A Fate Inked in Blood

Silence thickened the air.

A smart woman would regret such words, but I was clearly an idiot of the first order as all I felt was a flash of wicked triumph as the barb slowly struck home. Vragi’s face darkened beneath his thick beard, a vein in his temple pulsing like a purple worm. Then his knife pressed against my cheek, his breath rank as he whispered, “Maybe the key is to make you less pretty, Freya. Then you will have to learn other skills.”

The steel was cold and cruel. It wiped away my triumph and replaced it with fear.

Yet…I couldn’t concede. Couldn’t allow myself to break or cry or beg, because that was what he relished: bringing me low. Instead I met his gaze and said, “Do it. Do it, Vragi, and then go to the village and see if they’ll still host your feast and call you a hero when they learn you cut your wife’s face to spite her beauty.”

His lip curled. “They need me.”

“That doesn’t mean they need to honor you.” And a narcissist like him needed that honor.

I watched the wheels of his mind turn; no doubt he was musing how much he could hurt me without consequence. But I refused to look away despite the cold sweat that slicked my palms. The blade pressed harder against my cheek, stinging, and I sucked in a sharp breath to control my rising panic.

He heard it.

Vragi grinned, my tiny show of weakness satisfying him. He let go of my hair, lowering his knife. “Get back to work, woman. When you’re finished, bring two fish to your mother. Perhaps she’ll remind you of your duties. It is her fault, and your father’s”—he spat—“that you don’t know them.”

“Do not speak ill of my father!” I grabbed my knife, but Vragi only sneered at it.

“There is the proof,” he said. “He forgot you were a daughter and taught you like your brother. Now instead of a wife, I have a grown woman who plays at being a warrior like a small child, brandishing her stick and imagining every tree her foe.”

Heat burned up my chest, turning my cheeks to infernos. Because he was not wrong.

“Perhaps I’ve been complicit,” he said. “I’ve allowed you too much idle time, which the gods know is the ruination of good character.”

The only idle time I was allowed was the hours I slept, but I said nothing.

Vragi turned away from me, going right to the water’s edge, the fjord glittering in the sunshine. Lifting his hand, he invoked Njord’s name.

For a long moment, nothing happened, and I breathed a silent prayer that the god of the sea had finally recognized what a piece of shit his child was and stolen away his magic.

Wasted prayers, for a heartbeat later the water quivered. And the fish began jumping.

Only a few at first, but then dozens and dozens were hurling themselves out of the water and onto the beach until I could barely see the rocks through the teeming mass of fins and scales.

“This should keep you occupied.” Vragi smirked. “Give your mother my love.”

My bloody blade quivered in barely checked rage as he turned and walked away.

I stared at the fish thrashing about on the beach, desperate to return to the water. Such a waste, for there were more here than we could sell before they went to rot. And it was not the first time he’d done such a thing.

I’d once watched him beach a whale, but instead of ending the animal’s life immediately, he’d allowed it to work its way back into the water, only to use his magic to draw it out again. Over and over he’d done it, all the village watching, his eyes filled with fascination as he tortured the animal for no reason beyond the fact that he could.

It had only ended when my brother pushed through the crowd and embedded an axe into the whale’s brain, putting it out of its misery and allowing the rest of us to begin the process of butchering the carcass, no one celebrating what should have been a glorious day of feasting.

I refused to feel the same sort of regret again.

Pulling up my skirts, I raced to where the fish flopped, snatching up one of them and tossing it into the water. Then another and another, some of them so heavy that it took my entire strength to get them back in.

Moving along the waterline, I returned Vragi’s catch to the sea, my stomach twisting whenever I found a fish that had succumbed, each death my own personal failure. But there were so many.

Finding a fish still alive where it had tossed itself into some brush, I picked it up and threw it over my shoulder at the water.

Instead of a splash, my ears filled with a loud curse, and I whirled to find a man standing waist-deep in the fjord, rubbing at his cheek. Which I’d clearly struck with the fish.

“Was the fish hurt?” I demanded, searching for sign of the creature, concerned I’d killed it in my attempt to save it. “Did it swim away?”

The man ceased rubbing his face and gave me an incredulous stare. “What about me?”

I stopped looking for the fish and gave him a closer look, my face instantly warming. Even with an impact-reddened cheek, he was alarmingly attractive. Tall and broad of shoulder, he appeared to be only a handful of years older than my twenty years. His black hair was shaved on the sides, the rest pulled back in a short tail behind his tattooed head. He was all high cheekbones and chiseled lines, and while most men wore beards, he bore only the scruff of a few days’ absence from a razor. He wore no shirt, and water dripped off a naked torso corded with thick muscle, his sun-darkened skin marked with dozens of inky tattoos. A warrior, undoubtedly, and even without a weapon I suspected he was a significant threat.

