Page 36

TRIG brOKE FROM us as soon as we stepped foot onto the beaten down paths of the town. “I should let Faoir know we live,”

he said. He was Jarl Hakan’s only son, and the clan would mourn the loss of him as much as they mourned Tova. “Then perhaps we can plan the wedding?”

Tova had so far been calculated as she walked, hesitant in her movements as if being home made her as uncertain as it made me. But at this, she finally smiled, and it almost looked like everything was normal. “It’d be good to have something to celebrate.”

The clan had many things to celebrate. She’d be showered with feasts and gifts to thank her for the decade of blessings we’d receive from the gods for her winning the Champion Games. I doubted Odin would grant blessings this time, but the clan would see blessings in anything. None need to know we made enemies of the gods.

Then it would be their wedding, and Trig would take over as the new chieftain.

As soon as Trig walked away, Tova ducked from the main path to veer behind the town. I followed. My toes were ice and my cheeks frozen, but we would both rather take the longer path to get home than speak to anyone right now.

“How are you doing?”

she asked after a while.

It took me longer to answer. “I don’t know. Happy to be back in Danmark. Still not certain if I’m safe from Odin’s wrath. Still mourning what I left behind.”

Tova studied the frosty ground as she walked. “He didn’t wish to come?”

Her question was slow, almost like she didn’t want to pry.

I didn’t know the right answer to the question. “He wanted to come to Earth,”

I said. “But not with a fraud.”

Her hand clasped mine once. “Ve is missing out.”

A small smile was all I could give her.

“How are you doing?”

I asked back.

Her reply came just as slow as mine had. “I’ve dreamed of raids my entire life. I’ve trained to kill. I’m Viking through and through. But that?”

She licked her lips. “That was not like a raid. It was like killing family while others laughed.”

She tightened her grip on her axe. “It will weigh heavy on me for a while.”

That was understandable. It would weigh heavy on me as well. I still planned to make altars for each of the fallen and wish them safe entry into Valhalla. They deserved that much.

Tova straightened her spine. “Those who return from the Beckoning are always broken people. I will not be one of them.”

From the determination in her voice, she wouldn’t be. Tova would get through this. And so would I.

As we trekked through the thick brush, the sword on my back grew heavier, and my feet were like stones I could hardly move. But worse was the throb in my chest, burning as I continued. By the time we could see the low slopes of our family’s roof, it was clear what was happening.

I didn’t have the gods’ protection over my sickness anymore. The ailment was back.

I tried to hide the raspy breathing from Tova as we stepped up to the door. It was midday here, where Móoir might be preparing a stew and our sisters working on lessons, none of them prepared for our return. Two candles burned in the window.

Tributes to us.

We paused outside the door with our toes against the wooden sill to give each other a knowing look that transferred the meaning seamlessly. Whatever we’d just gone through, whatever we felt—it didn’t come through those doors. The burden was ours. They would get nothing but the shiny story of our conquests there, and need not share in our heartbreak.

With a heavy breath, Tova plastered on a smile. “The heroes return.”

And she threw open the door.

Wind came in with us, rattling against the bottles and pulling at the clothes hung by the fire. One by one, eyes snapped up to us, first from Móoir by the hearth, with needles in hand. She dropped her stitching to the ground with a shriek. That alerted the others—two of our sisters by her side. All needlework stopped. Our other sisters were by the beds with little carved toys that clattered on the ground as they threw them to run at us. Their screams pierced our ears and hugs were deathly tight, but it was enough to turn our smiles into real ones and somehow made the tightness in my chest ease.

“Where have you been?”

Móoir asked, wrapping her arms around us all. “They are home!”

Her shout drew Faoir in from the back door, his axe in hand. He dropped it and ran.

We huddled together, a cluster of tears and laughter and questions that went without answers until Faoir broke free and ushered us toward the hearth. “Put your feet up. Gods, what are you doing in this weather without shoes?”

We both laughed. After the Champion Games, there hadn’t been time to put them on again. “It’s warmer in Asgard,”

Tova said.

The mention of Asgard quieted them all. Our sisters gathered at our feet, Sigrid close to my side and allowing me to stroke her hair as they absorbed our story. Tova went first, telling how she had been selected for the Beckoning and went to compete. Telling how a fight broke out on the first day, and how she succeeded in beating all others. At the end, she held up her axe. “I caught it in my hands as he threw it,”

she said. Our parents gasped. “And killed him with this blade. If you look close, his blood is still on it.”

The youngest two squealed, but Sigrid wanted to get close to see it. Her eyes were filled with wonder.

“We knew you could win,”

Móoir said. Her gaze shifted to me, and a tender hand stroked my cheek. “We knew you both could.”

The unspoken question hung in the air then, until Faoir dared to ask it. “How did you both survive the Beckoning?”

I swallowed hard. “I wasn’t there as a competitor,”

I replied. “I was there as a guest of the gods.”

There was as an audible intake of breath. The air in the room buzzed with each passing moment, as the story unfolded and the tale lit up a fire in each of their eyes. There was jealousy there, elation, and awe. It bounced back to me, until I was able to look at what happened through their eyes and find the excitement in the tale. “I dined with the gods, gardened with Frigg and stood at Odin’s right hand. I trained alongside them. And I was welcomed amongst their presence. Then, when Tova fought, I was able to slip amongst the mortals and fight at her side.”

