At first, winter filled me with delight.
Freydis walked with me outside when the first flakes of white fell from the sky. She couldn’t believe I’d never seen this “snow” before, and she laughed at my awed expression as I spread the fine substance across my reddening fingers. I laughed back at the sight of the flakes clinging to her eyelashes. We spent that afternoon bunching the snow into balls and throwing them at each other, laughing even as our skin stung.
But the charm wore off quickly; now the whole city is buried. The one trip we’ve been able to make was to check in on Fritjof in the city, and only because Freydis wanted to ensure he had everything he needed to outlast the winter. Blankets upon blankets of snowfall stretched that otherwise quick excursion into a long and grueling journey.
And the snow is nothing compared with the cold—the brutal, unrelenting cold that turns the snow into ice, covering the trees in glittering shards of hoarfrost that remind me of Alvtir, making me long even more for her speedy return. The fjord does not freeze over, but everything else does. It’s dangerous now to go outside: We could slip and fall on the ice, or get so cold that our fingers and toes could turn black and have to be cut off. So we’ve been stuck inside for one moon after another. How anyone lives like this year after year is beyond me.
Lisa travels faster and faster across the sky, until his daily journeys are as swift and fleeting as they were long and leisurely in the summer. The enduring darkness seeps into my mood, infecting it. A restless energy has begun to keep me awake because I can’t tire my body during the day. My arms have lost some of the strength they’d regained, and it makes me angry at no one in particular.
Yngvild has announced that she is with child, and though the baby hasn’t even quickened yet, there’s a great fuss and fawning over her among Helge and the other thralls. The upside is that Freydis and I are mostly left to our own devices. We’ve begun taking most of our meals alone in her room. I’m relieved, even though I have to do all the cooking; I don’t cherish any moment spent in Yngvild and Balli’s presence. Aside from their obvious contempt for me, there’s something wrong with Balli’s nyama, something that leaves an acrid taste in my mouth. I would be glad to go with Freydis to Trøndelag just to escape them, if it weren’t for Alvtir’s promise. Soon, soon, soon…I hear her voice echoing in my head every day.
There isn’t much to do, at least not while the snow persists, to prepare for Freydis’s wedding, which is to take place as soon as the last of the frost has melted. So we set about finishing Freydis’s wedding dress. It shouldn’t have taken us longer than a few days, but nothing ever seems to satisfy her, even the work by her own hand; she’ll finish lacing a brocade along the hemline and then immediately exclaim that the design isn’t quite right, and we must take out the silver thread with extreme care. We went through eight different pairs of brooches before she found one suitable. Every time we pick up the thimble and thread she sighs heavily, and her shoulders fold inward. I’ve been wondering if it’s more than the restlessness that I too am feeling, if instead she’s trying to prolong the task—as though she won’t have to get married if she doesn’t have a dress ready in time. In fact, whenever I mention King Hakon, her husband-to-be, she shrinks back down and changes the subject.
The last time she did this, I finally asked her why she doesn’t want to talk about him, and she told me that she was first betrothed to someone else. Another king named Harald. She met him when they were children, and she found that she liked him. She was happy enough when her father picked him, even though she herself had no say in the matter. Now she doesn’t know what to feel: She’s never even met Hakon. She will marry a stranger, a man who’s just as likely to be cruel to her as kind.
I can’t say I envy her fate, even with all the power and respect that comes with it. Likewise, I can’t help but feel guilty whenever she talks about us going to Trøndelag together. But I figure it’s better to let her hold on to that illusion for now. She’ll be upset enough when Alvtir returns and reveals her plan for me. If I tell her before it’s too late, she might even find a way to stop me. So I keep my future to myself and do my best to keep her mind off hers.