Realizing that I hadn’t responded, I crossed my arms. “What sort of fool swims in the fjord when the ice has just broken up? Are you trying to freeze to death?” To emphasize my point, I jerked my chin at the thick slab of ice floating past him.

“That is not much of an apology.” He ignored the ice and moved toward the water’s edge. “And it seems I’m more at risk from flying fish than freezing.”

I took a wary step back, recognizing his faint accent. It was rare for Nordeland to raid this early in the spring, but not impossible, and I glanced up and down the fjord, looking for drakkar and men, but the water was empty. Moving my gaze to the far side of the fjord, I scanned the thick forest rising up the side of the mountain.

There.

Motion caught my eye, and I froze, searching for the source. But whatever it was had disappeared, likely nothing more than small game.

“I’m not a raider, if that’s your concern.” He stopped knee-deep in the water, his teeth bared in an amused grin. “Only a man in need of a bath.”

“So you say.” I cursed myself for leaving my knife on the cutting board. “You could be lying to me. Distracting me while your fellows move on my village to slaughter and pillage.”

He winced. “Fine, fine. You have caught me out.”

I tensed, ready to scream a warning to those within earshot, when he added, “My clansmen said to me, ‘You are not such a good fighter but you are very good-looking, so your task is to swim across the fjord to flirt with the beautiful woman throwing fish. With her distracted, we will be safe to attack.’ ” He sighed. “It was my sole task, and already I have failed miserably.”

My cheeks flushed, but growing up with an older brother meant I could give as good as I got. “Of course you failed. You have as little talent for flirting as you do for fighting.”

He tilted back his head and laughed, the sound deep and rich, and despite all my intentions to remain on guard and wary, a smile worked its way onto my lips. Gods, but he was attractive—as though Baldur himself had escaped Hel’s grasp in the underworld and stood before me.

“You aim as well with words as you do with fish, woman,” he answered, his shoulders still shaking with mirth as he walked out of the water, soaked trousers clinging to the hard muscle of his legs and arse. “I am so wounded, I must remain on this side of the fjord forever, as my companions will never take me back.”

This close, I gained an appreciation for just how large he was, head and shoulders taller than me and twice my breadth, droplets of seawater rolling down his slick skin. I should tell him to go, to leave, for I was wed and this was my husband’s land, but instead I looked him up and down. “What makes you think I wish to keep you? You cannot fight. You cannot flirt. You cannot even catch fish when they are thrown right at you.”

He pressed a hand to the knotted muscles of his stomach, pretending to double over as he gasped, “A mortal blow.” Dropping to his knees before me, he looked up with a smirk, the sun illuminating eyes a shade of green like the first leaves of spring. “Before you finish me off, allow me to prove that I’m not entirely devoid of skills.”

If anyone saw us like this, there’d be Hel to pay if they told Vragi. And perhaps I deserved it, for I was a married woman. Married to a man I loathed with every bit of my being but whom I’d never be free of, no matter how much I wished otherwise. So I said, “What skills could you possibly have that I might be interested in?”

The spark in his eyes turned to heat, and my toes curled inside my shoes as he said, “Better if I show you. I think you will not be disappointed.”

My heart thundered against my ribs. This was wrong, deeply wrong, but a selfish streak within me didn’t care. Wanted only to kiss this charming, attractive stranger with no care for consequences.

Except that was not who I was.

I swallowed hard, shoving away the aching, needy desire demanding I allow this to continue, instead holding out a hand, drawing him to his feet. His palms were calloused and the backs of his hands scarred in a way that belied his claim that he was no fighter. “Wherever you come from, the women must be either desperate or foolish to fall for such nonsense. Be on your way.”

I struggled not to hold my breath as I waited for him to react to my rejection, for few men took it well, but he only inclined his head and said, “It seems you are neither desperate nor foolish, which some would say is my loss.” He lifted my hand, not seeming to care that it stank of fish as he kissed my knuckles. “I say that it only means I must try harder, for you are a remarkable woman indeed.”

The brush of his lips against my skin sent shivers coursing through my body, my mind lost in the depths of those green eyes. Letting go of my hand, he reached up to touch my face, thumb brushing across the line Vragi’s knife had left on my cheek. “Where is your husband?”

“What makes you think I’m wed?” I demanded, but he only turned and walked up the slope, toward a horse I hadn’t even been aware was tied to a tree.

He pulled on a shirt before glancing back at me. “Your ring. Now, where might I find him?”

Instinctively I tucked my hand, which bore a plain silver band, into the folds of my skirts. “Why do you wish to know where he is?”

“Because I’m going to kill him. I’m going to make you a free woman so that you can bed me with no concerns for propriety,” he answered, tightening the girth before swinging onto the tall animal’s back. “What other reason could there be?”

My stomach dropped. “You cannot!”

