Page 110 of A Curse Carved in Bone
Yet I knew what fate would come for us was mine to be woven, good or ill. Actions not prayers would be what saved him, and I swam harder, reaching.
Our fingers locked right as we were swept over the falls.
Having done it once before hadn’t prepared me for doing it again. My stomach rose in my throat as we fell and fell, my magic cocooning around us. Even protected as we were, the impact of us striking the water rattled my teeth.
We plunged beneath the surface and were immediately caught in the circular flow at the base of the falls.
Black water roared around us, but I dug my nails into Bjorn’s arm and swam down. He fought against me, but I gritted my teeth and held on, pulling him to the bottom of the river and then clawing my way along it until we were free of the churn.
Pressing my feet to the bottom of the river, I kicked off, my head breaking the surface.
Bjorn appeared next to me and gasped in a breath.
“This way,” I called to him. “To the bank! Swim!”
I kicked my way to the river’s edge. A frosty north wind blew over us, turning me so cold that I could barely feel my hands. “Bjorn!”
To my left, a shadow moved, Bjorn crawling up the bank in the darkness, coughing and cursing. I covered my hand with magic and the silver glow illuminated his face. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he snapped, spitting river water onto the bank. “It’s freezing.”
Not once in the entire time I’d known him had Bjorn complained of being cold. Nor had he ever spoken to me in that tone.
My skin crawled, and I sat back on my heels as sickness rose in my stomach. “Light a fire.”
Bjorn turned his head to regard me, and though he was cloaked in shadows there was a cruelty to his gaze that made my hackles rise.
I reached for the hilt of my sword, only to find it missing, lost to the river.
His mouth twisted into a smile I’d never before seen on his face, and Harald’s voice said, “Clever girl, Freya.”
Steinunn’s finale showed Harald’s confession to me in the prison beneath Grindill, cries of disgust and fury escaping the crowd’s lips as they came to understand that Snorri had not only been murdered butconsumedby Harald. That the man on the dais was not their king, but the child of Loki himself.
The vision spooled out before me, and I watched Harald lean against the bars of my cell, seeing my own face sick with disgust. “I am everyone and everything,” Harald said with a grin. “And nothing and no one. As Nameless as my Nameless, cast aside the moment my mother realized what blood flowed in my veins. Unloved and unwanted because of what I was, and so I made myself into someone new. Over and over again, learning from my mistakes and discovering pieces of lore until I had mastered my art. Harald is my masterpiece, your mother a close second, but Snorri…” He sighed happily. “All of Skaland will sing my name even as they dance to the beat of my drum.”
The vision focused on his laughing face, then faded with Steinunn’s voice as her magic released us from its thrall.
Into a cloud of choking smoke.
Grindill was aflame.
For a heartbeat, no one reacted. Every face in the crowd was tight with horror, none more so than the Unfated, the truth of their tragedies now revealed, and all united in their expressions of disgust. Grief. Pain. Emotions swiftly replaced by anger, eyes sharpening as they searched the dais for the creature who’d torn apart their lives.
But Harald was gone.
“Fire!” someone screamed. “Fire!”
Everything turned to chaos.
“Where is he?” Gyda roared, the smith showing no care for the choking smoke as she drew her blades.
Everyone who’d gathered to watch my execution was crying out in panic, terrified by the clouds of smoke and uncertain which direction to flee.
I tried to pull my hands from the steel gauntlets fixed to the posts, shouting around my gag for someone to freeme.
It was Leif who approached, pulling the gag from my mouth. “Father is dead, then?”
Steinunn had purposefully excluded what had happened on the island from her song lest my actions inspire any watchers to take inopportune vengeance. Yet Leif added, “You killed him, didn’t you? Because you believed he attacked your mother and caused her death. But it was Harald, wearing Father’s face.”