We often spend the evening telling each other stories. I tell her the ones I would beg Mama and Papa to tell again and again when I was little. Like the story of Amanirenas, the one-eyed warrior-queen of the East, who leads her army to victory against the foreigners who had conquered her land. After Amanirenas captures their forts and drives them away, she knocks off the head of a statue that bore a resemblance to the evil foreign king, and she buries it beneath one of her people’s sacred temples to honor her triumph. And the story of Ogiso Emose, the first woman to rule Igodomigodo, where Mama is from. Emose’s mother was a great trader, renowned across the kingdom for her beautiful beads and clothes. She dies giving birth to Emose, but Emose inherits her wealth, fame, and mind for trade—and her abiding love of beautiful things—and becomes one of the greatest Ogisos to ever rule. Freydis likes this story the best, of course. In return, Freydis shares with me the stories Fritjof and Helge would tell her as a child. My favorite is the bear’s son—a story about a warrior with a bear’s strength and courage, who fights a ferocious monster that had killed his companions and terrorized his king’s hall.
Finally, the snow begins to melt. It isn’t even close to warm, but winter is releasing the land from her claws. The city stirs slowly, as if waking from a great slumber. The brook beside the hill has cracked and thawed into a slow trickle. Everything smells wet and new.
“I wonder how long it will take for the farmers to rise up against my father,” Freydis says one night. We’re both in our beds and I was beginning to drift off to sleep, lulled by the crackling sound of the fire. Freydis asked me to stay with her night after night, until it became clear without her having to say so that I was to share this room with her and move the skins out of the shed. I was grateful to get away from Helge’s permanent scowl, so I sleep here without complaint.
“What do you mean?” I ask thickly, my head heavy with the promise of sleep.
She rolls to face me. “This is the longest, coldest winter I can remember, and the farmers feel the effects of the cold well after it’s passed. It hardens the soil, which weakens the seeds. In Hvitbjorg this past summer, the harvest was so low that the jarl feared the farmers wouldn’t have enough to feed their families over the winter. But Father still demanded the same share of the crop.” She sighs and pulls the fur up to her chin. “I’ve been wondering how those families are faring now. If they’ve lost any children. If they’re angry with Father for ignoring their plight.”
Of course they’re angry, I wish I could say. I feel angry on their behalf. Don’t you? Instead, I say nothing, and soon sleep overtakes us.
I haven’t seen the fylgja again, and Freydis says this is good. Instead, my dreams—the ones I remember—are of my family, or Alvtir, or the curious soldier who caught my gaze before the warships left.
I wake this morning before the first light, wrenched from a cozy dream of Mama rocking me in her arms by a sense of wrongness coiling in my gut. I wipe the sleep from my eyes, roll out of bed, and throw on my boots and one of Freydis’s cloaks, not bothering to wake her to ask her permission.
As if compelled, my feet carry me outside and over to the front of the hill, past the Great Hall. I turn my gaze to the fjord, pulling the cloak closer around my shoulders against the freezing predawn air. Lisa has just begun to lighten the sky, and I can just make out the blurry shapes gliding across the dark waters…
The ships!
Alvtir.
I race down the hill, not caring who sees me or how suspicious it looks that the princess’s “black elf” is running around alone before dawn. The trumpet sounds in three lengthy blasts from the guard tower, alerting the slumbering city to the hird’s return.
Soon. Alvtir’s promise runs circles in my head, growing louder and louder. But when I finally reach the harbor, I see only green-and-white sails rounding the bend.
Where is Alvtir’s ship?
The first ships dock and the weary soldiers disembark to an equally muted reception from the growing cluster of cold, tired cityfolk. Noticeably fewer men climb off the ships than got on them that day they left. Wherever they went, they took significant losses.
The knots in my stomach tighten as the hatchet-faced man hops onto the dock. He shoots me a menacing smile, like he’s happy I’ve come.
Soon I see why: The last of his soldiers disembarks, dragging nearly a dozen people, bound to one another with rope, behind him. People with skin the color of roots and bark and the earth.
He’s taken more of us. My heart sinks with the weight of a new anchor, a new despair. I flash back to the caravan, to when I was bound to a chain of bodies like this one.
“They were a gift from the gods, you know.”
I whirl on the hatchet-faced man, narrowing my eyes. He folds his arms across his chest with a triumphant smile.
“The ship carrying them to Iberia must’ve docked just before ours,” he continues. “We found them tied to the deck, just like that, waiting for us to take them.” He winks.
I clench my jaw as I hold his mocking gaze, digging my fingernails into my palms until I draw blood. But I don’t lash out. Because that’s exactly what he wants.