“I am confident that I can.” He circled the horse around me. “You were right to say I am as talented at flirting as I am at fighting, beautiful. I will make it quick for the poor bastard’s sake, and then you’ll be free to pursue your every desire.”

“You will not!” I gasped, despite Vragi’s untimely death being one of my most frequent daydreams. “I forbid it!”

“Ah.” He circled me again, the ugly roan gelding snorting loudly. “Well, in that case, I will wait for him to fall victim to a flying fish. There will be some justice in that.” Giving me a smile full of all sorts of promises, he started down the beach.

“Where are you going?” I shouted, still not entirely certain whether he was teasing or serious, the real chance that he might actually be a raider surfacing in my head. “Are you going to kill him?”

Looking over his shoulder, he grinned. “Have you changed your mind about his continued longevity?”

Yes. I balled my hands into fists. “Of course not.”

“A shame.”

That was no answer, and I lifted my skirts, chasing after the horse. “Where are you going? What business have you in the village?”

“None,” he called. “But Jarl Snorri does, and he’ll be wondering where I wandered off to.”

I slid to a stop, every part of me wanting to sink into the ground, because my brother was one of the jarl’s warriors. If he learned I’d been flirting with this man…“You ride with the jarl?”

He winked at me. “Something like that.” Then he dug his heels into his horse’s sides and headed down the beach at a gallop, leaving me staring in his wake.

Unreasonably flustered, it took me until nearly midday to finish with the catch. I loaded the cart for Vragi before selecting two choice fish for my mother. By that time, the thrill of my encounter with the warrior had faded, replaced with the grim reminder that Vragi lived, I was his wife, and that I had angered him.

Wind whistled down the mountains, carrying with it the smell of melting snow, and I inhaled, glad to be away from the stink of fish and guts and my own shame, though a fair bit of all three still clung to my clothing. Pine needles crunched beneath my boots, filling my nose with their sharp scent and easing the tension in my shoulders.

It was fine. It would all be fine. This wasn’t the first time I’d fought with Vragi, and it wouldn’t be the last. I’d survived a year with him already and I’d survive another. And another.

But I wanted to do more than just survive. I wanted my days to be more than time I needed to endure. I wanted to live them, to relish them. To find passion and excitement in them the way I had for that fleeting moment on the beach with a stranger.

It was the wanting that made my life hard. If I could only stop wanting, perhaps I might find some happiness in what I had. Even as the thought rolled through my head, I cringed, because it was exactly something my mother would say. Quit wanting more, Freya, and you shall be content with what you have.

Gripping the wrapped fish under my left arm, I bent and snatched up a stick. Twisting, I cracked it against one tree and then another, moving down the pathway as though the forest around me were a horde of raiders, not caring that I was acting more like a child than a grown woman. I lifted my package of fish like a shield, knocking back imaginary attacks, my breath turning to rapid pants, sweat dampening the hair clinging to my temples.

I relished the burn in my muscles as I attacked and defended, savored every gasped breath, delighted in the sting in my palm each time my stick struck a tree. This was what I dreamed of: not of gutting fish next to the fjord to sell to the same villagers every day, but of fighting. Of joining the jarl’s war band in raids against our rivals to the east and west. Of standing strong in defense of our lands against Nordelander raiders, and of earning wealth with the strength of my sword arm. Then to spend the winter with my family, feasting and drinking and laughing until raiding season came again.

My older brother, Geir, had pursued the same dream, and he was well on his way to achieving it. When I was fourteen and he was sixteen, our father had brought Geir to the allthing and Jarl Snorri had gifted Geir an arm ring, inviting him to join the raids. Now, at twenty-two, my brother was a respected warrior.

Yet when I’d voiced my desire to follow in my brother’s footsteps, my words were met with laughter until my family realized I was serious; then their humor had changed to silent horror.

“You cannot, Freya,” my father had finally said. “It would be only a matter of time until they discovered what you are, and then you’d never choose anything ever again.”

What I was. My secret.

My curse.

“Once you have a babe, Freya, you’ll give up these foolish desires to always do what your brother does,” my mother had said. “You will be content.”

“I am not content!” I shouted at the memory, flinging my stick into the trees. But as I did, one of the fish slipped from its wrapping to fall on the forest floor.

“Shit.” Kneeling, I picked it up and did what I could to clean away the needles and dirt that clung to it, silently cursing myself for thinking the thoughts I did. For dreaming about things I couldn’t have.

“I hope that wasn’t intended for my belly.”

I leapt to my feet, whirling to find my brother standing behind me.

“Geir!” Laughing, I closed the distance to throw my arms around his neck. “What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing my lunch, it would seem.” He straightened his arms, giving me a critical once-over, and I did the same. Like me, my brother had pale skin, hair so blond as to be nearly white, and amber eyes that glowed like eclipsed suns. He’d put on more muscle since he’d gone to live in Halsar with the jarl, his frame no longer slender like mine, but thick and strong.

