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TOVA’S AXE PRESSED against my neck. Her shadow covered my own as she stood above me, both of us a few steps into the fjord because we liked the challenge the water provided.

“Ready?”

she asked. I saw her reflection in the waves.

I set my grip on my axe. My knees buried in the shifting sands. “Ready.”

“You will die,”

Tova mocked.

“You couldn’t kill me, even if we fought until the first frost came,”

I said. And the training began.

We used to spar more civilly, starting with blunt poles and a healthy distance between us, but the years had grown our boldness until we started with one blade positioned against the other, mid-attack, so we weren’t wasting time with anything less than our full effort.

The axes were blunt, because if either of us cut off a limb, Móoir would be so furious she might just sever the matching one from the other, but they still left a generous bruise. I knocked Tova’s axe away with the edge of my shield, jumped to my feet, and advanced.

My feet dug into the ground as I shifted my weight forward to slam one of her shoulders back with the face of my shield and drive my axe hilt against her other. Tova stepped back to the edge of the sea. Water pooled around her feet. Then she snapped her arm up, arched her back, and pushed hard enough to shove me backward. Her axe came down to seize my own, and I hardly had time to twist before she could yank it away.

I swung again, and there was a loud crack as the handles of our axes connected.

Tova gritted her teeth. Droplets from the sea climbed aboard the breeze to nip at our legs and our cheeks, mixing with the sweat that collected there. It dripped into my eye, burning. With hazy sight, I tried to push Tova back as far into the water as I could so she’d lose her standing.

But she was stronger. She shoved me backward until I fell into the sand. I raised my shield and axe together to block her next strike.

“That’d have dented my skull,”

I grunted beneath the weight.

“I knew you’d deflect it,”

she huffed.

She let up enough to allow me to stand, and though neither of us said it, we were thinking the same thing.

Tova: one. Rune: zero.

I advanced harder, this time driving the axe around the side and leading with my shield so she couldn’t deflect it. She made a satisfying grunt as my blunt blade hit her hip, then she braced herself and jabbed her axe upward.

It connected with my jaw.

I tasted blood, but I didn’t stop to fear how deeply I’d bit into my tongue. Tova’s eyes blazed, proving she’d reached the mark in fighting where her senses were focused onto one thing: defeat her opponent. She wouldn’t let up, nor would she stop to ponder my moves. As relentless as she was reckless.

I shoved her with my shield. She used the end of her axe to knock my shield into my stomach, and her shield came down on my foot. The corners of it were stained in blood—my blood—but the vibrant blue of the center was still clear enough as she lifted it to jab again.

My axe came quicker, striking the center of it hard enough that the wood groaned. Good. I hated that thing.

She was breathing hard now. My own lungs were roaring. She heard the wheeze, and grinned. “Breaking down so quickly?”

“Not yet.”

I swung my axe at her shield again. It slammed hard. Her own axe swiped at my head, and I had to duck before jumping back up with wide eyes.

Hers were still pools of fire.

She swung again, putting me on defense as I stepped back. I twisted to keep away from her axe. Now she had me pinned between her and the waterline, with nowhere to go but through her.

I let out a warriors’ long cry, aimed for her shield, and threw my entire weight with my axe to strike against it.

It cracked again. One more hit and it’d break.

Tova heard the crack, and pulled back to bring her axe up, but I drove the tip of my axe against her side. Her axe came up with sickening speed. I sliced my shield across my body to deflect, before bringing my axe down for a final time.

It hit her shield, and this time, it sank into the wood.

I ripped the axe back. It tore her shield away and brought her to the ground.

“You will die now,”

I said with great joy. Beating Tova was no small matter.

But there was a gleam in her eye I should have seen sooner. She didn’t need her shield to win. She used both hands to grip the axe, swinging it against my shield again and again with no relief. With each step she pushed me further into the sea until the currents swept the sand from under my feet. Tova’s next blow shoved me underwater.

She kept me there for almost ten seconds as I thrashed to get up before she relented.

I stood, dripping water from the ends of my braids, my clothes sticking to my body. My expression was not so triumphant now.

“We will call that one a draw,”

I grumbled.

She laughed. “We will do no such thing. Fair try though! You’re getting stronger. If it were anyone else, you’d have severed their head clean from their body as soon as you got the shield away. And you’re breathing is still steady! When was the last time you fought for five minutes and didn’t struggle to breathe?”

“It’s been a while.”

I threw my axe onto the beach, still stuck in her shield. “Perhaps my fate is changing.”

Tova inspected the wooden splinters at her feet. “You’ll need to make me a new shield.”

This time I laughed. “I’ll do no such thing,”

I said, making fun of her words.

Tova unclipped the braces around her forearms, letting the damp leather drop to the sand as she stretched out her back. Her hair, woven into twenty thin braids reaching her shoulder blades, had gotten caught in the laces of her gray tunic. I always liked that tunic on her, as it matched her tattoos coating one arm where dashes of red ran through both in subtle traces.

I had only one tattoo, the blade of an axe stretching along my back, though I planned for more soon. There was a small strip of hair above my ears I’d shaved on both sides, and it made the perfect place for new ink. Tova and I would get matching ones, as soon as we earned our shields. If we earned them together. I brought my eyes to my weapon, its blunt end still buried in Tova’s shield, and pried it free.

“In five years, I bet you’ll beat me,”

Tova said. She’d sat down on the sand to watch the waves coming in with a lithe smile on her face.

“Five years?”

I feigned insult. “I beat you now.”

“You cracked my shield. I was poised to crack your skull.”

“I would have survived.”

