Chapter 49 #2
I followed Darcke’s order when I reached the table, falling onto one knee. A wind wrapped around me, sending my hair whipping around my face.
When I closed my eyes, the Aesir’s voices filled my mind.
Welcome, child. We’ve been waiting for you.
Odin’s divine power flitted over me until my body trembled.
Your father sends his love.
Thor. For a second—the briefest of moments—I felt the strength that my father had gifted me growing up, the one that Thor had blessed him with.
A darkness fell over the room as I rose, my head still bowed.
The gusts grew stronger, blowing right through my clothing and making my braids clatter against my leathers.
Black water appeared on either side, two pools spreading toward me, until only a single round dry spot circling my feet remained.
Before me was a dagger made from the bright light that still whispered over my head. And surrounding me were runes—the five that our people were gifted carved in a line beneath the dagger, but also others covering the ground, some I recognized, many I’d never seen before.
There were so many moments when you wouldn’t have made it here.
Frigg’s voice. Her knowledge came next.
My entire life played before my eyes, every moment, every decision, weighing heavy in my mind.
Every path I could have walked down if I or others had made a different decision revealed itself: realities where my father was alive, where I’d never met Darcke, where I’d married young and already had two children with a kind man in our village.
One with me beside Ivren, proudly pressing my hand against the rune he’d just carved into my chest, him pressing a kiss to my temple while Lika smiled at us.
One where I’d grown up in the village Darcke showed me, where he came into my mother’s house one day, a smile I’d never seen on his face spreading across his features as he took my hand.
One where I didn’t exist at all, where the world burned and ships sank.
But now you are standing in the shadows of our judgment.
Tyr. His righteousness forced my back into a bow again.
The images Frigg had sent to my mind shifted, time stalling, showing me myself sitting by the cliffs on Oenskan, Viljan telling me of my father’s and Lika’s deaths.
Every second after that played, every moment leading up to this one.
I lived it again. The pain. The loneliness. The fear. The urgency. The love.
My eyes shut when Darcke kissing me filled the world. It wasn’t shown with the warmth I’d felt but through the lens of a disappointed guardian, scrutinizing every detail that made me break the divine vow of the battle bond.
Odin’s voice boomed through the halls.
Child, you are here for us to decide if you earned your rune. If you are worthy to lead a mighty people with bravery in your heart, a blade in your hand, and a ship on the vast seas.
The gods didn’t wish me to speak, but I did so anyway. Because their judgment had already been cast. Their call hummed with every shield above, sang with every blade making up the pillars beside me, and roared in the blood beneath my boots.
“I see that you’ve made your decision.”
My voice was weak here. I was weak here, my legs barely holding me up. But I pushed on when the images of everyone relying on me clawed their way into my thoughts.
My people. My sisters. My friends fighting for their lives—the ones I’d just left.
Darcke.
And? Odin’s voice hummed through my teeth.
“I believe you’re making a mistake,” I said, forcing my back to straighten—my shoulders to lower. “I did what I did because I had to. But I did it with bravery. I did it for my father. I did it for my people. I did it for you.”
Do you want to lead? Thor asked.
An image of me on my father’s throne stuttered across my vision.
I was older, gray streaking my hair. But it wasn’t age that caused the lines in my face.
It was dejection. Loneliness. Because on the chair beside me was no one, and in my heart was no love because I’d been forced to leave that behind, and I’d never found another after the one who’d betrayed me.
A hot tear slid down my cheek at the memory of Darcke’s smile before he kissed me—the one I replayed in my mind every night when I lay alone in my furs, my chief’s hearth quiet.
“Does it matter?” I swallowed the aching lump in my throat. “I will still do it.”
There is strength in sacrifice. Perhaps our decision was hasty. Thor again.
She is not her father. Tyr. She has lied and cheated and broken the rules.
Odin’s presence was nearly overwhelming. She does not wish this.
“I do,” I said. I did want it. More than anything.
You lie so well, you do it to yourself, Tyr said.
Gods, wasn’t he judgy?
We hear everything.
Perhaps Tyr’s warning should have made me cautious, but it only made me bolder.
“Then you know. I need this. I need to do this. For them!”
Frigg’s softer voice caressed my mind. Let me show you.
The knife lifted into the air, and when my fingers wrapped around the smooth hilt, my lips curled.
