Page 4

I STEPPED AWAY from both sisters. “What?”

“Are you certain?”

Tova asked Sigrid, staring up the beach toward the trees that blocked our home from view. I tried to ignore the way her voice hitched with hope.

For a fleeting moment, I’d thought I’d found joy that somehow, someone had valued me. But I’d been wrong. Very, very wrong.

Sigrid shifted from foot to foot, chewing on her lip. “I’m certain. Why would he be here for Rune?”

Her words were like a punch to the gut. “Some people fancy me,”

I said through gritted teeth.

As if remembering my presence, Tova turned my way. “Rune, I didn’t ask for this.”

I clenched my bite against my cheek to stop from crying. I might throw up. “Just go.”

I barely got the words out.

“Maybe Sigrid got it wrong.”

I closed my eyes. She didn’t. I’d seen how Jarl Hakan looked at Tova yesterday, then how he’d looked at me. No one else would gain his approval to marry his son than the girl who was marked by the gods. It made sense, and I criticized myself for not knowing it sooner. Our faoirs had likely planned this match a long time ago; if not officially, then in their minds.

“You should come with me.”

Tova reached for me, but I writhed away.

Come to watch the boy I love ask for my sister’s hand in marriage? That was a particular form of cruelty. “I’d hate that very much.”

“We are both blindsided here,”

Tova said, and I tried not to notice how she was fumbling with her clothes and her belt, fixing her appearance.

I wrapped my arms around me like armor. It was as efficient as Tova’s shield—cracked and with an axe lodged in my chest. “This doesn’t feel like being blindsided. That was like when the Mountain Clan raided us two winters ago. No, this is different. What do you call it when it’s like a million knives in your heart and the edges of your vision are blurry?”

“Rune—”

“Would you say no?”

I asked in one breath. It was a vulnerable question, but I was desperate and clinging to anything. The future I thought I’d have was slipping away before I could even say goodbye.

Tova’s chest fell, and that was my answer. I rebuilt the armor around me, telling myself I would be okay. I would be bruised, but I would be okay. Tova held up her hands before letting them drop limply at her sides. “We don’t even know he’s going to ask.”

I couldn’t let hope fester. My words came sharp. “Sigrid seems certain. Sigrid?”

Sigrid looked like she was hating this as much as I was. “I was just sent to fetch Tova.”

“Consider her fetched. You two should go.”

Sigrid needed no further prompting before she took off up the hill, kicking up sand as she left while Tova stood torn between the two sides. She looked between the house and me. “I’m going to figure this out,”

she promised.

I tried hard not to look toward the house. Instead, I acted very interested in my axe at my feet. “Go. See what he wants.”

“The gods will still favor you, Rune. I’ll pray to them on your behalf to send you good fortune.”

Mention of the gods put a bitter taste in my mouth. “Perhaps they will listen to you,”

I grumbled. “Because they certainly don’t listen to me.”

“I’m sorry,”

Tova said, but she was already back-stepping home. “I’m so sorry.”

I dropped my knees to clean the splinters of her shield off my axe as if already over the betrayal. By the time I glanced back she was already half up the hill, running fast like a wolf was chasing her. Or more likely, her guilt.

When she was out of sight, I released my axe, collapsed to my hands, and screamed at the gods. Maybe this time they’d hear me.

After I finished yelling, I rested my forehead on the sand and took five deep breaths. I’d like to say I took longer, or claim some logical path of reasoning leading me to the next decision, but that wasn’t the case. It was pure failure to resist temptation.

I needed to see Trig’s face. More accurately, I needed to see his expression.

If he was being forced into this, I’d know. But if he looked at her the way he’d looked at me that night in the cave where he kissed me breathless…

With choppy movements, my fingers curled around my axe to clip it on my back. I pounded my feet into the sand to tear back up the hillside, slapping at the trees as I came upon them and weaving through the grass until I stumbled into Móoir’s garden. It was withering, and that symbolism wasn’t lost upon me.