“Mortals,”

Sigrid repeated. “You speak as if a god.”

Her hands were tight against mine, and she bounced on her knees. “What of Thor? Did you fight him?”

“I did not,”

I told her. “But I spoke with him. He is just as large and terrifying as the statues. Bigger, even. I saw him eat an entire lamb leg in one bite.”

My sisters laughed. Tova cut in. “Trig was there too. He came to fight Odin for me, and was captured for it, forced to watch me fight. He is home with us now.”

Faoir beamed. “The gods have blessed you with a fine match.”

From the corner of my eye, I spotted Sigrid’s gaze on me. Last I saw her, I was heartbroken over him. It seems being heartbroken over a man was a common occurrence for me. I straightened. Never again.

“And the gods will bless us for years to come, thanks to Tova’s victory!”

Faoir added. This time, both my and Tova’s smile was faked.

“If the gods wish it,”

Tova whispered. It was just as likely Odin would burst through these doors any moment and remove my head from my shoulders, but saying so didn’t quite fit the tone of the moment.

Móoir had fallen quiet, and was looking at me oddly. Her brow bent low before she asked, “But how was it you were a guest amongst them? We’d heard,”

she hesitated, “you’d renounced the gods and run away.”

I grimaced. It was true, but I hadn’t realized Trig had shared that with people. What would they think of me now?

My grin was strained. “The gods are very much real. I don’t doubt it.”

“But how?”

Móoir pressed. “How were you in Asgard?”

My stomach felt tight. “That part is funny. I met a god in the sacred vineyard, and he saw the scars on my arms that matched some goddess who’d gone missing a while ago. He thought me to be her. So he took me to Asgard.”

Faoir had been grinning before, but now his smile sagged. Móoir wrapped her bony fingers around her linen apron to twist it into impossibly tight knots. “How strange,”

she said, but the voice was far away.

“Yes,”

I replied. “I can’t fathom how they got us confused.”

Faoir cleared his throat. “What matters is my daughters are home.”

But his tone had changed too. A moment ago he was celebrating, but now he looked as if the weight of the fjord rested upon his shoulders, and his voice turned sharp.

As their energy buzzed around me, my thoughts turned cloudy. A knowing look passed between them. I’d shared enough with Tova to spot when people were keeping something secret, and this particular one worried me.

It more than worried me. As my sisters stood to touch where I’d shorn my hair, and Tova tried to keep the story going, I focused on my parents, whose eyes were on the marks on my arm. Where I’d been warm a moment ago, cold now took hold, one so deep, even the nearby fire couldn’t quell it. That was all it took.

My questions came flooding back. Ones I thought were answered. Ones I hadn’t wished to dwell upon again.

“This sword is glorious!”

Sigrid was drawing it from the sheath against my back. The weight of it brought her down. She smiled up at me. “Can I keep it?”

“You can look at it,”

I told her. “Odin crafted it for me.”

As my sisters huddled around the weapon, I stood and slipped away. Tova shot me a look, but I shook my head. I needed a moment.

I opened the door and stepped, still barefoot, into the cold where the dead garden crowded at my feet and wind tousled my hair. My breaths came fast and loudly, seeping into my lungs as if I could never get enough.

That look. They’d shared a dangerous look.

Like a secret was out.

My arms wrapped around my body, and once more, I reached into the pits of myself to find the goddess inside. What do you feel, I asked her. What am I missing?

She hummed inside, lighting a fire in my belly that blocked out the frozen winter.

I feel alive.

I stumbled back. She was like a roaring lion I couldn’t ignore now, pounding against my bones. Demanding to be let back out. “I need to know.”

I was crying now, the emotion coming on quickly. “I need to know who I am.”

I hated this back and forth. I hated the uncertainty. I wanted to know where I came from and where I belonged, but all I found was confusion.

Amidst the tears, fractions of the puzzle came.

The scars on my arm I couldn’t remember getting.

The way I could feel Ve’s presence when he was near, even when I couldn’t see him.

The way my breathing was clear on Asgard but shallow in Danmark.

It wasn’t enough. There was no proof there, only speculation put in my head by the same gods who tossed me out. It was not enough to hinge hope upon.

But they’d shared a look.

The puzzle needn’t be a puzzle, after all. In fact, it was as simple as one question.

Did my blood run sweet?

The door opened behind me, and my móoir called out. Faoir was with her. But I could focus on nothing else except this one, very simple answer to my problems.

I lifted a dagger, pressed it against the tip of my finger, and let a single drop of blood fall to my tongue.

It tasted sweeter than our finest honey.

As sweet and tempting as the gods.

A terrible shiver ran through my whole body as I raised my eyes to my parents. Faoir had his arms wrapped around Móoir and her hands went to her mouth to stifle a cry while the awakened goddess surged within me until I let her out at last.

Now she had a name, and it was not Ruin.

It was Astrid, and it was me. The lost goddess of Asgard.