Instead, I force myself to turn back to the new thralls. The sunken eyes of an elder lock with mine. He makes a noise and the others look my way. I can see the last embers of hope sparking back to life in their irises as they take in my skin, dark like theirs, and my healthy, groomed appearance.
But I have no hope to offer this man. Nor any for the others.
The elder opens his mouth, but before he can speak and earn himself a beating, I turn away and sprint up the hill.
I run as fast as I can all the way back to the royal longhouse, ignoring the scorching ache in my legs. Freydis snores away as I hang up her cloak and climb back into bed with my pulse hammering in my ears. She sleeps like nothing has happened. Like everything is normal, because for her, it is.
I have no doubt that that wretched man brought those people here just to deepen my suffering. But in the workings of another realm, I wonder if this isn’t my retribution from the gods, a twist of justice for letting an innocent man die for my crime.
The thought makes my chest ache. I make a promise to Mawu-Lisa to help the new thralls however I can.
Still, the skins beneath me grow wet with tears.
Over breakfast, Freydis tells me that Hatchet-Face’s name is Snorri, and he’s Broskrap’s oldest son. I should have known. As we put the final touches on her wedding dress, I keep my guilt at bay by imagining all the different ways I could kill the pale-haired snake. The neckline becomes his throat as my fingers close in on it, squeezing the life out of him. Then my knitting needle becomes a dagger to the jugular. He bleeds out slowly, like his father. The images get more and more detailed, until I realize I’m frightening myself with my lurid thoughts.
“We have to find the new thralls,” I say as Freydis tries on the dress.
“Why?” she asks absently, running her hands over her waist. “Do you think it’s too tight here?”
I stamp my foot in frustration, startling her. “Because! You don’t know what it was like for me when I first came here. I have to help them, however I can.”
“All right,” she says, though her expression is quizzical.
“You don’t have to come with me. Just give me the afternoon off.”
“I want to help. And it will go easier for you if I’m there.”
By the time we’ve dressed and made our way down to the city, it’s late in the afternoon. We go from stall to stall, then house to house, asking everyone from the traders and the artisans to the fishermen whether they’ve seen thralls with skin the color of mine. I’m reminded of when I made these same rounds asking for my father, back when I was Broskrap’s thrall. Only this time, with the princess at my side, the people are far more respectful—and helpful. Most of them know who I’m talking about: Even if the color of their skin didn’t stand out, Snorri apparently paraded them around before auctioning them off to the highest bidders. But no one remembers exactly who those bidders were. Until we come to a house Freydis remembers as belonging to a carpenter and his family.
A heavyset woman answers the door wearing a scowl, which disappears from her red face when she sees who it is. “Princess Freydis! How can I help you?”
Freydis searches her memory. “It’s Thurid, right? You are Skarde’s wife?”
The woman looks pleased as a peach. “You have quite the memory, Princess!”
“We’re looking for the thralls who arrived this morning,” I jump in. “The ones who have dark skin, like mine.”
She wrinkles her nose, but Freydis gives her a cloying smile. “If you know where any of them are, I would be most grateful.”
The woman hesitates. “We bought two of them, a boy and an old man. I think they call themselves”—she furrows her brow—“Na-he-roh and Ma-ba-noh. All the others were taken to the farms.”
Through her terrible pronunciation, I recognize the names Nyeru and Mbaneh. Soninke names.
My heart leaps into my throat. Freydis and I share a look. Of all the slaves Snorri could have brought back to Skíringssal, what are the chances that they too would be Soninke? It seems too far-fetched to be a coincidence.
“I don’t know if we’ll keep the elder one much longer,” the woman adds. “Snorri offered us a good price to take him with the boy, since neither would be suited for hard labor, but he’s worse for wear. He might be too feeble to be of much help to us. Not to mention he doesn’t speak a lick of our language, and the old don’t learn so quickly as the young.”
“I can help him—and you,” I say. “I come from the same kingdom they do. I speak their tongue. I can teach them yours. Even the elder.”
She considers for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth between me and Freydis. “I suppose it can’t hurt. If that’s all right with you, Princess.”