Jarl Hakan’s wool coat hung on a post outside our home. I was grateful we were built far enough away from neighbors that none saw me as I eased around the post to peer into the house. I kept a hand on the mossy exterior walls and my side pressed to the wooden beams that supported the bowed roof, getting just close enough to make out Faoir’s chatter and Móoir’s loud laugh from inside.

I dared to get closer. From inside, oil lamps kept light around the table set with our finest fruit picked this morning and a cooked boar we’d been saving for Sigrid’s birthday next week. She’d be furious. She and I could glower together.

Faoir and Móoir sat together, closer than usual, their faces lit up. Around them were my four other sisters, each tending to the table and Jarl Hakan. He lifted his cup and it was filled with mead, then he brought it to his lips. I could hardly see his face, but I didn’t dare move closer to see him better. I heard him laugh, though. Despite his rough exterior, his laugh was filled with life and was told to be a blessing to any who heard it. That was my first time hearing the sound.

As his arm moved back, I found Trig. Just his elbows, propped on the table, working a cloth between his fingers. Nervous, I guessed. That was a good sign.

Just then, he dropped the napkin, folded his hands, and leaned forward. The shaggy tangles of his hair came into view as they framed his face and fell to his shoulders, letting me see the rough cut of his cheek and the hint of a dimple.

He was smiling.

Móoir said something, and he laughed, and it was like a trumpet of death in my ear.

Where was Tova? The sun had set, and they were halfway through their plates. I dared to ease closer.

From Faoir’s side, Sigrid was pouring him another drink, but her head snapped in my direction. Our eyes locked, and she subtly shook her head in fearsome warning to stay away.

I backed up.

“This will be a union blessed by the gods,”

Faoir said. “One Odin himself must have planned from their births, for can you imagine two people better suited for each other?”

My heart was cavernous, and everything was numb.

The hurt of losing Trig stung, but the wound went deeper. Now I placed my finger on why it hurt so bad.

I asked for so little. All I wanted was him. She had the world and I… My chest ached.

I just wanted him.

I resisted looking up to the gods, for surely by now, they had turned their faces away from me.

She never said she wanted him.

“It’s an honor to join our families together,”

Trig said.

“The honor is ours!”

Faoir’s voice came happier than it had in years. Beside him, Móoir was beaming. She was finally getting her son.

I had to see Trig’s face. I inched closer to the doorway, even as Sigrid sent me another warning look. By now, all my other sisters had spotted me and were looking between Sigrid and me with confusion. I only needed them to be quiet long enough to get my clarity.

I finally got the right angle to see Jarl Hakan as he licked his fingers. “My wife has already begun planning the wedding festival,”

he said. “The whole clan will gather to witness.”

My heart sank further. I’d have to watch them get married. I’d have to grow up in the same clan with them, watching them have children and fight in battles side by side.

I leaned as far as I could. At that moment, Trig turned his face and I caught the side of it, along with the sight of his hand. It was holding another’s.

Tova was there already. Trig held her hand like it was keeping him alive, and she smiled at him like he was the sun. Traitor, I thought. But in the same breath, I’ve never seen her look happy like that.

Unfortunately, or perhaps mercifully, I’d missed the moment he asked her to marry him, so I couldn’t sift through the inflections of his voice. But I didn’t miss the joy in my sister’s. “I can hardly wait.”

Trig squeezed her hand. “Together, I believe we will make the clan strong, and with the gods’ blessing, nothing will tear us apart.”

His words were the final blow, and the crack in my heart fully shattered.

That’s what he’d been worried about the entire time I’d known him, even when he was a child. He wanted to make the clan strong. His question the night of the autumn equinox bit at my mind: I just want to be a good chieftain. Evidently, he wanted that more than he wanted me.

Tova could secure his position better than I could, for who would dare stand against the girl marked by the gods?

Sigrid looked at me, and mouthed sorry. I couldn’t respond.

Just one last look, then I’d go. I glanced at Tova first. She fidgeted in her seat, but had leaned her frame inward to Trig’s with a hopeful smile. I already knew I’d be reanalyzing every interaction between them to uncover how long she’d been interested in him.

I shut my eyes.

When I opened them, they were fixed on Trig, and he was looking at me.