“You should eat more—you’re scrawny,” Geir said, then added, “Jarl Snorri is in the village speaking with your husband.”

My skin prickled with unease, for while Vragi was often summoned to speak with our lord, the jarl had never had cause to come to him. “On what matter?”

Geir shrugged, then took one of the fish, making its gills flap with his thumbs. “Fish, I expect. What other reason is there to talk with Vragi?”

“Truer words were never spoken,” I muttered, snatching the fish from his hands before starting down the path toward our family home.

“How swiftly the glow of new marriage fades.” Geir fell into step next to me, his weapons clinking. The axe and seax were familiar, but the sword was new. As was the mail he wore beneath his cloak. Either plunder from raids or paid for with his cut. A flicker of envy soured my stomach. Shoving the sensation away, I cast him a sideways glare. “What glow? There was never any glow.”

“Fair.” My brother kicked a rock, sending it toppling down the path ahead of us. He’d grown a beard over the last year and it was decorated with silver rings. It made him look older than his years, and fiercer, which was likely his intent. Reaching up, I gave it a tug. “What does Ingrid think of this?”

With his good looks and charm, Geir had the pick of women, though I knew he only had eyes for my friend Ingrid, whom he’d loved since we were children. Knew that he hoped to earn enough raiding this season to build a hall and ask her father for her hand.

“She loves it. Especially the way it tickles when—”

I gave him a shove hard enough to make him stagger. “You’re a pig.”

Geir smirked at me. “Guilty. But you change the subject, Freya. We all know Vragi is a greedy prick, but he is your husband. With Father gone, the duty falls to me to—”

I caught his ankle with my own and jerked, grinning as my brother sprawled onto his back. Stepping on his chest with one foot, I said, “I love you, brother. But if you start lecturing me on my wifely duties, I won’t like you half as well.” I leaned my weight on him. “It’s not been so many years since I beat you bloody that I’ve forgotten how.”

I waited for him to laugh. For him to mock Vragi and call him a land fish. To say he was sorry that I’d been forced into this marriage against my will. To tell me I deserved better.

Instead Geir said, “We aren’t children anymore.” Then he grabbed my ankle and yanked.

The impact of my arse hitting the dirt rattled my spine and I nearly bit my tongue off, but Geir ignored me spitting blood as he sat upright. “Vragi has wealth and influence with Jarl Snorri. I may have been given my arm ring because of the goodwill the jarl still holds for Father, but it’s because of Vragi that the jarl pays me to fight for him all year round. If you anger Vragi enough that he casts you aside, Snorri might not let me keep my place. And if I lose my place, how will I gain the wealth I need to marry Ingrid?”

As if I could forget.

“And if you don’t care about me and Ingrid, think of Mother.” Geir rested his elbows on his knees. “Vragi ensures she’s cared for. Pays for men to tend the farm and feed the animals. If not of her, then think logically of your own position. You have a home that others covet, and the wealth to purchase endless ornaments.” He reached over to flick one of the silver bands encircling my long braid. “What would you do without Vragi?”

“Fight. Raid. Earn my own wealth,” I answered. “I don’t need Vragi.”

Geir huffed out a breath, then climbed to his feet. “Let’s not quarrel. It’s been months since I’ve seen you.”

I stared at the hand he held out, part of me wanting to keep arguing. Except we both knew I’d never make a decision that would harm my family, and that made all my arguments moot. So instead, I took my brother’s hand and allowed him to haul me to my feet. “Where does Jarl Snorri plan to raid this summer?”

Before Geir could answer, the sound of hooves filled our ears. A group of warriors on horseback appeared, and my stomach tightened as I recognized my husband at their head, his expression smug.

“My lord.” Geir nodded at the big man who rode at Vragi’s side, who must be Jarl Snorri. I’d never seen him before, having never traveled more than a few hours from Selvegr and never to his stronghold at Halsar. Tall and thick, he had dark brown hair and a beard laced with gray, his eyes lined with deep wrinkles, and his mouth set in a frown. Most would have called him attractive, but the way he stared at me made my skin crawl.

Like I was something to be possessed.

“Geir,” Snorri replied, but his eyes remained fixed on me. The last thing I wanted to do was meet his gaze, so I looked beyond him at the rest of the party. Besides Vragi, there were three men dressed in mail coats. They carried seaxes, as well as axes and swords, the weapons speaking volumes of their battle fame. The lone woman with them bore no weapons beyond a short-bladed seax fastened to her belt, the bodice of her dress cut low enough to reveal a long stretch of cleavage beneath the ties of her cloak. Yet my eyes skipped past all of them to land on the one who rode at the rear of the party.