Freydis nods. “Where are they now?”
She points us to an outbuilding, then disappears inside her house.
We head to the outbuilding, but Freydis leaves me at the door.
“You’re not coming in?”
She shakes her head and looks up at the sky, pink with Lisa’s descent. “There’s nothing more I can do. You’re free to stay here for the evening.”
That word: free. Can someone truly be free if it’s only for an evening?
“Thank you,” I say anyway, and part of me means it—not for letting me stay, but for continuing to track down the others.
I open the door and step into the muggy gloom. Two dark-skinned figures sit by a crackling firepit, one child and one man. I recognize the man immediately as the elder I noticed on Snorri’s ship. He’s washed since I saw him this morning, but it hasn’t helped his appearance much. The woman was not wrong: He’s too frail, even for an elder. But his nyama is vigorous, his large brown eyes lively under a thin line of coiled gray hair. He studies me as I get closer, tilting his wizened face to one side. Next to him, a young boy—seven or eight years old, at most—stares up at me fearfully. I’m reminded with a pang of how Kamo and Goleh looked at his age.
“You see, Mbaneh? Kinswoman has come for us,” the old man says in Soninke, slinging his arm around the boy reassuringly.
The rapture of hearing the silky flow of Soninke for the first time in so long is quickly replaced by a surge of guilt.
“I’m sorry I ran from you earlier, kinsman,” I say, addressing him using the same term of familial endearment that he so generously used for me. “I didn’t know you were from Wagadu until I heard your name.”
“Are we not all the children of the gods, whether we are Soninke or no?”
I hesitate, wondering at the meaning of such piercing words. “I’m Yafeu,” I say without thinking. When did it become so natural for me to give my father’s name as my own?
“I am Nyeru. And this is Mbaneh.”
The boy hides behind Nyeru’s sullied tunic. I smile awkwardly. Interacting with young children was never something I did well. I always felt they were more of a nuisance than anything else, and the mothers in my village were all too glad to keep their babies away from the jugu girl. “It’s a blessing to meet you, Mbaneh,” I say.
“I sense that you’ve had a long journey, Yafeu,” Nyeru says. “Even longer than ours.” His gaze is soft and full of mourning. There is a sense of the divine in his nyama, much like the diviners of Koumbi Saleh, and yet he seems so much…warmer than any priest I’ve ever met. It’s as though he feels no need to hide his own hardships, and so I shouldn’t feel the need to hide mine.
I feel a momentous uncoiling of the tightness in my chest. Tears well behind my eyes as I nod.
“Tell me,” he says gently, patting the empty seat at his side.
I sit on my knees and start at the very beginning. I tell him of my capture in my village, of my mother getting Kamo and Goleh to safety as I fell, of the long caravan through the desert, Ampah’s death, the merchant at Anfa, the indescribable connection I felt with Alvtir, the betrayal I felt when she left me with Broskrap, the terrible rage when I saw him hurting Airé, killing him in the grips of that rage, then being given to Freydis that very night, Alvtir’s cryptic promise, growing closer with Freydis, how she lied to spare me from being punished for Broskrap’s murder. As the words tumble out, I grow more and more emboldened. I realize I’ve never spoken my full story aloud before. I’ve told bits and pieces of it to Freydis—but with her, I’m always holding something back. Somehow, the compassion I feel in Nyeru’s gaze compels the full truth out of me. Maybe it’s also the telling of my story in my own language; it feels harder to hide behind than the slippery tongue of the Majūs. When I choke up at certain parts, overwhelmed with grief or despair, Nyeru reaches out and clasps my hand. Eventually Mbaneh does the same, trusting me because his elder does. I grasp his tiny hand in my own, letting the ache for my brothers fill me instead of pushing away the pain like I usually do. Finally, I come to the hird’s return. “And you are the first ones I’ve found,” I finish. I fall silent, feeling a wonderful sense of lightness, as though the weight of all those memories was somehow lessened by sharing them.
Nyeru leans back. Something about his expression, kind yet solemn, reminds me of Mama. “Your spirit knows where you’re going, and how to get there, Yafeu. Do not question that.”