I pulled down my tunic, and with assured strokes I carved another rune for strength over the bleached one.
With every drop of blood running down my chest, the power inside me grew stronger, until I knew I could snap the divine dagger into dust if I wished.
I bowed to the gods, and with longer steps than I’d taken in weeks, I left the Great Halls behind.
The fighting was still happening outside, but it was easy for me to take down my enemies.
As the other heirs went in to get their runes, I killed the last of the chiefs and their warriors, sparing only Rakkel’s mother.
My own tried to run, but chasing her down took only four long strides, and her neck snapped the moment I closed my hand around it.
The scene shifted.
Darcke was on his knees before me, Viljan, Geord, Rakkel, and Vero in the glen where the choosing had happened. So were Torden, Borje, and several other warriors. A new shaman—a female one this time—stood nervously behind us, her intricate tattoos so fresh I could smell the blood beneath the soot.
“We cannot keep them alive.” Geord stared into the ground as he spoke. “They betrayed one of us, and we will not let that happen again.”
I couldn’t speak. But I knew Geord was right.
For my people. For Skagerik, we couldn’t allow those who’d gone behind our backs to live unless we wanted to risk others believing they could do the same.
Rakkel and Vero took my hands as the axe fell, but they couldn’t hold me when Darcke’s head rolled up to my feet.
A cold I’d never felt before filled my soul, and it remained there for the rest of my days, every day holding on to me until I became nothing else than a shell of a Viking.
Do you wish this life? Odin asked.
I fell to my knees when the Great Halls returned.
It hadn’t happened. It hadn’t been real. I’d known the entire time, but I still felt that suffocating emptiness—the sacrifice that had been too great, that had fractured me until I was nothing anymore.
“No.”
Then you will not earn your rune today.
The gods’ agreement whispered through the halls.
The ones who had lived before me closed in, ghosts of the past grasping for my soul, wishing to take me to whatever next realm awaited.
My hands pressed into the crimson floor when their reaching hands touched every inch of my skin, realms flashing before my eyes: ones made of ice, and ones made of fire, ones with wood and ones with only water.
I shook my head when warring decisions pulled at me, the gods’ uncertainty over where I belonged tugging me in different directions. Long moments passed, and several futures splintered before me, colliding as the Aesir argued over which was more appropriate for my circumstances.
A flare of irritation made my chin lift.
Somehow people had made decisions for me my entire life. The gods. My parents. My friends. Darcke. But now, when that life was to end… that’s when they struggled?
The knife was still there, the runes drawn in blood taunting me.
The gods had known even before I left Oenskan what my fate would be, but they had still let me suffer—let me fight my way through a world that was stronger than I was. They’d taken pleasure in watching me struggle, knowing there would be no reward at the end.
Everyone had laughed at me. Everyone had known.
My father. My mother. Lika. Darcke. The king. The gods.
My hands balled.
The black water around me whirled, and as I leaned over it, my pale reflection stared back at me.
There was so much anger and hurt and pain in her face—none of the naivete I’d left my home with.
I reached out a hand to erase the girl I’d become, but as soon as a drop of wetness touched my skin, the reflection changed.
The girl smiled amid the wrath burning her from the inside, a different kind of strength shining in her eyes. Then she lifted the celestial knife and pointed it to her chest.
“I can’t do that,” I whispered.
Her smile widened. Why not?
I felt my frown mar my forehead, but hers remained smooth.
Why not? I wasn’t sure why not. Because the gods said no? But they’d left this here.
Because of the future Frigg had sent me? But that future wasn’t set. I could change it if I wished.
One of my braids fell over my shoulder, and as I pushed it back, I felt Darcke’s touch when he’d woven his hands into my hair, groaning as I traced the faded rune on his chest.
I blinked at the water, watching it rise like a shield around me, spinning slowly for now, but awaiting a decision that it would allow only me to make.
“Who is that?” I asked Darcke during our bonding.
“It’s who you think it is,” he replied.
“Njord,” I whispered.
Eyes that weren’t eyes at all but still consumed me with how much they saw filled the water. The Lord of the Ocean’s presence was softer, gentler, not as intrusive as he walled me off from the Aesir.
I blessed your bond. And I bless your choice now, too, child.
“But what should I do?”