye making his grin seem darker—menacing instead of amused.
As he reached out a hand and beckoned me, the karls roared.
“Get her!”
“Don’t let her win, Solsken.”
“We want to see Sweengard blood!”
This was the entertainment they had been waiting for. No swords. No shields. Just skin, bone, and the desperate struggle to win.
Ivren’s brows wiggled as if he was inviting me to dance, not into a fight I was doomed to lose. He lunged, but I kept my distance, whirling away from him.
What was he doing? What was his plan here? And why?
I searched his eyes for a trap, but there was nothing there I could hold on to.
“Come on,” he called. “If you’re going to humiliate me, you better do it now.”
I didn’t respond, only moved when he did, maintaining the ten feet between us.
The initiates started clapping, a slow, lethal rhythm that shook my spine. It echoed through the tent, rattling the goblets on the tables and the bone the thrones on the dais were made of.
In the next second Ivren was on me, and I hated myself for the surprised yelp leaving me. His hand cupped my neck, and as he dragged me to him as if he was going to get my legs out from beneath me, his lips found my ear and he hissed, “Take me down.”
A lump sprang into my throat.
“No,” I breathed as I wound my hands around his back.
“Yes,” he snapped back. “Take. Me. Down.”
I tried to clear my throat, but it was futile.
I couldn’t take him down. This wasn’t our way. This wasn’t the Viking way.
We fought until blood or iron or dirt or pride took us.
I tried to say so—tried to tell him it’d bring dishonor to my people, to my family—but Ivren didn’t give me time to respond as his leg shot out.
I reacted on instinct, shoving him away from me.
He flew back with far more power than I’d used, and I almost folded over when he, with perfect precision, fell onto his ass.
I was the only one who saw his wink.
“No!”
“Ivren, back on your feet!”
“Get her!”
The mockery around us made my muscles twitch, and the air grew even hotter.
A line of sweat trickled down my back as my mind went blank.
“Take her out!” I heard someone scream, as if from far away.
Ivren was still on the ground, pretending to catch his breath. I cast Viljan a desperate look, but there was nothing to be found in his face. Only sorrow.
Please. Please tell me what to do.
This couldn’t be the way. But my guard only stared back at me with a gaze as empty as my body felt. He had no solution—no other option. My hands flexed by my sides.
What I’d done the past few days might be forgiven by the gods.
But cheating like this? Pretending to win a fight I didn’t deserve?
Odin wouldn’t overlook that. Neither would any of the other gods.
The honor of the fight was embedded into our marrow.
It was the key to unlocking the doors of Valhalla.
Viljan averted his gaze.
A glacial wind blew through the tent, sending sparks toward the ceiling.
For a second, black smoke covered my line of sight.
The breeze seeped into my blood, and I knew.
I would do this. For my people and my family I would do this if it allowed me to stay alive a little bit longer.
And I would sentence myself to an eternity in Helheim for it, walking a realm of only ice and mist and dampness.
Bile burned in my throat when I turned to Ivren, and his eyes flashed at whatever he saw in my face. As I charged him, he jumped up onto his feet again, and we began a twisted dance.
My knuckles found his jaw again and again with a force that looked lethal but felt hollow.
Ivren played his part, his head snapping back with every exaggerated blow.
But when he struck back, the contact was nothing more than a brush of skin.
He was shielding me even as he beat me, and the mercy of it tasted like poison.
It was everything I’d been taught not to do.
Shoving him back, I screamed out my shame when he fell once more, his hands pressing against his chest as if I had knocked the air out of him.
“Get him!”
The crowd pressed in, and even the heirs were cheering for the end now.
I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this.
Sweengards might lie, but we didn’t cheat. We were honorable. We treated every person with respect. We didn’t take what wasn’t ours. This—what I was doing now—went against everything my father had drilled into me.
It wasn’t even about Helheim. It was about dishonoring his memory.
I dragged my feet across the ground, every step a betrayal of the honor and pride that had been scorched into my flesh since birth—repeated again and again so I’d know the gods were always watching, always waiting in the shadows.
As I moved, a pair of dark eyes locked onto mine, unblinking and cold enough to freeze the breath in my lungs.
The warrior’s brow arched, a slow, deliberate movement that felt like a blade’s nick. It was the same look he’d given me earlier—like he’d already seen my soul, and found it wanting.
Coward.
I read the verdict in his gaze.
He knew. He knew that Ivren was letting me win.
I wasn’t sure how, but he did.
When my feet stuttered, his lips twitched. I was already walking the edge, but the slight curl of those lethal lips set my blood aflame, and a snarl that made the crowd cheer louder than they had all night ripped from me.
I was many things, but I wasn’t a fucking coward.
“End it, heir,” the warrior ordered.
The urge to lunge at him became a fever in my blood, hot and demanding. I wanted to bury my knuckles in his throat and feel it crush under my weight. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
Instead, tears clouded my vision when I caught Ivren in the middle of getting to his feet, and my fist connected with his nose with a sickening, wet thud that sent a jolt of lightning up my arm.
As he truly stumbled this time, the hot, metallic spray of his blood painted my clothing—a crimson reminder of everything I would do and everyone I would betray to save my people.
The Vikings around me went wild when I screamed through my teeth.
Viljan, his hard face turned to the grass, was the only one who wasn’t looking at me.
I made my decision then. I would not survive this summer—that much was clear.
And even if by some miracle I did, my people couldn’t be led by a Viking destined for Hel.
But they could be led by Viljan. If I stayed alive only for as long as it took me to choose him as my second—the one who would become heir if I no longer breathed—and protect his honor best I could in the process, I’d have served my purpose.
I dragged my palms across the mess on my leathers, and as my father’s and Lika’s faces flashed in my mind, I drew two streaks of blood across my cheeks—a furious offering to the gods who were watching me shame my name.
I cried out again, the sound tearing from my lungs until the crowd swallowed it, echoing back a roar of victory I didn’t deserve.
Laughter bubbled through my throat. It wasn’t a triumph; it was the sound of my soul shedding its skin. It might have started back home, but now I’d truly let the girl from Oenskan drown in the blood of my friend, leaving everything I’d ever been behind.
Honorable. Truthful. Proud. A firstborn daughter to a mighty chieftain.
The gods would brand me a coward and a cheat for the way I’d fought today.
I caught my breath, stumbling backward from the ring.
But that’s what my people need.
Someone to fight for them. Even if I had to fight dirty. Even if I had to cheat.
The laughter died in my throat at the faces circling the pit.
My people didn’t need an heir. They didn’t need someone the gods would warmly welcome into Valhalla. They didn’t need a hero.
I didn’t look as the deafening war cries rumbled through the air like thunder while the warrior declared me the winner, or when the king gave a single clap—confirmation that he was pleased with the bloodshed.
My chest heaved as I tilted my head back, the blood streaks on my cheeks tightening as they dried.
Honor was for those who could afford to die.
I was choosing the power of those who refused to.
I might not be a hero in the end.
But I was a survivor.