I struggle to digest his words. “Who were you back in your home village?” I ask, mystified. “Where do you come from?”
“I too was taken by slavers,” he says. Nyeru tells me of his village, only half a day’s walk from mine along the route to Koumbi Saleh. He is a shaman of one of the Maghan clans, the direct descendants of Diabe Cissé, the first Soninke. To be a shaman from such a line—he must have been highly respected, revered even. He had a family, he tells me; he was content with what the gods had provided for him.
Then the gods changed their minds. The slavers came and destroyed their village and captured as many as they could, just the same as they did to mine. His wife and children were slaughtered in the scuffle. He and Mbaneh, the grandchild of his younger brother, were the only ones from his family who survived the grueling journey across the desert. The slavers sold them and the rest of the survivors to a foreign merchant, who took them to al-Andalus. That’s where they were taken by Snorri.
Eventually Mbaneh nods off to sleep. Nyeru and I stay up conversing, sharing stories of our past lives.
“Nyeru,” I say softly, remembering my promise to Thurid. “You must learn the language here, as I have. The Majūs are not a forgiving people. If you’re not useful to them, they will sacrifice you to their strange gods. But I can teach you and Mbaneh how to survive here.”
Nyeru nods solemnly and clasps my hand in his. “Thank you, kinswoman. I knew from the moment I saw you that you were sent to us by the gods.”
I smile weakly, feeling the twinge of guilt yet again. Snorri said they were sent to him by the gods. I wonder if there’s any truth to either claim. Maybe Snorri’s gods sent them to him, and then my gods sent me to them. Or maybe my gods sent them here, but not to punish me: Maybe they didn’t want me to be alone anymore. I wonder if I’ll ever know. I wonder if it even matters.
I’ll fall asleep here if I don’t go back to the longhouse now, so I reluctantly climb to my feet. “I’ll return as soon as I can—with food—and we can begin our lessons.”
Nyeru clasps my hand. “Yafeu,” he begins, his vibrant gaze darkening.
Before he can say more, Mbaneh lets out a bloodcurdling scream. He begins thrashing around, his limbs flailing wildly against the furs. Nyeru scoops him into his arms.
“No!” Mbaneh screams, his hands clawing at Nyeru in blind terror. I help restrain him, my heart pounding in alarm.
“It’s been happening every night since we were taken,” Nyeru explains. “I’m grateful he doesn’t remember in the morning.”
My heart sinks at that. He’s too young. Too young to have experienced so much suffering. “He may not remember, but he will bear the scars forever,” I murmur.
“Nothing lasts forever, Yafeu,” Nyeru replies. “Sogbo transforms the earth from dry and barren to wet and fertile, and back again. The waters are calm when Agbe and Naete are at peace, and chaotic when they are arguing with each other. Agé takes the spirit of the antelope felled by the hunter, and sends more antelope to be born. Even Mawu and Lisa must take turns ruling the sky. Change is the one thing we can always rely on.”
Again, I’m reminded of Mama. She used to say the same thing, whenever I’d start to feel hopeless about my plight in the village: Nothing lasts forever.
Eventually Mbaneh stills, and I take my leave. I walk back to Freydis’s room under the dim light of Mawu’s crescent, my feet following their own memory while my mind leafs through images of the flooded banks of the White River, of golden fields of millet, of Papa swinging down from his camel and Mama painting beads in her workshop.
Nothing lasts forever.
Alvtir’s ship is the last to arrive, over a week later. I’m already in the city, perusing the stalls in the market with Freydis after my second lesson with Nyeru and Mbaneh, when I hear the triple bellow of the trumpet. My heart thunders. I push my way to the front of the crowd gathering at the harbor.
The women-warriors hop out first and tether her ship to the open dock. It feels like an eternity until Alvtir herself disembarks.
“Alvtir!” I call out, jubilant.
But she brushes past me without so much as a glance.
I am dumbstruck, rooted in place, watching mutely as she ascends the hill to the royal compound.
I feel slimy and hot all over, like my skin is covered in tar. Around me, the cityfolk continue to reunite with their loved ones, catching them up on all the tumult they’ve missed: the finding of Broskrap’s body, the trial, the holmgang. Their voices fade to a dull hum as I rejoin Freydis in the market.
