Page 18 of A Curse Carved in Bone
“It is only you who comments on my looks, Born-in-Fire,” he retorted. “Unlike yours, my mind is on more serious matters.”
It was a struggle not to grind my teeth. “Something equally self-serving, I’m sure.”
He exhaled a long breath of frustration. “Freya, I know you are angry with me, but could you please set aside your emotions and listen to what I have to say?”
“No,” I snapped. “But as luck would have it, myemotionshave no impact on the functionality of my ears, so say what you wish to say and be done with it.”
He kicked at the underbrush. “There are no words that you’ll not take issue with.”
Triumph filled me at having bested him. “Perhaps, but it does not help that you choose the worst of them. Or that half of them are lies.”
Silence stretched between us, the tension so thick I could barely breathe.
“I do not trust Harald’s intentions.” His voice was soft, barely audible over the wind in the forest around us. “He was driven by my mother’s visions of the future and my desire for revenge against Snorri to see you dead. Over and over, he tried to kill you, Freya, and I can’t fault him for that. What worries me is that upon seeing that you have Hel’s blood, he has turned away from the path my mother set him on. My concern is why he wants you alive.”
I scoffed. “What concerns you is that he is no longer trying to kill me? This feels like backward thinking.”
In truth, I had considered Harald’s motivations as well, but I was curious what Bjorn might say in the face of my willful denseness.
“Don’t,” he growled, not fooled. “You know what a weapon your magic is, Born-in-Fire. If you’d wanted to, you could have fought that battle on your own. Put every Islunder on the ground with a few words.”
“I’ll never do it again.” My nails dug into my palms. “To decide where a soul should go is not a power any mortal should have. I refuse to wield it again.”
“You say that, but desperate moments drive desperate actions. If you think that thought has not lighted upon Harald’s mind, you are wrong. I think he balances the risk of what my mother has foreseen with the reward of having you defend his shores because the moment anyone you perceive as innocent is in danger and your back is against the wall, I think you’ll call Hel’s name.”
Even if I desired to serve Harald, it was impossible with the oath I’d sworn to Snorri, but instead I said, “You name him Father and wear his arm ring as a sign of fealty, but it seems you do not trust your king.”
“I trust him to do right by Nordeland,” Bjorn replied. “But I fear what that means for you. He believes you cannot run from your fate as it has been foreseen—that you must change it or succumb to it. I think he aims to help you change it.”
My eyes narrowed, uncertainty filling my chest because that was not something I’d considered. Harald was the enemy and no part of me wasinclined to see him as otherwise. Yet perhaps even enemies could have common goals. “Given the dark future your mother sees for me, I fail to see how Harald aiding me to change it is a bad thing.”
“You assume it will change for the better. What if it changes to something worse?”
For reasons I could not explain, his words struck like a punch to the stomach. “What would you have me do?” My eyes burned but no tears fell. “Do something. Do nothing. Either way, it seems I am cursed.”
“No!” Though we stood in the deepest dark, he caught hold of my hands with unerring precision. The feel of his palms against mine, large and calloused and so painfully familiar, made my body shake. “That is not what I mean, Freya. I know you don’t trust me. That you believe everything I’ve ever said is a lie and that you hate me for it. That you have no reason to listen to me now. But I will beg one thing from you, and that is that you do not serve him.”
“In that you have nothing to fear, for even if I desired to serve Harald, I cannot.” I pulled my hands away. “I’m bound by Ylva’s blood magic with a vow to serve no man not of Snorri’s blood, which unless there are yet more secrets I’m unaware of, does not include Harald.”
Bjorn didn’t answer, and his silence conveyed his shock even if the darkness hid his face. Finally, he said, “When did you make this oath?”
“The night I was wed to him.”
“Why would you swear such a thing?” he demanded.
“Because the alternative was far worse.” The words came out choked, and I swallowed hard to steady my voice. “I made the choice I could live with.”
“I wish you’d told me.” His shadow shifted restlessly. “I’d have…”
“You’d have what?” No matter how many times I swallowed, the emotion strangling me would not clear my throat. “Killed him? Because that’s a lie. You apparently have had just cause to kill Snorri all these long years and have not, so do not pretend my oaths to him would have moved your hand.”
We stood inches from each other, though I’d not remembered eitherof us closing the distance. So close that I could feel the heat of him. The brush of his breath against my face. My heart fluttered in my chest like a wounded bird, emotion choking me, drowning me. I wanted to be away from it and from him. So I said, “There was a moment I believed that I stood strong because you were always at my back, Bjorn. Now I know better. I stood alone then, and I’ll stand alone now.”
Not allowing him the chance to respond, I strode back in the direction of camp without making any effort to be silent. The forest was alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures, or those who were hunted by them, and my ears filled with the bark of a fox and the hoots of an owl. But it wasn’t enough to drown out the flap of heavy wings overhead. I froze and looked skyward, searching for a shadow. But I could see nothing through the branches of the trees.
Was it Kaja?
Whatever it was had sounded larger than the merlin but sound behaved strangely in the night. Gooseflesh broke across my skin at the idea that she’d been spying on us, but there was nothing to be done about it now. I continued on until I reached the camp. Steinunn was still gone, everyone else sound asleep, including Guthrum. But just outside of the firelight, Kaja picked at a dead rabbit.