I sat in the sand beside her. Across the fjord where the forest ran deep and the trees grew thick, the seer’s home nestled into the overgrowth, facing the north. He owned an odd collection of animal bones hanging outside his door, and they caught on the wind that came in suddenly, bringing the chill that the day had worked so hard to resist. Once the first breeze hit, my skin felt nothing but the chill. Goosebumps rose on my skin, and I wrapped my arms around my knees to rest my head on them. “You think we’ll still be here in five years?”

Tova kept her gaze on the sea. “Where else would you go? Think the Valley Clan would want you?”

I scoffed. “They’d be so lucky.”

I swallowed, working up my courage. “I think I might not live at home though.”

She glanced at me. “Do you plan to live a hermit’s life?”

“I plan to live with a man,”

I said bluntly, then clamped my teeth together to hear her response.

Tova didn’t answer right away. Her brows pinched together and her lower lip drew in, like the prospect of me marrying was a great puzzle that needed sorting. “Do you have a man in mind?”

“Trig.”

She sucked in her breath. “The chieftain’s son?”

There was an edge of surprise there that I didn’t love.

“Yes, him. Why do you say it like that? He has a heart of gold and is chiseled like a god. I could have picked worse.”

“No, I understand liking him. He’d be a great catch.”

“Then why…”

I shifted away. She dropped her eyes, but not before they gave away her thoughts, and certainly not before they could sink into me with a bitter feeling. I dared to say them out loud. “You weren’t surprised I like him. You’d be surprised if he likes me.”

She might as well have said not a chance, and it’d sting just as much.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Your face did. It’s very readable. You should work on that.”

I stood, and she stood after me.

“Has he told you he likes you?”

I sighed, turning back to her slowly. “Yes. Many times. We’ve been sneaking out to see each other the past month.”

Apparently she took my earlier advice to heart, because her face masked, like a veil was pulled over it, and I couldn’t see the other side no matter how hard I tried. All I had to pick through was the forced way in which she said, “I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you,”

I said with considerably more honesty.

I shifted with intent to gather my weapons and help with the evening chores, but the veil slipped, and I got the barest hint of the emotion underneath. It made me stop. Tova was many things: brave, fierce, strong-willed, and so unbelievably certain you’d think she already lived once and knew exactly what to expect from life. But she wasn’t vulnerable. There was a tinge there, something in how her eyelids angled down compared with the fumbling of her fingers against each other, that made my gut drop.

“You fancy him?”

She laughed, and just like that, the expression was gone. All that remained was undying support for me like she’d always had, until I couldn’t be certain if anything else had been there at all. “You said it yourself. He’s chiseled like a god, and he’s going to become the next chieftain. Who wouldn’t fancy him? But truly, I’m happy for you. You deserve a good man.”

She took a few steps past me then stopped. “Sigrid is coming.”

I tried to sort how deep her affection for Trig ran, but she glanced back at me as if the topic was already forgotten. “Honestly, Sigrid scares me a little. That child is tougher than a bear. You know, I caught her sleeping with a knife last week. Almost took out my eye when I tried to take it from her,”

Tova said.

Our younger sister was bouncing down the hill as fast as her little legs could carry her, calling our names at the top of her lungs. “Tova! Rune!”

“You can train with us if you want, but you’ll need your own shield,”

I shouted as she came closer. “Tova’s broke.”

“Rune broke it,”

Tova said as if that made any difference.

Sigrid heaved, stopping to bend over and catch her breath. The tight curls by her forehead were pinned to her skin with sweat. Then she straightened. “I’m not here to fight. Faoir needs you for dinner right away, and he said to clean up before you appear.”

Tova plucked her axe from the sand. “Tell him he better have warmed the water already, because I won’t bathe cold.”

Sigrid spoke over the crack of me prying my axe from Tova’s shield. “The chieftain and his son are at our home, and they’re waiting.”

I dropped the axe and sucked in a breath. Everything froze. My voice was far away as I spoke. “Do you know why?”

She stopped huffing long enough to get a twinkle in her eye. “Marriage.”

The ground swayed. I grabbed Tova’s hand. “He’s actually done it.”

I hated I doubted Trig, but I’d spent my life pining for this boy and it hardly felt real. Every time he held my hand, every time his lips landed on mine, I braced myself for the moment he’d pull away, where I’d immediately wonder if he’d ever come close again. I lived my life in those in between moments, doubting if I’d get another taste of him and hoping to all gods he wanted another taste of me.

But it was real. He wanted it to be real for the rest of his life.

Aegir made good on his end of the deal.

I tipped my head up to the sky, letting the fading colors of dusk wash over me as I sent Aegir a silent thanks. You and I will both soon be revered amongst the clan. Our time in the shadows is done.

I still hardly believed it. Trig had told his faoir of his intentions to marry me. His faoir had approved.

“Congratulations, Rune,”

Tova said in a soft voice. Her smile was rigid, and I wondered what was going through her mind. As wife of the chieftain, I would be almost as loved as her. I’d never needed the unending love from the clan like she had. I just needed the chance to prove my worth, and him. Now I had it—my little slice of happiness.

A storm gathered beyond us, at the tips of the mountains, where it grumbled with thunder. The air turned remarkably colder.

I ought to have taken that as my first warning sign.

The way Sigrid’s face fell should have been the second.

But I ignored both. It wasn’t until Sigrid cleared her throat that I suspected something was wrong. “Rune? Why are you congratulating her?”

Tova frowned. “On capturing the heart of Trig.”

Sigrid glanced between the two of us. My stomach sank. Slowly, I eased my hand away from Tova. “Sigrid, who is he planning on marrying?”

“I thought it was obvious,”

Sigrid said. “Trig is here to ask Tova to be his wife.”