“There you are! Why did you…” She trails off when she sees the expression on my face. I follow her in silence as she mills around, eventually purchasing some beads from a glass-maker.
How could Alvtir ignore me like that? She made me a promise before she left: Soon. How much longer will I have to wait?
Or did she change her mind while she was gone?
I do my best to wave the doubts away like buzzing flies, but they nip at me throughout the rest of the day. If Freydis notices my mood, she wisely doesn’t ask me about it.
All this time, I’ve been waiting for Alvtir to welcome me into her company of women-warriors. But if she’s changed her mind—if I am truly no one to her—then that means I’m going to Trøndelag with Freydis. That means I’ll live the rest of my life as her slave.
No. I won’t resign myself to that fate. I must join Alvtir and become the warrior I was born to be. I chose that destiny in Anfa, and I choose it now. No matter what.
As I lie awake in bed that night, I make another promise to myself: If she doesn’t recruit me before Freydis’s wedding, then I’ll find a way to free myself. And then I’ll convince Alvtir that I’m worthy of becoming one of her warriors.
It’s just like Papa said: The gods will save me, but first I must save myself.
A thick warmth envelops me as I enter the Great Hall. The coppery scent of blood fills my nostrils. My brother must’ve made another one of his “sacrifices” last night. Or maybe it’s just the spirits of the slaughtered that haunt the place, the stench of their despair on the long road to Niflheim.
I never like being in the Great Hall during the day. During the nighttime feasts, the hall of light is worthy of its moniker, glowing from the light of hundreds of soft candles and torches. But in the day the same hall transforms into a prison, dark and confining. Even now, after braving the winter elements for weeks on end, the shelter it provides is suffocating.
My brother is speaking in low tones with Snorri by the hearth. They fall silent at the sight of me.
As I approach, Balli turns away and takes a seat on the throne. Snorri folds his arms across his chest and composes his weaselly face into a toothy grin.
Something is wrong.
“Heill, brother.” I stop next to Snorri, my shoulder brushing against his with a silent threat as we both wait for the king to speak.
My brother fixes me with a look of accusation. “Why did you separate from the rest of the fleet?”
“I took my ship to Lisbon,” I reply readily. I’d prepared the excuse before we even left these shores. “The city is walled and heavily guarded, but it is said that some of the wealthiest Saracen nobles reside within. I deemed the risk too great for an open attack; instead, I made landfall out of sight of the city’s harbor and went alone to the wall on foot. I waited, hidden, until the dead of night, then searched for their vulnerabilities. I had hoped to find a crack in their defenses that my crew and I could exploit for a clandestine attack. Unfortunately, we found the city to be impenetrable. There were no openings in the wall, and the Saracen patrol was organized and disciplined. It was worth the diversion, though—if only to bring this knowledge to you.”
A hint of disappointment flickers across my brother’s face, but Snorri’s smile is that of a man who has just won a very long game of tafl. “Oh?” he drawls. “Did you go to Lisbon seeking riches for your king? Or did you seek an audience with the Saracen king?”
By Loki’s misbegotten children! How did he know?
In answer, Snorri takes something from a pouch at his belt and tosses it on the ground.
A fat hand, severed at the wrist, its fingers adorned with thick rings bearing exotic gemstones.
Chlothar. The poor Frank. I wonder how long my brother drew out his torture. I’m sure it was needless; if I know Snorri, he offered to double my pay, then had Balli kill him just to get out of the deal.
Balli clucks at my silence, taking it for guilt. “Were you hoping the brute would make you his queen?”
I can almost feel Snorri preening beside me. That insult came from his forked tongue. What other poison has he whispered in my brother’s ear in my absence?
“Brother,” I entreat him, ignoring Snorri and approaching the throne. I take a knee, clasping Balli’s right hand with both of mine. I can tell from the furrow in his brow that my sudden earnestness has caught him off guard. “The Saracens of al-Andalus would make formidable allies. For centuries, they’ve kept the Christians at bay.”
He lets out a mirthless laugh, snatching his hand away. “Perhaps my memory is failing. Did I order you to go looking for allies? Was that the mission I entrusted to my stallari?”
His mockery snaps the last tether of my restraint. “You refuse to acknowledge the threat the Christians pose, but you cannot deny that this land grows colder every year, and the harvests are thinning. You heard Jarl Tófi: His farmers may starve before winter’s end. What will happen when the other jarls fall short on the tax? I’ll tell you: You will be forced to accept what they can give, or they will be forced to rebel against you. Either way, you won’t be able to sustain a hird of this size. Your soldiers can’t live on fish alone; when the grain runs out and the flow of silver dries, they will break their oaths and flee. We will be more vulnerable than ever before. An alliance with Trøndelag will not protect our people; the soil in the North has always been poor, and the frost lasts even longer than it does here. We need allies from the South.”
“How dare you tell me how to run my kingdom?” Balli roars, slamming on the arm of the throne. “I’m the one who freed us from the Danes! I’m the one who brought might and prosperity to Agder! You’d be nothing but a ruined woman with a cursed womb if it weren’t for my mercy!”
His words strike me like a thunderous blow from Mjölnir. I flinch, despite myself. “I do not question your wisdom as king. I see only the battlefield, but there I see what you cannot. As your stallari, I must beg you to at least consider—”
“You are not my stallari, Alvtir.”
My ears have been jinxed by Loki himself. “Brother—”
“You’ve left me with no choice. Snorri will take over as leader of the hird in my stead. You will be a captain under his command. I leave you the shield maidens, and the men of your ship.”
No.
“Brother—my king—” Words abandon me, just as the gods have abandoned me. I grasp at straws. “What of all the years past? Have I served you so poorly that you would strip me of my honor?”
“I warned you” is all he says. He flicks his fingers in dismissal.
My feet are rooted to the floor, my mind still reeling in shock.
“I look forward to seeing you in training,” Snorri adds.
In an instant my hand is around Snorri’s throat. “I should slit you open from nose to navel, snake!”
He gurgles and flails helplessly in response. I tighten my grip, reveling in the blue tinge that seeps into his sharp cheeks.
“Guards!” I hear my brother shout, his voice laced with panic. Then four pairs of arms are prying my own from Snorri’s neck, binding them tightly behind my back.
“You can’t do this to me!” I scream at Balli as the men drag me to the doors. “You can’t turn your back on the will of the gods! I am a berserker, chosen by Odin himself!”
A wave of remorse crashes upon his face. Then he shuts his eyes and looks away.
Coward.
The guards haul me outside and throw me onto the cold, hard ground.
“I am the glory of—” I’m cut off by the doors slamming shut in my face.
I gaze up at the hoary sky, breathing heavily as rage cools to ice beneath my breast.
In a way, I am almost glad. Now I will feel no remorse for what I’ve done. I suppose blessings come in many guises, just as the Allfather walks the earth wearing many faces.
The four guards remain outside, blocking the entrance with their bodies. The eyes that peer down at me from under their helmets are full of fear. Even one on four, I could slaughter them in a heartbeat. They know that as well as I do.
And their relief is palpable when I don’t. Instead, I grunt and climb to my feet, brushing the snow and ice off my bottom. But the moment I turn to leave, some passing thrall crashes right into me.
Rage flares within me again, blasting through the ice. “Idiot—”
Then I notice the snow-fox fur around her shoulders, the ring of blond braids streaked with gray. That’s no thrall.
Yngvild whips around and recoils as she recognizes me in turn. Her hand flies to her lower belly.
My jaw falls open.
It can’t be.
She drops her hand instantly, her expression full of remorse. Then she whirls back around and rushes off without so much as a word of greeting.
It was just a moment. But it was enough.
By Thor Odinsson’s large, hairy bottom!
My sister-in-law is pregnant again.
My mind races as I march down the hill, leaving the Great Hall behind me. Was that milksop of a skald right after all? Or does Freya send yet more false hope? But why?
Foolish woman, I chastise myself. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. Yngvild is no more deserving of mercy than Balli is; an unborn babe changes nothing.
Wise One, I will serve you unto the end.